Free Night of the Raven by Jenna Ryan

counterstrike.”
    Amara sipped her coffee. “Aunt Maureen believed in the Bellam legend. She encouraged me to memorize a number of rhyming spells from a book she and Nana found in one of the attics at Bellam Manor. We—all of us—wanted Yolanda’s brother, Larry, to stop sleepwalking, or at least to wear clothes when he did it. I failed miserably.”
    Her uncle flapped a hand. “My sister had a streak of ridiculous in her. Had an even bigger stubborn streak. She smoked herself into an early grave. Didn’t want a service or even a family gathering. That’s not right.”
    “It was for her. I know you would have preferred a funeral, Uncle, but Aunt Maureen hated sad faces.”
    “And naked sleepwalkers, it would seem.”
    Amara glanced up, but his saturnine expression remained intact.
    Pushing her chair back, she started to ask if he’d seen McVey, but a beep from her iPhone signaled an incoming message.
    “You immerse yourself in the technology craze, too, do you?”
    His stoic expression made her grin. “Let me guess. You think technology’s only a step below caffeine on the devil’s list of temptations.”
    “Can’t tell you that, as I own a similar device. But I set it to vibrate when I’m socializing face-to-face.”
    “It’s probably one of my colleagues in New Orleans. I had to reschedule several surgeries on the drive to...” Her voice trailed off. “Jackson.”
    She stared unbelieving, first at her phone, then at the counter next to her. If her uncle spoke, and she thought he probably did, she only heard a freakish buzz, and even that was drowned out by the roar of blood in her ears.
    She knew, vaguely knew, that the screen door slammed and someone else came into the kitchen.
    McVey. Had to be.
    He said something and crossed to the counter. Because she was already there, it was easy enough to catch his arm and stop him from reaching for a mug.
    “Probably not the best idea,” she said, showing him the message she’d just received.
    DID YOU DRINK THE COFFEE, AMARA?
    * * *
    W ILLY S PARKS SWITCHED off the stolen phone and tossed it into the trees. Time to leave, but hmm...
    Uncle Jimmy was far more intrigued by small towns than he was by big cities. He claimed you could live in one your whole life, know everybody by name yet never know for sure who might be doing what to whom.
    Maybe he was right. While the quite lovely Amara Bellam was inside her grandmother’s edge-of-the-woods house, undoubtedly thinking she’d been poisoned—too bad about the police chief showing up, but not every circumstance could be foreseen—a truly fascinating situation was unfolding a mere fifty yards away.
    Perched in the branches of a leafy chestnut tree, Willy spied someone dressed in shades of brown and green. Someone with binoculars and a large hunting rifle, who appeared to be watching the people in the house.
    * * *
    “ I ’D BE ROYALLY pissed off if I could get my heart to beat normally again.” Amara checked the tips of her fingers for any discoloration. “You swear you made this coffee, McVey?”
    “Made it and drank two cups before I left.”
    Her uncle nodded. “I’ve been sitting here since he left, so I can tell you no one’s tampered with it. Unless the tampering was done to the beans themselves. Then you’d both be poisoned.”
    “More likely we’d be dead,” McVey remarked.
    “Could be we’re all dead,” her uncle postulated, “and having this conversation wherever we wound up.”
    McVey poured some of the brewed coffee into a jar and capped it. “That’d be hell for me.”
    “Me, as well,” Lazarus agreed. “Since I don’t drink coffee, though, I must have died some other way. Maybe my heart gave out.”
    Amara pressed lightly on her temples. “Excuse me, people, but am I the only one here who thinks this so-called conversation is almost as bent as the person who sent the message? Wait a second...” She narrowed accusing eyes at her uncle. “You were here before McVey