I awoke to the sun and an empty bed. I tried not to be hurt. This wasn't a relationship. We'd both made that perfectly clear. So why did I feel as if I'd been screwed in more ways than one?
The only indication that Adam had been here at all were his jeans on the floor and my dry clothes, neatly folded on the dresser.
My gris-gris perched at the apex. I wondered what he'd made of that Probably nothing. Having lived here all of his life, he'd no doubt seen a thousand of them.
Would it still work after being soaked by rain, then scorched by electric heat? I had to hope so, since I needed to get through the swamp without being eaten by alligators. I couldn't believe I was putting such store in a bag of herbs, except I hadn't seen a gator since Charlie died.
I got dressed and shoved the gris-gris in my pocket My hair was a mess, or at least it felt that way to my fingertips. I couldn't find a mirror anywhere.
There was something odd about that, but I couldn't figure out what without coffee. There wasn't a pot in the house, either. Maybe Adam was just a guy's guy - didn't case to pimp. And really, what could he do? He was gorgeous wearing tattered pants, a two days' growth of beard, and twigs in his hair. I wish I could say the same about myself, minus the beard, of course.
In the kitchen, I pounced at a scrap of paper on the counter, frowning at the map, which detailed a path from the shack to the mansion. There wasn't a single personal word on the page.
What had I expected? A declaration of everlasting love?
"A little praise would be nice," I muttered as I made my way to the door. " 'Hey, Diana, rabbits pale in comparison to you.'"
I snorted at my own wit. Might as well, no one else would.
The storm was gone, leaving behind a bright blue sky through which the sunshine blazed Shards of light Sparkled off the glistening droplets of rain that lingered everywhere. From the position of the sun, I'd missed not only breakfast but lunch.
In the night, the cypress trees had seemed to blot out the moon and the stars. Against the sun, they weren't any help at all.
I glanced about hopefully, mind cursing my own stupidity when I realized I was looking for Adam. Why would he leave a map if he was going to be around? Even stupider was wanting so badly to see him.
If I wasn't careful I'd forget every vow I'd made. I'd stop searching for the loup-garou and spend all my time in bed. The idea was far too tempting.
Annoyed with the wishy-washiness of my resolve, I forced myself to march toward the bedroom window to search for backs. The ground was damp; there had to be something. Unless there'd been nothing.
Coming around the corner of the house, I stopped dead. The earth beneath Adam's bedroom window had been turned up, as if someone had considered planting flowers or a shrub, then changed their mind.
Except the yard was a swamp. Anything planted there would be overtaken in a month. What would be the point?
There wasn't one, unless the ground had been dug up to hide something. The tracks of a man or a beast?
I wanted to see Adam more than ever. Instead, I followed the map, returned to the mansion, changed my clothes, and left for town.
I planned to head straight to Cassandra's. Something weird was going on - in either the swamp or my head or both. She was the only person who'd given me any sort of answers. Bizarro as they might be.
However, as I was trolling for a parking place, I remembered the library and the newspaper articles I'd already paid for, so I swung the car around and made a slight detour.
The clippings were at the desk as Mrs. Beasly had promised, but she wasn't When I asked for her, the girl who'd handed me the packet whispered, "You don't know? She never came in to work."
Now why would I know that? People ditched work all the time, though Mrs. Beasly didn't seem the type. She was more the type to have fallen and she couldn't get up.
"Did someone check her house?"
The young woman, who looked nothing like a librarian in the low-slung pants that barely covered her crack and the high-cut shirt, which barely extended beyond her breasts, nodded. "She's just... gone."
"Gone?"
"Her car, her purse, her suitcase all right where she left them, but no Mrs. Beasly."
That was new. No animal attack, no death by strangulation. Just poof. Maybe Mrs. Beasly's disappearance was unrelated.
I glanced at the manila envelope in my hand. But I doubted it