Bran New Death

Why hadn’t I mentioned any of that to Virgil Grace? I hadn’t thought it important at the time, but it sure did seem like a lot of run-ins with what could be the same dirt bike. It was that cumulative effect of several sightings, not the dirt bike itself, that made me wonder. I couldn’t hear it anymore. Maybe the rider had gotten bored and left. I hoped so. I didn’t want to be run down on the trail.

But none of this was helping me find Becket. I got up and looked around. Wait . . . was that a patch of orange? I hared off after it, and damned if it wasn’t Becket, just ahead of me! He paused, looked back, and then headed off again, loping with a staggering gait.

“What is wrong with you, cat?” I muttered. I should have just let him come back on his own, but it felt like it was my duty to look after him now. Becket had been important to my uncle, and now he was my responsibility. I checked my watch. Another fifteen minutes and Pish would be landing at the airport in Rochester, some time in baggage claim, then another forty-five minutes or so for McGill, Shilo, and Pish to make the return trip. So I could look for the cat for another few minutes, but then I wanted to get back to the castle and make sure it was presentable for Pish’s first view.

Reenergized, I stuffed the chicken baggie in my pocket and charged off in the direction Becket had disappeared. I caught sight of him again, on the path and followed. I was just opening my mouth to call out to him when I heard a shot. I ducked and huddled in the shadows, cowering as another shot rang out.

What the hell was going on?

And how did I get out of it?

Was there some kind of hunting season I didn’t know about? Even so, it was my property and no one had permission to hunt. Again, I needed to post signs, copious signs: No Hunting! Private Property! No Trespassing! Lots of exclamation marks. The dirt-bike driver . . . were he and the hunter one and the same?

And then, at long last, the pe

Where had I seen the dirt bike? Outside of Dinah Hooper’s apartment.

Who did I know who was an acknowledged hunter? Dinah Hooper.

Who had access to all of the Turner Construction, and probably the Turner Wynter accounts? Dinah-freaking-Hooper.

I remembered in that moment the letter I had found among my uncle’s stuff, the one that was addressed to Turner Wynter Global Enterprises. I had never heard their business called that before, and that struck me as odd. Something teased at the edge of my brain, but someone was coming, striding through the forest with a great deal of confidence. Hunkering down in a shallow depression, behind a bushy undergrowth, I watched through a leafy branch. A figure in camouflage loosely cradling a rifle, strode past me, then paused. Blonde hair piled high, glittery earrings, rounded form: when the figure turned I was not surprised to see Dinah Hooper. But her expression! I’d never seen her like this, furious and determined.

Practically holding my breath, terrified that she would see me, I heard a noise in the distance, and then a streak of orange crossed the path. She raised the gun, and I was sure she’d aim for Becket, but no, that wasn’t her quarry. Who was, then? Me? But she had no cause to come after me, and couldn’t have even known I was there.

I heard more noise, and staggering out of the brush came another figure. It was an old man with a long, tattered beard; ragged, filthy clothes; and a battered hat pulled down over his head. He was ru

“Dinah, please, don’t shoot!” he wailed, arms raised in surrender.

I gasped in surprise, then clapped a hand over my mouth. It had to be Rusty Turner! Dinah whirled at my gasp, and the old man took his chance while she was distracted, diving into the bushes with a loud grunt and cry of pain. He was old, but quick and crafty.

Dinah swiveled the gun back to the pathway. “You come out now!” she yelled, sighting along the barrel. “I see you moving around, Rusty. You want to die in the bushes? Like you left my boy to die alone?”

“He tried to kill me, Dinah! I’m sorry, but what was I go

Her boy? Who the heck . . . oh! Dinty Hooper. My eyes widened as I figured it out; so that’s who the body in the woods was.

“Dinty was a good boy,” she sobbed, the barrel of the rifle drooping. “He was only doing what was best for me. Now come on out and face—”

She was cut off by Becket, the feline ninja, leaping at her from behind and knocking her off balance. She screamed, the rifle went off—a wild shot that clipped some leaves, which fell in a fluttering flurry of green and sent a crow cawing raucously out of the tree—and she staggered sideways. I broke from cover, darting down the path to where I could see Rusty Turner emerging. I grabbed hold of him. “Run, now, while you can!” I said.

He gabbled and clucked as I dragged him back off the path, staggering and stumbling along over downed trees and through thick underbrush. I could hear her shouting behind us, and what I feared most: the sound of Dinah, much more athletic than me, crashing through the bush, following our far-too-obvious trail of leafy destruction.

My mind was whirling through all the details, trying to make sense of the shifting tides of my uncle’s life, death and business affairs. Rusty’s disappearance. Tom Turner’s murder. A thousand questions to which I had no answers hopped though my mind like Magic on a wayward path. But one came to the forefront; had my uncle indeed been murdered, run off the road, as Gogi suspected? I feared the answer was yes.

Rusty was a dead weight, dragging at me, and when I turned I was alarmed. His filthy face was ashen. He was an older man, and I needed to stop. Besides, I could no long hear Dinah crashing along behind us, so maybe we had evaded her. If that was the case, then we should be quiet so we wouldn’t alert her to our whereabouts through carelessness.

He plunked down on the ground, and I watched him, worried. His breath was coming in heaving gasps, but that calmed quickly enough, and ruddy color came back to his cheeks, above the straggly beard.

“Are you going to be okay?” I whispered, wishing I had thought to bring a bottle of water.

He nodded. I let him catch his breath while I listened for Dinah coming after us. I couldn’t believe she would give up. If what I suspected was true, it was much to her advantage to kill us both, and leave our bodies in the woods while she made her getaway. It might be days before anyone found us.

My mind raced with conjecture. I eyed Rusty, and felt my heart wobble. Poor old man! He must have been . . . my eyes widened in shock. Had he been living out on the land for ten months? Through a long, upstate New York winter? I set that aside to marvel at later; I couldn’t get distracted. We needed to both get out of this fix, and fast.

I could hear the tentative sounds of something: bushes rustling, footsteps . . . Dinah, now cagey enough to be careful in her search?

“Merry Wynter, I know you’re here,” she said in a conversational tone, so close I almost jumped out of my skin. “I have nothing against you. We could be allies. I know for a fact that you’ve inherited that big, old castle and that you don’t have money to fix it up or live in it. I have a hundred ways for you to make money.”

Her tone was honeyed, persuasive. I glanced down at Rusty, and his watery blue eyes had a pleading look in them. I shook my head. There was nothing she could say that would convince me to give him up.