“Take time off.”
“Second, because you’d be in big trouble if he found out.”
“He won’t find out,” she said, but nervously.Cutter’s voice was growing harsh.
“Third, because it’s bad enough that I have to be under the guy’s thumb at work, but I’ll be damned if I’m goin’ down to Boston just to be looking over my shoulder to see if he’s there!”After a minute of silence, he muttered, “Besides, I’ve been to Boston before.”
Pam knew Cutter didn’t like John, but she hadn’t known the force of his dislike until then.Nor had she known that he’d been to Boston.But before she could ask him about it, a sound in the woods caught her ear.At nearly the same time, Cutter put a cautionary hand on her thigh.Silent and still, they listened.Together, they looked in the direction of the sound.
“What is it?”she whispered.
He leaned closer.She felt the reassuring brush of his arm across her back.“I’m not sure.”
“Footsteps?”
“Sounds it.”
“Human?”
“Uh-huh.”
Their whispers were exchanged over the space of an inch.
“Do you think it’s John’s spy?”
“No.”
“Too obvious?”
“Too small.”
“Who is it?”
When Cutter was slow in answering, she looked up at him.His eyes were trained on the woods, looking sharp in a way that was in keeping with the heavy shadow of his beard.So was the firm set of his jaw and the squaring of his chin.She wondered if that squaring was from tension or if it was always there.Funny, she hadn’t noticed.She’d always looked at the whole, she guessed.
Then his lips moved.“Bumble,” he whispered, and the tension left his features as quickly as it had come.
“What?”
“It’s Bumble.”
It was a minute before the word registered, a minute more before she realized what he was talking about.Dragging her eyes from his face, she looked off in the direction of the rustling in the woods in time to recognize the small creature who emerged from the trees.
Of the people in Timiny Cove, Pam liked most, disliked a few, and was frightened of one.That one was Bumble.She was a wizened old lady who dressed in layers of dark clothes even on the hottest of summer days.Pam had always fancied that the clothes were the only things covering her bones, that if she’d ever had any flesh it had disappeared at some point during the course of the 110years that she’d lived.The age, of course, was based on town gossip and was clearly an exaggeration, still Bumble was eerie.She lived in something that was half underground and not unlike a packrat’s midden—but that was town gossip too, since few had ever actually seen where she lived.She appeared to be entirely self-sufficient.She spent her days wandering through the woods gathering plants and herbs, and while she had never harmed anyone or anything, she was given wide berth.No one knew her real name.She was called Bumble after the sound she made when she talked.
Pam leaned closer to Cutter and whispered, “What’s she doing here?”
“Looking for mushrooms probably,” he whispered back.
“Why here?”
“Because the mushrooms are good here.”
“But these aren’t her woods.They’re yours.”
He whispered a chuckle.“Not quite.”
“You know what I mean.Cutter, she’s coming straight toward us.”