Instinct Jason Hough (best mobile ebook reader .txt) 📖

up by someone. Which is strange, and not just because Doc hadn’t seen to him. It’s strange because there was no indication he’d smashed up his nose when I saw him. Not only had this dude had his nose patched up after I’d left, he’d injured it, too. So what was that all about? And who had patched him up? Dr. Ryan’s the only show in town for medical treatment, but by the time he got down here our Mr. Rhod was gone along with his precious wrecked bike.

Whether he “missed” or “messed” the turn, that’s just an oddity. But the nose is tangibly weird. I file that, a little self-aware at how many things I’ve been “filing” lately. Pretty soon here that mental filing cabinet is going to overflow, unless I start finding some answers.

I turn my thoughts to the altercation at my home. He’d arrived, vroom-vroom, kicked in my door, and—

The line of thinking stops me short. A detail I’d missed. I’d heard a beefy motorcycle just seconds before he’d broken in, but the next morning when I’d left there’d been no bike outside. The sheriff hadn’t mentioned one either, or even asked how the dead man had arrived at my place. I guess I’d assumed it was obvious, and the bike had been taken away. Only, when would that have happened? Sheriff Davies hadn’t brought a tow truck with him, surely.

So what had happened to the bike after Rhod had arrived at my house? It didn’t drive itself away. This thought sends a tingle of electricity right up my arms. What if he hadn’t been alone? This possibility had not occurred to me before. I think back, wishing once again I hadn’t taken that sleeping pill because much of that whole night is blurry as a result. Had I heard the bike departing? Faced with someone trying to kill me, listening for such a sound had not been high on my radar.

All right, so perhaps Rhod wasn’t alone. Maybe whoever patched his nose rode with him, then fled when they heard the gunshot? The thought is too speculative for my taste. I don’t even hang on to this theory, I just drop it. What I need to do is find out what happened to the Harley. I need to talk to my neighbor, the one who called in the assault. Maybe they heard something.

Opening the door to my cruiser I’m yet again faced with the words written on my hand. The reminder prompts me to call the sheriff. It’s his direct number and there’s no answer, so I text him instead.

Mary Whittaker here—where is Rhod Mitchell’s motorcycle? Would like to take a look at it.

Holding the phone as I wait for a reply, my hand and its prophetic message seem to shout at me. I decide to call Doc. He’d said something about traveling to Portland for a few days to attend a conference, yet he still answers on the first ring.

“Greetings, Sheriff,” he says.

“Doc,” I reply. “How’s the conference?”

“The conference? Oh, yes. It’s boring. So boring I’d almost forgotten about it. I’m in my hotel room trying to take a nap, actually.”

“Well, sorry to interrupt.”

There’s a pause, perhaps as he’s levering himself out of bed. “No problem. ‘Trying’ was the key word in that remark. I hate hotel pillows. Too soft.” He stops talking and a silence begins to stretch, quickly becoming awkward and then uncomfortable. “You called for a reason, I assume?”

“I did. It’s about the hiker who died.”

“Coroner’s report come back?”

“Not until tomorrow,” I reply, realizing I’d totally forgotten I was even waiting for it. I rub my temples with thumb and index finger, trying to will my brain to start working properly. “I was thinking about what you said. About instincts.”

Doc doesn’t say anything, just waits to see where I’m going with this. But as the silence starts to drag on he prompts me.

“What about them, Mary? Has something else happened?”

“No,” I reply. “I mean, yes. Sort of. It’s just little things. People are acting strange and I’m trying to get my head around it.”

“Welcome to Silvertown,” he says. It’s the same thing Chief Gorman says whenever something odd happens, and it makes me wonder if one got it from the other, and who said it first.

“No offense, Doc, but it’s disheartening to hear such a pat response from you.”

“Oh, how so?”

I shrug, even though he can’t see me. “I expect that kind of dismissiveness from the average Joe, but not a shrink, I guess. Aren’t you all about looking into the strange and making it intelligible?”

“Well, now, Mary, there is some offense.” He takes a breath. “Look, a town like ours, it has a kind of gravity to it. Happens all over the place. Amityville. Loch Ness. Salem. Roswell. Once the reputation gains traction it starts to attract certain people to it. The situation intensifies and grows. Perhaps in Oakland someone talking crazy would be a thing to pay special attention to, but in places like Silvertown… it’s harder to spot behavior of legitimate concern. Scientists call it a signal-to-noise ratio, and when it comes to strange behavior, Silvertown has a lot of noise.”

“Fair enough,” I say. It all makes sense, but I’m still not satisfied, so I try a different tack. “Still, I was hoping you could explain—”

“I thought I’d just explained—”

“Not that. I’m talking about when we were at the hiker. You said something about how there are things that can interfere with reactions. Like fight or flight stuff. Remember that?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what’d you mean?”

“The usual suspects, I suppose. Drink enough vodka and you’ll be driving the wrong way on a one-way street trying to bat away the oncoming headlights. If that hiker decided to drop acid in order to enhance his connection with nature, could be he thought that bear was a friendly unicorn.”

“But that’s not a change in his instincts.”

“Of course it is,” Doc replies, emphatic. “Such behavior is driven by sensory input. How you react to a cute