Deadly Harvest Read Online Free PDF Page B

in an afterlife.”
    â€œAre you saying you don’t?” he asked her.
    â€œI definitely do.” She gave a little shiver as she said it. “You’re thinking about something else, aren’t you?” he asked.
    She looked startled, then offered him a rueful grin. “We have a legend up where I live about a sort of bogeyman. We call him the Harvest Man. He’s a creature of evil—drawn from old pagan practices, even Native American beliefs, and the concept of Satan, as well. When someone disappears, when something awful that can’t be accounted for occurs, we chalk it up to the Harvest Man. He doesn’t have horns and a tail. In fact, he doesn’t really look all that scary. He wears a crown of autumn leaves and a cape the color of the earth. He’s taller than most men, too. Huge.”
    â€œSo he goes after young women?” he asked.
    â€œI don’t know how the legend got started, to tell you the truth, but the oldest story I know is from a few hundred years ago, sometime after the witch trials, when a series of young and beautiful women disappeared. They never caught the killer, so colonists, probably influenced by the local tribes, said the Harvest Man was out there, stealing their souls.”
    â€œDon’t tell me you’re saying Mary was taken by the Harvest Man.”
    â€œOf course not. I’m just saying it’s New England, there’s a story to go with anything that can happen. But if you’re wondering if I think there’s a real-life killer out there, someone just as evil as the Harvest Man, then I’m afraid it’s a real possibility.”
    Just then his phone rang, and he had the strangest feeling, even before he glanced at the number, that it was going to be Brad.
    It was.
    He excused himself, and stepped outside.
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    Rowenna played idly with the straw in her iced tea, wishing she’d made a hasty goodbye when Jeremy had taken the call.
    Maybe it was just having too much time to think while their conversation was still fresh in her mind, but she had an awful feeling she knew what was going to happen. Brad was going to call Jeremy for help—in fact, for all she knew it was Brad who had called just now—and Jeremy would come to Salem.
    She felt her heart pounding a bit too hard, and she tried to still it. She wouldn’t see him, even if he did. He didn’t like her, so he would hardly give her a call or ask for her help.
    But she would wind up seeing him.
    Detective Joe Brentwood would call her, and Jeremy’s eyes would widen when he saw her, and she could only imagine his anger—and his opinion, whether kept inside or voiced out loud. “My friend is in trouble, and you’re going to bring a psychic quack in on it?”
    â€œWill there be anything else?”
    The waitress startled Rowenna, who barely managed not to jump. “No. Thank you. May I just get the check, please?”
    As soon as she had paid the bill, she slipped out and hurried to her car. He wouldn’t be heartbroken to discover her gone, and she knew that even though he owned one-third of the Flynn plantation, he wasn’t living out there and instead was staying at a small, privately owned hotel just the other side of Jackson Square.
    Her own hotel was just down Royal, and as she drove those few blocks, she couldn’t help wondering whether she would be stuck dreaming about him for days to come, and paradoxically hoping both that he wouldn’t show up in Salem…and that he would.
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    Upstairs in her room, there was little to do. She had organized almost everything over the last few days, knowing she would be heading out in the morning.
    Feeling absurdly disconsolate, she sat on the bed, then nearly jumped sky-high when her cell phone rang. She expected it to be Jeremy, wondering why she had walked out on him without even saying goodbye.
    So much for psychic connections. It was Kendall.
    â€œHey,”