Krystal nodded hopefully. “But, he had an alibi for the first murder and if they were done in the same way, it can’t be Father Frank, right?”
Aaron shrugged. “We have to look at every possibility. I have a theory, though.” He leaned forward across the counter and the girls leaned in too. “I think the cross that was cut into their chests is a major clue. If this was just a random killing, they would have just slit the throats and bolted. The cut was done post-mortem, meaning it was done after they were killed. Why would someone go through the trouble of making those cuts unless it was just for show? With how the murderer just left them by the road instead of hiding them in the woods, maybe he wanted them to be found. He might be trying to make a point. And then,” he said, stabbing the counter top with his fingertip, “you have to look at who the victims were. Elizabeth was… let’s be honest, she was a whore. And Harry was the town drunk. Whoever this guy is, they’re targeting textbook sinner profiles.” It made total sense.
“If that’s the case,” Krystal said, “then the murderer might be some self-righteous psycho, right?
Maybe he’s trying to send a message to the town.”
Valerie grimaced. “Like the whole ‘turn or burn’ thing.”
Aaron nodded. “Again, that’s my theory, but the problem is that we have to find out who that is. Father Frank doesn’t fit the bill in my opinion. I saw the look on his face when we told him about Elizabeth. He was totally devastated. I can’t believe he would willingly hurt another person that way.
But, it might be someone from his congregation. That’s a lot of people to interrogate.”
Krystal finally turned away to start making his usually espresso with coconut. With the chalkboard empty, she wished there was a charm she could put in his drink to help them find the killer. It had only been a couple of days, but they needed to find out who was doing this and quickly before any more innocent people were hurt. Maybe a little bit of luck?
She charmed the coffee with a subtle wave of her hand and delivered it, along with Devin’s normal black coffee, to Aaron while he was still working out his theory with the girls.
“So, is Devin out in the squad car or something?” she asked the cop when he was taking his first
sip.
Aaron shook his head. “No, he’s back at the station. He told me to tell you that he’d be in touch soon. He’s just really swamped with the paperwork for all of this.”
“You’d think Chief Nickels could take care of that shit,” Valerie remarked.
The look on Aaron’s face told them that he perfectly agreed, but he wasn’t about to vocally admit it. “You girls watch out, okay? I recommend you close the shop when it gets dark and go straight home. I don’t think any of you would fit who this guy may be targeting, but it never hurts to be on the safe side.”
He paid for his espresso and left, leaving the girls to talk about everything they had just learned that morning. They stood off in the far back corner of the brewing station, far enough away from any listening ears or prying eyes.
“We have to do something,” Alexa said first.
Valerie made a sound of disbelief. “Are you kidding? What if Aaron’s theory is actually right? We’re witches. We could all be fucked if this guy finds us. I agree with the cop. We should close down early.”
Krystal crossed her arms, rustling some of the fake ivy leaves on her costume. “I agree too. We’ll close at four and post a sign on the door. However, I don’t agree that we need to get involved.”
“Why not?” Alexa pleaded to her friends. “If the cops can’t find this guy, maybe we can? Is your mom still in town?”
She shook her head. “She went back to Albany this morning. She didn’t tell my dad about what was going on and she didn’t want to be away from the council for too long.”
“Okay, so we go to Amber and get her to scry and find out who this guy is. We can send an anonymous tip to the police and they can go hunt him down.”
Krystal gave an incredulous look. “Amber would never agree to that. She’s just as hard core about not using magic on non-magic folk as my parents are.”
The dejection coming off of Alexa was almost palatable. “What about the rule saying that if another magic folk is in danger, we can use our powers to help them?”
“None of us have been directly threatened or affected by these murders,” Valerie pointed out.
“Elizabeth and Harry weren’t relatives or magic folk. We still can’t get involved.”
“And I highly doubt that a huge anonymous tip like that would just slide under the radar,” Krystal added. “I don’t know if the station has voice recognition wired into their phones or have some way of locating where the call is coming from. If they do pin it back to any of us, we could risk exposure. They’ll ask how we knew about the murderer and I can’t think of one good, logical, non-magic excuse how we would know. They might think we were associated with him.”
Alexa threw back her head and let out a sigh, the overhead lights making her outfit shimmer. “I can’t believe neither of you is willing to do something.” She looked back to Krystal, indignation flavoring every word. “We started this coffee shop, because we wanted to help the community. We have the means to help and you refuse?”
Krystal hated it when they were right. Finding the murderer would have been the best thing they could ever do for Goldcrest Cove, but it still didn’t feel right. Maybe it was some new cautionary trait that came with her dark magic. “This is way out of our league, Alexa. This isn’t just adding a bit of magic to a drink and sending them on their way. This is full blown psycho killer danger. We aren’t experienced enough to handle this. Not even me, Sierra, Amber, or Taylor.”
“I believe we are,” Alexa argued with a proud tilt of her chin.
“I believe we are too,” Valerie joined. “But, I still think it’s way too dangerous and too risky to screw around with whoever this guy is. For all we know, he’s done with his crimes and moved on. I can’t think of anyone else in this town that commits some crazy cardinal sin. Besides himself, that is. Maybe he’ll be the next body they find on Jackson Creek Road.”
Though Alexa seemed far from content to let the argument slide, she had little else to say on the matter. Two overruled the one and Alexa had to know that none of the other witches in town would be willing to lend her a hand like this.
All they could do was wait and hope that Devin would find the killer soon and life in Goldcrest Cove would return to normal.
As Devin walked up to the front porch, he wondered if he should have called or texted first. In reality, he hadn’t expected to end up at Krystal’s home. He just took off from the police station when he was done with the last of the paperwork for Harry Middleton’s murder, with the intent to go home. Somehow, he had pulled alongside the curb on Pinkerton Street instead, right in front of the historical landmark sign by Krystal’s home. He must have been too tired to realize that he was taking that many wrong turns, but it was too late now.
He was here and maybe it was something in his soul or subconscious that had led him to her. The lights were on, but Sierra’s car wasn’t in the driveway. Krystal must have been home, but he hated the idea that Sierra was out at this hour. She had to know about the murders by now. Everyone in town did.
He rang the doorbell and heard some fumbling from inside. With his chest aching and heart pounding, Devin wondered if this was wrong. She said she needed time to think, but here he was disturbing that peace. He had to see her though.
The last couple of days had been pure hell. While the other cops at the station were content to go down to Torn Sails Bar and get a beer or two to wind down, Devin knew that wasn’t good enough for him. Krystal was better than any alcohol or other distraction he could think of. If he could just see her, hold her for a little while, then maybe he could relax enough to get some rest.
Just before she opened the door, he came up with the only excuse he could think of. But when he laid his eyes on her, all
mental function simply stopped. Krystal was in her pajamas already and it wasn’t even nine o’clock. However, he couldn’t hate the view. He had never seen her in anything but skirts and to see her shapely legs clad in soft flannel did predictable things to his crotch. Her white camisole, too, made his heartbeat shoot through the roof.
For a moment, she seemed just as speechless as he was.
“I was in the neighborhood and I saw the lights on,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the empty street. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
It just occurred to him that the citizens were taking the news of the murder quite seriously. The traffic on the main road was practically non-existent and despite the fact that it was Halloween, there were absolutely no trick-or-treaters to be found. Their parents must have thought it unwise to let their children out at night while a killer was on the loose.
They were right.
Krystal blinked, her lips parted in that sexy, confused way. “Oh… Well, as you can see, I’m fine.”
Devin swallowed hard just before asking, “Can I come in?”
It was a dumbass move. If she wanted him inside, she would have offered when she opened the door. Somehow, she seemed just as hesitant as he was.
The past two days found him perplexed, stressed, and in desperate need of some relief. And Devin knew that fishing wasn’t going to help him make sense of the mess in his head. Not now. He needed Krystal, the only thing that felt right and good to him anymore. This whole murder business and her strange declaration that she needed space had created a warzone in his mind. He needed some stable ground to stand on, so he could sort it all out. And as inconvenient as it was, she was that stable ground for him.
Krystal stepped aside to let him through and the delicious scents of garlic, butter, and browning beef met him.
“You’re cooking this late?” he questioned as she shut the door. Devin wondered if he should take his jacket off, but thought better of it. It might have spooked her into thinking he was going to stay long. He wanted to, but not unless she offered.
“Yeah,” she replied, moving toward the kitchen, her bare feet slapping against the hardwood floor. “I tried to go to bed early, but I couldn’t sleep. I thought I’d try something new to replicate Mrs. Pazzini’s meat sauce recipe.”
Devin followed her into the kitchen and saw the chaotic mess of dishes, dirty chopping boards, glass containers full of the food she had prepared, boiling pots on the stove and both the ovens were glowing.
“So, you decided to bake food for the whole town while you were at it?” he teased.
“Not for the whole town,” she said as she took up a wooden spoon and began stirring the noodles. “I’ve also been cleaning.”
He could tell that too. The floors seemed shinier and the wood banisters on the stairs gleamed, even in the dim light of the foyer.
“I hope you weren’t having trouble sleeping because of all the… you know.”
Krystal let out a sigh and set the spoon down on the countertop before she took up a spice container of something that looked like parsley, but he was a dunce at cooking, so he could have been wrong. All the green stuff looked the same to him. “Not just that, but other things too.”
“Like about us?”
Before he could stop himself, the words came spilling out. Krystal didn’t even flinch or pause in her cooking, but nodded. A bit of her raven hair fell over her shoulder and she pushed it back behind her ear.
He stepped into the kitchen, hoping that his work boots wouldn’t dirty her clean tiles. “Did you figure anything out?”
Krystal’s shoulders rose and fell as she took a deep breath. “Some things, yeah.”
Hope may have risen up in him a little too soon, but Devin had to try. He stood by the kitchen island, watching her push the ground beef around in her skillet as the meat sizzled.
“So, does that mean you’re done thinking?”
Finally, she looked up, blindly shoving the meat in front of her as steam rose up into the air between them to partially shroud her face in a mist. “I don’t know.”
Devin gripped the edge of the island. “What I don’t understand is, what is there to think about? If it’s nothing that I’ve done, does it have something to do with your family?”
Krystal set her spatula down on the dirty napkin next to the range. “No, it’s not my family. Not exactly anyway.”
The torn, slightly scared look in her eye propelled his mind into cop mode. If he wasn’t still in his uniform, it might have been easier to ignore the troubled way she stared at him. This was the thing she had been hiding since the beginning, the thing she couldn’t speak of or didn’t want to talk about. Maybe tonight, everything would come out in the open. Even for him. He would bare his soul and tell her everything that happened in Boston, if she would just let him in.
“Then what is it? You can tell me, Krystal. I know we haven’t known each other for long, but you can tell me anything. If it’s about what your family business is – “
“No, it’s not exactly that,” she said quickly, a bit more panic rising in her voice.
The water on in the pot that was cooking the noodles began to boil at a faster rate. Luckily, Krystal noticed and quickly turned off that eye. While she was at it, she turned them all off.
“Not exactly? So, it’s partially that?” he questioned, picking apart her words, so he could get to the bottom of this. He felt like the cop he had been back in Boston, before the accident, before he was afraid to even touch the nasty, gritty cases.
Krystal winced. “Sort of… It’s all kind of connected, really.” Her eyes darted toward the oven and she dashed over to quickly flip them both off. It still took a while for the heating elements to cool down.
Devin didn’t want to be the reason she stopped cooking, but maybe then she wouldn’t seem so distracted. “So, the reason you don’t want to go out with me again is connected with your family business? If they’re tied in with some illegal – “
“No!” she snapped. “It’s nothing illegal, I can promise you that. It’s just… complicated. They expect certain things of me.” Devin waited while she searched for the right words. “They have this idea of what I should do with my life, who I should date and marry, who I should associate with, that kind of stuff. It’s all part of tradition and to deviate from that is a pretty big deal. I haven’t told them about you because of that.”
Devin wanted to understand, but this seemed like something straight out of medieval times. Who she should or should not marry seemed like such an archaic mindset. “This is the twenty-first century. How can they put you in a box like that?”
Krystal crossed her arms and he realized she was sweating a bit. He thought the kitchen was getting a little warm, but all of the appliances had been turned off. “It’s not a box as much as it’s a… a safe zone. They want me to date the right guy, so I’ll be safe and secure.”
That was a laugh. How much more safe and secure could she be with a cop than anyone else?
None of this made sense.
“Honestly, I don’t even know what it is we’re doing,” Krystal continued. “Are we dating? Are we boyfriend and girlfriend? I know it sounds totally juvenile, but it would really help me to label this, so I can understand where we’re at. I don’t know if I can keep going with you unless I know.”
That had been another thing he wrestled with since their first date. He wanted to believe they were dating, that they were a couple now, but apparently it wasn’t that clear for her. Relationships weren’t so black and white anymore.
“I’d like to think you are my girlfriend and I’m your boyfriend. Does that help? Or is all of that going to change now?”
Krystal chewed on her bottom lip and shook her head. “No. I don’t want any of that to change. I want to be your girlfriend, I just…”
“You don’t want to upset your family.”
He never thought it would happen, but the bitter pangs of resentment rose up in him. He wa
nted to dislike her family and all the pressures they imposed on her. He hated that joyful family photo sitting on the mantle now. He wanted to take her away from Goldcrest Cove, so she could just disappear and never have to worry about their judgement again. All of these things, he wanted to do. But he knew that he couldn’t.
Krystal’s family meant the world to her. She wasn’t like him. Devin felt absolutely no qualms with leaving his father and sister behind in Boston. He had no problem with deleting their phone numbers from his contact list and erasing them from his life altogether. He refused any call coming in from the Boston area code without so much as feeling that ache of regret in his chest.
She could never do any of that. She’d miss her family, her sister and this house. As much as he wanted to be against everything her family was doing to her, she agreed with them. If they stood on opposite sides of this battlefield, he lost the war already.
When Krystal didn’t agree or disagree, Devin had to assume the answer. He gave her a nod and backed away from the island. “I may not understand where you’re coming from. You can keep your secrets about whatever it is your family does, and be so fucking unclear about what it is you want from me… from us. But I won’t stand in the way of your happiness.”
He stopped in the foyer, just beyond the entrance into the kitchen. Devin could taste his final words on his tongue like a bitter poison dissolving the last of his composure. “Say the word and I’ll leave. We can still see each other at the coffee shop and you can still drive me absolutely crazy with those eyes of yours. But, just one word from you, and I’ll never bother you again. I wouldn’t want to be the reason you and your family don’t get along. God knows I’ve been through that and I wouldn’t wish that kind of drama on anyone.”
Devin zipped up his jacket. “Just say the word and I’ll either stay… or I’ll go.”
Krystal shook her head. “Don’t force me to make this decision right now.” Her voice swelled with the heartache she must have been feeling. Whether it was heartache over the idea of him leaving, or the thought of her opposing everything her family stood for, he didn’t know. But he wasn’t going to hold his breath.
Bewitching Fire Page 20
