Dae's Christmas Past (20 page)

April was so excited when I’d finished wrapping the book and handed it to her. I really wasn’t sure what the book was worth, but I knew what it was worth to her.

“I can’t wait until Christmas now,” she said. “I don’t know how I can ever thank you enough.”

“I should thank you. I always have to sell things to make room for new things. Selling this will make that possible. Merry Christmas, April.”

She hugged me. “Merry Christmas, Dae.”

There were a few more potential customers who didn’t buy, but mostly the rest of the morning went slowly. At noon, I closed Missing Pieces, and we walked to the Blue Whale for lunch.

I could smell the bread baking before we reached the three-story inn. Kevin had enough time to get his reindeer, sleigh, and Santa up on the roof before he’d started lunch. I didn’t plan to tell him about the display at Wild Stallions. Who knew what the contest judges were looking for anyway?

He had also decorated every window with a large holly and fir wreath, and a candle. There was garland swung swag-style on the verandah. Even the mermaid in the fountain out front was decorated. She looked happy with a Santa hat on her stone head.

We passed two of Kevin’s guests staying at the inn as we opened the door. Mary Catherine took a deep breath of the warm, bread-fragrant air, and put her hand to Baylor’s soft fur. “What a wonderful aroma. I could live here, couldn’t you, Baylor?”

The big cat meowed and went back to sleep around her shoulders. I honestly didn’t know how she’d ever trained him to ride that way. I’d never seen a cat that kept so still.

“He isn’t easily impressed,” she said. “If this had been a tuna factory, I’m sure he would have been keener on the visit.”

Kevin greeted us at the kitchen door. He had some flour on his shirt and cheek. His face was red from the warm kitchen.

I kissed him lightly. “Mary Catherine wants to live here with your homemade bread.”

“She’s my kind of woman—easily impressed.”

“I know. I might consider living here if you’d been baking cinnamon rolls. Just plain bread?” I shook my head. “Not much incentive.”

“I baked cinnamon rolls first since you were coming.” He held up a large tray of iced rolls.

“Now that’s the kind of man I’m looking to grab for my sixth husband,” Mary Catherine laughed. “I’ll have to keep that in mind when it’s time.”

“I have potato soup too.” Kevin showed us to the small table set in the kitchen where he and I had eaten many times. His guests ate in the bar at the polished table, or in the sitting room near the fire. He had a huge dining room that the town had rented several times for important events. The Blue Whale Inn was an asset to the community, as I was sure it was meant to be.

We ate lunch, talking about the coming Christmas festivities. Mary Catherine told Kevin about the display at Wild Stallions.

“I guess I’ll have to look for something to beef up my decorations.” He ladled soup into bowls. “Those Baucum brothers are showoffs.”

“And I’m pretty sure Cody will be on the town council after tonight,” I added. “I’d vote for him over August Grandin or Mad Dog anyway. I guess we’ll see who else shows up.”

“I’m not interested, even if no one else shows up.” Kevin cut three large chunks of bread. “I know how much time you put into meetings and so forth, Dae. It’s not for me.”

“I’d love to do it if I were a Duck resident,” Mary Catherine said. “You’d always know what’s going on.”

“You’re right.” Kevin grinned. “That’s a bad thing too.”

“I didn’t ask you again,” I said. “I was just explaining the circumstances.”

“Thanks. What did you think of Santa and the reindeer?” He effectively changed the subject.

Mary Catherine and I both told him that we thought the decorations on the Blue Whale were nice. He told us that the decorations at Mike’s Surf Shop were good too. Nothing flashy, like what they had at Wild Stallions, but creative—Christmas surfboards with mannequins dressed as Santa and his elves.

“I suppose you already heard about Jake’s release,” Kevin said.

“Tim told me. It happened really fast, didn’t it?” I asked.

He poured more sweet tea for us. “You must be glad.”

“I’m glad they figured it out right away.”

“The ME found only one hoof print on Tom too. He found hundreds of different prints on the street and in the yards around the crime scene. I think we’re on the mark about the single hoof print at Jake’s house.”

“But what does it mean?”

“It’s too bad one of us don’t speak with the dead,” Mary Catherine suggested. “I knew a woman once who could do that. It was scary, but she got results.”

“I’ve seen places and people, situations too, by touching clothing or other personal items, but they usually only point me in the right direction. It’s probably just as well. I’m not sure I’m ready to have dead people hanging around all the time.”

“It’s the same thing with me.” Mary Catherine shrugged and Baylor changed position on her shoulders. “Of course with animals it’s difficult because they see things in ways that we don’t. I once had a conversation with an injured turtle that had seen his mistress killed. Naturally I had to fill in a lot of dots on that one.”

Kevin told us a few stories about working with his psychic FBI partner. They mostly looked for missing children—some they’d found alive—others hadn’t made it through the ordeal.

I was surprised by his openness. He usually didn’t like to talk about the past. He’d been changing a lot since he’d first come to Duck. I thought of it as loosening up. I was sure it would take anyone a while to get over the life he’d led.

After cinnamon rolls and coffee, he drove Mary Catherine and me back to Missing Pieces in his golf cart. Two of his guests rode with us too. They came in the shop with us and bought some Duck souvenirs. I keep postcards, towels, mugs, and other inexpensive items on hand for those occasions. They don’t make a lot of money, but I think every shop in town should carry some.

Traffic was brisk on the boardwalk. I was hopeful that the ads already in place for OBX Christmas were starting to pay off. It hadn’t been cheap to be included in the event. Maybe that was why the magazine had decided to host the Christmas decoration contest. I realized it was more a goodwill gesture opportunity for the local shops than anything else.

I sold a complete set of Duck towels that featured the last few years of our Jazz Festival. They were very colorful and nice collectors’ items. We only made a few hundred of them each year. I thanked my customer who was from Raleigh before I noticed Jake standing in the doorway watching me.

When my transaction was over, I excused myself to Mary Catherine and stepped out on the boardwalk to talk to him. We sat on one of the benches facing the Currituck Sound. A group of men were renting kayaks and pushing off from the sandbar next to the boardwalk.

“I just wanted to stop in and thank you before I head back to the ranch.” His eyes were fixed on the horizon where the sky met the water. “You probably saved my life.”

“I was happy to hear you were released. I knew you didn’t hurt Tom.”

His smile was lazy in his lean face. “Well I’m glad someone was thinking something positive about me. I don’t deserve it—especially from you, Miss Dae. I can’t tell you what a selfish idiot I felt like after the other night. I hope you know that wasn’t me, not the real me. If I’d been in my right mind, I would never have done something like that to you. I wish Brickman would’ve hit me a little harder. I hope you can forgive me.”

“Nothing to forgive,” I told him. “I knew something was wrong with you. Do you know what happened?”

“I don’t know.” He pushed his hands through this hair. “It was like trying to think through cotton candy. I don’t know if I had a breakdown or what. I finally woke up, and was me again.”

“Maybe someone did all this to get you off your land.” I thought about the nonchalant way Dr. Sheffield had acted about taking the land for the excavation. “Or not. Have you ever thought that you might be susceptible to psychic forces?”

He laughed. “I’m sorry. People have accused me of a lot of things, Dae, but that isn’t one of them.”

I explained how many of the things he’d said to me sounded like my visions from the past when the demon horses were being called.

“Demon horses?” He put his hand on my forehead. “Are you feeling all right?”

“The demon horses, whatever they are, may have killed Tom, but I don’t believe they did it without direction.”

“How does someone tell a horse that’s not really there what to do? That’s kind of outside my realm of experience. But if it happened, my money’s on Sheffield. He’s been the one pushing the whole time. He wants me out of there in the worst way.”

I didn’t go into the bad feelings I got from the excavation. He’d known how I felt about the horse statues. There was no way to really describe how much stronger I felt about them since going out to the site again.

“What do you think I should do?” he asked.

“I think we should check into Sheffield, and everyone else working out there. Someone wanted you and Tom out of the way. That could also be the same person summoning the demons. I know it sounds crazy, but I think they really exist.”

“Whoa now. I don’t think you should get involved any further in this. You’ve done enough, and I thank you for it. This is a killer we’re talking about. I’ll do the checking. It might be nice if I could call and talk to you about it from time-to-time, just to clear my mind. But your new fiancé won’t thank me for putting your life in danger.”

I didn’t argue with him. I didn’t plan to let him go it alone either. Maybe if we both checked into what we could, we could find some answers. “Do you need a ride back home?”

“No. Officer Tim brought me out here from Manteo and told me he’d get me to Corolla by the end of the day. I was glad to have a chance to talk to you.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “Your friendship means a lot to me, Dae. I’m glad that hasn’t been ruined by all this.”

“Not at all.” I pushed my hair out of my face where the strong breeze from the water had blown it. “We’ll figure this out, Jake. I think we owe it to Tom.”

He nodded, and said goodbye. I watched him leave the boardwalk before I went back inside.

“I hope everything is all right,” Mary Catherine said. “He seems like a very sincere man.”

“He is, and he has a good heart. I’m not sure where to start to help him. How do you find murderous demon horses?”

She had been staring out the open door. “Maybe
he
could help.” She pointed to Osisko who was perched on the boardwalk rail outside the shop.

“You can see him too?”

“I can right now. Is this the prehistoric man you were describing from your vision?”

“Yes. I’ve seen him all over the place. He was the man who first brought the demon horses out of the fire.” I was relieved she could see him too. It made me feel less ridiculous. “I think he might be a shaman or something. He said he was a horse man. It was his affinity with the horses that helped him call them to kill neighboring tribes.”

“A terrible burden to bear. No wonder he wants to make amends.”

“Yes. He died to keep them from coming back, but now they’re back anyway.”

“Poor soul.” She left Baylor in the shop, and closed the door so he wouldn’t follow her.

We walked toward Osisko, and I searched for something to say. There had to be some way to communicate with him here as we did in his time during the vision.

“You’ve seen the horses, haven’t you?” I asked him. “Not the living horses.”

He cocked his head and stared at me.

“The horses that come out of the fire.” I tried again.

That time he nodded.

I sat on the bench near him. “How do we kill the demon horses?”

“Not die.” He used the bone he was always holding to trace an image in the soft wood of the bench. It was a stick figure of a man holding a bone beside a large fire.

“They have to be called back.” Mary Catherine interpreted. “Someone else had to call them. You were right, Dae.”

He pounded the bone on the wood like he was applauding.

“I think he’s telling us that someone called the demon horses and is sending them out to kill again.”

“I think you’re right,” I agreed. “We have to find the person calling the horses. Someone knows the ceremony.”

“Probably an archaeologist who researched the horse cult,” she murmured. “Maybe someone who came here for this reason.”

Osisko jumped up on the rail, precariously balanced. He crouched low as though ready to take on any threat. The charred bone was large, too big to be a human bone.

He pointed to my eyes with the bone. “You see.”

“I need more than that,” I said. “If we start a big fire, can you call them back? Should the big horse be buried again? I don’t understand.”

His expression was comical, as though he was talking to a small child that didn’t understand. “You see.” Osisko pounded the bone again and then jumped from the boardwalk rail into the Currituck Sound.

“Oh my goodness!” Mary Catherine exclaimed as we looked over the edge of the boardwalk.

There was no sign of him. No bubbles or splashing. If he was swimming away, I couldn’t see him. “I’m glad you saw him, too, this time.”