The Nightwalkers

Color Weaver
Connie Hall

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Sheriff Reese McMurray didn’t believe in the supernatural—until his father went missing twelve years go. Evidence indicated that Summer White-Cloud, Reese’s high school sweetheart, had somehow conjured the wendigo responsible for his death…so Reese deserted her.

Now the pattern of disappearances have returned, forcing Reese to work with Summer to stop the evil threatening their community. Even Reese can’t deny there is still a sizzling chemistry between them. But will their rekindled passion survive when Summer reveals her real connection to the wendigo?

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter 1

Summer White-Cloud came out of her daze, hand trembling, poised above her sketch pad. When she looked at what she’d drawn, she gasped and turned away.

She couldn’t have drawn that.

No way would she make something so hideous. But her hand had put the image on the paper. No one else’s. It was as if a compulsion had made her do it. How? Why was this happening to her?

Her fingers gripped the charcoal stem so tightly it broke in her hand and crumbled to the table. The pieces pinged loudly in her studio. She looked at the bird clock on the wall—3:00 a.m. Where were all the animals? She owned three cats and a dog. They were probably still nestled all snug in her bed. So why wasn’t she?

Darkness covered the windows in her studio. She glimpsed her own reflection staring back at her: a terrified woman, hollowed eyes from lack of sleep, dread gripping her face.

She noticed her hands, covered in black charcoal dust. She didn’t even remember getting out of bed, entering her studio, sitting down at her easel. Oh, God!

Her gaze raced back to the picture. Darkness, a sliver of the moon showing in the sky. Barren trees silhouetted in dim moonlight. And below the trees a white clapboard cottage. A circular drive curved around the front yard, outlining a defoliated and wintering flower garden. A large addition jutted from the side of the cottage. North-facing windows ran floor to ceiling.

Her studio. She had drawn her own cottage.

And standing just outside the windows…a ghoul. It held itself upright like a man, yet the shoulders hunched from lack of flesh on the chest or body. All skeletal. Blustery white hair flowed down to its shoulders. The face was a hollow, gaunt skull with glowing red eyes. The jaw jutted out, exposing large animal fangs. And it had long fingernails…

Screeeech!

Summer jumped. Her gaze darted to the windows.

Screeeeeeeeech! The scraping traveled the length of the windowpane now. It sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard.

Summer looked into searing eyes. The ones from her picture. She screamed and then she fainted.

Reese McMurray yawned and drove along the winding path of Living Spring Road. The headlights of his cruiser cut through the thick darkness. As the sheriff, he rarely found himself working the graveyard shift—his deputies rotated that duty. He didn’t much like it tonight, but reports of a strange creature spotted along the eight-mile road drew him there. The callers had been skeptical themselves about what they had seen. Mrs. Jenkins said it was a deformed bear. Harley James swore it was bigfoot. But all the callers agreed it made their flesh crawl. Tonight he was off the clock, hunting his own private hunch about what was loose in his county.

He eased the cruiser around the sharp corners in the road, his gaze scanning every shadow. He passed the open pastures of the Bracket farm, a two-hundred-acre cattle ranch. He shined the spotlight on the dash out into the fields.

A few deer grazing. Nothing out of the ordinary.

He drove on and reached the Carter property—Summerset. After old Mr. and Mrs. Carter died, the Carter farm fell into disrepair. Their son still owned the property, but he was some big-shot songwriter in Hollywood and he’d let the house and grounds fall apart. Reese frowned. If the guy didn’t care about the place, he should sell it.

The driveway was half a mile long and you couldn’t see the old plantation mansion clearly from the road for the overgrown oaks along the drive, but it was hard to miss the flaking paint on the gutters, the shutters that were falling off and the unkempt gardens. It had a desolate look about it that undoubtedly enhanced its haunted reputation.

Some of the five hundred acres were still farmed and remnants of the fall soybean crop sat wintering and frozen in the fields. Reese felt a tinge of regret. He had always wanted a large farm like the Carters’, but he had grown up on six acres, living in a small rancher. Like his grandfather, Reese’s father had been sheriff of King Charles County. A public servant’s salary didn’t allow for much, other than surviving and setting aside a little retirement. Certainly, the McMurrays could never rise to become privileged landowners like the Carters. Reese didn’t mind his station in life, but it had never stopped him from dreaming about being a landed gentleman. Maybe in his next life.

If he were honest with himself, he was no farmer. Never had been. All he really wanted was to remain the sheriff, maybe get married and have kids and, eventually, after putting in thirty years, retire. Something his father had wanted, but he had never lived to see to fruition.

His stomach knotted as it always did when he thought of his father. Then he cleared the end of the Carter property line and reached a cottage, Summer White-Cloud’s home. Thoughts of his father’s murder shifted into bitter contractions that twisted his gut into knots. Just being near Summer White-Cloud’s house turned him inside out and he hated it.

When her paintings began showing in New York galleries, she had moved from the Patomani Reservation not five miles from here and bought the little cottage from the Carters and added a studio. There were rumors Summer was a witch, a title bestowed on most of the Patomani women. In Summer’s case it was befitting.

He had never believed in the supernatural—until his father’s disappearance. He didn’t have tangible proof that Summer was a full-fledged witch, but he knew she conjured evil. And that evil had destroyed his father.

It was tragic Reese hadn’t seen it before he dated her in high school. He could thank Takala Rainwater for that. Takala and her sisters, Fala and Nina, had seemed normal at school, so he’d befriended them. Yet Takala possessed strength that boggled the mind. He had never been able to best her at arm wrestling. He’d lost a fortune betting against her. He even had a crush on her at one time, until she lost interest and introduced him to Summer. They began dating late into their junior year. And he’d instantly fallen for the dark-haired beauty—until the day his father suddenly vanished from his life and Reese had his eyes opened to what she was.

The latest report he’d heard was that Summer worked with underprivileged kids from inner cities, teaching art. A front to hide her dark side?

Bands tightened around his chest as he neared her driveway. He had a gut feeling that she was at the heart of these bizarre reports in the area, and his gut was never wrong.

He could see the lights burning in her studio. And a figure swayed near the window, half-hidden in shadow. He stood all of seven feet high. One tall dude. Reese turned into the drive. The headlights swept past the cottage.

The prowler dropped something and fled behind the house, avoiding the lights.

Something in the way the figure moved brought back a spine-tingling memory etched indelibly in Reese’s mind. He threw the car in park and leaped out, running. A dog barked inside the cottage, jumping and tearing at the door as he ran past.

He spotted the hunched intruder. Its feet didn’t touch the ground, but seemed to float above it. It glided into the woods. The smell of rotting flesh followed the prowler, a familiar odor, the same scent that had permeated the air around the sight where his father had disappeared. The odor of death.

When he reached the edge of the woods, Reese skidded to a halt. The silence deafened him. Not one bird chirp. Not an insect. Even the dog inside the cottage had stopped barking. Something had sucked the life from the air. It was as if everything alive had fled the area, or shivered in fear. He knew if he went into the woods he wouldn’t have a chance in hell of destroying the thing he’d just seen. That would take planning, plotting, setting traps.

“We’ll meet again,” he yelled the inevitable into the woods.

Only teeming silence answered him.

Reese retraced his steps to the cottage. A dark presence watched him, waited, silently demanding he turn around and walk into the woods. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. He’d felt that same pulling sensation before when his father had disappeared.

Yes, he knew it well, down to the very marrow of his bones. Swore he’d never forget it. The power of that thing was ominously devouring, cruel, smug, malevolence personified.

Icy sensations crawled down each of his vertebrae as he reached the cottage. He knew what he was going to find. And so did that creature in the woods. It was probably gloating over it.

Abruptly, he felt himself caught in a déjà vu. He pulled the flashlight from his belt and shined it near the window where the figure had stood and dropped something. His heart pounded as he swept the light across the ground. He found what he was looking for. Blood-soaked clothing.

He carefully lifted the pants with two fingers and read the tag. Male jeans. A thirty-six inseam. The pant legs were in tatters, shredded, as if they’d been caught up in a paper shredder. Two initials, BL, had been embroidered over the right pocket. Enough blood slathered the pants to make DNA testing easy.

He carefully laid the tattered jeans back down in the exact spot where he’d found them so he could later bag them for evidence. The pattern of twelve years ago was beginning all over again. And like before, the proof of the disappearances was occurring close to Summer White-Cloud. This new piece of clothing was practically on her doorstep.

Reese grimaced as he peeked through the window, seeing what the creature had glimpsed. Summer’s studio. The lights were on. At three in the morning? Was she working that late? If she kept to her old habits, she couldn’t stay up past eleven. He remembered in high school many a night talking to her on the phone. Without fail, she always fell asleep at eleven with the phone next to her mouth. He had ended up listening to her breathing most of the night, which, at the time, had seemed like a precious gift to be savored. What a naive kid he had been back then.

Scowling, he cupped his hands along the side of his eyes and scanned her studio. Bright rainbows curved along neon-yellow walls. The ceiling was painted to look like a sky with wispy blue clouds. Easels displayed the students’ paintings in progress, some covered by towels. In the room’s center, the inspiration for a still life—delft-blue plates and saucers and a vase brimming with silk flowers—filled a table. Near the table sat a large oak easel, one he recognized, because he’d made it himself in shop class. Why did she still have it? He thought she would have used it for kindling long ago.

He spotted a Saint Bernard standing near the easel, head bent, licking…Summer’s face.

She lay crumpled on the floor.

His gut clenched. Had that thing hurt her? He ran to the studio door and shook it.

Locked.

With one good kick, he broke the bolt.

The door flew open and crashed against the doorstop, thundering in the silence.

The dog bristled and growled. Saliva dripped from its massive jaws.

“I’m here to help.” Reese held out his hand to greet the Saint Bernard.

It crouched closer, sniffed, then seemed to sense Reese wasn’t a threat and stopped growling.

Reese petted the animal’s huge head and said, “Have to help her now, champ.”

The dog followed him as he made his way to Summer. He checked her neck for a pulse. Steady. He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

Summer hadn’t changed much since high school. Still beautiful. Long cocoa-colored hair fell around her shoulders. She had light bronze skin that made her look as if she had a tan year-round. Thick lashes, darker than her hair, formed half-moons on her cheeks, accentuating her high cheekbones. A sharp widow’s peak cut across her brow, and an expression of terror was etched in her face.

When he reached down to pick her up, her lids fluttered open. Cornflower-blue eyes focused on him. The haze cleared from them, then they grabbed hold of him. Her eyes had a way of gripping a person and not letting go. He felt that pull in his chest now.

“You…” She blinked up at him as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She struggled to get up.

“Are you okay?” He grabbed her arms, helping her up.

She twisted out of his grasp and shot him an uneasy look. “Thanks, I’m fine.”

At her cool reaction, his concern melted. He felt a little foolish for overreacting. His voice shifted back into utter authority. “What the hell happened here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t lie to me, Summer.”

Her eyes blazed at him as her expression turned defensive. “I’m not lying to you.”

“Explain the bloody pants I found outside, then.”

“I can’t.”

“Somebody was murdered, the evidence dropped at your door. Just like last time. Remember. Senior year. The fall harvest dance. Jason Smith’s bloody shirt found on the hood of your car. My father’s blood-soaked coat discovered later at your back door.” He shot her a scorching glance. “You know what’s happening, just like you knew back then.”

“I don’t know how that got there. I told your father that before he…” Her words trailed off.

“Go ahead and say it—’was killed.’”

“I was going to say disappeared.”

“Come on, we both know he’s dead, just like Jason Smith.” He glared at her, daring her to deny it. He’d had to resign himself to his father’s death just to get on with his life and stop looking for his father’s body. He’d always felt certain she knew where the bodies were disposed of but refused to reveal the location. “Tell me where this new victim is?”

She looked anxious, afraid, her bottom lip trembling. “I don’t know.”

“Was he taken to the same spot where my father’s and Smith’s bodies were dumped?”

“I had nothing to do with those disappearances. Nothing.”

“Who is this new victim?”

“I don’t know.” Tears gleamed in her eyes. “Oh, what’s the use? You’ll never believe me.”