She stood looking out through the storm door, making no move to admit him. “Good evening,” he said, smiling his best human smile. “I’m Reverend Findo Gask?” He made it a question, so that she would assume she was supposed to be expecting him. “Is Nest ready to go with me?”
A hint of confusion reflected on her wan face. “Nest isn’t here. She left already.”
Now it was his turn to look confused. He did his best. “Oh, she did? Someone else picked her up?”
The young woman nodded. “Fifteen minutes ago. She went caroling with a church group.”
Findo Gask shook his head. “There must have been a mix-up. Could I use your phone to make a call?”
His hand moved to the storm-door handle, encouraging her to act on his request. But the young woman stayed where she was, arms folded into the robe, eyes fixed on him.
“I can’t do that,” she announced flatly. “This isn’t my house. I can’t let anybody in.”
“It would take only a moment.”
She shook her head. “Sorry.”
He felt like reaching through the glass and ripping out her heart, an act of which he was perfectly capable. It wasn’t anger or frustration that motivated his thinking; it was the simple fact of her defiance. But the time and place were wrong for acts of violence, so he simply nodded his understanding.
“I’ll call from down the road,” he offered smoothly, taking a step back. “Oh, by the way, did Mr. Ross go with her?”
She pursed her lips. “Who is Mr. Ross?”
“The gentleman staying with her. Your fellow boarder.”
A child’s voice called to her from somewhere out of view, and she glanced over her shoulder. “I have to go. I don’t know Mr. Ross. There isn’t anyone else staying here. Good night.”
She closed the door in his face. He stood staring at it for a moment. Apparently Ross still hadn’t arrived. He found himself wondering suddenly if he had been wrong in coming to Hopewell, if somehow he had intuited incorrectly. His instincts were seldom mistaken about these things, but perhaps this was one of those times.
He couldn’t afford to have that happen.
He turned around and walked back out to the street. The ur’droch joined him after a dozen paces, all shadowy presence and rippling movement at the edges of the light.
“Anything?” he asked.
When the shadow-demon gave no response, he had his answer. It was not unexpected. It wasn’t likely Ross was there if the young woman hadn’t seen him. Who was she, anyway? Where had she come from? Another pawn on the board, waiting to be moved into position, he thought. It would be interesting to see how he might make use of her.
He walked back down the road to where he had left the car parked on the shoulder and climbed inside. The ur’droch slithered in behind him and disappeared onto the floor of the backseat. He would give Ross another three days, until Christmas, before he gave up his vigil. It wasn’t time to panic yet. Panic was for lesser demons, for those who relied on attributes other than experience and reasoning to sustain them. He started the car and wheeled it back onto the roadway. It was time to be getting home so that he could enjoy the little surprise he had prepared for Nest Freemark.
-=O=-***-=O=-
Nest climbed in beside Kathy Kruppert, squeezing her over toward her husband on the Suburban’s bench seat. In the back, somewhere between six and nine teens and preteens, two of them Krupperts, jostled and squirmed while trading barbs and gossip. She exchanged hellos with everyone, then leaned back against the padded leather while Allen backed the big Chevy onto Woodlawn and headed for the next pickup.
Her thoughts drifted from John Ross and Findo Gask to Bennett and Harper Scott and back again.
“Everything okay, Nest?” Kathy asked after a few minutes of front-seat silence amidst the backseat chaos. She was a big-boned blond carrying more weight than she wanted, as she was fond of saying, but on her the weight looked good.
Nest nodded. “Sure, fine.”
“You seem awfully quiet tonight.”