I called the complex. Thankfully, the property manager was accommodating, and it wouldn’t be any trouble to get my deposit back. The thought didn’t comfort me much. That studio apartment was a steal, and if things went south here at the house, I wasn’t likely to find another place to live with the same benefits. I hung up, slightly queasy as I listened to Dad and Adrienne’s murmured conversation in the next room over. Before I could join them again, the house phone rang in my hand.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Mrs. McGrath, this is Officer Martinez with the Sheriff’s department.”
“Oh, I’m not—”
“We have some information regarding your daughter Nora,” Officer Martinez went on before I could correct her identity mistake. “Would you be able to come down to the station as soon as possible?”
8
When I passed on the message to Dad and Adrienne, I wasn’t invited to attend the meeting at the police station. Instead, I was instructed to stay behind in case Nora returned to the house. All three of us knew it was a garbage excuse. If Officer Martinez needed to see Dad and Adrienne face-to-face, she couldn’t have good news. Nevertheless, I didn’t argue. I wouldn’t be able to keep my composure at the station anyway. As the second day of Nora’s absence wore on, I began to feel off-balance. My queasiness morphed into full-on nausea, my stomach burning and boiling with an overflow of energy. In the chaos of the past couple of days, I’d forgotten to practice connecting to my core power. It bottled up, rising in my throat like acid, so I rode Ainsley out to the meadow in order to spend the necessary time releasing it.
It was impossible to concentrate. I wasn’t used to doing this alone. Nora guided our practices like a yoga teacher, easing us through meditation techniques. I tried to remember how we usually started—it was only three days ago that we had last spent time in this meadow together—but the lessons filtered through my memory like water through a sieve. Breathing exercises. That was step number one. I sat down in the grass, faced the lake, and closed my eyes. I attempted to focus on my inner abilities, counting each inhale and exhale, but my mind kept wandering. Ainsley chewed loudly. The click-clack of her teeth distracted me. Then it was the way the wind whistled through the meadow, permeating my light sweater. It was a nice day. The sun was warm and the temperature was pleasant, yet I felt cold and shivery.
I skipped the rest of the warm-up exercises, annoyed that I couldn’t quiet my anxiety enough to focus. What I really needed was to get out some of my pent-up energy. I spotted a patch of poison ivy in the distance, honed in on it, and accessed the orange light. It flared immediately, and the plant went up in smoke within a second, but I’d given it too much gas. The grass surrounding the ivy ignited, sending a plume of billowing smoke up to the sky. I ripped the picnic blanket out from underneath myself, ran over, and fanned the fire out. Then I stomped on the charred ground to make sure it was completely extinguished and kicked a layer of dirt over the burnt plant.
I returned to where Ainsley grazed in the grass and draped the blanket over her back. She gazed lazily over her shoulder and blew a wad of spit at me. I glared at her as I wiped it from my sweater. “What’s your problem?”
She flapped her lips, and more spittle flew on the breeze. I ducked my head to avoid the splash. A feeling of wistfulness washed over me, but it wasn’t my own.
“Nora isn’t here,” I told the horse. “She’s missing.”
Ainsley nodded her head, almost as if she understood, and gave a loud snort.
“I don’t what you want me to do,” I said. “I don’t know where she is. I haven’t seen her in two days.”
She whinnied loudly and bumped my shoulder.
“You go find her then.”
Without further ado, Ainsley turned and trotted off toward the surrounding woods. I watched her go. Great. Now I was talking to a horse. A horse in desperate need of an attitude adjustment. I jogged after her. If Nora returned and found out that I’d let her favorite quadruped run off the property, she would never forgive me. Of course, that was if Nora returned at all. I shook the thought from my head and picked up the pace. Ainsley marched resolutely into the woods, and her big butt disappeared behind a thick tree trunk. I darted around it, trying to keep her swishing black tail within view. The damp ground muffled the clop of her hooves, and I grunted as I vaulted over a fallen log that Ainsley easily stepped over. Up ahead, a stream bubbled through a small ravine. It was no Grand Canyon, but I knew that if Ainsley jumped over it, I would have a hard time catching up.
“Hey!” I called out. “Don’t you dare!”
An air of resolution passed from the determined horse to my own conscience as she cantered toward the gap. I sprinted with all of my might, but Ainsley leapt clean over the stream and landed neatly on the other side before I could reach her. I skidded to a stop, windmilling my arms to prevent myself from spilling over the edge of the ravine. Ainsley shuffled around to fix me with a look that seemed to ask Are you coming?
“Are you kidding me?” I jabbed a finger at my side of the ravine. “Get back over here!”
She stomped a hoof in the leaves. You come over here.
“I will not!”
A flick of her tail as she turned away. Have it your way.
“Wait!”
The horse paused, and I could’ve sworn she rolled her eyes.
“I’m coming,” I said. “I don’t suppose you see an alternate way to get across this stream, do you? Like a bridge maybe?”
Ainsley tossed her head and nickered.
“I’m taking orders from a freaking horse,” I grumbled, bracing myself against a mossy rock to take off my riding boots and socks. “And I thought I was insane before.”
After I threw the boots to Ainsley’s side, I rolled up the legs of my jeans, lowered myself off the edge of the ravine, and splashed into water below. It was absolutely freezing, and I thought my toes might shrivel and pop clean off. Thankfully, the gurgling stream didn’t pass my shins, so I waded to the other side of the gap and looked up. The opposite edge was a good four feet above my head, as was Ainsley’s snout.
“A little help? No?”
She ignored me. I dug a divot in the wall of mud to give myself a leg up then lunged for the top. The dirt crumbled beneath my grip, and I slid down the muddy bank.
“You know, Nora bought me this sweater,” I called up to the horse. The creamy cashmere was soaked through with dirt, twigs, and leaves. With a sigh, I dug a second foothold in the side of the bank. Then I took a running leap, splashing through the stream like a madwoman, and made a wild grab for the top of the ravine. This time, my fingers found a strong vine. I thumped against the dirt embankment, wrapping my hand around the plant, and tried to scrabble up the rest of the way. Ainsley dipped her head, grasped my sweater between her teeth, and dragged me onto level ground.
I clambered to my feet, glaring at her as I tried to brush mud from my soaked pants. As I sat down to pull my boots back on, I asked the horse, “What are we doing? Is there a reason for this side quest or are you just yanking my chain?”
Ainsley shook her head. Her mane flew out from side to side, tangled and full of leaves. It would be a bear to brush out when we got back to the stable. She turned to the side, presenting a stirrup to me. With a nagging feeling, I hoisted myself into the saddle and took the reins.
“All right, Ainsley,” I said, not quite believing that I was letting a horse call the shots as if I was the protagonist in a cheesy kids’ movie. “Lead the way.”
We trundled through the woods together. I had no clue what Ainsley was looking for. Her ears flickered at birds whistling or animals rustling through the brush as I rode in silence. The sunlight filtering through the trees eased my worried mind. I wondered how far we’d wandered from the house—I should’ve been concerned with finding our way back—but Ainsley was confident in her trajectory. After several minutes, she stopped in a small clearing and pawed at the ground.
“What is it?”
/> There was nothing remotely exceptional about the immediate area. The grass and the dirt and the moss and the leaves looked the same as it did anywhere else in the woods. I nudged Ainsley’s sides with my heels, but she refused to budge.
“There’s nothing here, you crazy horse.”
She tossed her head and pawed the ground again. I squinted downward. There. In the dirt. Something shiny reflected the sunlight near Ainsley’s front right hoof. I slid out of the saddle and leaned down to inspect the item. It was an earring, stamped into the dirt by a mid-sized footprint. My breath caught in my chest as I pried it out of the ground and held it up to eye level.
“This is Nora’s,” I muttered, studying the small pearl set in the stud of the earring. “She was wearing these on the night of the gala.” I looked at Ainsley. “How did you—?”
Ainsley nudged my chest with her nose. I patted her forehead then knelt down to examine the footprints. There were two sets. The first was a boot print that, judging by its average size, could’ve belonged to a man or a woman. The second was smaller, Nora’s size, and each toe had visibly pressed into the mud. She was barefoot. I followed the prints through the clearing. They overlapped one another, turning in circles without any kind of pattern. Nora’s tracks were smudged, as if she had dug her heels in to prevent the boot owner from taking her any farther. Then, at the edge of the clearing, I noticed that the footprints continued unhindered side by side. Had Nora suddenly changed her mind and accompanied her mystery captor willingly? As the mud transitioned to leaves, the prints faded and vanished. I searched around a while longer, hoping to stumble upon more clues, but beyond the clearing, it was as though Nora had never been here at all.
With nothing left to discover, I pocketed the earring, mounted Ainsley, and rode off in the opposite direction. Thankfully, the horse seemed to remember which way the house was. She trotted through the woods, satisfied now that I’d found what she’d been looking for, as I thought about what could’ve happened that night. On the grim upside of things, Nora was definitely alive when she’d left the area. Maybe there was hope.
We had traveled farther from the house than I’d expected. It took Ainsley the better part of an hour to find the meadow again. She leapt over the ravine with me on her back during our return. I hadn’t jumped a horse since high school and made the mistake of looking down as we crossed the stream. When we landed on the other side, I tumbled out of the saddle and over Ainsley’s head. She politely paused, ducking so that I rolled lightly to the ground, but the impact was just enough to bruise my shoulders. By the time we reached the stables, my thighs felt like Jell-O. As I wiped Ainsley down and put her away, I heard the purr of Dad’s car in the driveway. I jogged around the side of the house as he piloted his luxury sedan into an empty spot in the garage. When he and Adrienne stepped out, my heart sank. Dad looked as though he hadn’t slept in a year, and Adrienne’s usually impeccable eyeliner was smudged with tears.
“You’re back,” I said, intercepting the couple as they made their way to the front door. “What did the police say?”
My father took in my harried appearance. I was covered in mud from head to toe like I’d been dragged behind Ainsley instead of riding in the saddle. “What happened to you?” he asked gruffly.
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it. Dad, what did the cops say?”
Adrienne rushed by us, wiping her face and further smearing her makeup. Dad and I trailed along behind her, up the porch steps, and into the house. Why wasn’t anyone telling me anything? What had the police discovered about Nora?
“Dad!”
He halted in the foyer as Adrienne hurried upstairs, sobbing, and disappeared with a slam of the door to the master bedroom. He rubbed the back of his neck, uncertainty lingering in the gesture. “Kennedy…”
“I’m her sister,” I reminded him. “I deserve to know.”
“I know that,” he sighed. “I’m just not sure if you’d want to know.”
“Tell me.”
Dad looked wistfully up at the mezzanine, but Adrienne wasn’t coming downstairs anytime soon. He waved me forward. “Come on. Let’s go to my study. Helen?”
Helen emerged from the kitchen. “Yes, Mr. McGrath?”
“Would you mind bringing us two glasses of whiskey?”
“Yes, Mr. McGrath.”
“And Helen? Maybe a couple of those cranberry scones if there are any left.”
“Of course.”
I followed Dad into his study, but instead of taking the seat behind his desk like he usually did, he sat next to me on the leather sofa. I opened my mouth to ask about Nora again, but he held up a finger and shook his head.
“I need a drink first.”
We waited in heavy silence until Helen bustled in with two glasses filled with some kind of aromatic whiskey and a single sphere of ice in each, along with a plate of warmed scones. Dad thanked her, took a long draught from his glass, and let out a prolonged breath. He picked at a scone but didn’t eat it.
I took a sip from my glass and winced. The drink was too potent for my taste. “Dad.”
“They found her dress.”
“They… what?”
Dad drained the rest of his whiskey. The glass plinked to the coffee table as the ice cube slid around in the leftovers. “The police found Nora’s dress from the night of the gala. And her shoes. At Windsor Prep.”
I scrunched my nose in confusion. “At school? But—”
“That’s not all, Ken.” I could tell from the raspy tone of his voice that the forthcoming news was not something I wanted to hear. “There was blood on the dress.”
A chill ran through me. “Blood. Nora’s blood?”
“Yes.”
“How much blood?”
“Enough to be a concern. The police—they think she’s badly hurt. Or already dead.”
The words ripped through me like a hot knife. I couldn’t make sense of them. Not here in front of my father. I stood up abruptly. “I need to go. I’ll be in my room.”
My father mistook my reaction for shock. “Kennedy, if you need to talk about this—”
“I’ll let you know,” I called over my shoulder as I slipped out of the room. As I eased the door shut, Dad reached for my unfinished glass of whiskey. I rushed down the hallway and up the stairs, keeping a hand over the pocket of my filthy jeans where Nora’s earring poked into my thigh.
Something didn’t add up. The police found Nora’s dress and heels near the high school, which was in the complete opposite direction of the clearing that Ainsley and I had discovered. There was no way in hell Nora would’ve let herself bleed out to such an extent. Her abilities should’ve healed her automatically. She hadn’t suffered from so much as a paper cut since the day she was born. The only reason she might have postponed the treatment of blood loss like that was if she was with someone else that she couldn’t trust with her secret. My chest tightened at the thought as I pulled the door of my bedroom shut. I was the one who was always telling Nora not to reveal her energy in front of other people. Had that stopped her from saving herself?
No. She was still alive. She’d been in that clearing barefoot, which meant that she’d already ditched her dress and shoes at the high school before traipsing through the woods. I peeled off my sweater. The mud on my front had stiffened. The dirt cracked and fell to the carpet, but I couldn’t be bothered to pay attention. I dug into the front pocket of my jeans for Nora’s earring. Instinctively, I drew on my fiery power, but this time, I wasn’t trying to light anything ablaze. The orange glow began at the tips of my fingers, illuminating the tiny pearl in my hand. My vision went black.
I panicked at first, groping blindly until I found the corner of my bed and sat down. The earring pressed into my palm. It felt hot, but I wasn’t sure if that was a result of my energy or some hidden facet of the pearl itself. Scenes flashed before my eyes. Nora at the gala, laughing with her friends. Nora kicking off her silver heels in one of Windsor’s massive courtyards and
dipping her bare feet into an extravagant fountain. Nora in the woods, wearing a pair of jeans that were too long for her and a forest-green T-shirt that I didn’t recognize. Nora speaking rationally to someone hidden behind the trees. Everything vanished as quickly as it had appeared, blazing out in a glow of orange light until all that remained was my bedroom and the pearl in my palm. Nora’s voice echoed in my ear as if she was standing beside me.
“Come find me.”
9
I whirled around, my pulse racing. Her voice sounded so close and so real. Some inexplicable instinct told me that she’d recorded that message herself. It was too intentional, too applicable to the situation at hand, to think otherwise. Nora knew that I would go after her if she asked me to. Had she left me a trail of breadcrumbs? I thought of her gown and heels, no doubt sitting in a plastic bag labeled “evidence” down at the police station. There was no way I’d be able to convince Officer Martinez to let me have a look at it, and even if there was, it wasn’t like I could whip out my abilities to read any potential message of Nora’s right there in the police station. There had to be another way. Something else that Nora left behind for me. Windsor Preparatory School was the best place to start looking. It was the only other location that Nora had been seen on the night of the gala aside from her own house.
There was no time to waste. Nora may have figured out a way to contact me through unusual means, but she hadn’t left me any clues to indicate whether or not she was okay. I needed to get to Windsor as soon as possible. I shed the rest of my muddy clothes, wiped my skin clean with a damp towel, then dressed again. Shoving Nora’s earring into my pocket, I hurried out of my room and into the corridor. When I emerged on the mezzanine, Adrienne was leaning over the banister, staring vacantly out of the windows above the front door. I tried to slip by her.
Witch Myth Super Boxset: A Yew Hollow Cozy Mystery Page 52
