Vivian confirmed my thoughts. “It’s not Ella. It’s someone else.” Slowly, she angled her head toward Derrick.
He shifted in his chair. “What’s happening?”
Vivian’s eyes became glassy and her skin drained of color. “Detective Chambers, there’s someone here who wishes to speak with you. Her name is Sophie.”
Chapter 20
Derrick stumbled to his feet, tipping his chair and backing away from the table. “Sophie?”
The way he said her name with such devotion mixed with fear made my heart ache. Secrets were buried in that tone—secrets that even death couldn’t hide. Vivian heard it too. She glanced my way with the question in her eyes.
“Sophie was the first victim.”
“I see. Detective, it’s rare for those who have crossed over to reach out from the other side. In these circumstances, it’s best if we let them communicate as they wish. If you take your seat, we can get started.”
Derrick eyed his fallen chair as if it might bite the moment he reached for it. The sound of it hitting the floor had prompted Abrams to step through the beaded curtain.
“Is everything all right?” he asked, taking in the scene.
We stood around the table, afraid to move as the room plunged in temperature. I shivered, recognizing the same chill that announced Ella’s arrival—except this time, I was truly scared.
“It’s Sophie,” Derrick said, picking up his chair. He lowered himself into the seat.
“Impossible.” Abrams’ skin turned gray.
Candle flames flickered, bouncing shadows against the wall. The forms circled us like giant monsters waiting for their meal. Our frozen breath hung in the air, while above our heads, a chandelier swayed, creaking on its rusty chain.
“Sit down, Abrams,” Derrick instructed. His voice was tight, leashed with an intensity that made my pulse pound.
Vivian lit the wick of a white pedestal candle, then reached for a bundle of sage. She burned the end until a stream of smoke and a strong odor wafted in the air and placed the sage into a clay pot. A line of smoke curled lazily from the rim.
Beside me, Derrick remained seated, his body rigid. I reached for his hand, and he flinched. His resistance stung.
Along the wall, the candles extinguished one by one, plunging the room into darkness. I gripped the edge of the table, hoping it would ground me in the blackout.
Abrams choked out a mangled cry and pushed away.
“Don’t move,” Vivian said, striking a match. The hint of sulfur reached my nose as she re-lit the candle in the center of the table.
“Stop this!” Abrams snapped. The sharp planes of his face glowed in the candlelight, his lips curling in a sneer. “I won’t commune with spirits, it’s unnatural. Sophie is dead. Let her be.”
“Sit,” Derrick ordered.
Abrams bent forward, his fists balled on the tabletop. “You aren’t seriously entertaining this?”
Derrick held Abrams’ horrified stare. Yes, he was entertaining it. The same man who had tried to throw me out of his office for mentioning ghosts now sat with a measure of desperation etched across his face. A stab of regret stuck like a shard in my chest. Estelle had said the case was personal to him. Seeing his reaction, I worried it was more than that. Was Sophie related to the broken line on his palm? He’d never looked so tormented. I longed for his stare of cool indifference instead of this raw insecurity.
“I said, sit down. Do this for me, or leave.” A fierce look passed between them.
Abrams blew out a harsh breath. “They’re deluding you, Detective, just like the others. I won’t be a part of that. I’ll wait outside.”
A stilted silence followed as Abrams barged through the beaded curtain. Vivian bowed her head, and I watched the beads sway back into place. What did he mean, we were like the others?
Derrick gave nothing away, his attention focused on Vivian. “Continue, please.”
“Of course, Detective. Start by placing your hands palms-down on the table.” She waited until we’d followed her instructions, then closed her eyes. “Sophie, are you here with us?”
Nothing happened.
“Sophie, please make your presence known.”
A rush of air snaked over my skin, the breeze unexplained in the windowless room.
“I can feel her,” Vivian whispered. “Sophie, speak to me. Tell us what you’ve come here to say.”
A crystal vase splintered. I shrieked and shielded my eyes. Derrick wrapped his arm around my shoulders, dragging me to him as tiny razors flew through the air. I looked up to find blood welling along his jaw.
“You’re bleeding.” I tried to stem the flow with my sleeve.
Derrick caught my wrist, his gaze running urgently over my body while he brushed glass from my hair. “I’m fine. Are you hurt?”
“No. Viv, are you—?”
A void passed over Vivian’s face, and her mouth went slack. She rocked in her chair before slumping against the table. Strands of dark hair pooled over her limp form.
“Viv!” I squeezed her shoulders in an attempt to rouse her. Sweat coated her skin, dampening the neckline of her gown.
Derrick crouched at her side and pushed back Vivian’s hair, searching for a pulse. The instant his fingers touched her neck, her hand clamped around his wrist. She lifted her head off the table and fixed us with a feverish stare. Blood streaked her cheeks in thin rivulets from a piece of glass embedded in her skin.
“Oh, Viv,” I moaned.
She crooked her head toward me, still latched onto Derrick’s arm. When I bumped the edge of the table, her chin tilted in the other direction, and she studied me like a bird perched on a branch.
It wasn’t Vivian.
Fear seized my insides. Her lips moved, speaking in a lilting voice I didn’t recognize. It sent a shiver down my spine.
“All the petals are gone, only the thorns remain.” She faced Derrick, threading her fingers through his. “I shouldn’t have kept secrets from you.” Her voice broke on a whimper.
“Sophie?” Derrick tightened his grip. “Is it really you?”
Sophie nodded. Tears streamed down her face, mixing with the blood and turning pink. “I tried to run. Couldn’t. I begged. Pleaded. I needed you.” Her shoulders trembled, sobs wracking her body.
Derrick’s voice cracked with emotion. “I should have been there. I’m sorry.” He pulled her against him, smoothing the hair at the back of her head. “Tell me what happened. I’m here now. Who did this to you?”
“All I see are roses. Their petals stain the earth like blood. Their thorns cut to the bone.”
“I don’t understand. You’re not making sense. Sophie, please…”
She stared at me over Derrick’s shoulder. The air seemed to vanish, and I couldn’t breathe. Something flashed in Sophie’s eyes—an understanding. Her lips curved into a soft smile.
“Take care of him for me. He needs you.”
I must have nodded because she turned back to Derrick and held a slender finger to her lips. “Shh… Everything is all right now. Follow the roses.” Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she swayed on her feet.
Derrick gripped Vivian with shaking hands. His shout of denial echoed off the walls. The candles flared, bathing the room in flashes of white light, and Vivian’s body shuddered before she slowly regained consciousness. Derrick helped her to a chair, steadying her until she could stay upright.
“What happened?” she groaned, placing a hand at her temple. “Sophie’s gone. I can’t feel her anymore. Did she say anything?”
With eyes closed, Derrick’s face contorted in pain. “I need a minute.” He staggered from the room. I wanted to follow but couldn’t leave Vivian.
“Go,” she said. “I’m all right.”
I squeezed her fingers. “I’ll be back.”
Abrams waited outside, his lanky frame leaning against a lamppost. He watched me travel down the steps, searching the near-empty street for Derrick.
/> “Happy now?” he asked.
“Where did he go?”
“Around back. Through the gate.” He grabbed my arm before I could leave, fingers digging into my skin. “What did she say?”
I tried to shake him off, but his grip tightened.
He shouted again, “What did she say?”
“Let me go. You’re hurting me.”
Abrams loosened his grip, and I stepped back, rubbing a hand over my wrist. He clenched his fists, bringing his emotions in check.
“Who is Sophie to Derrick?” I asked quietly.
“He didn’t tell you? Sophie was Derrick’s sister.”
His answer stunned me. It made sense now. Derrick’s determination to solve the case ran deeper than preventing a murderer from striking again. His anguish at Olivia Lockwood’s accusations—even his drive to keep me safe—stemmed from the same well of guilt. He hadn’t been able to solve his sister’s murder, and each subsequent one reopened the scar.
“I didn’t know. I need to talk to him. Can you sit with Vivian? She shouldn’t be alone right now.”
Abrams nodded reluctantly. “I told you this was a bad idea.”
Maybe it was, but it was too late now. Seeing Sophie invade Vivian’s body had affected me more than I realized. Her words from beyond the grave tore at my heart, and more than anything, I wanted to comfort Derrick.
I found him standing in the small patch of Vivian’s back yard, looking up at the sliver of the moon. He heard me approach but didn’t turn around.
“I should have told you. I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t apologize. It’s hard to talk about the people we’ve loved and lost. Even the happy memories are torture.” I sat on a stone bench. “Can you tell me about her?”
Derrick sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Sophie was stubborn and reckless, always getting into trouble, but it was impossible to stay mad at her. Everyone loved her. My parents doted on her, and I was her big brother, the person who was always supposed to look out for her.”
Solemn, I nodded my head for him to continue.
“We’d been at the country house for a week, attending the king’s feast and annual hunt. The whole village was excited—except for Sophie. She’d been acting strange, sullen. It wasn’t like her. I was preoccupied with preparing to leave for training abroad.”
“Because you’d been accepted into the agency?”
“That’s right. The morning I was supposed to leave, Sophie barely said a word. She always told me everything. Most times, I couldn’t get her to stop talking, but that morning, she was closed off. I teased her, thinking I could get a rise out of her, but she became furious. She stormed off, and that was the last time I saw her.”
“She wasn’t there when you left?”
“No. It wasn’t until much later that I found out she’d gone missing that day. The search lasted almost a week before they found her. I wasn’t informed until I returned home a month later. By then, my parents were destroyed, and her case was cold.”
“I’m so sorry.” I rubbed my arms, the night chill settling in my bones.
Derrick sat beside me, drawing me against his chest to share warmth. “You’re cold. I should get your coat.”
“No—wait.” I closed my fist, then splayed my fingers over a small hearth near the bench. Magic sparked and caught fire. The flames grew brighter, snapping as they took hold of the kindling stacked in the grate. “Some spells are easier than others,” I explained with a smile, resting my head into the crook of his shoulder.
We sat in silence, the fire keeping us warm. A question burned on my tongue, but I was afraid of the answer.
“Can I ask you something?”
He nodded.
“What did Abrams mean when he said we were like the others?”
It took him so long to answer, I started to think he wouldn’t.
“After Sophie’s murder, my parents were desperate. There were no leads, no suspects. One day, a witch traveled through the village, and she heard about the murder. She offered to help—for a price. I begged them not to go, but they were willing to try anything. For the first time in months, they had hope. The witch promised to cast a spell that would lead them to the killer. It sounded too good to be true, and it was. My parents paid her a fortune in advance, and when they arrived the next day, the witch was gone.”
“Oh, Derrick.” I didn’t know what to say. I hung my head, tears streaming down my face. It was a miracle he’d opened up and let me near the case after what his family had experienced at the hands of a so-called witch. Their hopes had been shattered by a true charlatan. Was it any wonder he’d accused me of being one when we first met?
“Tessa.” He tucked strands of hair behind my ears and tilted my chin up to his. “You’re not like that. It took me a while to realize it because I didn’t want to go through it again, but in true Tessa form, you battered my defenses.”
I hiccuped and swiped at my eyes. “That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
“It’s the highest compliment.”
“I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time. I had no idea.”
Wrapping his arms around me again, Derrick pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “How could you? My sister’s murder made me realize how important it was for me to excel at the agency. I became a detective so I could solve her case and keep murderers off the streets. But it doesn’t make the helplessness go away, the feeling I’m always a step behind, that I can’t protect the ones I love. That’s always in the back of my mind.”
My palm cupped the side of his face, and I turned to look into his eyes, hoping to convey the truth in my words. “You’re a good detective, Derrick Chambers.”
“You think so?” His voice was a low rumble in my ear.
“I do, and that’s my highest compliment.”
He smiled, and the tenderness in his eyes made me feel like I was falling off a steep cliff. I realized all the traits I’d found so unappealing were simply his way of doing the best he could for those around him, that he held himself to an impossible standard—and I wanted nothing more than to see him succeed.
“We need to go back to the beginning. What Sophie said about the roses, I think that’s the key.”
Derrick nodded. “I agree, but no one we’ve questioned has been able to determine the source.”
“Then we haven’t been asking the right people. We need to go wider with the information. Someone has to know something.”
“The agency doesn’t have the manpower to go door-to-door asking about roses. Besides, not everyone likes to be questioned by the authorities. Some people get defensive when asked simple questions.”
I smirked. “If you’re alluding to me then I know what you mean. But I have an idea. What if we could appeal to a wider audience all at once and frame the question without giving away our intentions?”
“What do you have in mind?”
“We place an ad in the Gazette. Forget trying to find the one person with the answers about the rose. Let’s have that person come to us.”
Chapter 21
John Lincoln stretched his legs in front of him and leaned back in his chair. It creaked under his weight, threatening to buckle beneath him.
“Let me get this straight. The agency wants to place an ad in my paper to track down the origin of the rose left at the crime scene?”
“That’s right,” I said. “Someone out there might have information or know someone who does. The Gazette is the fastest, most direct way to find them. The rose may be the killer’s only mistake. It ties him to the murder in a specific way. If we can learn more about it and why it was left at the scene, we’ll be a step closer to catching him.”
John crossed his arms. “Aren’t you taking a risk the killer will see the ad as well?”
Derrick nodded. “It’s possible. That’s why we want to run another article on the front page, something that will distract attention. The writeup should be critical of the agency and insinuate
the killer has the upper hand. He wants attention, so we’ll give it to him and let him bask in it while we work a different angle.”
“A bait and switch?” John grinned and rubbed a hand over the whiskers on his chin. “I like it. In addition, the exclusive will sell a ton of papers.”
“We thought you’d appreciate that.” I placed the glass slipper along with the note in front of John. “This was left on my doorstep following the memorial dinner.”
He whistled and reached for the piece of paper. His brow lifted as he read the killer’s warning.
“If the slipper fits? What a cocky bastard. I assume this was taken from the scene?” He examined the shoe, turning it over in his hand. “Looks damn uncomfortable if you ask me.”
“Beauty is pain, Mr. Lincoln. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that?”
He grimaced and slapped a hand over his paunchy stomach. “I’ll take your word for it, Miss Daniels.”
Derrick handed John a pre-written ad. “This is what we’d like placed near the back of the paper. Inquiries should be forwarded to my office. In the meantime, we’ll be running damage control on the evidence leak.”
“It’s going to be a circus.” John shook his head in pity.
“We hope so. A circus draws a crowd. But once we have them packed into the seats, we control what they see and hear.”
“Even at the expense of your good name, Detective?”
Tension tightened Derrick’s jaw. “My name isn’t any good if I don’t catch Miss Lockwood’s killer.”
After learning what the case meant to Derrick, I couldn’t imagine anything he wouldn’t try, even if it subjected him to ridicule. He seemed to welcome it, free of the shackles of what people expected and driven only by results.
John tapped his fingers on the desk and eyed the glass slipper. An odd look flashed in his eye.
“You know, there are rumors Miss Lockwood might not be the only victim. Care to address that, Detective?”
“The agency doesn’t comment on rumors, John.”
“I guess that means you won’t confirm the rumors swirling around the two of you? A witch and a detective is an unlikely partnership, especially considering Miss Daniels’ background.” He flipped through a notebook on his desk. “I hope you don’t mind, but my reporters have done some digging.”
Spellbound After Midnight (Ever Dark, Ever Deadly Book 1) Page 18
