Flame in the Dark Read online

  I turned off the blanket, crawled out of the warmth, and shivered in the cold. I added two oak logs to the firebox, thinking again about that electric heater I hadn’t bought. I dressed in a hurry, the clothes warm from contact with the electric blanket. I stared at myself in the unfamiliar clothes, the ones bought for my undercover persona by JoJo and T. Laine on what they called a “girls’ night out.” I looked long and lean in the tight jeans and the tall heels, but also odd, half-finished.

  So I made it worse.

  I shoved my hair up under the stocking skullcap and situated the wig in place. Put on the earrings, one a real Cherokee Indian arrowhead wrapped in silver wire, the other a silver hoop big enough to catch on my clothes. I’d have to be careful not to hurt myself. I hadn’t had pierced ears for long and I might snag the earrings and yank the jewelry through the earholes. I drew on heavy eyeliner in shades of green and purple with a thick band of black. Layered on the mascara. I added powder to make me paler. And pale lipstick.

  I stared at the stranger in the cheval mirror. My new height and the tight clothes made me look modelesque, though three-inch heels with crisscrossing straps were going to make it hard to walk in the sleet. I’d manage long enough to do the meet and greet. The colorful hair was a shock, but . . . I looked . . . I looked really good, actually. I looked hot. Which was a very uncomfortable thought.

  I coiled my wig up into a bun and stuck hair picks into it. The picks had faceted onyx and skulls dangling from the ends. The multicolored hair looked better bunned up. Except for the sticks and the color of the wig, the hairstyle made me think of a churchwoman’s bunned-up look.

  It made me think of Mud with her hair up. For now, Daddy was keeping her safe, but I had to do something about her. Soon.

  I shook my head and the earrings swung against my neck, which looked too long and skinny. I wrapped a colorful scarf around it and then tried on my winter coat, which seemed out of style with the outfit. I rooted around in the closet, among Leah’s old clothes. I had never been able to make myself give away some things, even though I never wore them, and I remembered a quilted shawl made of velvet patchwork. She had made it at the same time she made the velvet quilt for the bed. I found it on a shelf and draped it around me. It looked splendid, perfectly matching the street-waif-meets-gypsy-fortune-teller look I hadn’t realized that I was going for. I repacked my gobags with fresh clothing and with extra goop for fixing my hair after I removed the wig. I felt a car pull into my drive. If I hadn’t been so busy, so distracted, or if I’d been barefoot, I’d have noticed it sooner. A knock on the door interrupted me and I sighed. Occam. Had to be. I’d had a bad feeling he would show here, wanting to chat before work. My gypsy-fortune-teller look was working.

  I threw the shawl across my chest and strode to the door. Threw it open. To see Benjamin Aden standing there.

  NINE

  “Is Nell ho . . . Oh,” he said. His blue eyes dragged from my sexy-sporty-strappy boots to the top of my colorful head.

  Shame and horror and shock twined through me. “I’m going undercover,” I blurted out.

  Ben’s eyes went wider if that was possible. “Nell, you look . . .”

  I got a breath and the shock of icy air cleared my head. I narrowed my eyes at him. “Not like a prostitute.”

  He shook his head. “You look fantastic.”

  That was not the reaction I expected from a churchman. The cold air was stealing my meager heat and I stepped back to let him in. He shut the door behind him and I walked away, knowing my backside in the tight jeans was . . . moving . . . in front of him. I wanted to wrap up in the shawl to hide, but I tossed it on the couch. I wasn’t a churchwoman. Not anymore. Except that I went straight to the woodstove, just like a good female in her homemade dress, and put a tea bag in a mug with the water I’d left heating. I put coffee on the Bunn, a strong French roast I knew a churchman would like. My tall heels clomped on the floor. I hadn’t offered Ben a seat. I was equally mortified and electrified.

  I got myself under control and turned back to him. “Have a seat.” Not Whyn’t you’uns take a chair and rest a spell. Not Welcome to my home. Hospitality and safety while you’re here. Not the old God’s Cloud of Glory sayings. The church and I were truly parting ways. At long last. My cell dinged with a text. I ignored it.

  Ben looked squirmy and twitchy, standing by the couch, looking everywhere but at me. Cello jumped up on the sofa and went to him for attention, sticking a demanding cat nose in his hand. Ben jerked away, his eyes wide. There was a cat on the sofa. Cats weren’t allowed in most church homes except when there was a mouse problem. I stifled a giggle.

  At the soft sound that escaped me, he flinched, but then he laughed and shook himself like a wet dog. He held out a basket in his other hand. I hadn’t even noticed it. “Your mama suggested you might like some fresh eggs. She has some new laying hens. Easter Eggers and Ameraucanas.”

  I accepted the basket and pulled back the cloth that covered the contents. There were greenish and bluish eggs inside. I put the basket on the long kitchen table. One designed and built for a multiwife family with dozens of children. It was dusty. Unused. There were cat tracks across it. The floor beneath was dusty too, the result of a wood-heated house and a homeowner too busy to clean. Another sign I was following the yellow brick road to hell. My silence had gone on too long.

  I glanced at Ben and away, fast. He was staring at me. “Please tell my mama thank you. And that I’ll be over to see her soon.” The Bunn stopped drizzling and I asked, “Cream? Sugar?”

  “Black, please. Um, Nell, your hair—” He stopped.

  A feeling like shame whipped through me. I knew what he had to be thinking. What any churchman would be thinking. “I’m not a scandalous woman.”

  His blue eyes widened. “I know that. I’m—”

  “I’m a law enforcement officer.” Still speaking, I placed the cup with a cloth napkin on the coffee table and turned back to the stove. “I have an interview with a girl who dresses like this. It’s to make her feel comfortable so she’ll talk. Like Paul when he went into the pagan temple and talked about the missing god. He didn’t condemn. He started where they were.”

  “I know my Bible, Nell,” Ben said, amusement in his voice. But he sat on the edge of the couch and tasted the coffee. “This is good.”

  “Thank you.” I carried my tea to the armchair and sat. It was totally inappropriate for me to have Ben Aden in my house, unchaperoned. Alone. Me, wearing sinful pants that showed off my feminine form. I fought a smile and sipped my tea. It needed to brew much longer, was weak and unsweetened. I sipped anyway, fighting the giggle that wanted to erupt from me. “My mama—”

  “Sent me to see you. Away from family.”

  “She’s matchmaking,” I said, thinking that she woulda never done such a thing except that I’d been widowed and the social mores were different for widder-women. “Being devious,” I added.

  “Oh yes. She is. It’s what churchwomen do whenever there’s a single man looking for a wife.”

  Looking for a wife. I sipped my tea. Placed the mug on the table with a soft thump. “Ben, I like my job. I like my life. I love my farm. I’m not a churchwoman anymore.” I was, however, babbling. “I ain’t—I’m not ever going to live on church grounds and be part of a huge family. I don’t even know if I want kids.” I stopped suddenly. I’m not human. That was the important part. I couldn’t say that. Some of the churchmen might still be desirous of burning nonhumans at the stake. It had happened before, long ago. A woman accused of being a witch, burned to death. Mud. Esther. Priscilla. Judith. Mama. Or perhaps Daddy. Or my whole family, every man, woman, and child. It would be a midnight fire, source unknown, fast burning. The church would never call a fire department. Everyone inside would die.

  Ben’s full lips moved in an easy smile that was slightly crooked, his teeth strong and white. “Nell . . .” It sounded
like a caress.

  I shook my head no. My cell dinged with another text. I pulled it from my pocket and cradled it in my hand without looking at it.

  Ben said, “I love the land and the people. I don’t love the lifestyle of four wives and forty children running around all over.” Forty children wasn’t an impossible number, if a man kept four wives and a few concubines all busy, but it made my frozen face crack a smile. “I came back to the church to effect change. Along with Sam and his other friends, we want to see the church move into the twenty-first century. I want a wife who can help that happen.”

  I stilled. Wife . . . I’d been a wife. It hadn’t been all bad. John was an old man when he told me it was time to come to the marriage bed. I was fifteen. I’d been an old bride by church standards. John wasn’t too demanding. A few times a month. And it had kept me safe. Until he fell sick and died and left me a widder-woman and landowner and far better off than the churchwomen. John had left Soulwood to me.

  Being in John’s bed had been unpleasant, but I’d thought it was worth it to be safe from the man who wanted to own me. It was the kind of compromise women made all over the world: sex and nurturing and nursing for safety. Prostitution of a different kind.

  “I don’t know if we would suit,” he said, “but I’d like to get to know you better. I’d like to take you to dinner.”

  I had been staring into the distance, and whipped my eyes to him.

  Dinner.

  His dark hair had fallen across his forehead in a long curl. Too long by church standards. And Ben Aden wanted to take me to dinner. Like Occam did. Occam who had kissed me. Playing the field, JoJo had called it once when I was in the room with her and T. Laine as they talked about men. Dating. “Oh. Umm. Oh.” I looked around the house as if I had never been there. Dusty. Cat prints. Lumpy brownish couch. Tattered chairs. I hadn’t noticed they were in such bad shape. John’s and Leah’s things. So little that was mine. I didn’t know what to say to Ben.

  Tears filled my eyes. Maybe fear. Maybe confusion. Maybe lots of things. I blinked hard to push them away. “Um.” My cell dinged again. Then twice more with reminders for the first two. I held up the cell as if to show him where the dings were coming from, or like a lifeline, and thumbed it on.

  The first text was from Mama, telling me she was sending someone over with fresh eggs. Not even thinking that I might be at work or sleeping off a night of work. No. Expecting me to be at home like a good churchwoman, because the idea of a woman with a regular job was beyond her world reference. Not mentioning Ben. Setting me up for matchmaking.

  The second text was from HQ, updating me as to time and location for the op.

  The last text was from Occam. It said, Driving up your mountain. We need to talk.

  “Oh. Dear Lordy Moses,” I whispered.

  “What?” Ben asked, concern lacing his voice.

  A car pulled up outside. Cello leaped to the floor and raced to the front door, as if knowing that a big-cat had come calling. Mworing loudly.

  “This is about to be uncomfortable,” I said, standing. “A coworker is here to have a chat.” All truth. Not lying at all. “I don’t know about dinner.”

  “Would you like to meet for coffee in the morning? Like normal people do? Somewhere in town?” Ben asked, bemused by my obvious and growing panic. A car door closed. The other cats raced to join Cello.

  Were the cats moon-called yet? What would Occam do if—when—he met Ben? Occam who wanted to date me, and whose cat might perceive Ben as competition. My breathing was too fast. My hands were tingling. Soulwood seemed to roll over in the winter deeps and reach for me. Oh no. I’d grow leaves. A peculiar laugh stuttered out of me.

  “Nell? Is everything all right? Can I help?”

  I made that sound that might be considered laughter, the kind heard in a scary movie about ghosts in an old insane asylum. I sped to the door and grabbed up the cats and raced to the back door, where I shoved them onto the back porch, getting scratched in the process. Set the dampers to burn slow. Slung my gobags over my shoulder and my weapon harness over an arm.

  Ben was watching me in befuddlement, and maybe some amusement. I heard Occam’s steady footsteps on the stairs. All three cats started caterwauling at the door, wanting back in.

  Ben looked back and forth between the front door and the loud cats and me. “Nell?”

  “I’m okay, Ben. I gotta go to work.” I sounded anxious.

  “Nell?” He was getting worried. I’d heard that protect the little woman tone before. Usually just before a doting father pulled out a shotgun.

  “Where?” I demanded. “Where can we meet for coffee or breakfast tomorrow? When I get off work.” Occam knocked on the door, his lithe frame a darker shadow against the dim daylight of the front window.

  Ben looked at the front door and at me standing with all my gear. I could tell he was itching to take the heavy load of gobags off my fragile shoulders. “Pete’s Coffee Shop, downtown on Union?” he asked.

  “I’ll be there at seven.”

  “You sure?” He meant was I sure about my new visitor not being here to ravish me.

  “I’m sure.” I opened the door and tossed my two gobags at Occam. He barely caught them, but when he did, they seemed to weigh nothing. “I’ll be right there,” I said. And I shut the door in his face. Spun so my back was to the door. Ben was so close I nearly touched him when I turned. I pressed my spine to the door.

  Ben’s blue eyes were twinkling, but his face looked serious. He lifted a hand to the wig and touched the wobbly messy bun, as if to see if the colorful hair was real. “I’ll see you in the morning, Nell.” He took my shoulders in his hands and gently eased me out of the way. Opened the door, stepped out, and closed the door behind him. Closing me out of the conversation.

  Oh. I should have gone out there. Should have stood my ground. Acted tough. I placed my ear against the door like a child listening in on a forbidden adult discussion.

  “I’m Ben Aden.”

  Occam said nothing for a half dozen of my racing heartbeats. “Occam.” There was a low half growl in his voice.

  “You work with our Nellie?”

  Our Nellie? That was church-speak, a way to cut off others that were interested in a churchwoman. It was also a claiming. I wasn’t ready to be claimed, not by anyone.

  “I work with Special Agent Nell Ingram.”

  That! That was better.

  “Hmmm.” There was a load of possible meanings in that one syllable. I feared that Ben was about to do something awful. Instead he said mildly, “Well. You have a good day, you hear. Weather’s treacherous.”

  I heard Ben’s farm boots tapping down the stairs. Heard his truck door close and the engine turn over. Heard the truck putter smoothly into the distance.

  “Nell, you going to stand there all day or you going to open the door?” Occam asked.

  I looked around the house. Thinking. The house would be fine unless I was gone more than a couple of days or unless the temperature dropped into the low twenties and stayed there a while. I took a fortifying breath and opened the door. Closed it behind me and locked up. I stuck my chin up and turned to Occam, who looked me over, much as Ben had, from toes to red and purple wig. My chin went up even higher. I threw the tails of the velvet shawl over me and adjusted my winter coat over my arm. “You wanted to talk. We can talk on the way to work.”

  “So I’m driving you in?”

  “Might as well.” I took the stairs to the ground, my strange heels making it hard to keep my balance on the sleet-slick steps. Over my shoulder I said, “If I’m not spending my off time sleeping on an inflatable mattress, someone can bring me home. Or I can take an Uber. Or maybe my Unit Eighteen vehicle will arrive. Miracles, anyone?”

  “Or your boyfriend can drive you back?”

  I ignored Occam and got in his car. The inside of th
e two-door Ford Mustang was still warm. I closed the door. And waited. Because Occam was still on the porch. Sniffing around? Taking in Ben’s scent? Getting catty-possessive? Eventually he followed me and stowed my gear in the small trunk. And got inside. His long legs moved with a grace no human would ever achieve. The door closed, too softly, too controlled. He started the engine and backed around, to pull down the dirt road, down the hill, his long fingers clasping the steering wheel gently, the way he might hold one of my cats.

  The sleet had stopped but it had left a thick slick coating on the road. He nursed the pedals. As we dropped elevations, the sleet disappeared into a slush and then into water draining down the culverts and away.

  “You seeing Ben Aden?” Occam asked long after we had entered the bumper-to-bumper traffic of Knoxville’s afternoon rush hour.

  “That mighta been resolved if you hadn’t arrived so precipitously.”

  “So this is my fault?”

  “Ain’t nothing nobody’s fault, Occam,” I said, sliding into church-speak despite myself.

  “So are you seeing Ben Aden?”

  “I’m meeting him for coffee tomorrow.”

  “Did he bring you flowers?”

  “No. He brought me eggs.”

  Occam slid his eyes from the traffic to me. “Eggs.”

  “Eggs. Sent by my meddling mama.”

  Occam relaxed suddenly. “Eggs.” He shook his head. “Coffee. Not dinner?”

  “Not dinner.”