First Watch of Night by Rysa Walker

Author:Rysa Walker [Walker, Rysa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Starry Night Books
Published: 2024-02-08T00:00:00+00:00

The realtor messaged Claire to say that he was running late but could be there in half an hour, maybe sooner if traffic wasn’t too bad. Claire messaged back asking if there was any way he could send the code so that she didn’t have to wait in the heat. She could almost hear the man’s annoyed sigh, but he sent her the code.

Claire paid their tab and headed to the door to wait for Alice, who was in the restroom. The waiter gave her a little wave, clearly happy with the extra generous tip—which he would no doubt tell everyone was hush money to keep him quiet about her role in the Mars hoax.

“We need to hurry,” she told Alice as she ushered her toward the sidewalk. “I have the code, but we’re going to have company a bit sooner than I’d hoped.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of time to search. I did two years of improv theater in my previous life. I can keep him distracted.”

When they reached the front of the house, Claire entered the code into the pad on the door, remembering Shepherd’s comments about his mother doing the same thing, her hand shaking because she was so eager for the job to work out. The pad gave a cheerful little chirp and then the lock clicked, and they stepped into the foyer.

Aside from a bit of broken glass on the floor and a slightly rancid smell, there were no immediate signs of the vandalism the realtor mentioned. As they entered the first room on the right, she noticed that two walls were lined with shelves, so it was probably the downstairs library that Shepherd had mentioned in the memoir.

Claire’s stomach sank when she stepped inside and saw the other two walls.

One of the windows was still broken, despite what the agent had said about having them replaced. And the rest of it…

Alice turned around in a slow circle, taking everything in. “Is that … blood?”

“Not real blood. Or at least, I don’t think so.” Claire pointed at the balloon remnants on the floor near the baseboard. “My brother calls these things blood bombs. A favorite toy of the Flock. And that?” She nodded toward the words scrawled in the red goop on the wall behind Alice. “That’s the same bible verse the drone was quoting outside my house the other day. Or a part of it, at any rate.”

“For in the day that thou eatest thereof...” Alice read. “Kind of weird that they ended it there.”

“Yeah. If they weren’t going to smear the entire message on the wall, you’d think they’d have opted for the actual death threat.”

“Maybe they were interrupted. Or they might have gotten spooked. Which I kind of understand, at the moment.” She pulled up something on her screen and tapped a few times. “Do you still think the book is here?”

“Probably not, since the Flock seems to have beaten us to the punch, but … they may not have known where to look.

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