Beasts of the Field: The Girlfriend

Episode IX

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← In Episode VII: The Investigation, Tim investigated Judith’s accident and searched for connections between it and Samantha Scott’s case.

While Beasts of the Field can be read as a standalone story, you may appreciate the characters and their interactions more if you are familiar with Judith’s first adventure, Down in the Holler, in which she investigated a cold case in rural Kentucky. Click here to read Down in the Holler.

Before Judith went anywhere, she needed to shower.

Upon finally entering a quiet, solitary motel room after too much time spent exchanging words with other humans, she usually experienced a massive surge of relief. But this time, after more than twenty-four hours in the hospital, being poked and prodded and woken up to have her blood pressure taken and medications administered at all hours of the day and night – especially the night, as though the night nurses were sadistic and bored – she breathed a shallow, painful, grateful sigh.

She’d shower in blissful solitude, with no one to gripe that she was a fall risk or ask her to rate her pain on a scale of one to ten, and then she’d get ready for Clem to pick her up to meet with Willow.

There had to be a reason, something in Samantha’s life, that would make her a target for murder. She had no family and few friends, and wispy, nervous Willow was Judith’s only avenue to get a deeper look at Samantha. Though Judith trusted that Tim could do an adequate job of digging into the details of Samantha’s life, she had less faith in the McFerrin Police Department. It was well within the realm of possibility that Willow knew something about Samantha that no one had bothered to ask.

Judith’s phone rang with a shrill, sudden pealing that stabbed through her forehead. She snatched it up to silence it. “Hello?”

“Hey, um –” Tim’s voice came through the line, low and slightly echoing, as though he was standing in a tiled hallway. “There’s been a little bit of a complication with the second autopsy.”

“Is it not going to happen?”

“No, it’s happening right now. But the whole plan for bringing the Lexington ME in when Heather – Dr. Tierney – was taking a day off…that didn’t quite work out. She – um – forgot her wallet at the office. And she walked right into the autopsy.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. She was not happy, to say the least.”

“Did she make a scene?”

Tim took a noisy breath. “Not exactly. She was pretty collected. But I mean – okay, she and I aren’t close anymore, but I knew her pretty well back in the day. And she looked…scared.”

“That’s to be expected, if she just realized that she might be charged with perjury.”

“Yeah,” Tim said slowly. “Yeah, maybe.”

An unfamiliar discomfort twisted in Judith’s chest. Of course Tim had romantic entanglements in his past. Everyone did. Nothing about the fact that Tim had an ex-girlfriend, or girlfriends, for that matter, should shock or surprise her. So why was she experiencing physiological symptoms just because Tim mentioned that he and tall, unfairly beautiful Dr. Heather Tierney used to be close?

“I need to take a shower,” Judith said.

In the brief moment that followed her words dropping into the ether of the telephone line, Judith wondered if the bald statement implying that she hadn’t bathed in over two days was an odd way to initiate the close of a conversation.

Tim, however, appeared unfazed. “Yeah, sure. You do what you gotta do. I’ll let you know when I hear back with the preliminary results.”

With a quick, stilted goodbye, Judith hung up the phone and reached for the duffel bag of clothes Constance had brought for her. Laying out comfortable, easy-to-put-on clothing that wouldn’t take much twisting or bending to get onto her body, Judith padded to the bathroom.

The air inside was thick and steamy, and mist fogged the mirror. Strange. The bathroom must have some sort of ventilation issue.

There was a used towel already hanging on the rack – a damp towel.

Judith backed out of the bathroom, confusion creeping up her spine and slithering into her thoughts. Her head ached. Reaching up, Judith pressed a hand to her forehead, then stopped. She moved her hand up to her hair.

It was wet. Dripping wet, leaving beads of moisture on her fingers.

Judith looked down. She wasn’t wearing her pajamas. She was wearing a scratchy bathrobe.

She had already taken a shower. When? Had it been right after she’d woken up? She’d gone to the lobby to get breakfast. Had she showered when she got back? When had it happened?

Her head throbbing, Judith sank onto the bed and stared as droplets of water plinked from her hair to her shaking hand.

---

“I got somethin’ for you to give to Willow. You mind if I stop by my house first so’s I can grab it ’fore you go down to talk to her?” Clem handled her old, dented brown truck with the confidence of a professional driver as it jerked and bounced up the country road, jostling Judith and sending pangs of sharp pain into her chest with every pothole.

“No, of course not,” Judith said through clenched teeth.

“Ain’t you supposed to be wearin’ that neck brace thing?”

“There was a disagreement between my doctors. The doctor who discharged me said that it wasn’t necessary and might actually cause the healing process to take longer. I decided that I preferred her recommendation to that of the first doctor.” Though, at the moment, Judith almost wished she did have a neck brace, or at least something to cushion her in the bumping vehicle.

They rumbled up the twisting mountain road until asphalt gave way to dirt and the trees thickened. The first warnings of winter filled the air, suddenly chilled by the frigid northern wind that sucked the warmth from the sunshine. Judith pulled her jacket, a faded fleece number she’d bought in college, tighter around herself. Constance must have fished it from the back of Judith’s closet when she’d tossed clothes into a bag. She hadn’t folded them, of course. Had they been folded, Judith would have known that Constance’s husband Steve had been the bag packer. But the wrinkles in the clothes had only caused Judith a moment’s foreseen distress, and they now were all folded or hanging neatly in her motel room.

“Willow’s been havin’ a hard time sleepin’,” Clem said as she pulled the car through a ramshackle gate with a weatherbeaten NO TRESPASSING sign attached to it by zip ties. “Told her I’d fix her up some of my sleepin’ tea. It’s a chamomile-lavender-passionflower concoction that’ll knock her right out. But I got some other deliveries to make too. Coupla the neighbors asked for some blends, so I’ll drop ’em off on the way back.”

The truck thumped over a lump in the road, and Judith sucked in her breath with a grimace, her fingers clenching the cushion of her seat.

Finally slowing to a stop outside the rustic cabin and its expansive garden, now mostly dry, gray, and dormant for the winter, Clem opened her door and clambered down. “You wanna come in? I’ll just be a minute.”

“No, thank you,” Judith said, struggling to fill her aching lungs with air now that she wasn’t being shaken to bits.

Clem nodded and ambled into the house.

With the car finally stationary, Judith leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes, turning all her attention to her breathing.

Dried, sleeping grass. Pine needles. The damp, dark scent of the surrounding woods. The smells wound into Judith’s mind, stirring up memories of a warmer day at this cabin, with Tim.

A sudden, shooting pain stabbed through her temple, and Judith sat up with a gasp, clutching her head.

Breathe, just breathe.

The pain clenched, squeezed, pierced, then slowly faded, leaving a faint throbbing in its place. Judith sank back again, leaning her elbow on the door and resting her head in her hand.

There had been flowers that day, with an intoxicating, lemony scent that mixed with the rich soil to take her back to a time when everything had been simpler. What were those flowers? Judith couldn’t identify the odor with a familiar, known flower, but it was so distinctive that she knew she’d recognize it if it ever drifted across her path again.

Judith slipped from the truck and wandered through the nearest section of the garden, where the hibernating plants slept in the chilly ground. The rest of the raised beds looked to be filled with tomatoes and squash and peas, but one bed held the dormant bodies of roses, daffodils, pansies, marigolds, lavender. Surely some of the plants could be used for tea, but Judith suspected that Clem also just liked to look at them when they were in full, colorful bloom.

One plant stood in its own separate pot, a small tree that grew up then stooped to hang low over Judith’s head. Its woody sections were a pale brown, and its foliage was withered, ready to detach and drift down to earth.

She didn’t recognize this one. Perhaps this plant had been the origin of the lemony musk, the scent that had caught her notice. The huge, bright, tube-like flowers, their tips a flash of pinkish-red like the flush of embarrassed cheeks, were now shriveled and gone, but they had been arresting, even for someone as ecologically ignorant as she was.

Pulling out her phone, Judith snapped a quick photo of the wintering plant.

“Not much to look at once the frost sets in, but it’s pretty in the summer,” came Clem’s voice behind her.

Starting, Judith moved to whirl around, then stopped short with a gasp of pain.

“Oh, look at me, sneakin’ up on you like that. Sorry, honey.”

Catching her breath, Judith shook her head in a manner that she hoped made it look as though she hadn’t really been frightened at all, thank you, and she felt fine. She wasn’t sure how convincing it was.

Back in the truck, they trundled down the hill to Noah Clampitt’s house, its vinyl siding a chipped, indeterminate shade of dirty gray.

“Sure you don’t want me to come in with you?” Clem said as she jerked the truck into park. “Don’t look like Noah’s home, thank the good Lord, but Willow can be a mite jumpy. Might open up a little more if she sees a familiar face.”

“I’d like to talk to her alone.” Judith reached for the door handle, then paused, realizing that Constance would nudge her to say something additional. “But thank you.”

“Hm.” Clem shrugged. “Well, I gotta few other deliveries to make to some neighbors. I’ll be just right down the hill. Back in a jiffy.”

Climbing gingerly down from the car, Judith made her slow ascent up the porch steps to the house. She wasn’t used to movement being difficult. How had she never appreciated how easy it was to jog up a few stairs? Now she had to clutch the railing and ease herself up like an aching old woman.

She rang the doorbell, and for several moments there was no sound, no movement in the house. Then, a flickering at the curtains, a flash of a pale blue eye. Behind her Judith heard the crunch of Clem’s tires backing away over the cold dirt of the driveway. The door opened just a crack, and a fragment of Willow’s face, even paler than when Judith had seen her a few weeks ago, peeked through the doorway.

“Judith Temple,” Judith said, holding out her hand, but Willow didn’t take it. “We met at the search party.”

Willow nodded but said nothing.

“I’d like to talk to you a little more about Samantha.” Judith paused, waiting for a response from Willow, who only bit her lip. “May I come in?”

Her eyebrows furrowing, Willow stepped back and opened the door just enough for Judith to slide through.

Judith had seen the interior of the house only in a brief vision, but as she stepped inside the momentary insight flashed through her memory. She’d been exactly correct, down to the dripping brown smoke stains on the walls. The place was stuffy, a dank haze hovering in the air. It looked as though Willow had been in the midst of cleaning up, as a trash bin full of soda cans and food wrappers stood in the narrow doorway between the living room and the kitchen. Ambiguous stains splattered every piece of furniture, and the only object in the room that seemed to have had any thought put into its placement was the wide-screen television mounted on the wall. In one or two places, there were fist-sized holes in the wall plaster, just as Judith had seen, back when she’d done her reading for Tim a lifetime ago. She’d have to flip back through her notebook to mark those statements as accurate.

But, no. No, she wouldn’t. No one had been able to find her notebook after –

A new notebook. She’d get a fresh notebook and add these results. No need to dwell on it.

Judith made her way to the mottled brownish couch, searched for a gap in the stains, and slowly sank down. Even lowering herself to sit was painful, to the point that she had to catch her breath before she could look up at Willow, perched on a chair nearby.

“Could I get you, um, water?” Willow shifted in her seat. “Or I think we have some Mountain Dew in the fridge.”

“No, thank you. Are you aware that I’m a psychic?”

“What?”

“A psychic. I do psychic readings for people, and I occasionally consult on cases with law enforcement. That’s how I became involved with Samantha Scott’s case.”

Willow seemed to perk up, an echo of the talkative girl Judith had met at the search party. “You, like, read people’s auras and stuff?”

“No. But I would like to do a psychic reading on you.”

“On me?”

“I usually prefer to do my readings before I know anything about the person in question, but that’s not possible now. May I do a reading on you?” Recently Judith had been trying, when possible, to ask permission before doing her readings. Constance had pointed out that Judith might be creating an ethical dilemma for herself by not asking for consent beforehand, and, though Judith had experienced plenty of situations in which it would have been foolish, dangerous, or even impossible to ask permission prior to using her abilities, she had to acknowledge that in the regular course of her activities it was ethical to obtain consent first.

A flicker of excitement passed over Willow’s face. “I-I guess so. Sure. What are you lookin’ for?”

“I’m not looking for anything in particular. I just reach out and see what’s there.”

“See what’s where?”

“That –” Judith paused. “There are…theories about the what and the where, but as yet there are very few concrete answers. There are certain research groups looking into individuals who appear to be able to perceive or influence the physical world in ways that go beyond the known laws of physics. Someday we may know the what and where and even possibly the why, but currently the research is centered on field investigations and limited, controlled studies. Studying the phenomena without knowing how to study the cause.”

Looking up at Willow’s bewildered face, Judith snapped her mouth shut. She cleared her throat. “I’ll go ahead and do the reading now.”

“Do you need me to, like, do anythin’? Think good thoughts, or somethin’ like that?”

“No. You can just sit.” Closing her eyes, Judith took a labored breath and reached out.

Pain shot like a knife through Judith’s skull. With a gasp, her eyes popped open, her hands flying to her head.

Willow’s eyes were wide, her hands clasped in her lap. “Does that always happen?”

“Hold on a moment, let me –” Judith closed her eyes again, and again she opened herself up to whatever might be there, wherever there was. She pressed her lips together, pushing away the tendrils of anxiety creeping deeper into her chest. Perhaps it was just a fluke, perhaps it was –

Stabbing, piercing pain like a blade in her head, like a vise clamped around her skull. She would burst, or split open like a melon dropped on the rocks.

With a stifled shriek, Judith forced her eyes open and fell back into the rancid couch. Her breaths came hard, needling her abdomen with each inhale, but she sucked the air into her lungs anyway.

“You sure you don’t want some water?” Willow said.

“No. I mean, yes, I’m sure.” Judith pushed herself back into a fully upright position.

What was happening?

Squeezing her shaking hands in her lap to hold them still, she looked up at Willow. “Maybe you could just tell me more about Samantha. Had you ever heard her mention anything about her time at college? Was there anyone in town who had ever hurt her, anyone who might want her dead?”

“We didn’t really talk much after high school graduation,” Willow said. Her words came faster now, her voice growing brighter. “Different paths, you know. Wasn’t no way I was ever gonna go to college, not with my grades. My mama said I graduated by the skin of my teeth. But if you wanna know if anybody ever hurt her, you’d be lookin’ at near everybody our age in McFerrin County. Lotsa bullies, especially in middle and high school, and Samantha, she was an easy target. But it was all kid stuff. Nasty comments in the hallway and junk like that. The worst I’d ever seen was when Roddy Andrews kicked her cane away and tripped her on purpose.”

“Oh.” Judith’s stomach clenched, a directionless anger shooting through her veins.

“It wasn’t all bad,” Willow said quickly. “There was lotsa good kids too. Right after Roddy tripped her, Cole Jackson – he was a football player – shoved him up against a locker and told him to knock it off. Roddy didn’t mess with her again after that.”

“Can you think of anyone who might have wanted her dead?”

Her face turned even paler, her skin taking on a hint of translucent blue, and Willow shook her head.

“It’s still unclear how she died,” Judith said.

“Really?” Willow frowned. “Thought they had a doctor come look at her, or somethin’ like that.”

“They did, and they’re getting a second opinion as we speak. But as of now, no one is sure what killed her.”

The crunch of dirt beneath heavy tires drifted from outside, and Willow tensed. Darting to the window, she peeked out of the blinds, then spun back toward Judith. “You better go.”

“What’s wrong? Who is it?”

Willow rubbed her arm, her lips tight. “Noah gets touchy about people bein’ in his space.”

“I’m not trying to rifle through his things or cause problems. I just have some questions for you.”

A car door slammed outside, and Willow turned panicked eyes to Judith. “Please, you gotta go.”

Slowly, trying not to bend her torso, Judith pushed herself to her feet. The creak of old porch wood under heavy footsteps broke the silence, and Willow backed away from the door.

The door flew open, bouncing against the doorstop, and Noah Clampitt staggered inside.

Half of Judith’s mind urged her to hurry, to slip out the door before he took stock of his surroundings, but the other half stared at his bloodshot eyes, his sickly green-white skin, his clenched hands, his limbs that seemed to jitter and vibrate. He was under the influence of something - she could tell that much at a glance.

Noah stopped just inside the door, his gaze wavering between Willow and Judith. “What is this?”

“She’s just visiting –” Willow began, her voice a whisper.

Noah moved toward Willow with a sudden, stalking violence that sent a cascade of icy fear down to Judith’s fingertips, and Willow shrank back against the wall. “You tellin’ lies about me?”

“No, I ain’t said nothin’ about you.”

Judith stepped around the couch toward them. “I was asking Willow questions about Samantha Scott.”

Noah’s bloodshot green eyes latched onto Judith. “Get outta my house.”

“I will.” Slipping her bag over her shoulder, Judith inched toward the door. “Although, I am curious, Mr. Clampitt. Did you know Samantha Scott?”

Noah closed the distance between them in two strides, enough time only for Judith to take a stumbling step backward and for her heartrate to leap into action, fluttering like a hummingbird’s wings. Snatching her arm, Noah yanked Judith to the door and flung her into the cold air. Judith slammed into the porch railing with an agonizing jolt of pain that knocked her to her knees. The faded wooden boards of the porch faltered, watery and unclear, before her eyes as she gasped through the stabbing in her chest.

The door smashed shut behind her with a force that shook the porch, and the muffled roar of Noah’s raised voice leeched through the walls.

Pulling herself to unsteady feet, Judith fished her phone from her bag and struggled to find Tim’s number, fought to get her trembling fingers to press the right buttons.

She turned back and banged her fist against the door. “I’m calling the sheriff!”

From inside came a crash, the sound of wood splintering.

“Hey, what’s up?” In Judith’s ear, Tim’s voice came, calm and cheerful and collected, jarring against the ragged fury, the horrible crashing sounds, inside the house.

“Noah came back when I was talking to Willow,” Judith gasped into the phone. Clutching her spasming side, she struggled down the porch steps. “He threw me out of the house, and I don’t know what’s going on in there now, but he’s yelling, and I heard something smashing –”

“Are you all right?” Tim’s voice changed, a sudden current of urgency thrumming through it. “You need to get out of there right now.”

“Willow’s still in there with him.”

“I’m coming,” Tim said. His voice crackled, lost for a moment in the uncertain cell phone reception. “I’m getting in my car now. With my lights going, I can get there in ten minutes.”

“I can’t leave her in there for ten minutes!”

“You’re in no condition to intervene.” All the nonchalance was gone from Tim’s voice, every word hard and sharp. “The only thing you’ll succeed in doing is getting yourself hurt even worse than you already are.”

Her legs wobbling, Judith staggered away from the house. Ten minutes. In ten minutes, Willow could be unconscious and bleeding. In ten minutes, Willow could be dead.

Her head pounding, her eyes watering with pain, Judith backed away from the house, until something black loomed in the corner of her vision. She turned her head, the world moving in slow motion.

Noah’s truck. It was black. Big too, with massive tires far too large for its frame. And along the right hand side was a long, wide scrape where the paint flaked off to reveal bare metal beneath.

Judith’s phone slipped from her fingers. She stared at the truck, her hands curling into fists of their own accord. Trying to ignore her body’s pained protests, she dropped to her knees and scrabbled in the dirt, snatching her phone and clutching it back at her ear.

“Tim, it was Noah.”

“What was Noah? What’s happening?”

“His truck.” Her voice was slow and mechanical, deadened by fear. “It’s black, and it has a scrape along the passenger’s side.”

“Judith, get out of there now. Go down the hill and get as far away as you can –” There was a sudden hiss, and the line went silent.

“Tim?” She pulled the phone away from her ear. The call had dropped.

From the house came the high-pitched jangle of shattering glass, and Judith’s eyes shot up to see an old radio clock tumble through the broken window and land with a thud on the porch.

She wrapped her arms around herself, her whole body shaking, but her feet wouldn’t move. Wouldn’t move down the hill, further from harm, or up the porch toward Willow. Willow was in there alone, all alone, wispy as a stalk of dried wild grass.

She should have spent today in bed, watching daytime TV while her body healed. What was she doing traipsing around the mountains investigating a murder, putting a vulnerable young woman in danger, raising the ire of her raging, drug-addled boyfriend?

The rumble of tires behind her startled Judith. Clem’s old brown truck crested the hill and creaked to a stop just behind Noah’s car.

Clem’s eyes found Judith’s face, and her expression grew wary. Clambering down from the car in her slow way, she walked around the truck.

Judith fought to get the words out through chattering teeth. “Noah came back while I was with Willow.”

Without a word, Clem’s gaze moved from Judith to the house, then back again. Her face changed, suddenly fierce, its round softness turning feral. Her shoulders squared as though for a charge, she surged toward the house.

“I called the sheriff,’ Judith said. “He’s on his way.”

Clem did not respond. Barreling up the porch steps, she flung the door open. “Noah Clampitt!”

The lioness fury in her voice sent a sudden, clenching terror into even Judith’s veins.

Moments later, Willow stumbled from the house and clutched at the porch railing. Her skin was white, a nasty red mark blooming across the side of her face. With a frantic gesture, Judith beckoned her away from the house, and Willow hobbled down the steps and over to Judith.

She was shaking, but she wasn’t crying. Her eyes were wide, more white than blue, and her mouth was a thin, still line. Covering her face with her hands, she leaned back against Clem’s truck. Wincing, Judith put one arm around Willow, primarily because she wasn’t sure what else to do, and physical reassurance seemed like a technique that Constance would use in this type of situation.

Behind them came the grind of a hardworking engine, and Tim’s SUV hurtled over the steep driveway and skidded to a stop in a spray of dirt. He was out of the car in a moment, running to where Judith stood beside Willow.

“Are you okay?” Tim said. “Both of you.”

“Clem’s inside. I tried to stop her.”

His face set and his hand on his holstered gun, Tim ran toward the ramshackle house.

---

“He had this in his coat pocket.” Tim held up an evidence bag. Inside was a pistol, black and heavy, like Tim’s, with a silencer screwed to the end of it.

He held Judith’s gaze for a few moments, and, though reading non-psychic subtext was not one of Judith’s strong suits, even she felt the unspoken words drop into the air between them.

She had been mere feet away from the man who had tried to kill her once before, and the whole time he’d had a gun in his pocket.

Tim turned to Willow. “I can take you to the hospital, if you’d like to get checked out. Or Clem can drive you, if you’d prefer. I understand if you don’t want to sit in the same car.” He nodded his head to the flashing SUV, where Noah sat in the backseat with a mile-long, dead-eyed stare.

“Let me drive you, honey,” Clem said, steering Willow toward her truck. “You too, Judith. Neither one o’ you need to be in there with him.”

Tim put a hand on Judith’s arm as she moved to follow Clem. “Are you sure you’re okay? You said he threw you out of the house.”

“He did.” Judith rubbed her arms against the cold. “It-it didn’t feel great. But I’m fine now.”

Tim rubbed his hands over his eyes at the same moment that his cell phone started to ring. Giving Judith a wan smile, he pulled it from his belt. “Sheriff Morrissey. Oh, hey, Duffy. No, I’m – what?”

His face darkened, and he shook his head. “In McFerrin? No, it can’t be a mugging. A drug deal gone wrong, maybe? Look, I’ll be there to check in soon, see if they need any help.” Hanging up, he raised his eyes to Judith’s once again. “There was a shooting. In McFerrin. One person dead. It was within town limits, so it’s police jurisdiction, but I’m going to stop by and see if they need anything.”

“Do you know who was shot?”

Tim shook his head and pulled off his hat, running distracted fingers through his hair. “This has always been a quiet county. What’s gotten into people?”

While she would have preferred to ride with Tim, a surge of guilt wound tight in her stomach at the sight of Willow, her eyes blank and the red mark on her face already starting to bruise, staring out the window of Clem’s truck. Judith eased herself up into Clem’s too-tall vehicle, and Willow scooted over, taking the middle section of the bench seat.

The ride was quiet and bumpy, jostling Judith until she thought her ribs would fall to pieces. Not a word passed between the three women until they neared McFerrin town limits, when Willow turned her head slightly toward Judith.

“There’s somethin’ I didn’t tell you earlier, ’bout Samantha.” Twisting her hands together in her lap, Willow kept her voice low. “Noah, he drinks sometimes, takes Oxy and other stuff. Sometimes pretty intense stuff.”

She tapered off, and Judith waited. Expectant silence, that was another tip Judith had learned in that negotiation class that had been worth its weight in gold. People have an instinctive need to fill silence; if you want information from someone, let the silence dangle.

“He brags sometimes, when he gets like that. Talks about stuff he’s done, tries to make himself look tough for his friends.” Bitterness jabbed into Willow’s voice like the sudden prickle of a thorn bush. “I heard him talk, this one time, a coupla weeks ago, ’bout him and his friends grabbin’ a girl. He didn’t even care I was listenin’.”

Clem made no sound, but her mouth tightened. Her eyes narrowed, and her knuckles turned white around the truck’s steering wheel.

“What do you mean grabbing a girl?” Judith said.

Willow took a long, wavering breath. “Said he was out drivin’ with a coupla his friends, and they saw a girl walkin’ by herself –”

“When was this?”

Willow shrugged.

“Could he have been talking about Samantha?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t wanna think about it, but I-I’m done protectin’ him.”

Judith took a breath, struggling to contain herself. “What did he say happened next?”

“They was gonna take her up in the mountains to – you know – but I don’t think they was gonna kill her or nothin’. Just leave her there after, probably. Make her walk back alone. But –” Willow paused, her chin quivering.

“What is it?”

“He said – he made a joke about her not bein’ able to identify them. On account of she couldn’t see real good.”

Judith’s skin grew cold, and she realized that her fingernails were digging into her knees. “Are you saying that Noah and his friends may have killed Samantha?”

“When he was tellin’ the story, one of the other guys cut him off,” Willow said. “Said he was leavin’ off the endin’. Said that –” She hesitated, biting her lip. “Said that somebody stopped ’em. Somebody saw ’em and took Samantha away. So they never got to do – what they were gonna do.”

“Who took her away?”

“I dunno, somebody.” Willow held her hands to her face, her voice shrinking. “I shoulda told you, or told the sheriff or somebody, a long time ago.”

The flashing of red and blue caught Judith’s attention as they passed through downtown McFerrin. Along one side of the street, police cars lined the road, and an ambulance sat in an alleyway, its lights pounding in frenetic colors across the brick buildings on either side of it.

“You’ve told me now,” Judith said, craning her neck to see what was going on past the line of flashing cars. “I’ll let the sheriff know, and he may want you to make a statement.”

Ahead of them, Tim’s SUV pulled up next to a car marked COUNTY SHERIFF. Duffy stood near it, his arms crossed and his face sober.

Clem inched her truck closer and rolled down the window. In the rule-following portion of her mind, Judith knew she ought to discourage such behavior, but on a more practical level, she too was deeply curious about what they might overhear.

A sudden pressure on her arm drew Judith’s attention back to Willow, who clasped her forearm. Clem, apparently unsatisfied with eavesdropping out of Judith’s window, had opened her door and now stood leaning on the hood of her truck, watching law enforcement mill around the scene.

“It wasn’t just somebody,” Willow hissed.

“What?”

Willow glanced out the window at Clem, whose eyes were fixed on the EMTs. Leaning closer, she whispered in Judith’s ear. “It was Leon.”

“Leon Skaggs? Clem’s son?”

Willow nodded. “He took Samantha from Noah and his friends. So he – maybe –”

“He was the last person to see her alive.” Her thoughts kicking into motion like a dust storm, Judith turned her gaze back toward Tim’s parked car, an impractical desire surging through her to leap out of the truck and run to tell him now, right now.

As she watched, Tim stepped out of his car and moved toward Duffy. “Hey, what’s going on? They figure out who it is?”

Turning around quickly, Duffy stepped in front of Tim, blocking his way. “You don’t wanna go over there.”

Tim stopped, cocking his head. “Why not?” he said slowly. “What’s going on? Who is it?”

“They think the shots were fired round about an hour ago,” Duffy said, his voice so low that Judith had to strain to hear it. “But nobody found her ’til it was too late.”

“Nobody heard the gunshots?”

Duffy shrugged. “Silencer, maybe?”

“Duffy, who is it?”

Shaking his head, Duffy leaned toward Tim, but the sudden rattling of a gurney over rough asphalt swallowed his words. Judith’s eyes snapped to the EMTs and the gurney, draped with a white sheet. But at one end of the stretcher, a long, sleek, dark ponytail peeked out, trailing toward the ground.

A bolt of ice shot down Judith’s spine, cascading to her fingertips and coursing through her legs. Leaning out the window, she searched for Tim’s face. He stood unmoving, staring at the gurney, his eyes wide and skin pale with shock.

Judith sank back into her seat, focusing on her shallow, painful breaths.

Heather Tierney. Someone had murdered Heather Tierney.

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Thank you so much for taking time to read Beasts of the Field!

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