All she could do was take care of herself and do what she could.
All her collectible cola bottles began rattling in unison, threatening to fall off their shelf, and Liza jumped to her feet. She ran and knelt on the floor before them, trying to steady them before another crashed to the ground.
“Okay, okay. I get it; I get,” she mumbled. “I get it.”
And then someone knocked on the door.
Before Liza had even turned the knob all the way, Jessie from next door was flying through, sleet turning her coat to ice and dripping tiny puddles on Liza’s floor. But Jessie’s cheeks were flushed with excitement, rosy and happy.
“Guess what, guess what?” she sang, all but jumping up and down as the cold wind rushed past her and chilled the living room.
“Um, what?” Liza asked, trying to echo the woman’s cheerfulness.
“He got a new job!” Jessie squealed. “But, even better than that, his uncle who died a year ago? Everything is out of probate. My husband got more than $6,000 left to him. We’re going to have it by Christmas! Can you believe it?! We’ve been waiting forever!”
She gripped Liza in a frigid squeeze and before Liza could say a word of congratulations, Jessie was running back into the night towards her old Ford truck, oblivious to the cold and ice. She wasn’t even wearing a coat.
Somewhere in Liza’s house, a bell jingled fiercely.
Chapter Seventeen
LIZA WAS MORE of a night ritual kind of gal, kind of the way she preferred to do her drinking around midnight, but sometimes, when the morning light was just right, there was nothing like a spell first thing in the morning.
It was that kind of morning.
Liza could not cure cancer. As much as she would like to, she just couldn’t. But she’d met Bridle, she’d heard about why her husband had left her, and she’d looked into her eyes.
She couldn’t, in good conscious, not try something.
After giving Bryar a call and filling her in on her plans, she also knew she had some backup.
People in the music industry feared Bryar, not because she was also a witch (most didn’t know) but because she was a bitch. But Liza knew her other side, the sensitive side–the side that would do just about anything for anyone.
So, five states apart, both women sat down at their altars and began the formalities for what needed doing.
Liza put everything she had into the spell. She chanted, she poured water, she mixed herbs, she sprinkled oil, she called to multiple deities, and by the time she was ready, she took in as much of Bridle’s pain as she could. She took in as much until she was writhing on the ground, crying and screaming from the power of it.
And that was where Bryar stepped in, ready to soothe Liza’s discomfort.
Hours later, she awoke. Her joints were stiff, her muscles were tight, and she had a migraine from hell, but her mind was clear. And, above all, there was a sense of peace surrounding her.
That was when she whipped out the scissors. Because, unfortunately for her vanity, there was one more part of the spell.
Liza had talked herself out of it, at least, half a dozen times, but, in the end, it didn’t matter. She did it for Bridle and the awful husband of hers who couldn’t hack it with a wife who had cancer.
She did it for herself and her awful husband who couldn’t hack it because his wife was a witch and he’d always feel inferior, no matter how much she gave him.
The hair landed in red puddles at her feet, like blood. She was finished.
Both women had done what they could. Whatever other energy was out there would have to do the rest, along with Bridle’s body.
Then, Liza did the last, and possibly most important, part of the ritual: She got on Amazon and ordered every fluffy bathrobe, beautiful cotton nightgown, and aromatherapy body wash and bubble bath she could find and had them shipped straight to Colt’s house.
Sometimes, being pampered and getting gifts were the best possible treatments a lady could receive.
God bless the internet.
***
As Liza unlocked the door and walked inside, she was still feeling the afterglow of her experience with the spell she’d done that morning, even though she was as bald as a baby’s bottom. And, as tired as she felt, she was starting to build excitement for the day ahead because she’d convinced herself it was going to be a good one.
So when her phone went off, singing Mode’s special ringtone (“You’re So Vain”), she almost didn’t answer it. Why ruin a perfectly good morning?
But then she decided against it. Ignoring him wouldn’t work. He’d either keep calling or would call her mother or sister, increasing the drama. Best to deal with him and get it over with.
“Were you still asleep?” Mode demanded after exchanging polite, forced pleasantries.
Liza began her morning shop duties of turning on lights, straightening up from the day before, and lighting candles while she talked. She’d created a routine for herself and wasn’t going to deter from it just because he probably had a bug in his bonnet.
“No, I wasn’t asleep. I was at work,” she replied, trying not to sound annoyed.
“Oh yeah? So you’re really doing that?”
Liza tried to make do with letting out a string of curses in her head.
“Yes, it’s still going.” Moron.
“Well, I’m glad to see you’ve found things to do down there. That will be good for you,” Mode said smoothly. “At least you’re not just sitting around.”
Like I did when I was married to you? But she kept that to herself as well. In fact, she was doing such a good job of not screaming at him that she felt she deserved at least a few after-work martinis when she got home.
Heavy on the vodka.
For now, she tried a different tactic. “Definitely not sitting around. I had breakfast with friends this morning and tonight I’m having dinner with someone’s family.”
She didn’t mention that the “friends” were her sister and Bridle’s energy. What he didn’t know would just help irritate him.
“Oh, I didn’t know you still had old friends down there,” Mode said.
“These are new friends. And the family actually belongs to a man I met during my first week here. He’s been around quite a bit, and I just had dinner with them in fact.”
She might have fudged a little there, too, since it wasn’t like he’d really been around a lot, but whatever entity existed would surely forgive that tiny white lie.
“You’ve been seeing a man?” The idea seemed to upset Mode’s groove and for a second his pitch rose and he sounded as flustered as he could sound.
“Believe it or not, you didn’t turn me lesbian,” she replied.
“And you don’t think it’s–“
“Please don’t tell me that ‘too soon’ was going to be at the end of that sentence,” Liza laughed.
She returned to her counter to retrieve the matches for the candles, feeling pretty good that he wasn’t getting to her that morning. She was in a good mood. She even felt that Nana Bud’s snowflake silk scarf looked fetching on her head.
“You won’t sign the papers, but you’re going on a date. That makes a lot of sense Liza.”
And, just like that, her good mood vanished.
Temporarily giving up on her morning routine Liza slumped into the nearest chair and frowned. “What?”
“You’ve had the divorce papers for weeks, Liza. I know you signed for them. Why haven’t you signed them?”
Liza didn’t know how to respond because she didn’t know why she hadn’t signed them. They were on the dining room table, had been there since the day after she moved into the farm house. She’d taken the pen to the table and then got distracted by a phone call. When she’d returned to sign them later, she’d suddenly had the need to go to the bathroom.
And so it continued.
She thought about those papers every day. They called to her from the dining room each time she walked by it.
“Is it more money?” Mode demanded. “Is it something else you want from me? Are you trying to punish me? Is–“
“I don’t know,” Liza answered quietly. “I don’t know.”
She hung up on him gently then, not hearing the words he continued to say. When the room was quiet again, she spun around in her chair and studied all her shelves, the products, and the furnishings. She was making something good there; she knew she was.
So what was wrong with her?
Feeling a little less motivation than she’d felt moments before, Liza raised both arms high in the air, snapped her fingers, and watched all the candles come to life at once, their little flames sending dancing shadows all over the walls.
***
As much of an asshole as Mode might have been, he had a point. She hadn’t signed the divorce papers. It was stupid, and she was crazy for not doing it. Something was obviously wrong with her.
But that wasn’t the only thing.
She could not let people continue to think she killed Cotton. But she’d tried to see it herself and couldn’t. If she didn’t know then who did?
Liza was blocked by her own fears and confusion so a spell wouldn’t work. And because she was blocked, Bryar was, too. There was only one thing left to do–visit the scene of the crime.
Her last and only appointment was at noon so as soon as Lola Ellen Pearson (ecstatic with the way her Pizza Hut “hex” had turned out) left, Liza locked up, buttoned up, covered her newly bald head with a wool cap, and headed out of town. She was going to find where Cotton died and go from there.
Maybe she’d pick something up. Hopefully, nobody would pick her up.
“I saw the blood,” she said aloud as she drove along the mountainous road. “I saw myself with all the blood. So I had to be involved. I had to be. But I don’t feel like I was…”
Since she couldn’t drive all the way to the exact spot where his body was discovered, she had to park on the side of the road, cross the railroad tracks, and hike about a quarter of a mile.
The ice had melted from the leaves, making them wet and slippery. She tripped more than once, landing on all fours in the mud and debris. With a wet coat and wet pants and mud seeping through her knitted gloves, she was starting to freeze and think her adventure useless until she reached the area with the bright yellow police tape.
“Huh,” Liza murmured as she walked around the rectangular shape. She felt a little thrill of excitement, in spite of the situation. It was like being on CSI. “So this is where they found him.”
Well, she knew without a doubt that she’d never been there before. Although she wasn’t afraid of the dark, there was no way she’d have been out there by herself, in a place she didn't know, trying to kill a man.
So what had happened?
Her vision had showed blood on her hands. But did that mean she’d actually killed him, or just had a hand in killing him? Was she guilty without actually being responsible?
Possibly.
“Well. Shit,” Liza cursed, stomping her mud-covered Uggs.
There was nothing left of the crime scene, other than the disturbed bed of leaves and a slight hole in the ground, presumably from where he had fallen.
Liza knelt by the tape and closed her eyes. She could see him then, see Cotton. He wasn’t running towards the location, but stumbling. His bulk had him heaving, unable to travel quickly. As he moved, he weaved, like perhaps he was intoxicated (although toxicology had found nothing more than Benadryl in his system). He held his head in his meaty hand, grimacing as though in awful pain. His face was red and contorted, but there was confusion there as well, and as he neared the sectioned-off spot, he stopped, looked up at the moon, howled a little like a coyote, and then plunged to the ground.
“Shit,” she said again, because sometimes when all other words failed, the bad ones were still the best. “Shit, damn, fugger nut.” (Because she could still feel Nana Bud’s influence and energy around her and while her beloved grandmother might have cursed like a sailor, she hated the “f word” with a passion and Liza just couldn’t risk a tree branch dropping on her head. Not when she was having a good makeup day.)
So what happened then? A stroke? A heart attack? An embolism?
All of those would’ve shown up on any autopsy worth a damn. So what had happened? And why here?
Had she killed him and not known it?
Damn, Liza thought with a little bit of pride. I’m better than I thought.
Now, how was she going to afford an attorney and keep herself out of jail?
Chapter Eighteen
LIZA WAS CLOSER to figuring out what had happened; she knew she was.
In her purse, tucked safely away in a plastic baggie and sealed tightly, she’d gathered several of the leaves from the spot where Cotton’s body collapsed. She’d also dressed in a pure white linen gown (even with the heat fixed, thanks to Whistle, it was still too damn cold to go naked) and left off the scarf. She wore no shoes, no socks, and no makeup.
She was ready. She would put an end to this.
It if it was true, if she’d killed him, intentionally or not, then that would be the end of her spells. It would be clearly obvious that she couldn’t control herself and was not to be trusted.
Liza was just about to carry the rest of her supplies upstairs when a pounding on the door stopped her in her tracks. Sighing in frustration, Liza put everything down on the bottom stair and shuffled to the front door, her bare feet cold against the hardwood floors. She yearned for her fluffy socks with the unicorns on them, but they seemed a little insensitive for the ritual she was about to perform, so she'd left them off.
She’d left the hot pink nail polish on, though. Her feet didn’t have to be ugly, after all.
Colt stood on the other side, all smiles and arms full of a large wicker basket. “Presents from the family,” he announced. “And me.”
And then his smile fell flatter than a hoe cake at the sight of her head.
“Dear God,” he cried. “What happened? I’d sue if I were you. You didn’t go to Sunny & Shears did you? I went to high school with her. Wouldn’t trust her with one of my trees.”
Frustration forgotten, Liza leaned over and sniffed. “Is that banana nut bread?”
Colt nodded. “And muffins and cookies and I don’t know what else. But don’t change the damn subject. What the hell happened?”
“I can’t tell you,” Liza hedged awkwardly. She wasn’t ready and slightly embarrassed to admit it had been for his sister. She didn’t want him thinking she’d done it to win him over or something stupidly female.
Without an invitation, Colt shook his head in disbelief and sauntered into the house. He made his way to the kitchen where he placed the basket on the table and then turned to face Liza who had followed him. “Also, I’ve got to tell you; they are already shopping for you.”
“Shopping?” she asked, more than shocked. “For what? I have plenty of stuff.”
“Not for a Christmas tree you don’t,” he chided her. “Filly has already picked out the tree on my farm, which I am meant to be chopping down tomorrow, and the rest of the girls are busy in town picking out ornaments. It’s going to be a hodgepodge of mermaids, fairies, and unicorn stuff. I don’t know what all they’re cooking up. I didn’t have a part of that. I even left Bridle propped up in front of the fire, knitting a tree skirt. She looked damn near chipper. Damndest thing I’ve ever seen. Just be forewarned.”
“But why?” she asked, flabbergasted.
Although Liza was starting to feel a little sad that she didn’t have any decorations up. Driving down Main Street had revealed that she was apparently the only person in town who didn’t have anything out. And some people had gone all out, no matter what kind of condition the house was in.
Liza had actually seen one house with broken windows, a sagging porch, and garbage spilled out in the front yard, but there were lights thrown over everything tha
t couldn’t move and am illuminated Santa nailed to the roof.
And then there was the house with the tree carved to look like a penis. Well, it was meant to look like a morel mushroom but the two had striking similarities when it came right down to it. The homeowner had stuck an illuminated Rudolph on the tiptop of the mushroom head. Liza affectionately nicknamed it “the wee wee tree.”
“Well, thanks. I appreciate it,” Liza said sincerely, feeling touched and close to tears. Damn, she was getting sentimental. “I haven’t decorated in a while. Mode wasn’t home for Christmas much, and it just seemed sad to do it alone.”
“Alone?” Colt snorted. “My whole fam damily will be over here to help you, hot chocolate and all. Only we do it Bluevine style–a shot of Baileys for a little kick.”
“Sounds like my kind of cocoa.”
He stood in front of her then, looking like a little boy with raindrops falling from his baseball cap. “But listen, I had another question for you. I was wondering if maybe you could come over and, um, just have dinner with me one night. Kind of like a date.”
Liza froze, the divorce papers two rooms away calling to her: “Liza, you slut! Liza you ho! Liza you–“
Oh, shut up, she mentally snapped.
Instead, she reached out and touched his hand, cold and strong in her own smooth, warm one. “Colt, listen, I want to. I really do. I want to hear you play that guitar for me again. I want you to make me dinner because I like you and because I am hungry. I want to sit in front of your fire and curl into your chair and…”
“But you won’t will you?”
“I can’t,” she said sadly, letting his hand fall. “I just can’t. Not yet. You don’t know who I am, or what I am.”
“I know what you are Liza,” he said gently, touching her face with damp fingers that even with their chill warmed her. “You are a fine, sincere, funny woman. And you’re even pretty with that ugly haircut.”
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