by Tegan Maher
I drew in a deep breath and let it out. Bless his heart; he was driving as fast as he could around the curves, doing his best to catch the caddy without so much as a whisper of explanation.
"She was my best friend."
"Was?" he asked, not daring to take his eyes off the road. "From your reaction, I'm assuming you didn't have a pillow fight."
"One, nobody over the age of eight actually has a pillow fight. Two, you're assuming correctly. She died when we were twenty-one."
His brows practically shot off his forehead, or at least the one I could see did. "Say what, now?"
"She died in a car crash. DUI hit-and-run. Them, not her." That was the best I could manage around the lump in my throat, and I appreciated that he didn't think for even a second that I'd seen wrong. Or if he did, he didn't voice it.
"Did you actually go to the funeral?" he asked. "You know, see ... her?"
I shook my head slowly, my mind drifting back to that terrible day. I only remembered flashes of it—just like everything that had happened in the few days following her death, there were only disjointed bits and pieces. But I did know that for sure. Because I hadn't gotten to say goodbye, even to her body.
"No, it was closed-casket. She was thrown from the car."
"Then maybe she wasn't killed then. Maybe Sean or one of his people found her and saved her."
Sean Castle was the town's founder and a vampire. He wasn't the type to interfere, but he sometimes did things on a whim. There was often no rhyme or reason to it. Though he'd been somewhat of a mentor to me over the last year or so, he was a mystery. It wasn't outside the realm of possibility that he'd come across her or known what was going on, because it seemed he knew everything that went on.
No, the mystery was why, if he had, they'd left me in the dark to grieve alone.
The Caddy's taillights flashed as it took a curve a little too quickly ahead of us, and I thought for a minute that we were going to catch her.
My phone rang, but I ignored it. A minute later, my radio, which I always carried, crackled on the seat beside me.
"Cori," Sam's tinny voice said, "Answer your phone."
Two seconds later, it rang again, and I grabbed it off my seat.
"Yeah, Sam? What is it? I'm kinda in the middle of something here."
"Well, get out of the middle of it. There's been an accident at Kitty's." His tone brooked no argument, but I had to catch Rhea.
"What kind of accident? Put one of the deputies on it. I'm off for the evening."
"The kind that made somebody dead," he replied, his tone grim. "So as bad as I hate to pull you away from whatever Friday night delights you're involved in, you're gonna have to postpone it."
I glanced toward the caddy, then at Alex, torn.
He shook his head a little. "You know what you have to do," he said, slowing the truck and pulling off into a wide spot to turn around. "Besides, we weren't going to catch her anyway. That thing's a boat, but she's driving it like it's a Ferrari. There's no way."
I watched as the taillights flashed once again then disappeared around the next curve. For the first time in a long time, I really wished I could just skip being the sheriff and do as I pleased. But I couldn't. Duty called.
"You're right," I said, sighing. "Let's go see check out the catastrophe du jour."
CHAPTER FOUR
DISAPPOINTMENT WASHED over me as we headed back the way we'd come. Kitty Winchester, Sully's cousin, owned a quaint little B&B on the outskirts of town. It was far enough out that it provided privacy, but close enough that it was convenient to go to town to eat or shop. You rarely saw any of Kitty's borders in town for breakfast, though, because that woman put out a spread. Piping hot blueberry muffins and buttermilk biscuits and gravy, fluffy pancakes with real maple syrup, crispy bacon ... my stomach growled just thinking about it, even though we'd just eaten.
Unfortunately, it was short-lived. Between dealing with whatever was at the B&B and sighting Rhea, my stomach was doing flip-flops. Though it sucked that somebody was dead, I truly hoped it was an accident or natural causes. Visions of the brutal murders that I'd dealt with several months ago flashed through my mind, and I closed my eyes, willing the situation ahead not to be anything close to that.
Castle's Bluff was usually your stereotypical sleepy small town despite all the shifters and witches. But because of them, we did have the occasional fight or feud, and when you were dealing with wolves, foxes, badgers, and other predators, things could get ugly. That's why we'd formed a coalition a few months prior—a pet project my mother had worked toward for years.
We now had a system of laws that applied to everybody, and because magical beings had so much power at their disposal, they were necessarily harsher than human laws. The extra oomph kept a lot of would-be troublemakers in line.
There were several cars in the small lot in front of Kitty's, and when we pulled up, the woman herself was waiting for us on the porch. A few small clusters of people were gathered on the wraparound porch, and all eyes turned to us as we climbed the steps.
"Hey, Kitty," I said, noting the worry lines around her eyes. Her tan skin had a yellow pallor to it, and her brown eyes, usually warm and welcoming, were shadowed.
"Hi, Cori. Alex," she said, her forehead creased. "I'm glad to see you, but I'm sorry it's under such horrible circumstances."
"What's going on?" I tried to glance around her and into the house, but the front door was closed. "Sam said there was an accident."
She wrung her hands and turned toward the front door. "If only that were so. Follow me."
As soon as we stepped inside, it was obvious what the tragedy was. A woman lay sprawled on the dining room floor, her limbs twisted at odd angles. Blood pooled beneath her head, staining the Victorian-print rug underneath her. Her face was turned away from us.
I glanced up to try to figure out what had happened.
"It looks like she fell over the railing," Kitty said.
I furrowed my brow, knowing from experience that the banister would have hit the woman at waist level. "That would be nearly impossible to do accidentally."
She sighed and cast a glance over her shoulder, where a couple guests were trying to get a glimpse of the goings on. Hunter stepped in front of them and pulled the door shut. I gave a small smile, wondering if he knew he'd just thwarted a nosy wolf shifter. Then I figured it didn't really matter; if Noelle was anywhere near as powerful as rumors said she was, she'd turn anyone to cinder who raised a finger toward him magically. Physically, I had little doubt he could manage just fine on his own.
I pulled my mind back to the task at hand and turned off my emotions as best I could, cloaking myself in my professional persona, then walked around the body, taking in details as I went. I blew out a sad breath when I saw who it was—Daisy Westfield. She was a human, but had lived in Castle's Bluff her entire life. She worked at the local grocery store and rented a room full-time from Kitty in exchange for helping her cook and clean.
"Aw, Daisy," I said softly. "What happened to you?"
Kitty sniffed, and I looked up to see tears streaming down her face. "I don't know," she said, "but you're gonna find out, right Cori?"
She was looking at me like I had all the answers, when in fact, I didn't have a clue. Everybody loved Daisy. Even her ex-husband sang her praises, and he didn't like anybody.
"I'll do my best, Kitty. I promise you that much." I turned back toward the porch. "Did anybody see anything?"
She shook her head. "No, but they did hear her scream. That nice group from Keyhole Lake was here, in their rooms, and there were a couple others, too. I haven't really talked to them, but I heard them talking while we were waiting for you."
Tires crunched on the gravel outside, and I hoped it was Colleen, the coroner, and her crew.
"Are all your guests here right now?" Alex asked.
She shook her head. "No, there's a couple from Augusta missing. They left right after breakfast to go shopping. That wa
s a solid two hours before it happened."
Though Castle's Bluff had originally started out as a sanctuary for paranormals, word had eventually gotten out and humans had moved to our little berg. Now, most of the town relied on tourism in one way or another and cutesy shops lined Main Street, offering everything from tacky seashell art to new-age candles and oils, run by a witch who knew her stuff.
"Okay, then. So everybody who was here when it happened is outside?"
She nodded.
"Good. Then let’s go see what they have to say."
One of our three ambulances sat outside with the back doors open. Colleen, a short, middle-aged woman with curly blonde hair, strode toward us carrying a black box. She motioned toward the door with her head. "The victim's inside?"
I nodded. "Yeah. Looks like she fell over the banister. Or maybe she was pushed." I paused. "It's Daisy."
She ran her hand over her face and sadness shadowed her features. "Oh, no."
Rather than say anything else, I just pinched my lips together and nodded.
"Well then," she said, "let's get to it. Was it an accident?"
I wasn't willing to declare it a murder until we had all the facts. "I can't say for sure. I haven't checked the upstairs hall to see if there's anything on the floors or signs of a struggle."
"I'll get on that then and let you know if I find anything."
If there was one thing I could say about Colleen, it was that she was good. I'd never known her to miss so much as a stray scratch, so there was no need to helicopter her. Instead, I turned toward the guests, priming myself to determine truth from fiction.
CHAPTER FIVE
I DECIDED TO QUESTION Noelle and Hunter and their friends first. He'd been keeping an eye on us and had also helped me out with crowd management, but I didn't know him. His reputation preceded him, and I couldn't see a good cop or an even better witch murdering the maid while they were on vacation. Still, stranger things had happened.
"So I assume you know the drill," I said, a dry half smile on my lips after I'd pulled him and Noelle aside. I'd heard about a few murders they'd had down their way. They'd had a rough year, too. "Did either of you see anything?"
He shook his head. "We'd just gotten back from lunch. The only reason we came back was because Noelle blopped wing sauce down the front of her shirt and she wanted to change." He glanced at her, and she nodded. I wondered if I'd made a mistake questioning them together rather than apart, but that milk was already spilled.
She nodded, then blushed a little. "We were ... uh, changing clothes when somebody screamed from the hallway."
"Which room are you staying in?"
"The one at the end of the hall downstairs," she said. "The Magnolia Room."
Kitty had named all six of the guest rooms after trees that attract honeybees. She did it as a lark, playing on the bear/honey stereotype, but she was just this side of Winnie the Pooh when it came down to brass tacks—she imported local honeys from all over the country.
The room she was talking about didn't have a direct line of sight to the body.
"By the time we got to the dining room, she was just lying there. Hunter checked, but she was already gone." I was watching her face carefully—I was decent at picking out a liar—but all I saw was a flicker of sadness. "We talked with her a few times, and she was so nice to us. She even made us a little lunch to take fishin' with us yesterday."
I turned to Hunter. "Did anything stand out?"
He shook his head. "I've run it through my head a dozen times, and I didn't see or hear anything unusual. The only thing I noticed is that the front door was standing open for the first time since we've been here. Kitty usually keeps it shut since she runs the AC."
"Did you guys pull it shut behind you when you got home?"
Despite my effort to pull them aside, the other couple who'd been with them at lunch joined us. "We absolutely did," the Coralee woman said. "I run a business; I know how bad the light bill can get when folks leave the doors standin' open like they was born in a barn. That door was closed when we went to our rooms."
Her boyfriend nodded earnestly. "She's a stickler for such things. I closed it myself, so I know it latched."
Since they were already there, I figured I may as well question them, too. Where in the heck was Sam so he could help me sort this mess?
"And which room are you two in?" I asked.
"The Honeysuckle Room," she replied. "That's my favorite tree. I have three of them in my yard."
Her room was situated right beside Noelle's, so there was no way they would have seen anything either. Nor would either couple have had any reason to be upstairs. Still, I had to ask.
She shook her head, and I noticed that not a single hair moved. It was like her hair was set upon her head like a perfectly styled helmet. I wondered idly how long it took her to get that kind of height, then dragged myself back to the conversation.
"Did you see or hear anything?"
"Nope," she said. "We sure didn't, sugar. Well, we heard the poor thing scream, but by the time we got out of our room and to the dining room, poor Hunter there was already checkin' to see if she had a pulse."
A thoughtful expression crossed her face. "Though now that I think about it, we were talkin' this mornin' while she was settin' up breakfast. She was just givin' me the lowdown on the town."
I saw Noelle roll her eyes and smile a little out of the corner of my eye and wondered what that was about, but didn't interrupt Coralee to ask.
"And she was tellin' me about havin' some problems with a girl she'd known from way back. Apparently, she had this big secret—you know, the kind that puts you in a bind if you're asked to keep it. Anyway, she was wafflin' about whether or not she should."
"Did she say what the secret was?"
She shook her head. "Nope. I told her to tell me, since I was a stranger and not from around here, and I'd give her some advice, but we were interrupted by that shrew"—she pointed a lacquered finger toward an older woman standing with a portly gentleman on the porch—"because she didn't have separate towels for her feet and face."
Coralee scoffed. "The woman ain't got the sense God gave a wooden goose, or any sort of manners at all. She made Daisy stop what she was doin' to go fetch her three more towels right then. By the time she got back, other folks were up and about. We didn't talk no more about it."
Movement over her right shoulder kept catching my eye, but when I'd look to see what it was, there was nothing there. Noelle, however, looked like she was fighting not to say something. She was glaring toward the spot, but when I looked at her, she gave me a bright, fake smile. How odd. I didn't sense any dishonesty from her, or any of them, but that was weird.
"Well, are y'all gonna be in town for a bit?"
Hunter nodded. "We're here for another five days. If you need anything at all, you know where to find us." He pulled his wallet out of his pocket and fished out a business card, then handed to me. "The bottom number is my cell."
"Wow," I said, handing him one of mine in return. "You put your cell on your cards? If I did that, I'd have people calling me non-stop."
He grinned. "I have two sets—one for professional contacts and one for citizens. Trust me—I feel your pain."
"The struggle is real," I said, smiling back.
Kitty had brought out a tray of snacks and a pitcher of tea, but the other guests were getting restless.
"I need to go, but thanks for your cooperation. If you think of anything else, please call."
"We will," Noelle said, casting a final glance back toward the house as they turned toward their truck. "And good luck. We've been in your shoes far more often than I want to admit."
I could definitely get where she was coming from; I was getting a little tired of walking in them myself.
CHAPTER SIX
THANKFULLY, SAM SHOWED up as they pulled away and he split the interviews with me. Kitty had a full house, which meant we had another four couples to talk to. I de
cided to handle the cranky woman who'd been mean to Daisy that morning myself.
"Hi," I said, holding out my hand to her. "I'm Sheriff Cori Sloane."
She took it and gave me a limp-dishtowel shake as she looked down her nose at me. I took an instant dislike to her, but shoved that back. I couldn't let personal feelings cloud my perspective.
"Harold and Clair Smith," her husband said, shoving his hand at me. I struggled to resist the urge to wipe my fingers on my jeans after shaking his clammy palm. One thing I knew for sure—neither of them did any type of manual labor. Their hands were soft as a baby's bottom.
"Nice to meet you Mr. and Mrs. Smith," I said. "I hate to intrude on your vacation. I just need to ask you a few questions, then you can be on your way. First, do you have any identification on you?"
"Identification?" she said, clearly upset that I wasn't willing to take her at her word.
"Now, Clair," Harold said as he reached for his wallet, "she's just doing her job. Show her your license."
She glared at him, but did as he asked. I took a picture of each of them with my phone, then handed them back.
"Okay," Clair said. "Now let's get the questions over with. We have a busy schedule today."
"Okay, then," I agreed. "Let's start with what room you're in."
"We're in the Cherry Blossom Room," she replied.
"Ah, the middle room upstairs?" I already knew it was. The door to it was situated almost directly behind where Daisy had gone over.
"Yes," she said, "but we didn't hear a thing."
"Nothing?" I asked, brow raised. "The guests in the downstairs rooms all say they heard her scream."
"Oh," she spluttered. "Well of course we heard that. Just nothing else."
I tilted my head and examined them. Mr. Smith took a step closer to me, nudging his wife to the side a little. "You'll have to pardon us. We've never seen a dead body or been part of a murder investigation before. What Clair's trying so ineloquently to say is that we heard the young lady scream, but just assumed you knew that. We didn't, however, see or hear anything else out of the ordinary."
