Sweet Avengers (A Sweet Cove Mystery Book 18)

by J A Whiting

  “We didn’t know,” Angie said. “Of course, we knew she was a doctor and worked at the hospital, but Mom never discussed the paranormal side of things with us. When we began to notice our own powers after she’d passed away, we assumed Mom didn’t have any powers of her own or that she chose not to develop them.”

  Magill said, “Elizabeth believed that children should grow-up normally, and when they were mature enough to understand and use their powers responsibly, that was the time to talk about it.”

  “We understand that Mom had a meeting planned here in Hamlet later on the day she was killed,” Jenna said.

  “Elizabeth was coming to tend to one of the members of our community, Sue-Ellen Prentice. She was only seventy and in good health, but she’d taken ill and couldn’t shake it. The upper respiratory infection became worse and Sue-Ellen developed pneumonia. The doctors had given her medication, but it wasn’t helping. She wasn’t doing well at all. Your mother was coming to see if medicine combined with magic would be effective.”

  “What happened to Sue-Ellen?” Jenna asked. “Since Mom didn’t make it to Hamlet that day, was someone else called to take care of her?”

  “Your mother was really the only hope. Sue-Ellen passed away two days after your mother died.” A look of sadness came over Magill’s face. “It was a very upsetting time with your mother’s accident and Sue-Ellen’s illness. Sue-Ellen was a very skilled witch and an important part of Hamlet.”

  Angie flinched when she heard the word witch.

  “Why do you call her a witch? Is that a person with certain kinds of powers?” Courtney asked.

  Magill looked at the sisters, and then turned to Orla and Finch. “They haven’t been instructed?”

  Orla shook her head. “There hasn’t been anyone who could teach them. They lost their Nana and then they lost their mother before knowledge could be imparted.”

  Magill made eye contact with each of the Roselands. “My dears. You are all witches.”

  Jenna gasped.

  Courtney’s blue eyes nearly popped from her head. “Us?”

  Magill chuckled. “Yes, you. You are descended from a long, important line of witches that goes back a thousand years.”

  Angie felt dizzy and clutched the arms of the chair she was sitting in, thinking it was a good thing Ellie wasn’t with them.

  “Your grandmother had advanced skills and your mother was a powerful healer,” Magill told them. “Over time, your own abilities will become stronger and stronger. We’ll go over your heritage and what it means at another time. Right now our focus is on Elizabeth’s accident. Tell me what you’ve learned from your stay in Boston.”

  The sisters told her what the witnesses had shared with them about the driver of the car that had hit their mother, the car itself, and about the short, muscular man who approached Elizabeth as she lay in the street.

  “A friend and colleague of our Mom was also present after she was hit. He ran to her, ordered the short man away from her, and knelt beside her until the emergency personnel arrived. Mom was already dead and there wasn’t anything he could do … except be with her as her spirit passed away.” Angie blinked to keep back her tears.

  Feeling emotional, Jenna glanced away towards the flower gardens and then her eyes widened as the colors of the flowers seem to turn to light that floated away from the blooms and intertwined, the many colors mixing and blending together. They flashed and sparkled and then their Nana materialized, standing in the garden, with a tender loving smile on her lips.

  12

  “Jenna?” Angie asked for the third time. “What are you looking at?”

  Euclid and Circe trilled towards the garden.

  “Miss Jenna?” Finch spoke kindly to the young woman. “Is everything all right?”

  “What?” Jenna shook herself. “Oh. Sorry. I got distracted for a second.”

  “Did you see something?” Courtney narrowed her eyes to slits.

  “Nana.” Jenna smiled. “Nana was standing in the garden. She was smiling at us.”

  “Your grandmother is very proud of all of you for looking into Elizabeth’s accident,” Magill explained.

  “I haven’t seen Nana for quite a while.” Jenna breathed deeply and sat back against the chair.

  Angie brushed at her eyes. “It makes me happy that she approves of us investigating Mom’s accident.”

  Magill said, “As I mentioned, your mother was going to bring the moonstone here to try and help Sue-Ellen. I think the reasons for the attack on your mother were two-fold. One, perhaps to steal the necklace, and two, to prevent Elizabeth from helping Sue-Ellen.”

  Angie was stunned by the statements and had to catch her breath. “You think it was a planned attack?”

  “I do. I believe someone with skills planned and organized the accident. I think it was someone who knew Elizabeth was coming to Hamlet and knew when she was coming.” Magill’s facial features looked hard. “There could be a traitor among us.”

  “The driver of the car had paranormal skills?” Courtney asked.

  “I’m not sure. The driver or the short man who approached Elizabeth after she was hit was most likely hired to commit the crime. I don’t believe either of those men had powers.”

  Jenna asked, “Why would someone hire any normal men to hurt our mother? Why not send people with paranormal powers?”

  “Most likely, so the authorities couldn’t trace anything back to him or her,” Magill said. “And to keep the focus on normal people. The orchestrator of the attack didn’t want to have the men be paranormals. The fewer involved, the better. Too many people with skills would raise red flags for us in the community.”

  Angie sat straight. “Do you know who is responsible for our mother’s death?”

  Magill’s eyes darkened. “If I knew, then that person would no longer be walking this earth.”

  Courtney looked startled. “You’d kill him?”

  “When a paranormal commits a crime against another paranormal, there is a system in place to arrest, try, and sentence the accused much as is done in the human world,” Magill explained. “For a paranormal to hurt another person with skills is a very, very serious offense … with a very, very serious punishment. A guilty paranormal will never walk among us again. They are imprisoned for life. There is no parole. There is no escape.”

  Everyone was quiet for several moments.

  “Do you have any leads on who organized the attack on our mother?” Angie questioned. “Are there any tips you can share as we go forward?”

  “If you find the men associated with the crime, it may be possible for us to discover who hired them,” Magill said. “It is very unlikely that you’ll be able to find the one responsible on your own, but you could stumble upon the person’s identity. If you do, you will need all of your skills to defend yourselves. Be ready. Focus on finding the driver and the short man who was at the scene. Find them, and we’ll take care of the rest.”

  “Do you think the one who hired the men knows we’re investigating the crime?” Finch asked.

  “I would say yes to that question. The person would send paranormals to scare you off.”

  “Not kill us?” Courtney asked.

  “Not at first. If they can’t frighten you away, then they will use the force necessary to dissuade you. Be very careful. Some paranormals have the gift of hiding their powers from others. Be wary of who you trust. As I said, be ready for anything. If you need assistance, contact me. And know this … you are not in this fight alone.”

  On the ride back in the car, Courtney asked, “So we’re witches. What does that even mean?”

  Orla said, “It means something similar to being Irish, or Polish, or Egyptian, or anything like that. In general, it means who you came from, who your ancestors are. We’re all human beings first. Some people have certain skills. You came from a line of people who have talents in the realm of the paranormal. It can be hard for other people to understand that as a certain skill set. It can f
righten people because it’s something they don’t understand, so it’s easier to just keep it to ourselves.”

  “Nothing is any different than it was before you talked to Magill,” Mr. Finch pointed out. “You are the same people you have always been. It would be interesting to hear about your ancestors and it is nice to know there are people around who can help you with your abilities or with any questions you might have. The words witch and warlock have negative connotations because of the history of misunderstanding and persecution. Those negative ideas are distortions of truth. A witch is simply a person with special skills … skills that should only ever be used for good.”

  When they were back in Boston and arrived at the house, the babies were napping and Ellie was sitting in the living room reading.

  “How did things go?”

  “We have a lot to tell you.” Courtney plopped onto the big chair and Euclid jumped up and sat on her lap.

  “While the babies are sleeping, I’m going up to take a nap. I haven’t been sleeping well.” Angie took a cookie from the platter on the table.

  “Okay, sis,” Courtney said. “The rest of us can handle filling Ellie in on things.”

  The truth was that Angie had been having disturbing nightmares ever since arriving at the Boston house. She couldn’t tell if they were some sort of warning or premonition, or were bad dreams from learning the details of their mother’s death.

  Shortly after Angie’s head hit the pillow, the same nightmares started up again.

  It was dark and someone was pursuing her. She held Gigi tightly in her arms as she ran through a shadowy, unfamiliar neighborhood. The streets were deserted. She heard the growl of a dog in the distance behind her. Gigi was crying. Angie felt all alone with nowhere to turn. She had to protect her child. She stopped running. Running away wouldn’t help. Angie spun around. She would face the monster who was chasing her. She would fight.

  “Angie?”

  Angie’s eyes opened and she sat up to see Jenna coming into the room carrying Libby and Gigi in her arms.

  “The kids woke up.” Jenna gently placed Gigi on the bed next to Angie. “Are you okay? You look all sweaty.” She sat on the bed and propped Libby up to play with a toy.

  Angie cuddled her sweet daughter. “I’ve been having nightmares. I’m alone with Gigi and someone is chasing us. I just dreamt it again while I was napping, but this was the first time I stopped and turned to fight.”

  Jenna smiled. “Then maybe the nightmares will end now.”

  “I hope so. They’ve been driving me crazy.”

  “Can you see the person chasing you?”

  “No. Everything is in shadow.”

  “Just like with Mom’s case.” Jenna held a toy bunny and made it hop over the blankets and the little girls giggled.

  Angie ran her hand over Gigi’s soft, blond curls. “What should we do next? Who else can we interview? How can we find the driver and the short man? It’s been seven years. They could be anywhere.”

  “Someone knows them,” Jenna said. “We just have to find the person who can identify them.”

  “No easy task.”

  “Nothing’s ever easy, but that never stops us.”

  Angie nodded.

  “We’ll figure it out. We’re all together.” Jenna laughed. “I pity the person who tries to stop us.”

  “You always make me feel better.” Angie hugged her twin sister.

  “You do the same for me.”

  The cats raced into the room and leapt up on the bed where they carefully sniffed the babies and then curled up to watch them play. Angie ran her hand over their soft fur and they began to purr.

  “Why don’t we call Detective Owen and ask if we can see the security tapes from the day of Mom’s accident,” Angie suggested. “I want to see the faces of the driver and the short man who was there that day.”

  “We need to know what they look like,” Jenna agreed. “We could also try and find another friend of Mom’s to talk with. So many people she knew have moved away, it’s making things more difficult.”

  “How did Ellie take being called a witch?” Angie asked.

  Jenna shook her head with a smile on her face. “As you would expect, at first, but she came around to it when Orla and Mr. Finch explained it’s just a word that means someone with special powers.”

  “Good. When I heard Magill refer to us as witches, it felt like I was being hit in the head by something, but then I understood that it doesn’t make us any different than who we are. We just have a lot of ancestors who could do what we do.”

  “It’s kind of cool, isn’t it?” Jenna asked. “Wait until I tell Tom I’m a witch.”

  Angie chuckled. “He’ll say he already knew that.”

  “Rude.” Jenna gave her sister a playful poke. “Let’s go downstairs. Ellie made lasagna for dinner while we were out.”

  “How does she manage to do that while watching two babies?” Angie asked.

  “She must use her special powers,” Jenna kidded.

  “I feel like baking.” Angie got off the bed, lifted Gigi into her arms, and kissed her on top of the head. “Want to help Mommy bake something?”

  Gigi babbled at her mother.

  “I think that’s a yes.”

  The sisters carried the children downstairs with the cats following behind.

  “Will you make something with chocolate?” Jenna asked. “I’d really love something chocolaty for dessert.”

  Angie smiled. “For you, I’d do anything.”

  13

  The four sisters clustered around Detective Carter Owen’s desktop computer.

  “The film is grainy and at times, blurry,” Carter informed them. “The section of the tape where your mother is hit has been removed. You’ll be able to zoom in, but doing so will increase the grainy quality of the image.” He showed them how to manipulate the picture. “I’ll give you some privacy and I’ll come back in a little while to talk to you about what you saw and if you have any questions.”

  The sisters thanked the detective and he left his office and closed the door behind him.

  “Ready?” Courtney pressed the play button and the scene unfolded in front of them.

  It was a busy, early-morning with pedestrians walking briskly down the sidewalks and crossing street. Cars moved through the streets, someone ran a red light.

  Elizabeth came into view standing behind a few people waiting to cross. The lights changed, and they stepped into the street. The people in front of Elizabeth turned their heads and then started running. Elizabeth looked to her right, took two running steps, and then the image went black just as the nose of a car came into the shot.

  When the tape continued, Elizabeth was on the ground. People stood on the sidewalks with horrified expressions. Several people hurried to the fallen woman’s side.

  Dr. Day could be seen jogging to the street. The witness, Grace Addison, rushed to Elizabeth.

  The short blond man entered the frame and walked slowly towards the victim. It seemed his eyes were pinned to Elizabeth.

  Dr. Day spoke something, the short man’s posture seemed to shrink as he took a step back, and then turned and quickly walked away.

  The tape showed Dr. Day checking Elizabeth for wounds and could be seen leaning down close to her ear to say something.

  Grace Addison held Elizabeth’s hand as she knelt in the street.

  An ambulance and a police car arrived. The officer and the emergency personnel rushed to Elizabeth. Dr. Day spoke with them and then stepped back out of the way.

  When the screen went black, Courtney hit the stop button, leaned back, and sighed. “I know we’ve been told hundreds of times about what happened, but seeing it on the screen is another thing entirely.”

  “That’s for sure.” Ellie squeezed her hands together in her lap.

  Angie looked down at the floor for a full minute while Jenna brushed at her eyes.

  When Angie glanced up, she said, “Okay. Shall we go thro
ugh it again? We can stop in places and zoom in on the things we want to see more closely.”

  The others agreed and Courtney started the tape again from the beginning.

  Here and there, one of them asked for an image to be frozen on the screen and then it was zoomed in and out.

  This went on for a full hour as they ran the tape over and over again.

  “Let’s zoom in on the car,” Jenna suggested. “Can we get a shot of the driver?”

  “The tape was taken from a shop on the passenger side of the vehicle,” Angie reminded them. “It will be hard to see him.”

  Courtney adjusted the view, zoomed in, and brightened the image. “This is the best I can do.”

  Jenna stood and pointed at the screen. “You can make out the square jaw, the thick neck, and the longish blond hair. But as far as his features, except for the big nose, it’s too blurry to see.”

  “Do you think the driver and the short blond man are related?” Ellie asked. “They both have blond hair and seem stocky.”

  “It’s possible.” Courtney made an adjustment, but it didn’t improve the picture. “Look. Over on the sidewalk, near the corner of the building.”

  “What is it?” Angie leaned forward. “What do you see?”

  “This person right here. Is that Lindsey Adams, the emergency room nurse we met outside the hospital on the first day of investigating? She worked with Mom.”

  The sisters stared at the image.

  “Lindsey claimed she wasn’t at the accident scene,” Jenna pointed out.

  “What people claimed and what they did are often two different things,” Ellie said. “This person’s facial features are similar to Lindsey’s. This was seven years ago so she might look somewhat different, but the features really wouldn’t change that much.”

  “I think it’s her,” Courtney nodded.

  “Why would she lie to us about not being at the accident scene?” Angie questioned. “Why would she hide the fact that she was there?”

  Ellie remembered something. “Lindsey told us she was a block away from the accident. She told us she didn’t see what was happening. She implied she didn’t go over to the scene.”