The Night Is Watching

Sloan listened while Jane replied that no one had known where Jennie was, so she’d gone down to the basement and heard her groaning and finally found her, only to be knocked on the head herself.



“Knocked on the head?” Henri burst out. “But...”



“Those stupid mannequins!” Valerie said.



“A mannequin did not knock her on the head,” Alice protested, “but those old bastards can hurt you. One of them fell on me when I first came to the theater and went to look at them, thinking they were so cool.”



“They’re evil, Henri! We should get them out of here,” Valerie said.



The paramedics started an IV on Jennie. One of them talked on his radio, and a minute later, two other emergency workers joined them, bearing a stretcher. The oldest of the group turned to Jane. “You come to the hospital, too. Head injuries can be dangerous.”



“I’m fine, really. I—”



“You need a scan. You could have a concussion,” Sloan said harshly. He took her by the arm. “We’re going to the hospital.”



“Sloan!”



“The hospital!”



“But...we don’t know what happened!” Henri said.



“All I know is that I found Jennie on the floor. I got my cell phone out to call for help, and the next thing I knew...I was waking up on the floor myself,” Jane told him.



Sloan was torn; he didn’t want Jane going to the hospital without him and he didn’t want anyone crawling around in the basement until he’d done the initial investigation himself.



“Chet,” he barked, calling his deputy.



“Yes, sir?”



“Stand at that door. No one goes in or out until I’m back.”



“Yes, sir!”



“If anyone comes out of that basement, arrest him!”



“Hey!” Henri frowned. “I need to get down there and see what kind of damage has been done. These two might have knocked over mannequins and been knocked out by them. Sloan, this doesn’t mean there’s some kind of a diabolical plot—”



“Henri, you started all this because you wanted to know who put the skull on the wig stand. By God, I’m going to finish it.”



The paramedics had already taken Jennie out. One of them was standing at the door impatiently, waiting for him and Jane. The hospital wasn’t quite two miles away; he could easily be back soon.



He narrowed his eyes. “We don’t know what’s going on in this town. The one thing we do know is that it involves more than the theater. I just found Caleb Hough dead in an abandoned mine. We’ve had two murders. You listen to me. No one goes down in that basement!”



Valerie gasped and the others stared at him in stunned silence.



He turned. Jane was staring at him, too. He grabbed her arm, leading her to the door.



“Sloan—”



“X-ray or CAT scan—or whatever they do!” His words were a growl; he was acting like a macho jerk. But he was the sheriff—and it was going to be done his way.



They went out to the street as the paramedics and county cops cleared a path to the ambulance.



The sirens blared and they drove to the hospital.



* * *



Jane wished she’d come to long before Sloan had gotten to the basement.



She was poked and prodded, scanned, put into a hospital gown and given an IV and then a serious warning from a young doctor who said she did have a minor concussion, and that she needed to be watchful because of it. “You should be able to resume normal activity—but nothing strenuous. You were unconscious for a while. This could have been severe.” He paused. “You were fortunate.”



“Can I leave now?” Jane asked him.



“Yes, I’ll discharge you.” He looked over at Sloan, who’d been at her side throughout, except when medical procedure had dictated he wait outside. He’d taken that time, he’d told her, to talk to Detective Liam Newsome with county, and that conversation hadn’t improved his mood any.



“Yes, just take care.”



“She will.” Sloan leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest.



Ten minutes later, they were both seated in the back of a county patrol car, being driven to Lily.



The ride was silent. Uncomfortably silent. But apparently, Sloan didn’t want to talk in front of anyone else, so she didn’t try.



When they returned to the theater, it was open for business, with the restaurant and bar in full swing. Liz came hurrying to the door to meet them. “Jane, you’re all right?” she asked anxiously.



“I’m fine,” Jane assured her.



“And Jennie?”



“Jennie’s still unconscious, but she’s being given the best possible care,” Sloan said. “Where’s Henri?”



“Backstage, setting up for this evening’s show. He’s getting the cast to help him with everything Jennie usually did,” Liz said. “Your deputy’s been standing guard at the basement door since you left.”



“Thanks, Liz.” Sloan waited until she’d hurried off, then turned to Jane. “You should lie down for a while.”



“I don’t want to lie down.”



“I’ll take you upstairs,” he said.



“Listen to me. I’m fine. If there’s something to be found in the basement, you’ll find it faster with two people looking,” she said.



“Jane—”



“Sloan.”



He swore under his breath. “Come with me, then. But when we’re finished, you have to go to bed.”



“We’ll search the basement first,” she said stubbornly.



“I need to know exactly what happened down there,” he said, winding his way through groups of people, one hand on Jane’s back.



The crowd in the bar was rowdier and more cheerful—and much drunker. Sloan’s mood was like a thundercloud, and Jennie had difficulty disentangling herself from the people trying to stop her as she walked toward the door. Most wanted pictures, and she promised to pose with them later. Each time she did, Sloan, scowling fiercely, would step between her and the tourists, and they’d back off.



“I haven’t moved, Sloan,” Chet said when they reached the door. “Liz made coffee and brought it to me. No one’s been down there.” He started to smile at Jane, but cleared his throat and shifted awkwardly away from the door.



Sloan managed a brief, “Thank you, Chet.”



He walked down the stairs, not turning back as she followed him. He paused to pull a giant flashlight from his belt, using it as he went straight to the third section of the room—the place she’d forever think of as the mannequin’s lair.



With the light playing over the mannequins, they seemed far less real.



“So, relive every second of what happened,” Sloan said.



“I looked for Jennie upstairs. She wasn’t there.” Jennie hesitated. “I saw Sage McCormick. She led me to the basement door and then disappeared. I checked every room until I reached this part—the mannequin room—and then I heard a groan. I pushed over a few of the dummies and found Jennie.” She stopped for a moment, shivering. “When I went to take out my phone, I saw Sage again. She was warning me to look behind me and...and then something whacked me and I went down.”



“So someone was in here with you.”



“Yes.”



“One of the mannequins didn’t just fall?”



“I think it’s a little unlikely that a mannequin would fall and hit Jennie so hard that she’s still unconscious—and then fall on me, too. Don’t you?”



“Of course I do. I’m just asking you. Because, apparently, no one saw anyone come down here. Or leave.”



“No one was in the building when I came in. Well, except for Jennie.”



“Obviously, someone else was in the building—and in the basement.”



Sloan trained the light over the entire area. Now half the mannequins were on the floor.



“What are you looking for?” she asked him.



He pointed suddenly.



She stared in that direction and saw what seemed to be a partial footprint on the dusty floor.



“It could be anyone’s, Sloan.”



“Not really. Too big to be either yours or Jennie’s, and I’m not wearing work shoes. Walk around it. I’m going to get the crime-scene unit in here. See if you can find anything else.”



She tried to search without touching while he went meticulously through the room.



“Found it,” Sloan said.



“What?”



“The weapon.” He pulled gloves from his pocket and reached into the fallen pile of mannequins near the spot where she’d discovered Jennie.



He carefully lifted something out.



It was a cane, a Victorian walking cane with a snarling wolf for a handle.



“Grab the light,” he told her.



She did, shining it on the cane. On the handle, almost as if the snarling wolf had just bitten flesh, was a bloodstain.



“I imagine that’s going to be Jennie’s blood,” he said tersely. “You could have been hit a hell of a lot harder.”



“Yes, and like the doctor said, I’m very lucky I wasn’t.” She sighed impatiently. “Are you going to get that to a lab?”



He took out his cell. He spoke briefly but she could tell that he was speaking to Liam Newsome. “Yeah, I’ll be here until you send someone,” he said, and hung up.



“Newsome isn’t coming himself?” she asked.



“Newsome is still at the morgue with the body we found this morning,” he told her.



She felt dizzy and fought the sensation. Concussion. She had to be careful.



“You found someone—in the mine shaft?”



“Yes. I didn’t want to talk about it earlier. Not until we knew you were okay. You didn’t need anything else to worry about.”



“Who...who was it?”



“Caleb Hough, the rancher. His throat had been slit.”