Sea Haven 02 - Spirit Bound

of questions around the village, in Fort Bragg, at Noyo Harbor and Albion. He even went to Jonas and said he represented the Russian government and was looking into the death of one of their citizens.”
    “He came into Judith’s shop,” Airiana added. “His aura was truly frightening. I’d never seen anything like it.”
    Judith remembered the sick feeling she’d gotten when Ivanov had come into her kaleidoscope shop asking questions. She’d barely been able to stay in the same room with him. She’d had the same sick feeling when Stefan had confessed he’d come to Sea Haven to warn his brother about the killer.
    “Ivanov came to my house,” Rikki said, dragging her weighted blanket around her for comfort. “Jonas brought him out. I thought I’d convinced him I’d never seen Levi.”
    “You must have done a good job,” Judith consoled, “because he had no idea where Levi was, he came back looking for clues. Had he thought Levi was with you, he would have been spying on the farm.”
    “Why didn’t Levi and Thomas just call Jonas?” Airiana asked. “He’s the sheriff.”
    Judith’s heart felt as if a vise was gripping it hard. She tasted fear in her mouth. Nothing could happen to Stefan, not now that she found him. She exchanged a long knowing look with Rikki. At least Rikki understood how frightened she really was.
    “This man, this Ivanov, is a very scary killer. They worried that he would kill Jonas. They know Ivanov’s reputation and felt that Jonas would be hampered by the law.”
    Blythe inhaled sharply as she fishtailed around the curve in the road leading to Highway 1. The sky had darkened ominously and now the clouds were boiling, rolling across the sky so thick and black that only the lightning lacing them provided any light in the unrelenting darkness.
    “So they’re taking the law into their own hands?” Blythe shot Judith a look of sheer reprimand.
    “They didn’t know where he was,” Rikki defended. “They’ve been trying to flush him out every night.”
    Judith inhaled sharply, the edges of anger beginning to form as realization tried to penetrate. She turned her head slowly to look at Rikki. “ Every night? What do you mean every night? Thomas was with me.”
    “Yes, but then Levi and Thomas went out around two and came back around four-thirty,” Rikki explained, huddling deeper beneath the heavy blanket. “Levi says Thomas would go on his own, but Ivanov is here because of him and he feels he has no choice. They both are protecting Jonas.” She chewed at her thumbnail betraying her agitation. “Levi is adamant that Ivanov would kill Jonas. I can tell he believes it.”
    “ Every night?” Judith repeated. She could hear her heart roaring in her ears. Thunder boomed in the sky overhead and a fork of lightning streaked in a jagged fork from earth to sky and back. The crack was loud enough to shake the car.
    “Calm down,” Blythe said firmly. “Everyone needs to calm down.”
    Judith narrowed her eyes and pushed a shaky hand through her hair in agitation. There was no calming down, not now when suspicion was slipping into her mind. Not suspicion—knowledge. “I’m a light sleeper. How could I not know he was leaving the bed—the house?” She pressed her lips together, afraid she knew the answer. What had he said? “Russian recipe for sleeping”? He’d told her the truth and she hadn’t understood.
    The earth rolled and a small crack developed along a berm on the side of the highway.
    “Maybe what the two of you were doing exhausted you,” Lissa tried helpfully.
    Stefan, where are you? She had to know he was alive and well before she decided to boil him in oil.
    Her fear for him fed the other women’s jumbled emotions in the close confines of the car as it streaked along the highway. Rushing parallel to them just over the cliffs was the sea, angry and turbulent now, reflecting the intensifying emotions of all the women in the car. The ocean rose up toward Rikki, huge swells crashing onto the bluffs, booming a warning, reaching toward the village of Sea Haven as if it might devour it.
    “Rikki,” Blythe said in a very low, firm voice, “calm down before you create a rogue wave that comes over the highway and takes us out to sea. Take a breath. All of you take a breath. We’ll find him.” She glanced over her shoulder at Judith. “Both of them.”
    “And then I’m killing Thomas,” Judith hissed between clenched teeth. “With my bare hands. He