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"Like old lady Austin," I shot back. "She heard Madden's plan and hightailed it out of here." |
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"You think she's going to warn someone, don't you?" |
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"I don't know what I think, but I'm going to find out." |
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B.C.'s face creased into a petulent scowl of frustration. I knew what she was thinking. "Okay," she sighed, "I'll tell him, but the next time I go where you go, got it ?" |
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I threaded my way through the milling villagers toward the back of the room. There were two doors. I gambled on the one to the left since it was closest to where the old girl had been sitting. By the time I pushed my way past a handful of grumbling villagers and out into the gray afternoon fog, she was nowhere in sight. |
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It was hunch time again. The damp grayness had swallowed her up. The fog was densest to the west, and since she had already disappeared, I was really playing a long shot. At this point, I hadn't even convinced myself the old girl had a role in all of this. I was basing a lot of it on the discovery of an ugly little statue and an old legend only half-remembered. |
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Still, the Austin widow, like Kelto, remained a riddle. Like the old woman's sarcophagus, Kelto's parting admonition played over and over like a grooved record. "Tell them to stay out of it. If others become |
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