Grimstone: A Croft and Wesson Adventure by Brad Magnarella

Author:Brad Magnarella [Magnarella, Brad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-06-23T22:00:00+00:00

“How’s it going, Prof?”

I didn’t realize how dark it had gotten until James snapped on the light. Remarkably, the trailer’s electricity still worked. I squinted at the open tomes spread over the table, then peered down at the notes I’d jotted into my legal pad. “Not as well as I’d hoped,” I grumbled.

“Why? What’s wrong?” He took the chair across from me. Annie padded under the table and licked one of my shoes before laying down. Being in the pit bull’s good graces, while nice, did little to console my frustration.

“I’ve read up on all the cult practices for Hel in that region, but damned if I can find anything about the gold bracelet. Idols, sure. There’s plenty about those, as well as details on human sacrifice and full-moon offerings. But nothing about bracelets—or even blondes, for that matter.”

“Maybe the cult was secret,” James suggested.

“Maybe, but that still leaves us shooting blind.”

“There’s nothing you can take from the other practices?”

I consulted my notes as James stood and made his way to the fridge. He returned with a couple of beers, cracking their caps and placing one of the bottles in front of me. I broke my own no-drinking rule and took a swallow. I needed something to ease the brain strain.

“Well, in every case, destroying the idol will destroy the god,” I said.

James nodded. “There you go.”

“And the protective circles across cults are pretty similar, salt being the most common medium.”

James nodded some more in encouragement.

“But though some of the rites involve adorning the soon-to-be-sacrificed in jewelry,” I said, “there’s nothing about bracelets. I didn’t even find anything resembling the symbol Carla drew for us.”

“Still,” James said, “two for three ain’t bad. We’ll deal with the bracelet thing when we come to it.”

“If we come to it,” I said. “Look, the ads were a great idea—I’m not saying they weren’t—but what are the chances of the next victim, one, coming across the ad, and two, actually picking up a phone and—?”

The theme song to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly whistled from James’s pants. He pulled his phone from his back pocket. After checking the number, he shrugged as if to say it wasn’t in his contacts and raised the phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

Maybe this was Myrtle calling us back with information on who had purchased Sten’s ranch at auction. But when he spoke again, his voice took on a velvety texture.

“Why, yes, it is,” he said. “Can you describe the bracelet?”

I stood slowly, hands clasped together, not wanting to get my hopes up. There were probably more than a few women in Grimstone County desperate enough to respond to a personal ad that had nothing to do with them.

James snapped his fingers at me and nodded.

It’s her, he mouthed.

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