Stranger on Raven's Ridge Read online

  “How dreadful for you, a doctor, not to be given a chance to save your husband’s life,” a burly woman slurred. Raven thought she might be a desk sergeant from a cross-city precinct. “Aidan was a good man, a good cop. Totally hot.” She set her arms on Raven’s shoulders, leaned in and winked. “So totally damn hot you could scorch your eyeballs looking at him.”

  Yes, Raven thought, you could. Or could have. An aeon ago when he’d been alive.

  A thin whip of pain snaked into her heart. She felt her face go white.

  Gaitor came up behind her. She recognized him by the combined smell of whiskey and drugstore cologne.

  The scent gave way to smoked salmon as the server in black returned to press more canapés on her. In a stern, no-nonsense tone, she told Raven that starving herself would not bring her husband back. She knew that for a fact because she’d gone through a similar trauma when her husband had died more than a decade ago.

  Raven merely smiled, nodded and ate the canapé. Nudging the tray aside, Gaitor steered her to a vacant rear table.

  As she drifted through the music and shadows, Raven’s life with Aidan played like a newsreel in her head. The detective and the doctor, living the Bohemian lifestyle in a third-floor walk-up.

  Her intern hours had sucked. His alternating weekends and night shifts had made time together a rare and precious thing. That was in the early days of their relationship, when the sex had been stupendous and everything they’d done had been a magical mystery tour.

  They’d sailed around Lake Michigan for three weeks with friends. Later that summer, they’d ridden not-quite-trained horses on a colleague’s ranch. They’d white-water rafted in Idaho and watched the worst ever off-Broadway play in a theater with a crippled AC system during a wicked August heat wave.

  Then, on a glorious September afternoon, a year and half after they’d met, they’d gotten married. They’d actually stolen two full weeks away from crime and medicine for an amazing honeymoon in Tuscany.

  Aidan had rented a castle, complete with staff. They’d made love—still stupendous—drunk wine and, to Aidan’s amusement, wangled a cooking lesson from a ninety-year-old woman who didn’t speak a word of English.

  Two weeks had turned into two years. Just. Then she’d gone to Minnesota. Aidan, George and Gaitor had gone to a baseball game, and Jason Demars, nowhere near the phantom his father was, had decided to rob Pop Daly’s Stop ’N Shop.

  Aidan had understood the need to watch his back after Jason’s death. So had Captain Beckett, who’d watched it even more rigorously. But cops like Aidan always had active case files. So when one of his more reliable informants had called him with a tip on a major homicide, Aidan had gone to meet him. Alone, as was his habit.

  The informant might have been paid off by Johnny Demars. He might have been misinformed. Whatever the case, Raven knew the derelict theater had long been Aidan’s meeting place of choice.

  “You need to sit down now.” Gaitor pressed her onto a leather bench. “I’ll get you a glass of brandy. That’ll do the trick.”

  It would do something, Raven thought, though probably not what he anticipated.

  The music changed from Irish jig to Irish lament. Through the haze in her head, a picture of Aidan came clear. He’d been quintessentially black Irish, tall, lean boned and gorgeous, with black hair and almost black eyes. There’d always been a hint of dark stubble on his face because—well, because polished had never been Aidan’s style. He’d stuck to jeans and Ts, work or biker boots and, as a rule, some form of leather jacket. His hair? Grown a little long and more often than not, left to wave a little messily around his striking face.

  “McGinty thought whiskey would do you better.” Sitting, Gaitor pushed a glass, three fingers high, into her hand. “He tells me it’s a family favorite.”

  And since McGinty also had a lot of family in Raven’s Cove, Raven expected he would know.

  With Aidan’s image still front and center, she brought the glass to her lips, waited a beat, then shot all three fingers.

  It was pure, liquid fire, a blazing line of it that decimated the wall and blew a wide hole in the smoke.

  For six nightmarish days, Raven had been in shock. Nothing and no one had touched her emotions. Couldn’t, because the wall had been there to hold them in. Once it vanished, the pain literally erupted.

  Aidan was dead. The only man she ever planned to love was gone. Forever. That wasn’t pain; it was devastation.

  Her eyes came into sudden, sharp focus on Gaitor’s. She saw the sheen of tears inside them. And for the first time in six eerily long days, she broke down and wept.

  Chapter Two

  Raven’s Cove, Maine

  Two years later

  “YOU’VE LOST YOUR mind. I mean it. You are deep in the woods with no bread crumbs, heading straight for the gingerbread house.” George Parkins dug in and held on as Raven downshifted the small cube van to navigate a steep slope. “This is crazy. You’re on track to be a top-flight diagnostic physician. You’re moving and shaking—and I’m not referring to this rattletrap truck you rented. What on earth made you listen to a man five decades older than Methuselah and put a to-die-for job on hold? And please don’t say so you could practice medicine in the speck of a town where Methuselah’s grandfather lives.”

  Raven kept her eyes on the thin slice of road that probably hadn’t seen a paving crew since Elvis’s time. “Methuselah’s grandfather is my great-grandfather, George. His name’s Rooney Blume.”

  “And he’s in possession of how many faculties?”

  “More than you and me combined, I imagine.” She sent him a quick grin. Very quick. The pothole she’d avoided a moment ago could have passed for a wading pool. “Raven’s Cove needs a doctor. The population tops a thousand these days, and all they have physician-wise is a retired army medic with so-so vision and a lingering case of shell shock. That won’t provide much comfort to a woman in her third trimester or a man with a ruptured hernia. Besides—” she downshifted again “—you volunteered to ride shotgun. No one’s asking you to live here.”

  George offered back a strange look. “So you’ve decided to make the move, then? I’d hoped you were only doing a favor for an old man.”

  “I am—for now. Rooney needs new appliances, and the friend from whose small store he made his purchase can’t deliver them. I wanted to check out Raven’s Cove, the drive’s manageable even in a rattletrap truck, and I like doing favors for friends and family. Especially for one very old man who’s optimistic enough to believe he’ll be able to enjoy a kitchen full of new appliances well into the next decade.”

  With a baffled shake of his head, George regarded the sky. “Are those purply-black things up there rain clouds?”

  Raven avoided a deep rut. “My mother says they’re a perpetual formation at this time of year.”

  “Uh, okay... Do I want to know why?”

  A teasing smile appeared. “It’s part of an ancient legend. Involves one of my ancestors. Said ancestor, Hezekiah Blume, allowed an evil spirit to take possession of his soul. He thought better of it later, but couldn’t wriggle out of the deal without major help. Enter a good spirit who tried and failed to exorcise its nasty counterpart. The only option left was transformation. Man and evil became a raven.”

  “So you’re...are you telling me you were named for a legend?”

  “In a way. But only if you want to be technical, which my mother hasn’t been since the day she was born. They called her Spacey Lacy when she lived here.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Acquaintances mostly, many of whom have absolutely no business throwing stones since the bulk of them believe that any person finding three raven’s feathers on their door is destined to die.”

  “Raven’s feathers,” George repeated. “On the door.”

  “Placed there by the clairvoyant raven into which Hezekiah was transformed.”

  George stared at her. “When did this transformation take place?�
�

  “Three centuries ago, give or take.”

  “So we’re talking about one freaking old bird.”

  “If you believe, yes. Otherwise, it’s just a bread crumb and gingerbread tale.” Her lips twitched at his befuddled expression. “I did warn you before you flew to Portland that Raven’s Cove was a little odd, and you might want to rethink your decision to come.”

  When his features softened, Raven sighed a little. Despite the distance between Milwaukee andRochester where she now lived, George had been coming on to her for the past twelve months, in his own quiet way. She’d been able to sidestep his advances to this point, but it occurred to her now that his being in Raven’s Cove, even for a few short days, might prove—tricky. And the twinges of guilt she’d been experiencing lately didn’t help.

  Before her conscience could get the better of her, she motioned at a structure coming into view through a dense stand of woods.

  “There it is. Blume House. Hezekiah’s pride and joy. Until he slid into a funk and went all evil host on his friends and family.”

  George’s bespectacled eyes widened as the house grew in size. “It’s like a Black Forest castle.”

  “Back in the day—in Germany where it was originally built—it was a fortified manor house. Aidan and I came here once.” Although the pain still sliced deep, Raven pushed through it and continued. “It was before we were married, a few short weeks before a storm took out half the west wing. My cousin Riese was running the place as a hotel at the time. Then whoosh, bang, along came Hurricane Enid, down came a bunch of walls, and that was the end of it for Riese. She covered the furniture, locked the doors and struck out for Palm Springs with a cop she’d met several months earlier. The house has been vacant for the past five years.”

  “Looks like it’s been vacant for the past five decades.”

  Raven eased the truck to a halt outside a set of rusting iron gates fashioned into the silhouette of a raven.

  George’s gaze glued itself to the gothic-style house behind them. “You’re considering setting up a medical clinic here in—I’m sorry, I have to say it—spook central?”

  “I am, unless the hurricane damage is more extensive than Rooney claims.” Raven banded her arms around the steering wheel and leaned forward to look. “It’s a rejuvenating prospect, a sea change from the work I’ve been doing in Minnesota.”

  “At the Mayo Clinic, Raven. That’s one pretty desirable work place.”

  “Venue doesn’t matter. That I’d be doing something more community oriented does. Losing Aidan...” The breath she drew threatened to choke her, but she persevered. “Losing him took me out of my orbit for a long, long time. I’m not back in it yet, not all the way in it, but I know what I need to do, and that’s something vastly different from what I’ve been doing for the past two years. Routine’s a balm, but according to my mother and Rooney, I’ve only been existing since Aidan’s funeral. They want me to rejoin the living.”

  George’s gray eyes sobered. “I could help you with that, you know.”

  She took care with her expression and her tone. “You did, and you are. Believe me, George, if I could...” She halted to twist in her seat and peer down the road.

  Unsure, George mimicked the move. “What?”

  “I don’t know. A feeling. Probably nothing.” But she couldn’t stop the shiver that chased itself over her warm skin. “This might sound weird—and for ‘weird’ read ‘paranoid’—but I keep thinking there’s someone behind me. Following me, maybe watching me. Closely and with intent.”

  “Like a Peeping Tom?”

  “More like a shadow.”

  “Or a ghost?”

  From under the bill of her Brewers cap, Raven slid her narrowed eyes to his face. “I’m not channeling Aidan. This is a legitimate intuitive feeling. And yes, I know those terms contradict each other. I also know Captain Beckett hasn’t been really easy about things since Gaitor dropped off the radar twenty-plus months ago.”

  Worry invaded George’s features. “He’s not alone. Last I saw of Gaitor, he was heading out with a six-pack and a loaded sub. ‘Homage to Aidan,’ he told me. Then he got in his crappy little car and drove home to watch a football game. That was a week after his retirement party. Since then, there’s been no sign of him. He gave up his apartment without notice and vanished. It’s like the ground swallowed him whole. He even left his car behind.”

  Raven tried not to let her skin crawl. People did strange things. Gaitor didn’t owe her or anyone an explanation for his behavior. Assuming his disappearing act had been behavioral, and not a belated shot fired by a still-seething and not-yet-sated crime lord.

  Cheery prospect, she reflected and gave the bill of her cap a tug. Hopping out, she stretched her arms upward to relieve the ache in her back. “I think that might have been the longest drive ever.”

  “No argument here.” George shrugged the stiffness from his shoulders. “How do we...uh, hmm, okay. That’s kind of creepy.”

  In front of them, the gates stuttered inward with a screech of old metal.

  “Faulty motion sensor?” Raven guessed. “Or maybe someone inside saw us arrive.”

  “Someone lives here?”

  “Possibly.” Humor sparked, and it felt good. “Whether feathered or human remains to be seen.”

  “How many times have you visited this, uh...?” The question faded to a stare.

  With a faint chill skating along her spine, Raven followed her companion’s gaze to a human-size bird huddled in a leafy stand of trees to their left.

  The chill immediately lowered to a tingle.

  “It’s a raven-shaped boulder.” She breathed out her relief. “They’re scattered all over the property. You get used to it.”

  The clouds overhead darkened—or something did. Raven felt the air around her stir. And barely had time to raise her head before a silent shadow fell over her from behind.

  * * *

  CONNOR O’BRIEN STOOD alone in the fourth-floor attic of Blume House. He had an excellent view of the ocean waves that crashed and foamed over the rugged sweep of coastline that comprised Raven’s Ridge. Almost as good was the view past the neighboring woods that bled into a clearing where last night he’d counted close to forty tents. That number had more than doubled today. He hated to think what tomorrow would bring.

  He’d been told that a small army of people, many of them self-proclaimed psychics, descended on the ridge every three years for a three-day celebration known as Ravenspell. Not surprisingly, several of the participants or seekers or whatever the locals called them, arrived days in advance of the actual event which stretched from September sixth to the ninth. Then again, a party was a party, after all.

  This particular party involved Hezekiah Blume’s man-into-bird transformation, coupled with a tragedy that had occurred at a later point in time. All Connor really knew was that some form of gruesome death resided at the core of both things.

  Coffee mug in hand, he rested a shoulder against the window frame, sipped and stared, and tried not to let his mind wander. Life was what it was, what it had to be. And what it was, in this case, was better than the alternative he’d been given once hell had opened its fiery jaws and demanded a sacrificial soul.

  He spotted the glint of a lens near one of the smaller tents. Easing back a step, he took another drink. He wore black out of habit and usually stuck to the shadows, but neither precaution rendered him invisible—as he’d discovered mere days after his arrival here.

  The Cove should have been a temporary stop at best. A place to think and regroup, to plan for a nebulous future. But one wrong turn combined with a squeaky floorboard had changed all of that. For the better, he liked to think.

  He heard a low creak behind him. The screech of hinges and muttered curse that followed were familiar enough to elicit a smile. “Better than a doorbell, cousin.”

  The new arrival snorted. “Not if you’re the one who has to make the climb. Why are you always up here when
I come by?”

  “Same reason you always come by when I’m up here. Your campers are multiplying.”

  “Like rabbits in heat.”

  “Rabbits are born in heat.” The vague amusement dissolved as Connor ran his gaze over the gathering ground. “Do they know the rules?”

  “Inasmuch as I can make them known to a collection of airheads with ravens’ feathers for brains and very little in the way of actual lives. Beware, though, the curiosity level is bound to go up as the sun goes down.”

  “And the drugs and alcohol begin to flow.”

  “Not much either of us can do to stop that. I’d set old Rooney on them—he can almost pass for the walking dead—except being what and who these people are, he’d probably fascinate more than frighten them. We’ll have to settle for locked doors, latched windows and, ha-ha, good manners.”

  Connor shrugged. “It’s not that much of a deal. I can avoid a trespasser or two for however long it takes your festival of ravens to play out.”

  “Sad to say, it can play for a rather long time. There’s the lead-up crowd as you see, followed by the more serious event goers. Then you have Ravenspell itself, the inevitable hangers-on, and just when you think you’re clear, you trip over a bevy of stragglers who refuse to pack their crystals and leave until forced to do so by whatever town councilor feels like bothering.”

  “Sounds like my uncle Dan’s wedding reception.” Connor finished his coffee, let his eyes scan the woods and the section of iron fence that bisected them. Another glint, this one of white metal caught his eye. He crouched for a closer look. When the metal flashed again, he nodded forward. “Front gate’s open.”

  “What?” Annoyed, his companion bent and squinted. “Crap, it is. Stupid piece of junk works like every other contraption in the place—that being when it chooses to. Did anyone come through?”

  “Not yet, but there’s a truck outside.”

  The man next to him snarled. “I hate Ravenspell.” His expression darkened. “I’ll get rid of them.”

  With pleasure, Connor suspected, and struggled with a feeling he recognized clearly as envy. For some things more than others and for one thing above all. But the act of ousting an intruder definitely ranked in the top five.