Circle of Death by Keri Arthur

the cops? What if she’s got a great, big dog and sets it on us?”
    He grinned. “Dogs don’t worry me.”
    “They worry
me
,” she muttered and glanced up. “You know, you never did explain what happened to that panther I saw before.”
    He raised an eyebrow. “What panther?”
    Anger surged through her. This man might be helping her, but in many ways, he was also treating her like a fool. “You want me to trust you, and yet you can’t—or won’t—answer the simplest of questions.”
    He looked at her. In the depths of his eyes she saw annoyance—and regret. “I’ll answer your questions when you decide to stop running.”
    She stared at him. He wasn’t just talking about running from him. She knew instinctively that he was talking about running from life—of being so scared of death that she was afraid to live. She pulled her gaze from his. She barely knew this man, and yet he seemed to understand her better than anyone ever had—maybe even Helen.
    Twenty-eight was the third house along in the row of eight grand old Victorian-style terraces; she believed they called them row houses in America. Unlike the rest of the houses, number twenty-eight looked in serious need of love and attention. The picket fence was missing half its pickets, and the shoe-box-sized front garden was knee high in weeds. Wood boarded the windows on the bottom floor, and the screen door was hanging off its hinges.
    She frowned. “It looks abandoned.”
    He opened the gate and ushered her through. “It’s not. I can hear someone moving inside.”
    She raised an eyebrow. “You can? How?”
    “Told you, I’ve got good hearing.”
    She
had good hearing, and she couldn’t hear a damn thing. “How can you tell if it’s a human moving around inside? It might be a stray cat—or even the wind.”
    “It’s human. Cats rarely get around on two feet.” He knocked on the door. The sound seemed to echo through the silence, as sharp as thunder.
    “If that’s an old lady moving around in there, you’ve just given her a heart attack.” She glanced across to the park. Nothing had moved, and no sound broke the silence. Yet something was out there, near the trees, watching them.
    Doyle looked over his shoulder. “Nothing’s there,” he said after a moment.
    He was wrong. Something was. She felt no sense of danger, no sense of doom drawing close, as she had last night when she’d stood on her front porch and watched the approaching police lights flash red through the night. It was just a sense of … waiting. And expectation. Neither of which made any sense.
    Inside the house, something moved. Wood scraped against wood, then footsteps approached. “Yes?” The voice was high-pitched and quavery. The voice of an old woman.
    He frowned. “Sorry to bother you, ma’am, but I’m looking for Rachel Grant.”
    “At this hour? Go bother someone else, or I’ll call the police.”
    “Told you,” Kirby muttered.
    Doyle ignored her. He splayed one hand across the door but quickly jerked it away. Light glowed brieflywhere his hand had rested, and she saw the same symbol that had been carved into her and Helen’s door. Only this time, it had two points. Doyle’s gaze met hers, his expression grim as he added, “It’s urgent we speak to Rachel. Is she there?”
    “There’s no one here by that name.”
    Lights appeared in the neighboring house. If he wasn’t careful, he’d have the whole street down on them. But if he was at all worried by such a prospect, he certainly didn’t show it.
    “Do you know where we can contact her?” he continued, his voice a little louder.
    “Told you, there’s no one here by that name. I got the phone in my hand, you know. I’m dialing.”
    “Thanks for your help, ma’am.” He cupped Kirby’s elbow and guided her down the steps. On the way past the mailbox, he snatched an envelope that was half sticking out.
    “That’s theft in this country.”
    “It’s theft in mine, too, but right now, I