Something Sinister This Way Comes: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel (Midlife Wishes Book 2)

by R K Dreaming

  I almost snorted in laughter. Had Charming really brought Squeak with him?

  “Very,” said Charming, and didn’t bother to explain what a grown man was walking around with a chicken for, which almost made me laugh again.

  “May I pet her?” crooned Bridgit. I could just imagine her batting her long lashes.

  I remembered how beautiful she was, even on the verge of tears in the morgue waiting room; slender and petite, with tendrils of soft shiny hair floating angelically around her sweet face that made her look much younger than I suspected she was. Succubus, I thought. She was certainly gorgeous enough to be one.

  “I’m afraid Squeak doesn’t enjoy being petted,” said Charming.

  Bridgit must have already tried because I heard Squeak squawk in alarm and a flutter of wings as she flew off, probably right onto Charming’s head.

  “Oh, shy little thing, isn’t she? You asked me when Rodan was last here?” said Bridgit. “It was on Wednesday. And then… well, he was killed later that night.” Her voice caught in her throat.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” said Charming in a far kinder tone than I had heard from him before.

  “It was just an ordinary working day for us,” Bridgit said in her irksomely soft voice. “I could never have imagined how it would end…” Her gentle little voice trailed off. I could just imagine the look of woe on her doe-eyed face.

  She sniffed, and I heard a movement. I wondered if Charming had reached out to touch her arm, a comforting brush of the hand perhaps, to soothe a damsel in distress.

  I heard her blow a quiet lady-like sniffle into a tissue. Now she was probably patting it at the corners of her big teary eyes.

  “Thank you,” she murmured. “Rodan meant so much to me. Both as a friend and a business partner. I can’t imagine what I am going to do without him.”

  From the gap beneath the desk, I saw her feet move as she sat down abruptly in the chair meant for patients. She was opposite and directly facing me now. I stayed utterly still, hoping her eyes were so glazed with tears that she couldn’t see a blurry thing.

  “Was Rodan the senior partner here?” Charming asked.

  “We started the business together,” she said. “But he was the qualified psychiatrist. I’m a psychologist. Lots of experience, but he was the one with the doctorate. His patients loved him. He provided full spectrum care.”

  “And Marilyn was one of those patients?” asked Charming. “Her husband Noah mentioned it.”

  “I shouldn’t comment on that for confidentiality reasons.”

  “But they were good friends too, I’m told?” persisted Charming.

  “Yes. He adored her. I imagine many men adored her.”

  “Were they more than friends?”

  Bridgit hesitated. “I don’t think so.”

  “Are you sure?” Charming asked gently. “Her medical history shows that she’d had a recent miscarriage.”

  My mouth dropped open. How the heck had he found that out?

  Charming continued, “Her husband was shocked when he received the news. It happened shortly before they were married. He claimed to have no idea about it.”

  Bridgit gasped audibly. “Goodness. You mean she was having an affair with someone? But Rodan said she and Noah were so in love!”

  “Could the child have been Rodan’s?”

  “Absolutely not. Rodan was born in the Magicwild, and came here as a teen. He was the black sheep of his family. They have strange customs over there. When he left, his family matriarch had him magically neutered to prevent him mixing their bloodline with beings his family considered less worthy. Tainting it, he used to say. He was quite bitter about it. It was physically impossible for him to have children. Ever.”

  “I see,” said Charming. I could tell by the tone in his voice that he wasn’t pleased with this news. It didn’t match whatever theory he was forming.

  “I tried not to judge,” she said, “but it was a shocking thing for them to do to him, poor Rodan.”

  “Marilyn must have been having an affair with someone,” said Charming. “Do you know who?”

  “I really couldn’t say. She was Rodan’s friend, not mine.”

  “And yet he clearly took you into his confidences,” said Charming gently. “Did Rodan ever confide in you that there might be trouble in Marilyn and Noah’s marriage? That perhaps Noah was unfaithful to his wife, and that maybe their marriage was already strained? That maybe Noah might have reason to want his wife out of the way?”

  “But I thought it was The Reaper who did it?” she said, sounding startled.

  “It could be possible that Noah somehow led The Reaper towards killing Marilyn,” said Charming. “That maybe Noah only married Marilyn for her money and wanted her out of the way. After all, Marilyn is a very wealthy woman.”

  “And Noah isn’t!” Bridgit gasped. She began pacing in an agitated manner. “Rodan and I always did wonder what a woman like Marilyn saw in Noah. He’s just an ordinary boy really. Nothing special. And she was so gifted, so beautiful. And now you think he charmed her into marrying him so that he could do this to her…? And then poor Rodan got in the way and he killed him too!”

  Her voice rose into such a pitch, she sounded on the verge of hysteria.

  “It’s alright Ms Corkmony,” Charming said soothingly, moving closer to her.

  She came to a halt near him. I could see their shoes were toe to toe. I imagined his hands might be on her upper arms, steadying her. And that squirming feeling inside was most definitely not jealousy I was feeling.

  The charming git! It looked like he was nice to all the ladies in private.

  “It’s Bridgit,” she murmured softly, her voice feminine and breathy.

  “Take your time, Bridgit,” Charming said, a liquid tone in his voice that really was utterly irresistible. It made me want to throttle him.

  She sniffled, and babbled in her ridiculous breathy voice, “Poor Rodan. Everyone loved him. If only he hadn’t been there. All the good he could have done. He loved our charity work.”

  She must have pointed to the photos on the wall of Rodan with all the people he had helped because she certainly took at step in that direction. I stiffened. Any closer and she would see me.

  “Was charity work a big part of your business?” asked Charming.

  “It’s what we mostly do. Rodan loved helping people.” Her voice broke again. “It’s why we closed down our other offices and moved into my house. I had so much space here. And it’s helped us save money to put back towards our work. It was his idea. He was such a good man.”

  By now I was feeling both impatient and smug. Smug because clearly Charming didn’t know about Rodan’s secret key and was behind me on the hunt, but impatient because he wasn’t asking her about it, when clearly she was ready to tell him whatever his heart desired.

  “So were you and he…?” Charming let his voice trail off meaningfully.

  “Goodness, no!” she said with a startled laugh. “Just friends. Though my boyfriend does get a little jealous at times.” She giggled again.

  Aha! A boyfriend! I found myself grinning. Take that Charming. You’re not so irresistible after all.

  “Boyfriend?” echoed Charming, sounding surprised. And serve him right.

  “Man-friend, really,” she said coyly. “Hardly a boy at his age. Tiberius Ossias?”

  She said it like a question. Charming’s silence told me he had no idea who this was, but I recognised the name, since the man was an important member of the Eldritch Council.

  “The Minister for Trade?” she said.

  “Of course,” Charming said, as if he knew.

  “Tiberius was the one who told me what had happened to Marilyn and Rodan. They called him first thing on Thursday morning after the bodies had been found. We’d spent the night together, and thank goodness Tiberius was there to break the news to me. It was so awful. To think Rodan had been killed while we were sleeping!”

  Charming was now li
ngering by the desk, horribly close to seeing me, and something on it seemed to have caught his attention.

  “You said you moved your offices here fairly recently?” he said suddenly.

  “Some weeks back.”

  “Was Dr Hale a neat man?” he said. “Efficient? Organized?”

  “Yes, mostly. But… but he’d been a bit more lax recently.”

  She had come to join him at the desk now. I hardly dared to breathe for fear she would hear me. I heard the shuffle of paper as Charming picked something up from the table top to look at it.

  I prayed Bridgit would stay just where she was. If she moved just a couple more feet towards the open section at the front of the desk, she was going to see me. If only I’d pulled the chair closer to cover me.

  “Why is his office so untidy?” he said.

  Bridgit Corkmony hesitated. I listened, eager for the answer.

  “Well… erm, Rodan was very private recently. He said he didn’t want my cleaner coming into his office.”

  “And yet a man like him would have kept things tidy himself,” said Charming. “But this office looks like it has been ransacked.”

  I heard the soft tread of his shoes on the carpet as he stepped around the table. Darn it — she was following him every step of the way, right towards me! His legs came around to the front of the desk. I wanted to give him a shove to keep him moving.

  It was like he could hear my thoughts and was determined to do the opposite. He stopped right in front of me. And then he bent down and reached for a fallen file.

  My breath froze in my throat. His bent head was a foot away from mine. I could smell his wonderful cologne and see the ruffles in his wavy dark hair. As he straightened, preparing to rise, he looked right at me. Our eyes connected. One eternal microsecond crawled by, in which it hit me that he’d had no idea I was here!

  I couldn’t stop the grin cracking across my face. Pretty soon I was shaking in mirth. I had to clamp my hand over my mouth to hold the giggles in.

  The expression on his face did not change. He didn’t even hesitate in his rising motion. I could have been invisible by the way he just picked up that file and stood again.

  Unfortunately for me, his darned little chicken, who had been perched on his shoulder, had no such mercy. She squawked in protest as he strolled away. And then she flew right at the desk, sending papers flying off it with the flapping of her wings.

  Bridgit bent to scoop them up, saw me, and screamed.

  Charming hurried back to her, peered under the desk and a look of outrage crossed his face. “Agent Maltei,” he boomed. “What are you doing under there!”

  “That’s ‘Your Grace’ to you,” I snapped, since he was dressed in a sentinel uniform.

  Her dastardly mission completed, the tiny chicken flew back to perch atop his shoulder again, and gave me the smuggest of evil eyes.

  Bridgit had sagged in a fit of hysterics back into the chair again. “But… What? How did you get under there? What is going on!” Her voice had risen to screeching proportions.

  I unfolded myself from beneath the desk, massaged the crick in my neck, and said, “Apologies. The ambience was better under there.”

  “The what?” she asked faintly.

  “The psychic energies,” I said to her, as if this was self-explanatory.

  She goggled at me. “Whatever do you mean! I don’t understand. What are you doing here?”

  “My apologies,” said Charming, throwing me a convincingly reproving look. “I’ve long had to suffer Her Grace’s unconventional methods. But are you telling me, Ms Corkmony, that you did not give Her Grace permission to enter?”

  “And disturb the psychic energies?” I demanded heatedly. “I needed a clear mind and a clear ambience to understand what is going on here, and I am pleased to report that understand it, I have!”

  I turned to glower at Bridgit Corkmony.

  “What?” she said faintly, her pale face growing paler, much to my satisfaction.

  “You know exactly what!” I said haughtily.

  “Oh gosh!” she said in a tone of utter distress. And then she sagged further into her chair, and covered her face with her hands. Her voice came out muffled. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have tried to keep it from you!”

  “Keep what?” Charming asked, still in that irresistibly soothing voice, as if he had already forgiven her for it. He came to stand in front of her, crouching solicitously down to her level.

  “My house was broken into recently,” she whispered. “They ransacked our offices. I didn’t report it. I wanted to, but Rodan said it would be best not to.”

  “Why would he do that?” I demanded, ever the haughty oracle, glowering down at her.

  “Because…” She cleared her throat nervously. “Because some aspects of our charity work might be perceived as being… not entirely legitimate.” The last bit came out so quietly that I had to strain to hear.

  Charming was now patting her hand to comfort her. “You must tell me everything, Bridgit,” he said. “Because I know you want to help catch Rodan’s killer.”

  That honey-sweet voice of his was completely over the top, but Bridgit was blinking her big tear-drenched eyes and practically melting into a puddle, and she had been pretty mushy to begin with.

  She nodded, and a little affirmative murmur escaped her lips.

  “We helped liberate water sprites and their kin, you see,” she said softly. “From the Magicwild. I know it’s illegal, but we had to help bring them to this world. Rodan told me about the awful conditions they were living in over there, practically enslaved to their masters. And here, there’s so much good they could do, easing draughts, solving environmental issues. They help entire communities to thrive!”

  She stared at him, her eyes huge, waiting for her doom.

  Charming nodded sympathetically, as if he completely understood, and said with his silver-tongue, “And a police investigation into a break-in would have uncovered the truth about what Rodan was doing, implicating your business, so you didn’t report it.”

  “We couldn’t. You have to understand,” she pleaded. “Some of the biggest donations for our charitable work come from high profile people. Including from Tiberius. If the press find out, it’ll damage their reputations and businesses, not to mention Tiberius’s official relationships with Magicwild traders. Please don’t tell the Conclave of Magic. Tiberius could lose his position. He’s going to be so furious with me!” She burst into tears.

  “We can be discreet,” Charming reassured her.

  Even I felt a pang of sympathy. It was hard to dislike a woman who had risked her own neck to help those water sprites. The thought of their suffering and enslavement sickened me.

  Bridgit thanked Charming profusely, telling him she’d been so worried about having to close down the business now that Rodan was gone. She batted her long eyelashes at him, tears clinging to them like dewdrops.

  It was like a dam had been broken. Relieved to finally be able to tell someone, she gabbled to Charming about Rodan’s illegal activities that she’d helped covered up, as if she was in a confessional. The darn woman couldn’t even break a law if it wasn’t related to do-gooding.

  She shut up in alarm when a knock came on the door.

  The secretary poked her head in. She had a strange expression on her face. “Sorry to disturb you, Ms Corkmony, but there’s a man here to see you.”

  Bridgit hastened to mop up her tears, looking embarrassed to be seen like this by her secretary.

  “Do tell him to wait, Janey. I’m a bit busy.”

  “I can’t, Ms Corkmoney,” said Janey, sounding strained. “He says he’s” — she darted a quick look at Charming — “he says that he’s Chief Polliver!”

  “But this is Chief Polliver.” Bridgit pointed at Charming.

  “I most certainly am Chief Polliver!” said Charming, puffing out his chest.

  “But the man outside insists that he is Chief Polliver,” said Janey in a smal
l voice.

  “Ridiculous!” announced Charming. “But I am rather busy. I’m afraid I shall have to leave you to sort this out Bridgit.”

  He grabbed hold of my hand and etherhopped us out of there.

  Chapter 13

  CHARMING

  Charming etherhopped with Sigourney to a spot down the road from Bridgit’s house. When they arrived, Sigourney was laughing so hard she nearly fell. Charming grabbed her before she landed on her face.

  “Thanks,” she gasped. “Still haven’t got the hang of etherhopping. That was hilarious! I can’t believe you pretended to be Polliver of all people!”

  She looked impressed. She even reached out and tickled Squeak where she perched upon his shoulder. Squeak bit her.

  Charming scowled. “I arrived and that secretary mistook me for him,” he admitted.

  “Even so, nice one,” she said, grinning and inspecting her finger for blood. “Bet Polliver is fuming!”

  Charming couldn’t believe she thought it was funny. He’d had an unpleasant jolt of shock when he had found her lurking under Rodan Hale’s desk.

  “Did it never occur to you that Bridgit is a succubus, and if you caught her by surprise, there might have been unpleasant consequences?”

  “Bridgit, now is it?” she said peevishly. “Does your chicken like everyone you like, because she certainly seemed to like this Bridgit!”

  Squeak squawked in protest.

  Charming ignored Sigourney’s jibe. “Has it not occurred to you that it hardly matters if I get arrested, since no prison cell has power over my lamp, but you can’t exactly wriggle out between the bars, can you?”

  “I’m pretty sure, so long as I don’t do anything too bad, that I can make Polliver get me out of it. He’s desperate to solve that Mockingbird case, and I’ve got his only precious clue right inside here.” She tapped her head.

  “Not if they decide that you’ve got your own reasons for interfering in this case,” he growled. “You don’t have an alibi for the time of the murder, since your only alibi is me, and I don’t exist!”

  Her mouth dropped open like an adorable fish. Clearly she had not thought of this. He felt a jolt of satisfaction.