I felt defeated and annoyed, and there was nothing I could do about it. This day was not going how I envisioned.
“DO YOU WANT TO share a piece of cheesecake?”
Landon turned his plate so the caramel-covered triangle of creamy goodness was basically staring me in the face.
“No thanks.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay.” He sliced into the cake and shoved a heaping forkful into his mouth with moaning designed to cajole a smile out of me as I stared at Chief Terry’s back.
Dinner had been a depressing affair. I ate fried chicken but didn’t really taste it. Instead, I stared at the booth where Chief Terry ate and laughed with the pretzel chick ... and all the while plotted her bloody demise.
“Hey! Look at me.” Landon tapped his fork against my temple, causing me to frown.
“Did you just get cheesecake on my forehead?” Annoyance ran roughshod over my patience. “That’s disgusting.”
“Don’t worry. I licked the fork clean before touching you.”
“Is that supposed to make things better?”
Landon sobered, all attempts at lightening my mood evaporating. “He’s angry with both of us. It’s not just you.”
“He never stays angry at me. He always forgives me right away.”
“You’re no longer tiny and ten.”
“He forgave me when I was sixteen and getting in loads of trouble.”
“Yes, well, you’re an adult now. You’re supposed to know better.”
“You were right there with me, pal!”
Instead of engaging in the fight, Landon merely chuckled. “Wow. You’re wound tight tonight, aren’t you? I almost wish it was a full moon so we could go to the bluff and you could get your drink on. You need something to unwind.”
He wasn’t wrong. “Maybe I’ll have a chocolate martini when we get home. We have to stop at the inn and talk to Aunt Tillie first.”
“I know.” He rested his hand on top of mine and met my gaze across the table. “He’ll forgive you. That’s what he does. Part of the anger fueling him right now is directed toward me.”
“I think she has something to do with it.”
“Who?”
“You know who.”
“Oh, man.” Landon’s expression was almost comical. If I was in a better mood, I would’ve laughed. “She was perfectly nice to you. In fact, she looked confused. That means Chief Terry didn’t tell her what was going on. She didn’t even know he was ticked at us. That means, even though he’s furious, he’s still protecting us.”
I brightened considerably. “You have a point.”
“I always have a point.”
“I still don’t trust her. You didn’t see what I saw. She made a face.”
“I would’ve made a face, too. He pretty much shut us down and you almost turned into a puddle of goo you were so upset. That is not normal behavior.”
“That’s not the sort of face she made. It was more as if she was ... winning.”
“Winning what?”
“A game I didn’t even know we were playing.”
Landon rolled his eyes to the sky. “I can’t even ... .”
I ignored his theatrics and grabbed the fork out of his hand to slice off a big piece of cheesecake for myself. “She’s up to something.”
“Why is it that you only find your appetite when it comes time to plot? I mean ... I thought you weren’t hungry.”
“Things change.”
“Obviously so.”
“As for plotting, I’m going to do nothing of the sort. I’m simply going to look out for my friend ... who is so blind to that woman’s machinations that he’s actually going to try to stay angry with me.”
“No offense, Sweetie, but we’ve earned his ire. We broke the law.”
“Barely.”
“He doesn’t really look at it the same way you do.”
“He’ll get over it ... as soon as I figure out what that woman has been doing to poison his mind against me.”
“Oh, this will end well. Give me back my fork.”
I did as he ordered. “That cheesecake is really good. I want another bite.”
Landon made a big show of cutting into the dessert and pointing his fork toward his mouth before he detoured it to mine. “Fine. I’m just warning you now, if you make things worse with Chief Terry it’s every lawbreaker for him or herself.”
“I can live with that. He’ll forgive me. He always does.”
“I have no doubt.”
Eighteen
Even though I didn’t want to admit it, I was frustrated after dinner.
Melanie offered what I’m sure she thought was a friendly wave as Landon and I packed up to leave, but Chief Terry refused to look in our direction. It wasn’t until we were at the front door that I risked a final glance and found his eyes on me.
I wanted to apologize, promise it would never happen again, but that was a lie. We both knew I wasn’t above breaking rules here and there when the need struck. I always promised him I wouldn’t break the rules a second time when caught as a kid, but I always did. It would be an empty promise, and I felt too old to be making empty promises.
Landon headed straight for The Overlook. He knew I wanted to question Aunt Tillie about Margaret Little’s file. I was in a foul mood, so now was as good a time as any.
The dinner dishes were finished and my mother and aunts had spread out around the inn for some quiet time. Mom had a book open on her lap in the library when she caught sight of us, her eyes filling with curiosity.
“I thought you guys ate elsewhere tonight.”
“We did.”
“If you’re looking for dessert it’s in the kitchen.”
“We had dessert, too. We’re looking for Aunt Tillie.”
“Now ... hold up.” Landon lifted his hand to still us. “What kind of dessert are we talking about here?”
I rolled my eyes. “You just ate a huge slice of cheesecake.”
“You ate half that slice.”
“I ate, like, two bites.”
“Um ... you ate half.”
I didn’t like his tone. “One-third.”
“Half.”
“Fine. Be a pig. See if I care.”
Mom’s sigh was heavy. I could tell listening to our antics was the last thing she wanted. “Why do you want Aunt Tillie? She’s been pretty quiet all day, good even. I would really prefer you not rile her up so late in the evening. She’ll be up all night.”
“We think she stole a file from Dr. Hopper’s office last night and we need to see it.”
Mom’s eyebrows nudged together. “Why would she steal a file and not tell you? That doesn’t sound like her. Are you sure you’re on the right track?”
“It’s Mrs. Little’s file.”
“Oh, well, that explains that.” Mom turned rueful. “She’s in the family living quarters. If she attacks, you’re on your own. I’m too tired to deal with her.” Mom returned to the book. I didn’t miss the shadows under her eyes, as if she hadn’t been sleeping. It stirred something inside of me.
“You’re upset about Chief Terry, aren’t you?”
“Of course not.” Mom kept her eyes on the book. “Terry and I are just friends.”
I didn’t believe her. “Why didn’t you get together when I was a kid? I always thought you would.”
“The timing was never right.”
What was that supposed to mean? What timing? I opened my mouth to ask just that when Mom admonished me. “You should get going, Bay. Aunt Tillie might already know you’re in the house, and she’s an expert at hiding when she thinks it will keep her from getting into trouble.”
She had a point. “Fine. We’re not done talking about this, though.”
“I can’t wait.”
True to form, we found Aunt Tillie watching television in the living room. She had her feet propped on the table and was wearing some sort of freaky housecoat. It alm
ost looked as if it had an anime design, although I’d never known Aunt Tillie to be a fan of the medium. Stranger things had happened.
“I want to talk to you.” I moved in front of my great-aunt and planted my hands on my hips. “I know what you did.”
“I know what you did, too.” Aunt Tillie was blasé. “You and your boyfriend are absolutely filthy and he’s a bit of a pervert.”
She was trying to derail the argument. She was good at that. I had no intention of letting her.
“You stole Mrs. Little’s file, didn’t you?”
Aunt Tillie furrowed her brow as she finally lifted her chin and met my gaze. “Oh, that? I thought you were talking about something else. Yes, I stole Margaret’s file.”
I wasn’t used to Aunt Tillie admitting the truth so readily. I expected her to lie ... or at least distract me with some outrageous story nobody could possibly believe. Instead, she merely shrugged and smiled.
“Why did you take the file?” Landon asked, his tone even. He wasn’t nearly as worked up about the theft as me. “Why not read it out loud and share it with the class? It seems to me that’s something you would enjoy.”
“I wanted to read it for myself first,” Aunt Tillie replied simply.
“And?”
“And it’s exactly as you would expect. She has narcissistic tendencies and she’s manipulative. She also feels that she’s under-appreciated and suffers from a victim mentality.”
“That’s it?”
Aunt Tillie nodded. “For the most part. There were some funny anecdotes in there ... like she has a reoccurring dream about being buried in an avalanche of yellow snow. I’m going to play with that and see if I can drive her insane. Other than that, it was fairly boring.”
“So ... she wasn’t listed as a psychopath?”
Aunt Tillie’s brow turned into one big wrinkle. “What? No. Why would you think that?”
I briefly told her about the file we’d discovered hidden between two others at Hypnotic.
“Oh, no, I didn’t do that. I took the whole file because it was easier. That psychopath thing must refer to someone else ... although now I’m curious to find out who.”
She wasn’t the only one. “We need that file,” I supplied. “We have to keep everything together and return it to Chief Terry as soon as he secures a warrant.”
“I figured.” Aunt Tillie was calm as she got to her feet. “I made a copy, so it’s fine.”
“You made a copy?” That sounded frightening … for Mrs. Little. “Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“You really are the devil when you want to be,” I complained. “Thistle is right about that. You’re mean.”
“Just be glad I’m not focused on being mean to you.”
“I feel that way every day.”
LANDON AND I WAITED until we were back at the guesthouse to open Mrs. Little’s file. Perhaps it was by tacit agreement — or maybe simply instinct — but we sat on the couch together and flipped through the pages.
“This feels somehow invasive,” I admitted.
“Yeah, well, we’re looking for a murderer,” Landon noted. “Mrs. Little has shown a few undesirable tendencies in the short time I’ve known her. We know she kept secrets for years, including the fact that she was well aware that her husband killed Floyd Gunderson. That’s only the tip of the iceberg. She’s been up to her neck in other scandals. There’s always the possibility that there’s something in there strong enough to propel her to murder.”
He had a point, still ... . “I think Mrs. Little is more likely to keep the secret rather than spread it and have to kill someone.”
“Maybe she couldn’t keep the secret any longer,” Landon suggested. “Everyone needs to confide in someone. Mrs. Little went years hiding her darkest secret from everyone. That had to be difficult.”
“I guess.”
“You and I have each other to confide in. Even if angry words are spoken, it’s still a relief to unburden ourselves. I think that’s why our relationship is so strong. We tell each other almost everything — I mean ... even we can’t share everything — and then we work out our issues together.”
“That’s been a work in progress, though,” I pointed out. “We didn’t start out that way. I was keeping the witch secret from you back then ... and you were an undercover FBI agent and didn’t tell me.”
“We weren’t technically involved then. We were circling each other. I had a job to do, but I was still worried about keeping you safe. I couldn’t understand why you kept showing up to visit a cornfield where a kid had died in a horrible way. Not only did you keep visiting, it was happening in the middle of the night. None of it made sense.”
“I was trying to be covert.”
“I get that. It was still weird.”
I chuckled as Landon slid his arm around my shoulders and tugged me close. “I thought you were weird, too. I considered that maybe you were a murderer and you were stalking me.”
“I was trying to figure out where my biker friends were hiding their drugs. After I stumbled across you the first time, I started paying more attention. I wouldn’t say I was stalking you as much as keeping an eye on you. I knew you were up to something. I was hoping it wasn’t drugs, because I didn’t want to arrest you.”
The notion was absurd. “When did you realize that I wasn’t running drugs?”
“When you brought your mother and aunts to a cornfield in matching tracksuits in the middle of the night.”
“Yeah. That was a fun night ... other than you being shot.”
As if reading my mood, Landon steered the conversation away from a potentially dark turn. “Let’s not dwell on that.” He pressed a kiss to my temple. “I’m here. We’ve come a long way. Let’s focus on Mrs. Little and put that particular story behind us.”
“Fair enough.” I snuggled close to Landon as we perused the documents. “There are some interesting notes in here. Like this one: Mrs. Little was complaining that Aunt Tillie was following her around town and trying to kill her.”
“Hopper wrote that she was paranoid and possibly needed medication,” Landon said.
“Yeah, except Aunt Tillie spent an entire week this past winter following Mrs. Little around. She wasn’t trying to kill her or anything, but we had a bet how far she could push things before Mrs. Little flipped her lid.”
“Yeah, well, there are two sides to every story.” Landon flipped a page. “Oh, here’s something. It’s about us.”
“Us?” My eyebrows migrated higher on my forehead. “What does she say?”
“That she’s convinced you’ve infiltrated the FBI in an attempt to cover for your family. Apparently I’m just some poor, unsuspecting moron who has been dazzled by sex and possible witchcraft to cover for you guys.”
Even though I knew Mrs. Little had probably said ten times worse about me over the years, I was agitated all the same. “She’s a horrible old biddy.”
Landon snorted. “I think it’s kind of funny.”
“You think it’s funny that she believes I got you through curses and spells?”
“Kind of. I’m guessing you don’t think it’s funny.”
“Not even a little.” I was stiff when I went back to reading the file. “She’s horrible.”
“And your nose is out of joint,” Landon mused. “I didn’t see that coming.”
“It’s a manifestation of the guilt she feels,” Hopper volunteered as he popped into existence on the chair across from us. He looked relaxed, as if he was explaining something clinical to a reporter for one of those medical journals and he was almost bored by the task. “You’ve fallen in love with a woman who metabolizes guilt the same way others do water. It’s going to be a part of your life going forward if the relationship survives — which isn’t a given — so you should get used to it.”
My mouth dropped open as annoyance and worry warred for supremacy in my brain. “What?”
“Ignore him,” Landon instructed, disgust on
full display. “He’s trying to distract us because he’s upset about you shoving him in an invisible box. This is how he’s decided to get payback.”
“I’m a little bit upset about putting him that box, too,” I admitted. “Maybe that’s some of the guilt he’s talking about.”
Hopper bobbed his head. “Exactly!”
“Oh, geez.” Landon rolled his eyes. “Bay, he’s trying to lead you off on a tangent. This isn’t going to help.”
“I know what he’s doing.” That was true. Hopper was a user. I recognized that within hours of meeting him. That didn’t mean he didn’t have insight into my relationship with Landon. “Why do you think I’m riddled with guilt?”
“I don’t know all the specifics obviously — we would need full sessions to work through all that — but from what I’ve observed you’re afraid of losing yourself to this new magic you’ve discovered and you’re afraid of putting Landon into a position where he will have to risk his career to protect you.”
He wasn’t far off. “I can’t quite seem to stop worrying,” I admitted. “If Landon gets in trouble because of me ... .” I left it hanging.
“What happens if I get in trouble with my superiors?” Landon asked, honestly curious. “I mean ... what do you think is going to happen?”
I held my hands palms out and shrugged. “You’ll lose your job and never forgive me.”
“Um ... no. Neither of those things will happen.”
I balked. “You helped me steal files.”
“That is illegal,” Hopper agreed. “You should stop going through them to prove you’re remorseful.”
“Nobody is that remorseful about stealing the files,” I shot back.
“I did help you steal those files,” Landon agreed. “But I won’t lose my job over that. Anything that I would lose my job over, I wouldn’t do.”
“Even to protect my family?”
“No.” Landon was firm. “I will do what it takes to protect you, but there are always ways to do that without breaking the law. Er, well, breaking the big laws. If you were in mortal peril and I had to break the law to save you I would because I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. That would be justifiable.
“You’re the one worried about things that won’t happen, Bay,” he continued. “I get it. This whole necromancer thing threw you for a loop. What happened with Danny in the snow was ... traumatic ... for you. It was traumatic for me, too, because I couldn’t get to you in time. But you saved yourself. You always do.”
Wicked Witches of the Midwest Mystery Box Set Page 18
