by Mara Webb
“We could,” he said as he reached the top of the fence panel and shifted his weight over to the other side, “but the truth hasn’t worked out so well for you so far and now you have been associated with two murders in one day. They will think you’re on a spree, best to just fade into the night and get back home.”
With that, he released his grip and dropped down onto the soil on the other side. The sirens were getting louder now, they couldn’t be far away. Had the shadowy figure called the cops? Or maybe a neighbor? Perhaps someone around here heard Nancy shouting or a gunshot or something? I didn’t have time to see what had happened to her, just blood.
I clambered up the fence panel and, as I struggled, lamented every gym class where I had complained that climbing a rope was useless, repetitively climbing a ladder was a waste of time or even just skipping the class all together. Clearly, high school was trying to prepare me for the numerous break ins that I would be involved with as an adult.
When I finally reached the top I had taken so long I thought there was no chance the police hadn’t seen me. If they saw me scuttling away from a dead body then I would be undefendable, even with a lawyer like Ryan.
I lost my balance somewhere near the top of the fence and tried to lean forward so that if I fell at least it would be on the right side, this caused me to fall five feet down onto the earth and land horizontally on the dirt as if I had jumped from a plane with no parachute.
Ryan stifled a laugh, helped me onto my feet and pointed down the path we would need to follow. The way that the neighborhood seemed to work was that the back yards of houses didn’t completely meet at the end fence, there was a strip of neutral land between Nancy’s house and the one that backed onto it.
We ran along this dirt track towards the streetlight lit area that indicated a road. The sirens had reached a crescendo and then stopped, they must be at Nancy’s house and would soon discover her body in the kitchen. From there they would send out officers to check the rest of the house and the yard, maybe get patrol officers to keep an eye out for anyone trying to leave the neighborhood.
We needed to hurry before they started their search. When we were about forty yards from the street, Ryan’s car rolled into view and stopped. I felt my energy refresh as a new sense of urgency hit me and we ran faster to reach the getaway vehicle waiting for us.
At Ryan’s command, both the driver’s and passenger door flew open and we hurried in. If someone had been looking out of their window at the right time then they might still have missed it, we were in the car and driving away within seconds. The blue flashing lights had been bouncing off the walls of houses around the neighborhood like an echo, once they were no longer visible in the rear-view mirror, I let out a sigh of relief.
“So that has to be connected to Joanne, right? There is no way that two of the women under this curse have been murdered so close together and it is just a coincidence,” I said.
If there was something attacking all the women from Brent’s past then that was a problem on two fronts, I was in a relationship with Brent so I might also be a target, and it could still look like it’s associated with me. Although they couldn’t connect me to Nancy’s murder in the slightest, I didn’t know she existed until Brent told me about her.
Oh no.
Brent, who already suspected I might be a killer, text me the names and I went straight over to this woman’s house and now she was dead. That would look really bad for me if the police knew about his text.
“I think it is probably wise if I just take you home. If we go to the next house we were planning to visit and she is dead too then we will be hunted down,” Ryan said. He chuckled a little at the end of his sentence, but I knew that it must be nervous laughter, it was looking very bad for me and now he was part of it.
We had to figure out what was motivating someone to kill all these women, why was the curse only leading to this now? Was the curse still working because Brent had the ring? Were we supposed to break into my boyfriend’s apartment and steal it? If I got caught doing that then there would be no hope for me.
“What’s the plan now? How do we narrow down the suspects now that this has happened? I asked.
“Like Jen said earlier, this curse had contributed to more murders than you would believe. It drives people to kill out of jealousy or to try and break the curse themselves. The cursed jewelry has been hard to eliminate, and I haven’t come across a cursed engagement ring before, I guess because of what it symbolizes the curse it particularly potent in it.
“The curse must have torn Joanne and Brent apart, she has started to follow him around and torment him since their split, the curse has affected his previous partners too and soured their relationships, so there are plenty of motives to kill Joanne. If someone doesn’t know about the Lundeen curse in much detail, then they won’t know who to blame or how to end it.”
We drove through the dark streets of Sucré and I thought about how far a person can be pushed before they snap. What had triggered this killing spree? What was new? Brent and I had been together for over a year, so why was this curse only now making someone do this? Could they have known that he wanted to propose? Had our happiness set this whirlwind of chaos into motion?
“Ryan, is this my fault somehow?” I asked. I didn’t know whether or not to mention the potential engagement that was looming over me.
“How could it be your fault? You didn’t kill anyone, and you can’t be blamed for dating someone that was caught up in something like this, you didn’t know anything about it. Plenty of people have baggage, admittedly it isn’t usually murderous, cursed baggage but still.”
“Brent was talking about a proposal. He had come over to discuss moving forward and then within an hour I saw Joanne outside, staring at the house. Within twenty-four hours, two women are dead. Could our conversation have started this?”
I felt the car jolt slightly, as if the driver had momentarily flinched and his arms had wobbled the steering wheel. Ryan didn’t know what my answer would have been if Brent had actually proposed, it occurred to me that maybe I didn’t know it either.
“It’s possible. It would have shifted the dynamic between the two of you. The curse was born out of a bitter divorce so I imagine that adding a marriage into the mix might have caused it to evolve. I don’t really know,” he said.
We were approaching Charm Close now and I wanted to ask him if it was okay that he stay, if he could be in the house with me in case some dark, shadow thing came to kill me in the night. Quin would be of very little use and I still had a screaming ghost in my bedroom to deal with. Although perhaps my newly vocal dead aunt had managed to calm her down.
Ryan pulled up and we both got out of the car. As I started to walk up the steps to the front door, the light from the street illuminated my leg at just the right angle. “Nora, what happened to you?” Ryan laughed. “You look like you’ve been mugged.”
I looked down and saw that the pocket with the little embroidered bat had been torn when I caught it on the door latch at Nancy’s place. There was a sizeable hole at the bottom, and I reached in to check the contents. To my horror, the pocket was empty. Panic washed over me and Ryan noticed. “What?”
“I keep my credit card in my pocket, so I don’t need to take my wallet everywhere. I…my card is missing. It must have fallen out,” I said, my breath becoming short and sharp.
“Just report it missing, if someone is using it then you can just identify the payments that weren’t yours. You’ll get your money back, don’t worry.” Ryan hadn’t put two and two together yet.
“Ryan, it must have fallen out in Nancy’s kitchen,” I said. The panic on his face then matched mine. A card with my name on it was lying in the same room as a murdered woman. Before I could even consider a plan for getting it back, blue lights started to flash their way along the street.
The police weren’t using a siren this time. One car was followed quickly by a second, four officers exited their vehicles simulta
neously and began to approach the house cautiously, weapons drawn.
“Miss Wildes? Put your hands in the air! You’re under arrest!”
Oh, bugger.
11
Being formally arrested was very different to my previous trip in the back of a police car. When the two officers in my lounge had asked me to escort them to the station for further questions, I had felt nervous, but not like this.
I had left my credit card in Nancy’s kitchen.
My link to the two murders was irrefutable.
It made total sense that I was the killer, but I had to defend myself and work on identifying the real threat that was still loose all while incarcerated and without mentioning a magical curse to the human police department. It would look like a weak attempt to plead temporary insanity as a justification for my actions, I could hear the judge now, ‘So you think you’re a witch, do you? You had to kill two women under a curse and your talking cat was helping you?’.
The handcuffs were tight and uncomfortable, trying to stabilize my body as the car turned around one corner, then the next, was hard with my arms behind my back and the metal was digging into my wrists. Would Ryan meet me at the station again? Was he under arrest too?
The four officers had grabbed me and restrained my hands and I was so caught up in what was happening to me that I didn’t see where he went. I remember his voice shouting ‘Don’t worry!’, but how could I stay calm?
My mind disconnected from my body and I tried to remember every crime show I had ever seen, what happened when someone was arrested? I would be held in a cell, right? I might have to sleep there overnight before anyone even asked me any questions.
Would I be in a cell alone? What answers could I give when they interrogated me about why I was at Nancy’s house? If I got one phone call, who should I use it to speak to? Would Brent believe me when I told him the truth about what happened?
No one in the car was speaking. They all remained silent as they escorted me from the car back into the station. I think someone was trying to give me a rough timeline for what might happen next, but I had tuned out.
My brain was in self-preservation mode and if I paid too much attention to what was actually happening, I would have a panic attack. I heard the rolling metal gate click into place behind me and all of a sudden, I was alone. I had been stripped of my valuables and anything sharp like the few bobby pins I had keeping my hair in place. I had no way to know the time. I stared at the small cot bed that had been provided and felt my body shake out of fear that this might be what my future looked like.
There was a chill in the air, and I suspected that the thin blanket on the bed would do little to shelter me from the cold. In a way the place reminded me of my college dorm room, a bleak, hopeless place designed by a cruel man filled with anger.
I walked over to the bed and sat on the edge of it, I didn’t anticipate that I would sleep much here but I would at least try to build up some body heat beneath the blanket and create a little cocoon for myself. Minimal furniture but nicely arranged, couldn’t complain too much.
Urgh, I had brought this on myself.
Did they loan out puzzles in jail? I could totally smash my way through a 4,000-piece sky jigsaw right now. Or maybe I could start knitting? They might not let me have needles, dang. Maybe this was the time to start doing bodyweight exercises, I’ve never done a push-up before but there’s no time like the present.
I needn’t have worried too much, I was never lonely for long in Sucré.
I felt a familiar weight move behind me on the bed, a unique gait that I recognized instantly. As his tail brushed up against my neck and around to my chin I smiled and twisted my torso rapidly to swoop Quin up and nuzzle my face into his fur.
“Well I guess you can’t call me the neediest one in the house anymore then,” Quin said through his purrs. Needier than Quin? Things must be bad.
“How are you here? Am I dreaming you?” I said in a fluster. Although I was sure that it took a much longer experience in solitary confinement before you started to hallucinate, there was every possibility that it was happening.
“You couldn’t dream anything as great as me! How’s jail?” He jumped down onto the poured concrete floor and sat neatly in front of me.
“Not my favorite hotel, but not the worst place I’ve been. What are you doing here?” I asked. I placed one finger over my lips to remind Quin that he couldn’t talk at his normal ‘rattling the windows’ volume.
“Don’t you want to get out? Ryan mentioned that some mystery killer is running around bumping off all of Brent’s sweethearts, so you have to be top of that list. Right?” he said.
Not the concerning reminder I needed at a time where I was already worried.
“I’m tough. This will be a walk in the park.”
“You won’t last two seconds in here, we should get you to a place with magic. This is sitting duck territory. Which reminds me, Echo said the Howl heard Chomps talking to Mark about Delphi and Jinx’s conversation with you about switching us to dry food for a few weeks because apparently some “vet” told you I shouldn’t eat rich meals six times a day. What’s that about?”
I hated it when the six other cats started riling him up with fake information, they just enjoyed watching him freak out. I’m pretty sure it was classed a bullying.
“Quin, I can’t just leave. I have been arrested. I don’t know how you even managed to get in here, I thought there was some magic thing that stopped people transporting in and out of prisons,” I said.
“Yeah, people maybe. But I am not a people, I am a cat. I do whatever I like. Do you want to get out or not? I mean, you have to, I’m just trying to get you to agree to it, so it’s easier.” As he spoke, I heard a chewing sound to my right.
I turned to see a brown-haired goat chewing on the end of the thin blanket. Long scraggly ears twitching slightly as its jaw opened and closed. I hadn’t heard it arrive but as it continued to eat the fabric, it started to shift its weight on the concrete floor and the sound of the hooves stomping down echoed around the room.
“Why on earth is there a… goat in here?” I asked.
“That’s Sam, the escape goat. Come on,” Quin said, jumping across the floor and nuzzling up against the legs of the goat. ‘Sam’ didn’t seem to notice this interaction at first, unblinking, vacant eyes continued to gaze forward, well that sort of forward-sideways thing goats do.
Upon the second nudge from Quin the goat dropped the blanket from his jaw and looked at me, or as much as a goat can with, they weird eyes.
“Howdy there,” he said in a thick southern accent. I had nothing to say.
“I’ve been entering the raffle every month for years, Nora. Every month they select a winner and you get an escape goat! You can only use it once, I’ve been keeping him in the basement until I needed him,” Quin said with delight.
We have a basement?
I had so many questions about this that they all crashed into each other at once and I just stuttered out a few words.
“Goat…basement…winner?”
“Y’all ain’t accustomed to winning an escape goat now are ya?” Sam asked. “I usually find myself in a jail, most common place to use an escape goat didn’t you know. Although I did get called to Thailand a few times and, boy, it is hot over there.
“Anyway, y’all just bring yourself over here Miss Thing and give me a pet on the head and I will transport you to the safest possible place. Then I’ll be off back to HQ, that’s ‘hoof quarters’,” he laughed. Quin joined him in chuckling at the joke and I heard the sound of a door sliding open somewhere along the corridor. Someone was coming.
I leaned over and gave Sam the escape goat a little scratch behind his ear, faster and with increasing enthusiasm as the sound of approaching footprints caused my heart to race. The sound of balloons popping filled my ears, were my ear drums exploding? Was that a thing?
I swallowed and felt my ears adjust to a new pressure, like I was
deep under water, or high up. Very high up. I could still see the inside of the jail cell but the sound around me was of air rapidly rushing past me. I blinked and suddenly I was not in the jail cell anymore. Now the sounds made sense.
I was sitting inside a small plane. There was one other person inside the plane with me and I recognized the back of his head immediately, it was Ryan. Despite this being the weirdest place to have ended up, that goat had decided that anywhere Ryan was must be the safest place for me. Even on a random plane. Ryan must have felt the plane wobble as I appeared, he turned around and didn’t seem even slightly phased by my arrival.
“Oh Nora, I thought you might show up!” he shouted. The plane was small and in no way soundproof. I had only ever seen small planes like this in spy movies, otherwise I would see pictures that celebrities posted from inside their private jets with the luxury leather seats, champagne coolers and handmade sushi. This was the least luxurious thing I had ever seen.
“What? I was arrested, how could you have anticipated this?” I screamed back.
“What did you say?” he yelled. We were getting nowhere; it was far too loud. He leaned closer to my ear and shouted, “do you trust me?” I nodded. He began to attach equipment to me, some sort of harness vest with clips all over it. He was already wearing a lot of random things on his body that I didn’t recognize.
He crouched down to walk behind me and sat down, clipping something from his harness to mine. Ryan was now pressed up against me and I could just about feel his breath on my neck, the warmth of it was a stark difference to the cold air inside the cabin. “Don’t be scared,” he said. I saw him lean to check something out of the tiny window, the movement of his body caused mine to lean over with his.
He pressed a green button above him and suddenly the door of the cockpit opened, and Amber walked out, bent low so as to avoid hitting her head. No part of this plane was tall enough to stand in. She strapped herself to a harness on one side of the door, pulled a lever and opened a door on the side of the plane.
