“Yeah. There’s a coffee shop, truck stop in a way, but nice, clean, even charming, really, across from an area where the state forest runs into unincorporated land. They were meeting a fellow there … Let me get my notes and I’ll give you his name.”

  Gavin delved through scratch papers on his desk. “Don’t worry, you two. I know how to use a computer. I just jot things down when I’m not at mine. There. They were meeting with Ranger Reggie Woodson. Good name for a ranger, I guess. I wonder if that came into his decision to go into the woods. Anyway, I’ll text you the name and address of the place.”

  Zach and Skye smiled grimly. “Okay, we’re going to head out there. But we will be on cell phones.”

  “I’ll be attending the press conference with Captain Claybourne. Don’t worry about him. He’s a good man. This has just been … Well, he’s dealt with robberies, even a murder or two over the years, but he hasn’t dealt with anything like this. None of us have.”

  “Not sure we’ve ever dealt with anything like this, either,” Zach told him.

  “Nope,” Skye agreed.

  “Anyway, I promise you, Claybourne will get the right things into the press conference,” Gavin said.

  “Thanks,” Zach said lightly. “All right, you know how to reach us.”

  “And vice versa,” Gavin said, nodding grimly.

  Zach and Skye headed out.

  He looked at his phone after they’d gotten into the car and found the texted address and name of the coffee shop—one that made a play on words as well: Out of the Woods Café.

  “Twenty minutes in light traffic,” he told Skye.

  She nodded, looking thoughtfully out the window.

  “What?”

  She shrugged. “I’m just curious. Connie was waiting for someone. She saw something, or heard something, from the back of the shop that I didn’t. The witch, I guess. And maybe she was expecting Vince, or maybe even someone else. But maybe not someone who had dressed up in a witch costume. Could she have been involved—and then her partner or partners started to worry we’d be onto her, and she had to be taken out?”

  “Either that or she saw the assault rifle and knew she had little chance of beating it if the witch came close enough for her to try to get off a shot.”

  “Too aggravating,” Skye murmured. She was looking out the window.

  “How about another quote—‘a penny for your thoughts’?”

  She grinned and answered without turning to him. “Trees. Trees, trees, and more trees. And bushes. I must admit that while we live in an age that came after the Enlightenment, and we supposedly know so much more, I can see how darkness and the endless woods might influence people.”

  “But now that we know that germs and bacteria and viruses cause a lot of sicknesses, we know that TB victims aren’t vampires—”

  “But we still know instinctive fear,” Skye said softly.

  “There’s the café—ahead on the left,” Zach pointed out, seeing its sign.

  “Let’s hope it’s a café that serves good coffee,” she said lightly.

  Then she frowned suddenly, closed her eyes, and blinked.

  “Zach!”

  “What?”

  “Pull over!”

  “Why? What? Did you—”

  “I just saw her! I just saw Berkley run into the woods!”

  “In a vision—”

  “No, no, in the flesh! Zach, pull over. We must catch her!”

  CHAPTER 15

  Once out of the car, Skye started to tear toward the woods in pursuit, but then again … “Zach!” she cried out.

  If Connie was running into the woods to hide, it must mean someone was in pursuit of her. Someone who was farther back; she had to have had a lead to clear the road in such panic and so quickly.

  “Looking for the source!” Zach yelled back to her, heading for the café.

  She almost smiled as she cleared the road and ran over the embankment to the trees. They thought alike so very often, having nothing to do with their strange abilities. He’d barely come into her life, and yet she wondered what it would be now without him.

  The situation at the moment didn’t leave much time for such worry; the witch who had been after Connie at the costume shop had been carrying an assault rifle. And now, Zach might well be going after that same culprit.

  Carrying the same assault weapon.

  And she was just chasing a terrified detective into the trees.

  Zach knows the situation. Zach knows how to be careful, how to watch for such a weapon. He knows how to move, how to calculate distance, variables …

  “Connie!” she called, hoping that maybe the detective would answer her, let her know where she was.

  Trees, shrubs, brush, and the earth itself, of course, had little respect for the boundaries created by man. The trees didn’t care if they were on state land, federal land, or unincorporated land. They all just … existed and grew.

  Beautiful, tall oaks stood so near one another that their low-dipping branches seemed to interlock, creating natural sections that seemed to embrace certain areas, making them places of quiet privacy—wonderful, perhaps, for private picnics, and yet so encapsulated and lonely that someone could hide there forever, ever shadowed by the extremely heavy canopy of the leaves overhead.

  The detective could be anywhere.

  She stood very still. Her so-called gift wouldn’t help her right now. Even if she saw Connie running in terror, dodging trees, trying not to trip over the roots, Skye wouldn’t know which way she had gone.

  Skye just had to listen. To study the ground.

  Branches! Like Zach had shown me. Look where the branches are broken …

  But for a minute, she was determined to listen. She heard the rustling sound she was coming to know; trees and foliage moved along with the breeze.

  Chirping … insects, of course.

  A cry in the air, now and then.

  As she stood there, she thought at first she was beginning to have a vision—then she realized that no, the day had begun early, but it had been long, and the darkness was descending around her because the day was dying. Dusk was coming on, and soon enough it would be total darkness in the woods.

  There were things she believed completely. While she didn’t agree with all aspects of any denomination, she knew there was a power much higher than man, and she knew the human heart and soul outlived the frailty of human flesh. She had known she wanted to be in law enforcement since she’d been a child. The law was a perfect place to make the strangeness that haunted her pay. She didn’t scare easily.

  And she doubted Detective Berkley scared easily, either.

  But …

  As Zach had said, an assault rifle could scare anyone.

  But as she stood there, it was as if she could feel the woods around her. Feel the very growing darkness of the night.

  And here she could imagine that in long-ago times, people living where the woods all but surrounded them might have had strange thoughts and had let their imaginations run wild, especially when they had been taught to live by the harshest of codes.

  People didn’t change.

  They knew more these days. News—both true and fake—crowded the airwaves, and everyone got a bit of something the second they turned on their smartphones or computers.

  Yet, standing here in the woods, Skye could imagine being under the influence of a heavy drug, perhaps treated to a strange light show, and told that the world had gone to the devil, and they must be the ones to fight what was happening around them.

  Suddenly, there was something, a louder sound of rustling, ahead of her and slightly to the right.

  She started to move again, carefully, keeping her eyes open, drawing out her penlight, because even dusk became so shadowed it was difficult to see more than a few steps ahead of her.

  Then she heard the scream of surprise and terror.

  Ahead, just ahead, but I have to be careful, careful!

  Branches and leaves tore at her clothing and hair as she moved along, but she could hear clearly then.

  Someone had taken hold of Connie. Someone laughing as she cried in terror.

  “You never can account for witches, eh?” a male voice demanded, his words filled with laughter. “Which witch is which, eh? Don’t you know yet, you foolish woman? And you call yourself a detective!” He broke off, laughing again. “Run, run, run from a witch aiming an AK-47 at you, and run right into the arms of a witch with a lethal blade!”

  Skye quickly theorized and calculated.

  Did only one of the witches carry an assault rifle? The leader, or perhaps the leaders, and this witch was possibly just a … brainwashed devotee?

  She drew her weapon and carefully moved forward. The witch had the detective caught in a hard hold against one of the trees; he had his arm across her throat—a powerful arm, most probably. Connie was just staring; the force of his hold prevented her from reaching for her weapon.

  If she still carried one.

  Skye saw the man had a knife in his free hand. Despite the shadows, the weapon glinted in the frail remnants of the dying sunrays that made their way through branches and leaves.

  It was time to step forward. Glock out, she aimed at the man.

  He didn’t ease his hold on the detective or loosen his grip on the knife as he turned to see who stepped out from the trees. He might be drugged, but he wasn’t stupid. He held still, staring at her.

  “I don’t really care which witch you are,” Skye said casually. “Let her go, or I’ll put a bullet through your head. I don’t know what all you’ve been told; but witch, human, whatever—a bullet through the brain will end it all for you.”

  “You shoot me; I slice her throat,” the witch told her. “That’s a promise.”

  Skye shrugged. “You’ll be dead.”

  “A martyr to the cause!” the witch said.

  Skye smiled, hiding the fact she was desperately thinking, trying to remember everything she had ever learned in her training about defusing a situation and negotiating.

  “That’s really not true. There is no great cause. And you’ve been running around the woods a lot, I’m guessing. Have you had any encounters with the devil?”

  “You don’t know the devil!”

  Skye smiled and laughed softly. “I don’t? But isn’t that the point? That the rest of the world—other than your master and your group, or tribe, however you identify—dance with the devil in the woods all the time? I mean, seriously, think about it. If I was in league with the devil, couldn’t I just call on him to knock you on the head and take you out?”

  The green-skinned witch shook his head slightly.

  But he never loosened his hold. If his arm slammed against Connie’s neck with any greater force, he might well suffocate her or break her hyoid bone.

  “Ease up on her! Let’s talk,” Skye said.

  He shook his head. “I ease up on her, you shoot me.”

  “I don’t shoot you. I’m a law enforcement agent. If you just let her go, I am not legally allowed to hurt you. You see, there are laws. Laws that protect the innocent. You’ve been drugged. You’ve been given so much stuff that you do see things in the darkness, maybe your great master makes you think the devil is there, and only he is able to keep the devil away with his great strength. I won’t shoot you. Let her go.”

  He shook his head slowly, confused, but still determined that what he believed had to be the truth.

  Tears were streaming down Connie’s cheeks.

  She was a detective. But that didn’t mean she was ready to die.

  “Listen to me! Pay attention!” Skye begged again. “If I knew the devil, wouldn’t he come and help me right now? But as you can see, I don’t have a devil with me. The devil could come up right behind you—”

  “No!”

  But along with his protest, Skye heard a dynamic thudding sound.

  And despite his protest, the man staggered back, let out a strangled yelp of pain, and dropped his knife.

  As he staggered back, his foot caught on a tree root and he crashed down to the forest floor.

  And to Skye’s relieved surprise and amazement, Zach stepped out from around the tree.

  “Not the devil. Just me!” he said, shaking his head as he looked down at the witch.

  “Thank God!” Skye murmured.

  The man on the ground moaned and mumbled a broken word: “Maybe!”

  Connie was collapsing. Zach quickly caught her and eased her down to the ground before turning back to their witch.

  But by then, Skye had already rushed forward, straddling over the man in the green makeup and the black getup, pulling his hands behind his back and cuffing him.

  Zach was on the phone, swearing beneath his breath.

  “What?” she asked, trying to get the heavy man back up to his feet.

  “Nothing is getting through. We need to get closer to the road. Connie is going to need help, and I may have broken this … witch’s jaw.”

  “Up!” Skye commanded, ready to assist the man she’d handcuffed.

  “Why?” he cried. “Just kill me here!”

  “We’re not going to kill you!” Skye said. “Up!”

  “I’m trying! Please, I need help!”

  “Fine, I’m happy to help you,” Skye told him. “You’re under arrest for assault and attempted murder.”

  She proceeded to read him his rights.

  But he did need help, and she gave it to him. His bulk seemed to be more from bloating than muscle—as if what he ate was very bad for him. Clutching his arm, she helped him shift his weight up. He stood, staggered again, but he found his footing.

  “Lead the way,” Zach told Skye. “Remember—”

  “Follow the broken branches!”

  It was impossible at that time to ask him what had happened when he’d gone into the restaurant, and how in the world he’d managed to get behind that tree, and to be right where she’d need him, right when she’d needed him.

  It was logical, of course, that she move ahead. Connie was almost completely out of it; Zach had lifted her and was carrying her rather than trying to drag her.

  But if she led, that left him able to react if their captive made any wild attempt to escape or attack them.

  Skye realized Connie hadn’t said a word since Zach had arrived. She had surely realized that she was going to live.

  That she was back with the people with whom she worked.

  But she was now just semiconscious. And once they got help to bring the man in for interrogation, after getting both him and Connie medical care, they could ask all the questions they wanted.

  As they came closer to the road and the café, Skye heard Zach on the phone as he called in their position and situation.

  They had barely cleared the last of the trees before she heard sirens. By the time they were back on the road, an ambulance and two police cars had arrived.

  Gavin jumped out of one car himself, looking anxiously at them—and at Detective Berkley in Zach’s arms.

  EMTs were coming forward, looking for explanations.

  “I don’t know … I don’t know,” the detective said, shaking her head. “I don’t know how, but … I can’t … The witch, the other witch … they’re so green. They blend in with the forest. But the one, I think, can breathe fire … that one. He was coming. I should have never thought that I had gotten far enough. I should have just stayed hungry and thirsty … I thought I could figure something. I don’t know … I don’t know …”

  “She’s been given something,” a young EMT said. “And you don’t know what?”

  “No, but she was able to scream and talk about twenty minutes ago,” Skye told him. “She took off from the café—”

  “It was in the coffee! And then … then I saw him, and I knew that I shouldn’t have been in there, that I should have stayed in the trees!” Connie said.

  “I’ll go with her to the hospital; Ben is driving the first patrol car. He’ll get our witch into the station—”

  “He might need medical assistance, too,” Zach said. “I gave him a pretty good right on the jaw, had to get him to fall back, get his arm off Connie’s throat, and force him to drop the knife.”

  “You didn’t break my jaw,” the witch said. “Take me, prosecute me, hang me!”

  “Get him in the car!” Gavin said impatiently.

  As he spoke, they noticed that people were coming out of the café. “Ben is in the car—have him take this guy!” Skye said, releasing her hold on the witch and looking at Zach.

  “Send the officers in the second car to help!” Zach said.

  Skye and Zach took off to head across the street.

  “What happened when you came in here?” she asked.

  “There was no one—just a waitress and the few customers who we’re seeing coming out now,” Zach said. “I asked the waitress what had happened, why a woman had gone running out. The waitress told me she had no idea—and the customers were all just as confused by what had happened.”

  They reached the area around the front door of the Out of the Woods Café.

  “What’s going on?” Zach asked quickly.

  A middle-aged woman, with two very young children, answered, “I don’t know! Nothing. We couldn’t find the waitress, and that man over there looked in the kitchen and there was no one there. And that crazy lady had looked at the TV and then went running out, as if monsters were after her … Then we heard sirens, and I felt I needed to get my grandkids home. It was getting weird. And we all saw that press conference with the captain of the police … I think we’re all scared, and we want to get out of here! We were just customers in that restaurant. Please …”

  “Yes, yes, but we’ll need your name and address, just in case we need to talk to you again,” Zach said. Skye noted that a young policewoman, along with her partner, an older policeman, had come out of their car and had followed her and Zach across the street—as Zach had asked.

  “Of course, you can get the kids home,” Skye said to the woman, “just please give your information to the police officer.” She raised her voice and spoke to the others who were trying to move toward their cars. “Please! Help us! Just tell these officers what you saw, or give them your contact information, and you’re free to go. No one is under fire here; we’ll just take all the help we can get!”