Laws of Nature -2 by Christopher Golden (i can read books txt) 📕

Molly studied Jack carefully, then raised one finger to her lips, though he thought it was a gesture of contemplation, rather than an attempt to hush him.

"Let me get this straight," she said. "You want to go to the movies this afternoon?"

Just the tone of her voice made Jack smile and chuckle. Molly, however, did not seem to appreciate his amusement. His grin disappeared and he scratched his head idly.

"Let's come back to the movies in a minute, okay?" he suggested. "This other stuff is more important."

Molly nodded once, emphatically. "My point." Then she shook her head slowly, a self-effacing smile surfacing. "Sorry. I'm just . . . I feel like we should have been able to stop this last one, you know what I mean? We come up here, poking around, like there's something we can do, but we couldn't save this Mr.

Oberst."

The pain and confusion in her voice stopped Jack cold.

"This isn't our town, Mol. No matter what happens, we can barely scratch the surface around here," he told her. "But that doesn't mean we can't help. If somebody here knows what's really going on, they're not gonna tell us. We could just pack up and go home. And that's what I'll do if you want me to."

"Oh, no," Molly said quickly, shaking her wild red hair back over her shoulders. "We're not going anywhere."

Jack nodded, paused a moment in his pacing. "All right, then. Good. So, what do we know?"

Lips pressed together in a tight line, Molly let herself flop back on the bed and she stared at the ceiling. After a moment she cleared her throat.

"The spot on the map where there was a cluster of victims, and supposedly some sort of ruins, seems like the best place to start looking for the lair," she replied. "From there we can check the other murder sites we haven't visited yet. The vandalism at the diner probably means the ghosts were right about this book that was supposedly stolen from the Prowlers. The vandals didn't take anything else, so it stands to reason that they made that mess because they had to be looking for the book."

"My guess is they didn't find it or they wouldn't have had to trash the whole place," Jack added. "Also, if they killed Oberst and trashed the diner all in one night, they're either not afraid of getting caught . . . or there are more of them than we thought."

Molly wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered. "I don't like either option." Her gaze locked on Jack's. "So, what next?" she asked at length.

"Next, we call Bill, get him and Courtney caught up. Then we have lunch, and then head over to the surveyor's office and look into those ruins. Tomorrow we hit the mountains again, try to have a look at them and at other locations we think might be their lair."

"Courtney won't like us getting that close without Bill," Molly reminded him.

"Who says we're going to get close? We might not even find the right place. But if it makes you feel better, I'll lay the whole thing out for them and get their feedback."

Molly nodded slowly, considering. "All right. So what do we do tonight?"

"You wanted to go to the movies, get our minds off of all of this."

Molly rolled onto her side on the bed and stared at him. He could see that she was spooked, that the speed with which things had begun to happen around them had also unsettled her. And he did not blame her.

"I'm not sure anything would get my mind off this. Not until we're on the way home."

"Hey, it's Humphrey Bogart," Jack reasoned, his tone light.

"Oh, well, that makes all the difference," Molly teased.

"It does!"

Silence descended upon the room. They stared at each other for several long moments before Jack went over to the phone between their beds. Jack dialed the number at Bridget's Irisk Rose Pub. Bill was more likely to be down at the bar already than to be up in the apartment. On the third ring, a female voice answered. It took Jack a second to place it as belonging to Kiera Dunphy.

"Kiera, it's Jack," he began, then forged on before she could ask him if he was enjoying his trip. "Can I talk to Bill?"

Molly stood up from the bed with a creak of springs and he could feel her eyes on him as she went to the bureau to click on the television. The volume was low, but he could hear the pop-pop-pop of her changing channels.

"Jack?" Bill said as he came on the line. "What's happening up there?"

There was something odd in Bill's voice, a tension Jack hadn't heard before. Certainly, Bill was worried about them - that had been evident all along - but this was something different.

"What's going on down there?" he countered.

The bartender paused for a second or two before responding. "Nothing. Business as usual. Did you find what you're looking for?"

"Yeah," he replied, still concerned by Bill's tone. "Yeah, they're here. In force, I think. There's been another killing."

He explained how they had gone about creating their map, and that they were going to be out searching for the lair the following day. Jack was fairly certain Bill was going to insist that they wait for him, and at this point, he was certainly not going to protest. But when he finished, there was only silence on the other end of the line.

"Bill?"

The bartender cleared his throat and it sounded almost like a growl. "I don't want you to do anything until I get there, but I can't come right now, Jack."

The words chilled him. "Why not? What the hell's going on?"

"Give me twenty-four hours. Forty-eight, tops. Then I will be there. You two can lie low for a while, go sightseeing or something if you want. Go up to Lost River Gorge; that's up there somewhere. It's amazing. Trust me."

"We should come home,"