“The hell we can’t. If it’s got Loki this upset, I’m not going inside.” He turned toward the Jeep, intending on doing just what he’d suggested, when Loki made his own opinion known. The dog dashed back up the steps and jumped up, putting his front paws against the door.
Much to everyone’s surprise, the door opened beneath him and dumped the dog into the foyer. With a cacophony of barking, the Akita disappeared inside.
“Oh, shit!” Jake exclaimed as he chased after him.
Katelynn followed.
Loki must have gone straight upstairs because once he was inside Jake could hear barking from somewhere above. He raced up the steps to the second floor. Loki’s barking became deeper, more strident, and Jake knew that the dog had found whatever it was he had been looking for.
Back in the foyer, Katelynn glanced around.
Instinctively she knew the house was empty. She knew it with a certainty that surprised her, and it only served to heighten her discomfort. She was frightened for both Blake and his servant, beginning to think that what she had seen in her dreams had been a premonition of harm for them both.
Somewhere above, the dog’s barking became more urgent.
Katelynn glanced into the closest rooms. If anyone had been in the house, they would have heard the commotion and come to investigate, but every room she checked was empty. Satisfied that her observation had been correct, Katelynn returned to the entryway and started up the steps to the second floor.
* * *
As Jake reached the second-floor landing, he glanced down the hall to find the dog standing in the entrance to the very last room. Loki stopped barking and stared at him, obviously waiting for permission before entering.
Jake was not going to give it.
“Come, boy,” he said firmly.
The dog stood his ground.
“I said, come.”
Loki paced back and forth, whining in his throat. It was clear he was not going to obey the command.
“You’re going to regret this,” Jake said through clenched teeth, his anger rising. The last thing he needed was to be caught in his employer’s house with his dog. He would be out of a job quicker than he could blink. Shaking his head in frustration, he started down the hall.
As soon as Loki saw that Jake was coming toward him, he turned back to face the room, but did not enter it.
When Jake reached the door, he saw why.
Katelynn came up the stairs, calling their names. She reached the second-floor landing and saw Jake and Loki down at the end of the hall. “What’s going on?” she called.
Jake jumped, then turned to face her. “Stay there, Katelynn. You don’t want to see this.”
“Don’t want to see what?” she asked, ignoring him.
She started down the hallway, her fear growing with each step.
Jake came forward and tried to stop her, but she slipped by his grasp, needing to know, needing to see.
The room was just as she’d seen it; the bookcases, the symbols drawn on the floor, the sword standing upright in the center of the room, except now the room seemed to have been splashed with blood. It was everywhere, and the stench of it must have been what drew the dog. Across the room, Katelynn could see the body of a small animal in the far corner. Through the open patio doors the lower portions of a man’s legs could be seen lying on the balcony.
Loki growled softly.
“Is he…?” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the question.
“I don’t know.”
“We’ve got to find out. What if he needs help?” It was the right thing to do, but in her heart Katelynn knew the man was already beyond help.
Jake nodded and started forward.
Katelynn watched as he made his way across the room and out onto the balcony. He disappeared from view behind the partially opened door and emerged a few moments later. He saw her looking at him and shook his head, letting her know there was no help to be given.
“It’s Blake’s butler,” he said, when he rejoined her. “We’d better find a phone and call the police.”
Taking hold of Loki’s collar, Jake led the way back down the stairs and into Blake’s study, where he knew he would find a phone. He gave the details to the 911 operator and was told to wait outside until the sheriff arrived.
Back in the Jeep, Jake thought about what he’d seen upstairs. He hadn’t really needed to go into that room, hadn’t really needed to discover if the man they’d seen on the balcony had been dead or alive.
He’d already known.
Once you’ve seen death up close,he thought,you can recognize it anywhere.
Despite the sun shining high overhead, the day was no longer as bright and beautiful as it had been when they’d left Katelynn’s.
It had gotten considerably darker.
In the backseat, Loki looked up into the sky and growled low in his throat.
17
RIVERWATCH
Damon spent his first twenty minutes on the scene interviewing Jake and Katelynn. After telling them he’d be in contact shortly to follow up, he let them go home and turned his attention to the scene itself. He had had a lurking suspicion that they’d missed something at the first two crime scenes, something that would provide that one important clue he so desperately needed. This time he intended to take no chances.
If it’s here,he thought with grim determination,we’ll find it.
He ordered the deputies to take up watch at the gates to the estate with the command that they admit no one but the ME and the state police forensic squad. Officers searched the house thoroughly looking for any sign of the owner, to no avail. Hudson Blake was quickly put at the top of the sheriff’s suspect list, and an APB was put out on him with a “wanted for questioning” alert.
It wasn’t long before Strickland arrived, alerted personally as he’d been by Damon via radio just after the call came in. Ed came up the drive in a hurried walk, his black doctor’s bag in one hand and his crime scene kit in the other.
Damon turned toward the house and matched his stride, filling Ed in on the details as they went in.
On the second floor they stopped at the entrance of the room before entering, letting initial impressions sink in. Roughly sixteen feet per side, the square room looked to have once been a study. A desk was pushed flat against the wall off to the right, next to a small table. Bookshelves partially lined two of the other walls. A glass-shelved display case, filled with medieval weaponry, stood between the bookshelves. The fourth wall, directly opposite the doorway in which they were standing, was split in the center by a set of open French doors.
In the middle of the room a large circle had been drawn on the polished wood floor with some kind of white powder or sand. In the center of that circle, a second design had been similarly laid out, but outlined in a dark substance. A bejeweled sword was thrust point first into the floor inside the latter. A dark stain coated the blade’s surface and a section of the floor several feet wide surrounding the tip of the blade. The light from the morning sun coming in through the open balcony doors glistened off the precious stones set in the weapon’s hilt and cast a long, cross-shaped shadow across the floor in their direction.
Beside him, Damon heard Strickland whisper, “What in the name of God…?”
Once Damon tore his gaze from the strange tableau in the center of the room, he noticed what had sparked Strickland’s outburst.
Small amounts of blood were splashed in odd places throughout the rest of the room: on the spines of a book, on the front of the desk, on the gossamer-like curtains that blew in the slight breeze coming through the open doors. The headless corpse of a small animal, possibly a cat, lay in one corner, as if carelessly tossed there. A small gilded cage lay discarded in the center of the room. A revolver rested nearby.