“It’s what family does.”
Gray smiled and nodded. “That it is, Godmother.”
I watched him ride down the drive and out onto the road. He was a good man, that one. Although, I was a touch worried about how Kimberly might take the whole werewolf thing. Especially seeing how she took the whole her baby is a powerful witch thing.
Then again, she was a strong woman. Once the shock of things wore off, I was pretty sure she’d come around.
Besides, I kind of had my money riding on baby Pearl. I think Sapphire was right. Judging by Gray, baby Pearl just might win this one.
Maybe I was a betting woman, after all.
And just as if my thought brought it on, my phone rang. It was Orville.
Chapter 19
“I wanted you to be the first to know,” he said when I picked up. “We have made an arrest in Reverend Castle’s case. And it doesn’t have a thing to do with our wedding, either.”
Well, that was good news. “Who did you arrest?”
“Actually, I can’t take the credit for this one. It was a deputy of mine. And, believe it or not, my dispatcher.”
As if calling her his dispatcher did any good. He might as well say her name, but then he tried not to in my hearing. Something about that Trixie really got under my skin. Especially once she had started making moves on my man. Not that the moves had gotten her anywhere, but still.
“Oh?” Even I could hear the ice in my tone. “I’m still waiting, you know.”
“Sorry. I’m afraid you aren’t going to like the answer. I know I sure didn’t. They arrested Blake Mallard. Sam’s dad.”
“What the...” I took a deep breath. “I hope they had a very good reason for doing so.”
“They did. According to... okay, Trixie... according to Trixie, she’d been hearing rumors that Reverend Castle was dead sure that Sam was his child. And, per the rumor mill, Castle was thinking about making a claim. She and Alphie, who I guess she’s dating now, by the way, went to have a talk with him. They took a glance in his car before going in and saw a heavy-duty flashlight with what looked suspiciously like blood on the handle.”
“Just lying there in plain view, was it?” That didn’t sound right. Mallard had struck me as a man who would do whatever it took to protect his family, yes. But he also hadn’t struck me as a man who was stupid. If he’d gone to this extreme, which I had to say I highly doubted, I just couldn’t see him leaving the weapon out in plain sight.
“I’ll admit, that part bothers me too. And of course, Blake denies it all. But it was blood, Opal, and the handle of that flashlight matches up pretty darn well to both head wounds on our victims.”
“And what could the man possibly have against Kenny Driscoll?”
“Don’t know the answer to that yet. This all just happened in, like, the last half hour. I just wanted you to know.”
“Well, thanks for that.” I hesitated. “I have to ask. Was the car locked?”
He grunted. “Yeah, that was my first question too. It was. So it isn’t likely that the flashlight was planted. Not too many people know how to break into a car without leaving a single sign of the entry.”
“You did, last year when Ruby locked the keys in my car.”
“Ah, so you heard about that, huh?”
“I did.”
“Well, okay, so few people other than car thieves, locksmiths, and lawmen know how to break into a car. Happy?”
Not really. I still had my doubts as to Mallard’s guilt.
“Make sure you’re in on the questioning, okay?”
“Already planning on it. Which, by the way, I need to get to. See you tonight, Opal.”
I stared at my phone for a minute after he hung up. This didn’t feel right. Not at all. Something was very, very wrong with this picture.
Okay, I could see Mallard getting desperate if he thought Castle had a chance of taking baby Sam. But surely the man didn’t have a prayer’s chance of actually doing that. And wouldn’t he have to produce some kind of proof in order to get a paternity test to prove it? That wouldn’t have gone over well with his congregation. Especially if he forced Cassidy’s hand, and she offered her side of the story.
Nope. Not a lick of sense to any of this.
I walked in and plopped down on my sofa to have a hard think on things. Even if Mallard had done dirty old Reverend Castle in, what would have been his motivation for killing Driscoll? Come to think of it, what on earth could possibly have motivated anyone to do that second murder?
Unless... he knew too much. So what did he know? Well, he knew about that girl showing up on Castle’s doorstep claiming he was her father. That was something. But how would anyone know he knew that? Unless he told more than me about that story. And, as there weren’t any names involved in the telling, I just didn’t see how the man posed a threat to them.
Unless they thought he knew and just wasn’t saying? Too many 'unlesses' in there to make sense of things.
And that right there was when I remembered Amie’s call. What was it she had said? There were two people in the area at the time Castle went to meet his maker?
What if...
I grabbed my laptop and booted it up to check my email. The videos were right there, just as she’d promised.
The view was a little blurry, but the picture was clear enough to just make out the person walking toward the church. Kenny Driscoll. The camera was facing him, so his face, slightly blurry though it was, was front and center. We weren’t so lucky with the second person. They were headed the other way. Away from the camera. That meant their face was away from the camera.
Or at least it was until they turned to stare after Driscoll.
My sheriff had the totally wrong person in his holding cell. And the right person had helped put him there.
Trixie.
MY FIRST THOUGHT WAS to call Orville. He had to know, and he had to know now. Unfortunately, he didn’t answer his cell phone. And when I called the station, I was told that he was in an interrogation room and couldn’t be bothered right now. Then they hung up on me.
And no, it wasn’t Trixie. I guess Orville was right. She wasn’t the only one there that didn’t care much for me right now.
Well, there was only one thing for it. If I couldn’t talk to the man over the phone, then I’d just have to go there in person. I grabbed my laptop and my purse and headed for the car.
I didn’t make it any further than that. Lucky for me, and possibly the person under my car, I saw the boots sticking out before I got in and started the engine. Otherwise, we both probably would have met the Goddess today.
When I caught a glimpse of the boots, I backtracked. Hard. But she must have been paying attention. And she was younger and far faster than I was. She rolled out from under the vehicle and took me down in a flying tackle as I went up the porch steps. If I survived this, which was in no way guaranteed, I’d be covered in bruises tomorrow.
Trixie was no lightweight. And even if she was working as a dispatcher now, she had graduated from the academy. She knew how to take a person down. Knew how to keep them down too.
I wasn’t going anywhere. And as she was holding both my arms up over my head, I wasn’t in the position to do any magic either. I kind of needed my hands for that. She must have done her research.
That’s when I realized just how stupid I’d been. Trixie hadn’t had to do any research at all. Her mother was a powerful witch in her own right. And a seer to boot. If Trixie showed up here at my doorstep, then I was guessing that just maybe she had inherited that very special gene.
The problem with that was that it took a very special witch to handle that very special gene. All the others? It drove coco for cocoa nuts. From the look in Trixie’s eyes as she stared down at me, she was one of the latter.
Too bad for me.
“I kind of figured it’d be you that figured it all out, and I was right. Imagine my consternation when I got the vision, just when everything was lining up so
darned perfectly. If you’d only stayed out of this like the sheriff asked, you’d have never seen this coming.”
I swallowed. “You planned on killing me all along, didn’t you?”
She laughed. Oh yes, the girl was definitely loco. “Of course. I don’t much care what the future tells me. You aren’t the right match for Orville, witch. He belongs with me. End of story.”
Even as she was glancing around her, most likely trying to figure out the best way to end me, my mind was going strong. What life-saving spell could I cast without my hands? The answer, sadly, was none. Any spell, regardless of hands, would require words. I highly doubted I’d much more than open my mouth to start the necessary chant before my life would end. One way or another.
“He’ll know it was you, you know. Orville is a smart man. He’ll figure it out.”
That got me another wild laugh. “Even if he does, it’ll be too late for you.”
My cellphone rang in my bag. Not that I could very well answer it. But the ringtone told me all I wanted to know. It was Orville.
Too bad I wasn’t going to get to say goodbye.
Chapter 20
Trixie gave my bag a violent kick with her foot, which sent it flying. Really wished I’d had a brick in the darn thing like Orville accused me of every now and again. But no. After a few seconds, the ringing stopped.
She glanced behind her and seemed to make up her mind. “We’re too open out here. Time to take this inside.”
As a simple dispatcher, she didn’t have standard-issue handcuffs. But that wouldn’t stop someone like her. Holding my wrists in one bear-clawed hand of a grip, she reached into her back pocket and came out with a zip tie.
Looking me straight in the eye, she said, “This can go two ways. You can let me put this on you without a fight. Or I can get off you, and while you try to run, I can pull my taser in like a half a second and send a lot of volts through your system. Your choice.”
Not much of a choice to my mind. I’d seen Amie’s taser at work. The zap it delivered wasn’t a pretty sight. Electricity is a mighty powerful thing. And not meant to be sent through a human’s body.
Part of me wanted to wait until she tried to put on the zip tie and then fight her for all I was worth. If she’d just give me a couple of seconds, I could hit her with a spell to stop this madness. But that wasn’t really in the cards, was it? She knew witches, and she knew what we were capable of. I wouldn’t be getting a single second.
As I said, not much of a choice. But if I was lying on the ground, writhing in pain, then she could do pretty much as she pleased with me. I didn’t like that idea at all. I allowed her to put on the zip ties.
That done, she jerked me to my feet and shoved me up the short steps. “Inside, witch.”
I glanced at her first. I wanted to know what I was dealing with. The first thing I noticed was that she didn’t have a gun. A taser, yes, but no firearm. That was something. At least, that’s what I told myself, anyway.
My saving grace just might be that she was underestimating me. If I’d been her in the present situation, I’d have zapped me right off the bat. Then I’d have done what I came to do and got the bloody heck out. Good thing she wasn’t me, wasn’t it?
Because I knew a few things she didn’t. One of which was that my house was warded seven ways to Sunday. Thanks mostly to Sapphire’s new husband, Archimedes Mineheart. Come to find out, Earth witches were pretty good witches to have on your side after all.
The door opened, and she pushed me over the threshold, as I’d expected her to. I knew what would happen next. But apparently her vision hadn’t warned her. Thank you, Goddess, for having my back on that one.
I dropped to the floor and rolled to the side to get behind the door. That was important for the next part of things. I needed something substantial between the two of us. Like a solid wooden door.
Because when Trixie went to step over the threshold, she was stopped. Dead cold. My house wasn’t about to let someone in that had murder on their mind.
While she was still struggling, trying to get through the ward, I kicked the door shut. Hard. With my hands zip-tied, it sure as heck wasn’t easy to get the latch to work, but I managed it. Right before she tried to turn the knob. A little too close for comfort.
She might not be able to get in, but I wasn’t at all sure that the wards would be very effective at stopping a taser lead. And I sure as shooting didn’t want to find out, either.
Darting into my little apartment, I grabbed my small witch’s blade and cut the ties. Not a simple task, that. Even as I worked at getting my hands free, I started the spell.
I’d almost finished it, too, by the time I heard the sirens coming down the road. I ran to the window and looked out.
Furious and totally ticked off, Trixie was running. I was betting that she’d left her vehicle by the road so I wouldn’t hear it on my gravel drive. She might have been able to make it to her car and be gone before Orville showed up. And yes, I was that sure it was him behind that siren.
Too bad for her, my spell finished. I had to use a little extra juice from our power crystals because I didn’t want to risk her tasering my man. By the time Orville slapped the cuffs on her, she wasn’t in any shape to fight.
Oh, she’d survive. But, like me, she’d be sore as all get out tomorrow.
Now that the worst of the danger was over, I started to feel the pain. I’d be needing to go to the hospital or my sister Sapphire when this was all done. Never the less, it was going to take more than a little pain to stop me from going out to meet Orville.
But I had to grab my walking stick on the way.
When he heard the front door open, he glanced back at me. He looked greatly relieved at the sight of me. At least until he noticed the walking stick.
Let’s just say he was none too gentle getting Trixie into the backseat of his squad car. Not exactly police brutality, but not the care he normally took, either.
I got that. Especially since she had started to come to her senses by then. And she wasn’t going in easily.
But go in she did. And minus her little taser, too.
“You searched her to make sure she doesn’t have any other weapons on her, right?” I didn’t like the thought of him driving down the road and having her shoot him in the back. Just because I hadn’t seen a gun didn’t mean she didn’t have one. Some handguns were downright tiny.
They’d still kill a man at point-blank range, though.
Orville stopped and looked at me. “How long have I been Sheriff?”
I smiled at him. “Sorry. I’ll take that as a yes.” By that time, I’d reached him. Finally. The next couple of minutes were filled with just gentle warmth and gratitude. And a nice, close hug.
“How did you figure out it was Trixie?” I asked.
He kissed the top of my head before letting me go. “Let’s just say we owe Amie a steak dinner. She called me and said that she’d sent the files to you, but that she hadn’t heard from you. So she wanted to send them to me to look at too.” He shook his head. “She said her witch’s intuition told her it was important.”
Witch’s intuition, Goddess, or a Goddess-ridden kitten named Destiny. One of them, for sure. Wish they’d told me an hour or so earlier than they had. Could have saved me from having to limp down that aisle.
I didn’t see my ankle being one hundred percent by then.
But then again, Sapphire was good. And she wanted a perfect wedding.
Two things in my favor right there.
Chapter 21
I didn’t step foot in the farmhouse again that day. Orville couldn’t take the rest of the day off to tend to me. Not after arresting a team member for a double count of murder and one count of... well, aggravated assault, I was guessing. I was kind of thinking that charge would be upgraded once they got around to checking out my car.
Driving it that first time was going to be nerve-wracking, to say the least. Most likely, though, knowing Orville, he’d insist
on taking the first spin in it. But if he thought he’d be going alone, the man didn’t know me as well as he thought he did.
Sapphire met me at the station and took me to her house. She declared my bones fit and unscathed, but I did end up with a nasty sprained ankle and a whole lot of bruises. Hopefully, they’d all be healed and gone before my wedding night. But even with Sapphire’s powerful healing magic, it would be a couple of weeks at best before I’d be walking without my walking stick.
What walking Orville and her would allow me to do, of course. Which wasn’t much. Sprains heal better with rest. Or so the two of them kept telling me.
Fine by me. Sewing didn’t require me to stand, and that’s where my focus needed to be right now, anyway.
A quick phone call and Nancy was back on the school bus route, at least temporarily. She didn’t complain. The girl was a champ. I kind of thought there was a secret crush involved with a boy on that route. I was hoping eventually she’d confide in me.
The shop was going to stay closed until things mended with Kimberly. And I wasn’t really sure how long that was going to take.
Come to find out... not all that long.
When Sapphire pulled into my drive Friday morning to deliver me back home, Kimberly’s van was parked out front.
I didn’t let my hopes get up, though. It was entirely possible she was just back to grab a few more things.
Yeah, right. My hopes were soaring as I walked through that front door. I just hoped they didn’t come crashing back down in short order.
Sapphire saw me in the front door and onto the sofa, then she left. Before Kimberly even made it downstairs. This was one of those two’s company and three’s a crowd situations.
I was sipping a cool iced tea when Kimberly finally came down. My heart fell when I noticed a distinct absence of a baby.
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