“And ‘The Weasel’ couldn’t complain.”
“Exactly. That’s my point. Sometimes things can look odd, but when you look closely everything’s just fine.”
Point? “You’re making a point?”
“Like Sunset Cove.”
Ooooh. That kind of point. “The cove is like the cat lady’s house?”
“Yeah. When I drove into town I thought it looked peaceful for the first two seconds, then my cop senses took over. I knew things weren’t so calm under the surface.”
I tried to imagine what manner of supernatural caught him off guard. “And now what do you think?”
“I’m liking it here better every day. It’s like Lilly, a bit odd, but …” He hesitated.
“It’s got spirit.” I couldn’t help myself.
He laughed. “Spirit? You’re talking about the ghost stories. Right?”
I nodded. “It’s hard to know what to believe when you first come to Sunset Cove, but the place has its own charms.” Many actually.
“I still have lots of questions about the place. I’m hoping to learn more through you. Zane said you know lots of people.”
Among other things. I folded my hands in my lap. “Yup, that I do.”
The truck hit a pot hole and jumped. I grabbed my lynx.
“Here we are.” He slowed down. “The picnic spot I want to show you is off road. We just have to walk a bit.” He parked on the side of the road.
I followed him into the forest. He carried the picnic basket and the wine. I drank in the surroundings. Songbirds filled the air with song. Wildflowers dotted the path between enormous ferns.
We stopped when we reached Sunset River and he placed the basket beneath an enormous arbutus tree. “Do you like it here?” As he turned to smile at me, a current of warmth ran through me from head to toe. It was a normal feeling of attraction; not one laced with the magic of a Casanova witch, or the surreal heat of an immortal lover. It was a very human feeling. A warning signal snaked through my system. Spark strutted along the edge of the water and sniffed the air.
The run-off from the snowmelt gorged the waterway, creating a swift current which made a gurgling sound as it hit rocks. A foot-long silver fish jumped. Its silver scales flashed in the sunlight. It might have been a small steelhead. Hard to tell.
Thick forest nestled along the far shore of the river ten meters away. On our side, we stood in a small clearing flanked by hundred-foot fir trees and the occasional arbutus. Sun streamed through the opening, lighting our surroundings with a warm glow. Birds sang.
I breathed it all in. The surroundings were so perfect I expected Bambi to stick her head out any moment.
Gus unfolded a blue blanket and spread it over the ground.
“Can I help?”
A couple crows perched above of us cawed, curious about our lunch.
“I got this,” he said. “Why don’t you sit down and relax. You never relax. You’re always running after kids and that fur ball.”
“I heard that,” said Spark in my head, but she didn’t hiss.
Relax? Did I remember how? As a single mom of three, a frazzled witch who had difficulty understanding her powers let alone controlling them, and a PI who for the most part was clueless, the concept of “relaxing” was as foreign as an ice cube in the desert. Spark settled by my feet.
“I’ll try,” I said, as he handed me a glass and poured the wine. “This isn’t?”
“I heard you like Merlot.”
Like as in love. I took a sip. It was perfect. Zane must have told him about my weakness. “Yum,” I said.
He pulled out a foot-long wooden cutting board and, as I sipped my wine, he put out an amazing spread: herbed goat cheese, triangles of French Brie and Dutch Gouda, a couple squares of aged cheddar. I sighed. Thin slices of prosciutto, chorizo sausage and my personal favorite, pepper salami. He arranged the food carefully, adding fresh figs and a small jar of pickles. On the side he placed gourmet crackers and a baguette.
“You are a man of many talents.”
He smiled. “I aim to please.”
Spark opened one eye and purred.
I laughed and took the plate he offered me. “It couldn’t have been easy to get all of this in the cove.”
“I have my ways.” He shifted his eyebrows up and down like Groucho Marx, and I laughed. “I keep a stock of my favorite stuff. I’ll get more whenever I go to the city.”
“Tasty,” said Spark in my head, as she munched on a slice of meat. “In so many ways.”
I stroked her back.
“Does that … thing … go everywhere with you?”
Spark gave him a sharp glance and he jumped.
“I swear she just …”
“She has character.”
“Does she bite?”
“Mostly she purrs.” So, I lie sometimes. “What brought you to Sunset Cove, Constable?”
“An odd combination of things. I grew up in a small town and I thought I’d be happy in the city, but it never felt right, so I put in for a transfer and this was the first place that came up.”
“And …?” I munched on a crisp cracker with soft goat cheese. Pure heaven.
“Well, there was a woman.”
“Just one?”
He chuckled. “It only takes one to break your heart.”
The tone of his voice dropped an octave, as if his good mood lunged off a cliff. I sensed it was too early to talk about that kind of stuff. “How are you liking Sunset Cove?”
“It has its perks.”
“Like?”
“I know the name of all the usual suspects in town already.”
“You say that with hesitation.”
He tilted his head. “I’m the kind of cop who trusts his gut, and right now it’s not happy. I may know names, but that’s not enough. This place has a different feel about it.”
I prepped another cracker. “Do tell.”
“Some people are who they seem to be. Like Zane and Betty, the librarian.”
“Uh huh.” The humans. “And others?” I waited before biting my cracker, so I wouldn’t choke.
“They aren’t who they seem to be. The longer I stay here the more I realize that all is not what it seems.”
I bit my cracker. “And that bothers you?”
He finished chewing a mouthful of food before he spoke. “It intrigues me. It’s like I’m meeting new people all the time, but the people haven’t changed. Take you for example.”
“Me?” I grabbed a fig. “Nothing new about me.”
“When I look at you I see a beautiful woman. But there’s a way about you that makes me think you’re more than that. Like a witch in the fairy tales, or something like that.”
I choked. “You think I’m a witch. Me?” His gut was pretty damn good.
Spark sat up and stretched.
“And that lynx is your familiar.”
I nibbled my fig and tried to look innocent. “Do you like witches?” I tried to make my voice sound alluring, but I haven’t half the voice talent of Spark. I sounded more like a woman with a cold.
“Depends. Good or bad witches?”
“Good.”
“Then I like them just fine.” He leaned back against the tree. “The company you keep worries me, though.”
Here we go. I finished my fig, waiting for him to say more, but he didn’t. We ate in silence for a bit. I listened to the rushing water and the birds. He swatted at a wasp that came near.
“Have you talked with Zane about the town?”
“Oh, yeah.” He popped a grape in his mouth. “For hours.”
“What did he say?”
“That Sunset Cove is a place you have to discover for yourself.”
I laughed.
He leaned forward. Just like that. Out of the blue. He leaned forward and captured my lips in the sweetest of kisses. “And I plan to do just that.”
Chapter 17
For a moment the world stood still, but not in a good
way. I had kissed another man. I loved Eric with all my heart, but I kissed another man. Dante didn’t count. This one was human. All human. And he smelled so manly.
Was it sensual? Hell, yeah, but it wasn’t …
“Enough,” said Spark, interrupting my thoughts. “You gotta relax into it, Abby. Let go a little.”
I pulled away, in a complete muddle of thoughts and feelings. I had agreed to a date and now I was freezing up. This wasn’t fair to either of us.
Spark used her Yoda voice. “Sorting out your feelings for Viking guy, you should be.”
I didn’t need to sort my feelings. I loved Eric. I had loved him from almost the first minute I met him. Probably always would. It took Gus’s sweet kiss to bring me back to that admission.
“I’m sorry,” I started, not knowing really what I could say to make the awkwardness of the moment go away, but I didn’t have to say more. His cell phone went crazy, making a loud ringing noise.
I looked at the sky.
He got up and walked a few yards away. I could only hear his side of the conversation, and that only because my witch’s hearing is more acute than human.
“Steel.”
Silence.
“On my way.”
He turned to me. “I’m sorry, Abby, but we have to go.”
“No problem.” I started packing the food up and he knelt down and helped. “It’s an emergency?”
“Murder.”
I stopped. “Can you tell me who?”
He gave me a cop stare that could blister the sun. “I need to hurry. I have a few questions for you. We’ll talk on our way back.”
I hate being commanded. The warmth of the kiss on my lips faded to a cold memory. We were on the road before he spoke again.
“Tell me what you know about Katey Sawchuck.”
My heart sank. “Katey’s dead?”
He nodded.
“I’m so sorry.” I told him what I knew about Katey and that I had talked to her the day before.
He dropped me off at the manor, where I jumped into my Mini and sped to the docks.
***
Kate Sawchuck, the old coyote, was dead. Two Death cards, two clients wanting protection from them … two deaths. I had to be the worst detective ever. I didn’t need a dick manual to tell me I wasn’t supposed to let my clients get murdered. Zane gave his permission for me to watch the crime scene investigation from a distance, if I promised not to touch anything and to tell him anything I learned from it.
Katey hung from a shower head in the dock washroom. Her friend Huckleberry found her and pulled her down, but he was too late to bring her back to life. Her death scene looked much the same as Harris’s. A chair lay on the ground.
I detected that strange smell again and that worried me. I had caught a whiff of it at the first murder scene, but it was so faint I shrugged it off as residual magic. There was a lot of that around the cove. Now, I was sure. It wasn’t the smell of a supernatural. It was the smell of pure magic and it was recent.
I didn’t tell Zane. I needed to know more before I showed my hand. I grimaced as my mind shuffled out the card metaphor. There was nothing fun in this death game.
My chest tightened as I looked at her. When I talked to her the day before she had been so full of life and mischief. I left after five minutes.
Zane caught up with me at my car. “Did you sense something?”
“No,” I lied.
“Nothing? Why are you in such a rush to leave?”
I exhaled. “I don’t like seeing dead friends.”
He touched my arm. “You be careful out there.”
I nodded. “Back atcha.”
His grip on my arm tightened, forced me to look at him. “There are more Death cards out there. Five others have reported getting them in the last hour.”
Oh fudge. “Who?”
“There’s a town meeting at Margaret’s in an hour.”
“I’ll see you there.”
***
I headed straight for home. I needed to feel grounded, if only for a few minutes before I carried on my investigation. When I opened the front door, the smell of home washed over me, a mixture of peanut butter and popcorn. Shreddie jumped up on me.
I stayed home, bathing in the solace of family. Life felt precious. I could not forget, even for a minute, how lucky I was to be surrounded with so much love.
When the time came to leave, I headed down to Margaret’s café for the meeting. The place was packed, wall-to-wall people. Due to the light drizzle that started at dusk, the smell of wet humans hung heavy in the air. I wiggled my way inside. There had to be at least fifty people.
Inhabitants of the cove, both human and otherwise, enjoyed their privacy and independence. It wasn’t often we gathered. The only other time I could remember this many of us together was at the kids’ Christmas concert.
Margaret stood at the front. I might have thought the mayor would take the leadership role, but no, it was Margaret, the woman who held us all together with coffee and her down-home charm. The gathering hushed without being told to.
Spark purred softly.
Margaret spoke. “We need to figure things out.”
No one argued.
“Who here has been sent a Death card?”
Three hands rose, but I couldn’t see their faces in the crowd. Did it matter? My intuition said it didn’t. I looked around. The faces near me were all human. Where were the supernaturals hiding? Did they know something? I smelled the air. Nothing but human fear.
“They’re probably having their own meeting at the teahouse,” said Spark.
I shrugged. I bet they were meeting in smaller groups here and there. They liked their silos. I wondered if any of them have been included in the murderer’s deadly game.
As the fear in the room rose, I decided to leave. If I stayed, I might be able to learn a few details, but I knew where I could learn more.
As I opened the door of my car, Zane walked up to me. “Don’t suppose you’d like to tell me where you’re going?”
I could have said I was following a hunch, but then he would have asked me questions I didn’t want to answer. I could have lied and said I was going home, but I prefer not to lie.
I gave him a wink.
Chapter 18
Following my intuition, I was on my way to catch a murderer when I got a nudge from the universe. I don’t think many PIs could claim such a thing. It’s not in any of my “How to be a Dick” books. It felt a bit like being physically shaken from the inside. I slowed the car, did a U-ey and drove straight home. Spark sat straight up in the passenger seat. “Hurry up, Blondie.”
When I opened the door, my mouth dropped. The sofa cushions were strewn all over the living room floor. Magazines and books were scattered everywhere, and the windows were wide open. The only normal thing was the sound of the TV blaring cartoons. My kids were as messy as most, but not this messy.
“Jinx,” I called out.
I heard muffled sounds coming from the hall cupboard. I opened it and found Elaria tied up with duct tape. When I released her, she spat out a baby sock stuck in her mouth and talked a mile a minute in elf.
Spark strutted around her and hissed.
“Slow down. Please, slow down. Speak my language. Where are the kids?”
“Somewhere,” she said amidst a bunch of indecipherable tinkle-jabber.
“What happened?” The lump in my throat grew.
“Jill told Jinx to turn off the TV. Jinx said ‘No’ and things started flying in the air.”
I put my hand up to stop her there and sent an SOS text to Dante. “Then what happened?”
“I tried to intercede, but I don’t know any magic to stop that little one. She got angry at me and the next thing I knew I was tied up in this sticky tape.”
I looked out the window. What the heck was I supposed to do? I could barely manage my own powers. I had no idea how to tame an out-of-control kid-witch. I was afraid to ask the question,
but I had to. “And the rest of the family?”
She shrugged. I swear there’s nothing more infuriating than an elf-shrug followed by a tinkly voice. “Before Jinx went crazy, Jonathan was shooting his bow and arrow at the back of the manor, and Jane was sleeping. I don’t know where they are now.”
“And Jill?”
After a second of silence, she said, “We should check the cupboards.”
I opened and closed cupboard after cupboard until Spark sniffed out Jill, bound and spelled, she sat unconscious, in the tall kitchen cupboard beside our stash of ketchup.
Dante arrived in a puff of blue smoke the color of the sky at dusk. I didn’t know whether to be angry, sad or plain terrified. My emotions were on overload.
Dante lifted my cousin into his arms and took her to the couch. He may be an annoying Casanova man-witch with too much libido for anyone’s good, but I noted, once again, he was always there for me when I needed him. He pushed her hair out of her eyes and murmured something. A pink cloud wrapped around her head and she opened her eyes.
Meanwhile Elaria straightened the room. Jonathan came bounding in with his bow and I could hear Jane crying for attention upstairs. All accounted for. I took a deep breath.
Where was Jinx?
“I don’t know what happened,” said Jill as she regained consciousness. “I asked Jinx to turn down the TV.”
“I’m sure everything’s going to be all right,” I said, but I wasn’t at all sure. I left her to chat with Dante while I ran upstairs to check the portal door and pick up Jane. Spark stayed at my side.
The door of the portal room stood ajar. Not a good sign. Should I close it? Lock it with a spell? What if Jinx was trapped elsewhere?
I grabbed Jane in my arms and ran downstairs.
“The portal, Dante.” That’s all I had to say. He vanished. Elaria ran up the stairs. I sat with Jill and the kids and pretended to be interested in Sponge Bob.
I sent a text to Eric on his new cell phone, not knowing if it would reach him. It would only work if he were on this plane and if he checked messages. No one I knew could navigate through the dimensions as well as him.
Death by Tarot Card (A Ghost & Abby Mystery Book 4) Page 8
