Part 5 (2/2)

He shrugged. ”Not this time. But I'm warning you. I'm losing my patience. I can't have you running around tampering with evidence. When I make an arrest in this case, I don't want the suspect waltzing out of it on some legal technicality. You got that?”

”Yes, I've got it.” With an effort, she tried to regain her calm. ”Look, I know you don't have any faith in my ability. You've made that perfectly clear. But I'm not just some...cop groupie here. I have a lot of training, Cullen. I could help you solve this case if you'd let me.”

”And I told you if I need your help, I'll ask for it. Did you hear me asking?”

She lifted her chin but said nothing.

”Well, did you?”

”No,” she replied grudgingly. ”But I meant what I said, too. I saw something on that body. I don't know what. I can't put my finger on it. But something... bothered me. And my intuition is rarely wrong.”

”Your intuition?”

”Yes. You knowa””

”Spare me the dictionary definition. I know what it means, I just don't put much stock in it.”

”You don't have instincts? You don't get a gut feeling about certain cases?”

”Sometimes,” he admitted. ”But my gut feelings are based on training and experience. Not on some whim.”

Elizabeth shook her head. ”You just can't admit it, can you?”

”Admit what?”

”That I might be your equal. In training and experience.”

”Lecturing in a cla.s.sroom is a lot different than running a criminal investigation. When you've put your time in on the street, then we'll talk.” Cullen straightened. ”In the meantime, I'm going to drive you home.”

He put out a hand to help her from the car, but Elizabeth ignored it. Again she struggled with the folds of her costume, but finally managed to crawl from the back seat with a modic.u.m of poise. ”I don't need a ride,” she said coolly. ”I have my own car.”

”You may not need a ride, but you've got one anyway.” He took her arm firmly and steered her toward a dark, plain sedan parked behind the squad car. ”I'll drive you myself so I can make sure you get there.”

”What about my car?”

”You can pick it up tomorrow.”

Elizabeth started to protest about leaving her new car parked on the street, but considering all that she'd witnessed that night, it seemed a little petty to worry about vandalism.

THEY'D BEEN DRIVING in silence for several minutes when Cullen finally gave her a bemused glance. ”By the way, I've been meaning to ask you all night. What the h.e.l.l is that getup you're wearing?”

”This?” Elizabeth lifted one of the velvety folds of her wrap. ”It's called a cloak. It's part of my costume.”

”Which is?”

She opened her mouth to answer, but as she turned to face him, the words froze on her lips. In the dim light from the dash. Cullen's features were shadowy, indistinct. Dressed all in black, he reminded her of a dark angel, a shadow hero, a complicated man with complicated motives.

It suddenly occurred to Elizabeth that she actually knew very little about Cullen Ryan. She'd had a crush on him for years, but she didn't really know who he was or what made him tick.

Oh, she knew some things about him. He'd grown up down by the docks, and he'd gotten into some trouble as a teenager. His father had died after Cullen had left for Boston, and she didn't think he had any other family in Moriah's Landing. So what had brought him back here?

Why return to a place that hadn't been all that kind to him?

The only thing Elizabeth knew for certain about Cullen was that he'd left town a juvenile delinquent and returned a cop, one with dark secrets and a troubled past. What had happened in those six years to change him?

Or had he changed?

Were the demons that had driven him to mischief as a boy still driving him today as a man? Was his becoming a cop an attempt to control those darker impulses?

Elizabeth shuddered at the thought. At his nearness.

In response, Cullen reached up and pounded the dash with his fist. ”Sorry. Heater doesn't work like it should.”

There was plenty of heat inside that car. Or at least, the potential for it. ”I'm fine,” she managed.

”So what did you say you went as tonight?” His gaze swept over her cloak.

”A n.o.blewoman,” Elizabeth murmured. ”Seventeenth-century.”

”Figures,” he muttered.

”What?”

”Nothing.”

They were cruising down Main Street now, nearing the turn that would have taken them to the Pierce compound. The rain had stopped, and a pre-dawn mist had settled over the town, creeping like a ghost along the cobblestone walkways. A variety of businesses, some of them housed in tall, narrow buildings that were centuries-old, crowded the thoroughfare, their windows dark at this hour, their doorways steeped in shadow.

As in Salem, some of the enterprises had capitalized on the history of Moriah's Landing. Witches rode weathervanes mounted high on gable rooftops, while black metal cats with green marble eyes slumbered a few feet away on brick chimneys. A souvenir shop, squeezed between a dusty apothecary and an antiques store, sold everything from spell books to T-s.h.i.+rts emblazoned with McFarland Leary's imagea”or what an artist had perceived as his likeness. Another shop offered midnight ghost tours.

It was harmless, this exploitation of the town's past to draw in tourists, especially in the fall during the Halloween celebrations. The locals were proud of their heritage, and even though they were a superst.i.tious lot, they didn't mind using the legends to make a buck. Most hadn't even resisted when a group of nature-loving Wiccans had proclaimed Moriah's Landing their spiritual epicenter and had camped out for weeks on end near Raven's Cove, performing midnight rituals and dancing naked under a full moona”or so some said.

It was all harmless....

But Elizabeth had never quite been able to get into the spirit of the celebrations because, in spite of the town's rich history and unique charm, she'd sensed, from an early age, a darkness lingering in murky alleys, crouching in recessed doorways. A malicious presence that hid from the light and preyed on the innocent. She stayed on in the town because of her family, and because the darkness fascinated her as much as it repelled her.

s.h.i.+vering, she averted her eyes from those doorways.

But they were driving by the town green now, a heavily landscaped area where, according to lore, those accused of practicing witchcraft in the late 1600s had been hung from the gnarled branches of an old oak tree. A plaque commemorated the spot, and the townspeople had come to think of the ground beneath the tree limbs as hallowed.

Whether the legend was true or not, Elizabeth didn't know. But of all the places in Moriah's Landing, the town green, particularly the oak tree, still standing, seemed to elicit the strongest feelings in her, an inexplicable sensation that evil lurked nearby. That it watched her every move. That if she wasn't very careful, she could be its next victim.

She clenched her fists and squeezed her eyes closed as they pa.s.sed by the tree. In her mind's eye, she could see a crowd milling about on the square, their clothing and expressions somber, their eyes turned skyward.

Elizabeth's imagination followed their stares.

She could see feet dangling among the leaves, and as her gaze moved upward, she saw Bethany Peters's pale face staring down at her.

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