by Bailey Cates
Steve and Wren finished up their interview, and Wren joined everyone in the library. I went into the office to get my denim jacket and pack up Mungo. I looked down at my outfit. I hadn’t known I’d be tramping in the swamp when I’d left the house that morning and had dressed in light khaki slacks with a long-sleeved heather T-shirt and Simple sneakers. They’d be all right to walk in, and we wouldn’t be in the swamp all that long.
Stopping in the kitchen, I pointed out to Mama what I’d left undone to get ready for the next day’s baking. She gave me a hug. “Good luck, honey. If you’re not back by the time we close, come over to Lucy and Ben’s. I’m making dinner.”
I grimaced, remembering last night’s supper. She saw my expression and understood. “Lucy’s right. Declan will come around. You can’t let what happened yesterday distract you when you’re casting. It’ll contaminate your spell.”
Magical advice from my mother. Wow.
Steve was waiting when I went out front. “What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?”
He gave me an oh-brother look and nodded at the ladies milling in the library area. “Your coven is gathered, minus one member and plus another, but still.”
I took a deep breath. “You can’t tell your dad. Or Logan.”
He searched my face, then shrugged. “Okay.”
“We’re going out to Fagen Swamp.”
His forehead cleared. “The tree?”
I glanced at the others. “That’s one reason I want to go. We’re also planning to cast a location spell for maroon bats to see once and for all if there are any.”
“I see.” Steve pivoted on his heel and walked toward the reading area. I hurried to catch up.
“Ladies,” he said, “would you mind terribly if I joined you?”
Wren’s eyes went wide. “Um, I don’t think—”
“He’s a druid,” Mimsey said. “Remember when I told you about the one who was killed a few months back? One of them.”
I heard Mama’s quick intake of breath and realized she’d followed me out of the kitchen. I hadn’t told her anything about Steve when our lines of communication had fallen apart during the last year. Now I turned to see her eyeing him speculatively.
Wren blinked. “Oh. But he’s a Dawes.”
“I’m not directly involved in the land deal, and I promised Katie I wouldn’t tell my father about the location spell.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “You can trust that I won’t break my word to her.”
Mimsey looked around at the others. “What do you say, ladies? It’s a little out of the ordinary, but we’ve worked with him before.”
Jaida nodded. “Fine by me.”
Cookie said, “Excellent!” and directed a dazzling smile in his direction.
“I’m not a member, so I’ll happily go along with whatever you think will work best to find the bats,” Wren said, looking at Steve with new eyes.
“Of course” was Lucy’s warm response. “We know he and Katie have worked well together in the past. It can only help for him to come along.”
I threw up my hands. “Well, okay, then.” Apparently I’d already been outvoted. Secretly, though, I was glad he would be there. We did have a magical bond, even if we weren’t romantic, and I wanted his take on that tree as much as anyone’s.
Mama’s face was inscrutable as we left. Ben’s was downright unhappy.
• • •
The afternoon sunlight seemed brighter than usual, washed clean by the showers of the day before. We all piled into Lucy’s Thunderbird since it was the only one of our vehicles that could accommodate seven people, a Cairn terrier, and a ferret. Even then it was a tight fit, and Cookie ended up sitting on Steve’s lap.
I ignored them, telling myself that she was sticking with her current boyfriend after all, and even if she wasn’t, I had no right to have an opinion about Steve’s love life.
Or the fact that he had his hand on her knee.
Reaching into my pocket, I extracted my cell phone. Declan still hadn’t called.
Following my directions, Lucy turned onto the road that led into Fagen Swamp. “Pull over here,” I instructed when we reached the curve before the bridge to Dr. Rickers’ cabin.
She pulled to the side but stayed on the pavement rather than risk getting stuck in the marshy ditch. We piled out of the car, pausing to take in the heavy smell of fertile compost and standing water, the sounds of the birds calling, the odd warmth of the microclimate within the swamp. The air thrummed with life energy.
“Mungo, I need you to stay in the car, okay?”
He made a sound of disapproval.
“Honey, I can’t hold you while I’m casting, and I don’t want you to be eaten by an alligator.”
That seemed to change his mind, and he settled into the backseat with a tiny grunt.
I could see the top of the giant cypress now that I knew where to look for it. The pull I’d felt before was there, but not irresistibly so. “Do you feel that?” I asked everyone.
Cookie nodded. “It doesn’t seem as strong.”
“What are you talking about?” Mimsey asked.
“The ley lines.” I pointed. “That’s the tree at the nexus, if that satellite photo is right.”
Steve squinted. “Ley lines?”
“Mmm-hmm.” I reached in beside Mungo, took the picture out, and handed it to him.
He whistled. “I wish we’d known about this before. I’m sure my father will be very interested.”
“Interested enough to buy the land and not develop it?” Wren asked.
“Honestly? I don’t know.”
I took out my cell phone again—this time to check in with Bianca. It was three o’clock on the dot, but I wanted to make sure Rickers wasn’t running late. If he caught us now, I’d simply introduce Steve as one of the parties interested in the land, and he’d have to deal with it.
Except I couldn’t call Bianca.”
“No service,” I said.
“That’s hardly surprising,” Steve said, turning the picture in his hands. “Magnetic energy like this would mess up any cell signal. In fact, from the looks of this, we might have a problem with the magnetic strips on our credit cards when we get back.”
“Oh, Steve,” Lucy said.
He looked up at her. “I’m serious.”
The smile dropped from her face. “Is it dangerous?”
“Of course not!” Mimsey said, the happy twinkle fully restored to her eyes. “It will augment our working, I’m sure.”
Jaida grabbed the bag with the candles in it. “Let’s get going, then. I doubt Bianca will have more than one or two drinks if she’s picking Colette up from daycare after meeting her date.”
“Hang on,” I said. “I want to make sure he’s gone.”
I took off at a lope, happy to have the air rushing in and out of my lungs. As I ran around the curve, the wooden bridge came into view. Slowing, I crossed to the other side. Sure enough, the old Chevy pickup was gone, and no smoke drifted from the cabin’s chimney. I turned away, then paused.
Evanston Rickers had been awfully upset when he’d discovered Logan Seward had gone inside his cabin without asking. It was hard to blame him; in the same situation I’d have been furious. Still, it made me wonder if there was something the professor was trying to keep secret.
It’s not like we’ll be going in his cabin or even onto his little island there. That was what I’d told the others. I wouldn’t go inside, but curiosity impelled my feet until I stood by the corner of the building. It was small, perhaps only one room. I walked around to the rear and found more than a cord of firewood stacked against the wall. Then I saw the outhouse tucked back in the woods.
It was primitive living for a man with a doctorate degree. He must be awfully devoted to his work. I smiled to myself as I thou
ght how Bianca would react to such facilities.
There were five windows, and all were curtained. The one on the end, however, had enough of a gap in the fabric to be able to see a chair, the corner of a table and the computer monitor on it, a small stack of logs on the floor, and a shelf of specimen jars full of coiled figures in liquid.
Snakes. Ugh.
Well, what did you expect? Stop being so nosy.
Quickly, I ran back to where the others waited. Panting in the humid air, I said, “We’re good.”
Cookie led the way to the dead tree where Dr. Rickers said he’d seen the bats. I scanned the ground for snakes as everyone filed into the clearing. A clump of grass to my right rustled, and I froze, staring into the shadows. Suddenly a bird took flight in a flash of feathers.
“Oh!” I laughed and put my hand on my chest, waiting for my heart to stop pounding.
“Nervous?” Steve asked.
“There are lots of snakes here,” I said. “They’re Dr. Rickers’ specialty.”
“I haven’t seen any,” he said.
“Good.”
Jaida took the candles out of her bag, and she and Cookie set them at each of the compass points. She’d brought protective votive holders to keep the wind away. I looked up to see high clouds scudding across the blue of the sky, but the air down in the swamp was preternaturally still. Wren, too, looked upward, but at the trunks of the bald cypress trees, eyes searching for wee furry bodies among the drapes of Spanish moss. Using her good arm, she raised the fancy camera she’d brought along, using the telephoto lens to search more thoroughly. After a minute she lowered the camera and shook her head.
Mimsey dipped the goblet into a pool in the nearby marsh. “Natural water is good, but natural water from the place where you are working is best.”
Lucy and Cookie lit the candles. We gathered in a circle around the half-full glass Mimsey held at arm’s length.
“All right, ladies.” Her eyes cut to Steve. “And gentleman. Breathe.” She closed her eyes. “Concentrate.”
I closed mine, too. Lucy took my right hand. Steve took my left. His flesh felt so hot it was almost uncomfortable, and I had to make an effort not to flinch. Gathering my focus, I slowed my inhalations and allowed my center to become calm. The thrumming energy around us brightened. It seemed to increase in volume, though it was nothing I could physically hear.
“Wren,” Mimsey said, “because you have the clearest notion of what we’re looking for, perhaps you should focus our scrying.”
“All right.”
I opened my eyes as Wren took a step forward, camera still around her neck. She stared into the water in the glass. Used to working solitary, she moved her lips silently. Nonetheless, I knew she was invoking the element of water to reveal the location of any maroon bats in the swamp. I reached out mentally to merge my intention with hers.
“Katie!”
I whirled to see Bianca picking her way down the path. She was breathing heavily, the light cloak she wore hung open, and the watered silk skirt she’d chosen to wear on her date with Evanston Rickers had a rip in it. Lucy’s hand flew to her lips, and Mimsey broke contact with Jaida and Cookie on either side of her.
Chapter 25
Hundreds of dragonflies exploded from a treetop behind Bianca. Lucy gasped. A feeling of dread settled across my shoulders.
“What’s wrong?” I asked Bianca. Urgency rushed my words. “Why are you here?”
She stopped outside the circle we’d defined. “I had to warn you, and no one would answer their phone. I think Evanston came back here.”
“Why? What happened?”
Bianca looked disgusted. “I don’t think he was ever interested in me. He started right off talking about you.”
Me?
“Question after question about where you came from and what you do at the bakery, and then he asked if I knew whether you had any special abilities.”
Lucy put her hand on my arm. “Was he talking about magic?”
“I don’t know, because he changed the subject to Autumn’s murder investigation. I started to tell him about Hunter Normandy, but all of a sudden he excused himself and said he had something he’d forgotten he had to do. The creep ran out of the bar like his hair was on fire and stuck me with the check.” She paced back and forth, fuming.
Cookie said, “I told you—”
“We can figure out her love life later,” I interrupted. “Right now I want you to think back to what you were talking about when Dr. Rickers suddenly got itchy feet.”
She stopped pacing, and her eyes moved to the left as she searched her memory. “I think it had something to do with Hunter being an embalmer. About how the police found formaldehyde on the origami.”
A dragonfly drifted past.
“Anyway, I came right out here to let you know. Broke the speed limit the whole way, but I don’t know whether I beat him or not.”
“Ladies,” I said, “I do believe there may be more to Evanston Rickers than meets the eye. We’d better pass on the location spell for now and get the heck out of here. I don’t know how he’d react if he caught us casting.” And I really didn’t like that he’d asked Bianca about my “special abilities.”
“But we might have time to finish,” Wren protested. “I thought I was picking up on something.” She pointed up at a nearby tree. “There.”
“I don’t see anything,” I said.
“We’ll come back, another time, Wren.” Mimsey thanked the water element and poured the contents of the goblet back into the swamp. “This Rickers fellow sounds fishy.”
“He probably knows we’re here already,” Steve protested as Mimsey and Lucy hurried to reverse the circle. “But listen—Rickers only rents the cabin, not the whole swamp. We have every right to be out here. Gart Fagen gave Dawes Corp. permission to come on his land, and I’m giving it to you.”
My mind was racing. “Mimsey’s right. We can come back later,” I said as things began to come together in my mind. “Hunter Normandy is in custody for Autumn’s murder because of formaldehyde and the origami cranes the police found in his apartment.”
“And because he’s a thief,” Jaida said, gathering up her candles.
“That, too. But he doesn’t have any real connection to the bats, and Autumn was holding a folded bat, not a crane. He’d just asked her to marry him, and then turns around and kills her?”
“What if she found out about the ring?” Jaida asked.
“You’re right—that’s a possible motive. But he doesn’t have any connection to Logan Seward—and no reason to steal his car. That’s been bothering me ever since he was arrested. You know who does have a connection to Seward, though? As well as to the bats?”
Wren looked skeptical. Bianca had gone white as she listened.
“Remember when Seward came out here with the eviction for Dr. Rickers? He was driving Steve’s car.”
Steve tipped his head to one side. “And?”
“And I asked him about it. Seward said he’d walked to work and left his vehicle at home, so he’d had to borrow your car to drive out to Fagen Swamp. Rickers had had previous contact with Seward, enough that he probably knew what he drove. I think he stole the BMW and tried to run Wren and me down. All he had to do was find out where Seward lived and take the BMW later that same afternoon.”
“Why?” Mimsey asked.
“I don’t know why, but it must have to do with the bats. I can tell you this though—in his cabin Dr. Evanston Rickers has jars and jars of preserved snakes.”
“So?” Cookie said.
At the same moment Bianca said, “How do you know that?”
“Looked in the window before we came down here,” I said. “So what do you imagine he uses as a preservative?”
Wren’s head jerked up, alarm written on her face. “Formaldehyde.�
��
A frisson of fear passed through the group. Even Steve seemed convinced that we needed to leave. Together, we moved swiftly toward the path that led back to the road and our waiting car.
“Why would he kill Autumn?” Jaida asked as we fast-walked. “She was helping him.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again, stumped. “I don’t know. She was talking about giving up Georgia Wild’s fight for this swamp habitat.”
“From what I’ve heard, Dr. Rickers doesn’t sound like a rabid activist. Would extinct bats be adequate motive for him to commit murder?” Jaida asked.
“What if it wasn’t about the bats?” Steve asked. “What if Dr. Rickers’ main interest in preserving the swamp involves something else?”
I grabbed his arm. “The tree.”
He nodded. “The tree. Maybe he can feel its pull, too.”
“Katie Lightfoot,” a deep male voice called from the direction of the cypress. It sounded far away.
“Speak of the devil,” I whispered, and gestured for Mimsey to hurry.
She fanned her face. “I’m not as young as I used to be, dear.”
“Sorry.” I slowed to her pace. Bianca in the lead, we made our way down the path toward the road, away from Rickers.
“Where are you?” the voice came again. “I know you’re out here someplace.”
In a low voice I asked Steve, “Do you think he’s a druid or some kind of sorcerer?”
“No idea. Though this place would be great for someone like that to live.”
I brushed aside a curtain of Spanish moss and shuddered. The ripe smell of the swamp suddenly seemed more rank than fertile.
The path widened as we approached the road, but Bianca suddenly stopped. Cookie almost ran into her, and the rest of us slowed. Skirting Lucy and Mimsey, I made my way to her side, senses on high alert. My stomach dropped when I saw the horrified look on Bianca’s face. She stared, unmoving, at the ground. I followed her gaze with my own.
Ten feet away a snake lounged smack-dab in the middle of the pathway. It was four feet long, two inches in diameter, and a dark charcoal color. As we watched, it reared its heads to look at us.
