Page 51 of Crime and Publishing

That’s not right. We should be hearing heavenly trumpets, not the blare of a car horn…

A car horn…

It was then that the details of the scene before me solidified. I could make out the shape of Jonathan’s range rover, the bonnet all bent and mangled, in the middle of the room, with bits of brick and wood and building piled around it. Behind it, a huge, jagged hole opened the room to the world outside.

“I’ll be damned,” Heathcliff growled as he struggled to his knees, his chest heaving as he breathed in the fresh air pouring into the hole.

“Birdie…” Morrie gasped.

Quoth shoved his head out the window, waving at us from across the debris. “Jonathan was right about something – a diesel engine will save the day.”

CHAPTERTHIRTY-THREE

Quoth ran to me, tucked me under his arms, and dragged me out the hole he’d created, onto the sodden lawn. I gasped at the fresh air. Shards of ice stabbed at my lungs, but I was so grateful for the pain. I could feel because I wasalive.

Thanks to Quoth.

“You…” I rasped, struggling to speak. “You saved me…again.”

“Always.” He kissed the top of my head. “I’ll always find a way to you in the darkness.”

I clung to him as I breathed and sobbed, so grateful for his warmth and his love and his ingenuity. Bitter cold rain pelted our bodies, sluicing away my tears before they even left my eyes.

Quoth stroked my hair. “Are you okay if I leave you? I don’t want to, but I need to get Morrie and Heathcliff and Donna. They’re still too weak to move.”

“Yes. Go…”

Quoth lowered me against the earth, placing my body in the recovery position, probably in case I passed out. I lay shivering in the muddy grass, sucking in life-giving air, hacking and coughing as my body discharged the poison, when lightning lit up the sky and I noticed a dark shape moving across the edge of the fields.

“It’s Jonathan!” I yelled, although I think all that came out was a croak. “He’s getting away.”

“No, he won’t,” Heathcliff cried. His white robe flapped as he ran past me, taking off after Jonathan with a heavy object in his hand – Morrie’s ceremonial sword. Heathcliff grasped Quoth’s arm as he passed, and Quoth leaped after him, transforming into his bird midair and soaring ahead of Heathcliff.

But I couldn’t see any way they would catch him. Jonathan was far away from the house, and not even Heathcliff would be able to close the distance between them. And Jonathan knew the estate better than anyone. Once he and Fergus entered the trees, they’d be able to escape.

But Heathcliff didn’t chase after Jonathan. He veered off the path, and he and Quoth barreled toward a dark structure.

The aviary.

Quoth’s voice rang clear in the night, his croaking cries heard above the wailing wind. I couldn’t understand what he was telling the other ravens, but they clamored in reply. Heathcliff cried out as he fell upon the doors, hammering the pommel of the sword into the lock. With the power cut off, all he had to do was break the unit. He flung the door open and several dark shapes swooped past his head and took to the skies.

Quoth joined the unkindness, swooping low, croaking instructions. They soared across the lawn, majestic and terrifying as they went after their captor. All I could make out were majestic black specks swooping and dancing as they battled the storm. They dived into the trees. A moment later, Jonathan’s scream tore through the night.

Fergus came running out of the trees, straight into Heathcliff’s arms. “Don’t worry, boy.” Heathcliff hugged the dog. “You’re safe now.”

CHAPTERTHIRTY-FOUR

Morrie stayed with me, his arms around me in an attempt to ward off the chill, while Heathcliff and Quoth dragged Jonathan’s prone body back to the house. Before our eyes, the lights in all the rooms flickered to life, and a purring sound rose from one of the outbuildings. Someone got the generator working.

“Is he alive?”

“For his sins,” Heathcliff grunted as they lifted the heavy groundskeeper up the steps to the restaurant. “When he wakes up, he’ll wish he wasn’t.”

“Let that be a lesson to never piss off a raven.” Quoth dropped Jonathan’s legs on the carpet. Heathcliff dragged Jonathan into the private dining room where he’d trapped us only an hour before. Quoth had grabbed his clothes from the library and put them back on so that no one would ask why he was wandering around naked.

Heathcliff tied Jonathan’s hands with a curtain tie, removed all the swords, and locked the door behind him. We gathered in the restaurant, where several guests and the other writers were congregating after they heard the noise and felt the shudder of the car driving through the library.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Charlie said as Heathcliff filled him in on what had happened. “It was the groundskeeper all along. That Jonathan sure had us all fooled.”

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