by Raven Snow
He raised an eyebrow. “Or you could just take my credit card.” His words were gentle, like he was speaking to a wounded animal that would lash out if he made any sudden moves. “It’ll be yours soon anyway.”
My spine went ramrod straight. This is what comes of sharing—no good.
“We’re not—I…That’s your money,” I finished lamely.
He said nothing, continuing to sip from his coffee and letting me sit and reflect. Even though I’d pictured us married a hundred times in the past few months, I couldn’t imagine merging finances. Mine were always so unstable. My head hurt just thinking about it.
Pursing my lips, I grabbed his wallet from the table, fishing out a few bills. “I’ll borrow some grocery money from you. Borrow.” I waved the money in front of his face. “With interest.”
“Whatever you say, dear.”
I tucked the bills in my bra, satisfied with the compromise. From the curve of Wyatt’s mouth, I could tell he was laughing at me. Flipping him the bird, I stole a sip of his coffee. I winced and decided to stick with tea.
Just when we were about to have a nice, domestic moment, a crash sounded in the living room. I checked my watch; Cooper had been at school for hours, and the pets didn’t knock anything over by accident. Just to make a point.
Wyatt drew his gun from his ankle holster, motioning for me to stay here. I nodded amicably and then followed right behind him as he got up. I knew he wouldn’t notice till later, his mind completely on the threat.
Standing in our living room was an old woman in a colorful, Middle Eastern dress. Her face was weathered, and a veil that matched the outfit covered the back half of her head and neck.
My eyes were on her, but I heard Wyatt gasp in surprise, his gun clattering to the floor. That surprised me, almost making me glance away from the woman. Wyatt had never dropped anything in his life, especially a gun.
The Afghani woman pointed a finger at Wyatt and said in a shrill voice, “You will pay for what you have done.”
Her transparent body vanished then, leaving Wyatt shaking in her wake. I went to touch his shoulder, but he flinched away, his hand going up to block me.
I stopped the hurt from crossing over my face, but some of it must have showed, because he dropped his hand immediately, shame highlighting his features.
“Did you know her?” I asked hesitantly.
It was clearly the wrong thing to say, because his face closed over completely. Bending to pick up the gun, Wyatt looked away from me and didn’t look back.
“No,” he said, shortly. He was out the door and gone before the word had completely left his mouth, leaving me standing there, jaw agape, and wondering what had just happened.
Grabbing my cell from the kitchen, I dialed up my grandmother. She didn’t answer on the first try, though I knew she was home. Gran didn’t leave the house much anymore. Her hatred of the outside world was too great. After four rings on my second call, she answered, more than a little miffed.
“I am not in the mood for your antics, Harper Foxx Beck.”
Full name. That meant trouble. I pushed ahead anyway.
“What do you know about Afghani witches?”
There was no proof that the old woman in our house had had any magic in life, but someone had to be summoning all these spirits. Apart from a few hateful family members, she was the first one I’d seen with an actual vengeance thing going on. And she, unlike most of the ghosts, seemed strong enough to almost seem solid.
Gran seemed bored by the question. “Magic is magic. I don’t understand why humans insist on dividing what should be kept whole.”
“But each culture has different views and practices,” I said. “Shouldn’t their magic be different?”
“It’s the individual witch that matters.” I heard the noise of a glass being set down. “…Who would be influenced by her culture, so I suppose you’re right.”
“Could you say that again? For the camera this time.”
“Don’t be pert,” she snapped, then became considering. “The rest of the world is far more in tune with the spiritual elements. I’d be careful of this foreign witch.”
That was about as caring as Gran got, and she hung up without any further fanfare. Sitting back, I scratched my head a bit, thinking. If nothing else, I’d just made a very powerful enemy—and possibly found a suspect.
Chapter Five
The next morning, I woke up with a resolve to figure out what was going on with Wyatt. Before I confronted him, however, I had to gather my evidence. That meant going to the one place that I swore never to go willingly. But since I'd already visited Stellerman the other day, I figured I'd just go for broke and ruin the whole week.
Nancy and Samuel Bennett lived in a cozy, warm house off the main drag that never failed to send shivers up my spine. A handsome, middle aged woman answered the door, a permanent smile on her face. It was enough to curdle milk.
"Oh, Harper, what a wonderful surprise," my future mother-in-law said.
It wasn't, but I put on a grimace and went through the door, the point of no return.
"It's perfect that you're here, actually," Nancy said, rushing to get a cookie—the awful, oatmeal kind.
"Why is it perfect?" My voice was as stiff as my body.
"I was just going over some dress choices for you. I haven't decided which one is best yet, though." She pulled me into the kitchen where catalog after catalog of fluffy, white dresses were spread out over the table.
And thus began the most grueling four hours of my life. Nancy showed me every white dress from here to Timbuktu. It felt like the white was permanently burned into the back of my eyelids. The worst part of it was that I had to be nice and shut up. I still needed her for something, and then I could run, far, far away.
"I just think this would do wonders for you figure—a miracle in itself." She chuckled, and I gagged. I may have resembled a scarecrow, but it was my body, and I was partial to it.
"You know, Nancy, I've been wondering about Wyatt's childhood," I said. "Since we're going to be married and all. I just thought it'd be cute to have a little board of pictures from our combined childhoods. Do you have anything like that?"
Her chest puffed out like she’d been waiting her whole life for such a mission. Before I knew it, she’d sat me down in the attic in front of boxes upon boxes filled to the brim with pictures. I didn’t know there were that many moments in a lifetime to capture.
It made me wish my mother had cared enough to take some.
Nancy thankfully left me alone then because the timer on the oven had gone off, signally the next round of cookies. Heaving a big sigh, I started shuffling through the myriad of childhood pictures of not just Wyatt but his million and a half brothers. They all looked so similar it was hard to differentiate. But I could always tell which one was Wyatt.
When leafing through one particular album, an old picture fell out, landing in my lap. It was faded around the edges, but the faces in it were still clear enough to make out who was in it. I smiled when I saw young Wyatt in his basketball shorts, surrounded on both sides by two teammates.
When I recognized the guy to his right, my lip curled. Stellerman. He looked just as arrogant and like just as much of an asshole as he did today. The kid on the left, though, I’d never seen before. He had a sweet smile, and a nose the size of Texas. I flipped the picture over and read the names on the back: Wyatt, Keith Stellerman, and Nathan O’Hara.
Nathan was a lot younger in the picture, less bulky, but there was no doubt about it. Nathan was the guy we’d seen in the cemetery—the ghost, anyway. Why hadn’t Wyatt ever told me about him? Was the memory too painful?
The noise of Nancy’s heels on the stairs told me my time was up. I scrambled to my feet, passing her on the stairs. She offered me a cookie, but I didn’t know if my stomach could handle that much fiber. They say no one ever died from eating healthy, but I’m not risking it.
Like he knew I was snooping where he wouldn’t want me to, Wyatt’s
name showed up on my phone. Biting my lip, I answered it and played it cool.
“What’re you up to?” he asked.
“What? Nothing—you’re…I love you.”
Smooth, Harper. Like chunky peanut butter.
There was a pause where I could tell he was wondering whether or not to pry. After a moment, he sighed and moved on, getting to the reason he’d called—and it wasn’t just to catch me snooping.
“I’m headed down to the mayor’s office,” he said. “Do you want to come along and see the crime scene?”
“Are you inviting me to consult on a case with you?” It was supposed to come off very cool, like I didn’t care, but there was a definite squeal like quality to my words. I winced.
“Only if you can get here in the next ten minutes.”
I made it in seven.
Town hall was built kind of like a big shopping center. After the last one burned down, the people decided to build something pretty with fountains and big hallways and glass walls so you could see into the DMV. I watched the miserable people wait in line while I headed upstairs to the offices.
The mayor, a man who smiles far too much and who does more golfing than governing, wasn’t there. It was just as well, because two seconds after entering the room, I stepped on what looked like a pricey knickknack, breaking it in two. Hastily, I kicked it under an overturned desk, whistling to myself.
When I turned around, Wyatt was watching me with a bemused expression and not listening to the crime scene investigator. To be fair, the kid looked to be about fourteen, and I doubted a ghost had left much behind in the way of physical evidence.
Judging from the state of disrepair, I guessed that no one had tampered with the scene since the mayor’s mother did her redecorating. The only change I could see was a tarp over the broken window that flapped slightly in the breeze.
The crime scene kid, glasses askew, finally seemed to notice me as I bent to inspect the pieces of a once nice chair. He made a slight choking noise, shooing me away from it.
“This is a closed crime scene, ma’am!” he said, breathing heavily. “You can’t just come in here.”
“She’s with me,” Wyatt said absently, peering out the broken window and no doubt matching the hole to the destroyed computer they’d hauled away.
“I’m with him.” I stuck my tongue out at the kid, and he bristled.
“What do you think?” Wyatt asked, turning back to us.
The investigator was opening his mouth to reply, but I beat him to the punch. Maybe it was a little petty. Still, I was looking for an invitation back, so I needed to prove my worth.
“I think Mrs. Smiles was probably a lovely woman in life,” I said, picking up a torn picture of Carson Smiles, her son, from the ground. It had “failure” written on it.
“Makes me glad to have my mother.”
I eyed Wyatt doubtfully. “If you say so.” I put the picture back where I found it, joining him at the window. “She wasn’t corporeal enough to be seen—that suggests a lack of power.”
“She trashed this place pretty good, for someone without power.”
Shrugging, I said, “It was probably pure rage driving her. I doubt you’ll see any more of her for a while. She probably wouldn’t have had the strength to manifest on this plane without whatever power is bringing the rest of the ghosts here.”
Wyatt raised his eyebrows in a silent question, and I said, “Gran’s library has plenty of books on ghosts; you just have to get past the old hag guarding it.”
“There’s something else I want you to see,” he said, moving around the desk.
Crouching down, Wyatt pointed to a single, impeccably clean chicken bone lying under the piece of furniture. It was nothing you’d find at a fried chicken joint either, the blood staining on it was too heavy to be an accident.
“That remind you of anyone?” he asked.
I nodded gleefully. “Looks like Madam Mystic has a few questions to answer.”
We tracked her down about a half an hour later, sitting outside a grocery store with her cart just behind her. Though her face was still hidden, every few seconds she’d take a long drag on her cigarette and blow smoke from somewhere in her robes.
“Hello, children,” she said. “What can I do for you today? I sense it’s not a follow up on the warning I gave this one.” The old woman nodded at Wyatt.
“Wow. You must be psychic or something.” I held up the evidence bag that had the chicken bone in it, waving it back and forth in front of where I figured her face must be. Her robes didn’t even twitch, giving away no surprise. Of course, they were so thick she could have been doing the Macarena in there, and I wouldn’t have known.
“Ah, yes. I’d been wondering where that ran off to.”
“You mean you didn’t know?” I snorted. “Some gift you have there.”
“The spirits are rarely so clear,” she said smoothly. “A young witch should know better.”
Okay. So my neck went a little red on that one. I stood back, putting the evidence bag away and crossing my arms over my chest. The old bat made me uncomfortable—though she wasn’t half as impressive as Gran—and I didn’t care if she knew it.
“The bone belongs to you, then?” Wyatt asked.
“Yes. But you already knew that.” Her covered head cocked to the side. “I didn’t even need the spirits to tell me that.”
Wyatt ignored her baiting with ease. I, on the other hand, gritted my teeth a bit. I liked my suspects with a little less sass and a lot more fear. It meant I was doing my job right.
“It was found in the mayor’s office—after it’d been trashed by one of the many apparitions in town. Know anything about that?” he asked.
She took another drag on the cancer-stick. “I gave Mr. Smiles a reading in his office a couple days ago. I must have left something behind.”
“On the same day he and his belongings were assaulted?”
She inclined her head. “So it seems.”
“Did you happen to notice anything out of the ordinary that day?”
My smile was all teeth. “Like someone covered completely in robes summoning a ghost to tear up the place?”
Wyatt shot me a look, and I shrugged. It wasn’t like we were fooling her. I might not have been a detective, but I knew a little something about career criminals. The old bag was onto us the moment we stepped into the parking lot.
“I gave Mr. Smiles a warning similar to the one I gave you,” she said, speaking only to Wyatt now. I didn’t like being ignored, but I swallowed my pride and tried to pick up on something important—like a fake psychic betraying herself.
She shrugged, a movement echoed by all her fabric. “He chose not to listen.”
“Is that a threat?” I stepped closer, but Wyatt waved me off.
“That’s all the questions we have for now,” he said.
Wyatt started moving back towards the car. I stayed, wondering just how bad a murder sentence would be with my already spotty record. Before I could come to a decision, he pulled me away, shaking his head severely.
"She threatened a police officer," I hissed at him once we were back in the car. "Aren't you guys supposed to be all sensitive about that? Why didn't we haul her in?"
"She didn't threaten me outright," he said, calmly, rationally. "You just heard that, because you're overprotective.
I made a frustrated noise and slumped down in my seat, ready to do some first class pouting.
"I suppose we're also not talking about the striking resemblance she bears to the Afghani woman we saw in our living room last night."
He may as well have had robes over his face for all his expression told me. His fists, however, clenched around the wheel as we pulled out of the parking lot. By the time I was done talking, the joints were whiter than the teeth in a mouthwash commercial.
"They aren't the same person," he said haltingly.
"How can you be sure?" I asked, more than a little pissed off. "They've got the same fas
hion sense, and none of us have actually seen Madam Mystic's face! I talked to Gran about Afghani witches—"
"She's not a witch."
"Well, not now, but in life—"
"Drop it, Harper." Wyatt's jaw was sharp enough to cut. "Just shut up."
I fell into silence for a moment, wondering when the last time Wyatt had told me to shut up was and coming up blank. I often read the words on his face, but he rarely said them out loud. Their sudden appearance had me feeling a little hurt.
"I found a picture of you with that guy we saw in the cemetery. Nathan O’Hara," I blurted out. "He's dead, right?"
Wyatt jerked the car over to the side of the road, looking livid. "Where would you—" A light bulb went on. "Those pictures are private."
"Why, because I found something you didn't want me to?"
"How would you feel if I went snooping in your past? When you'd clearly told me to stay out of it?" The steering wheel creaked under the pressure of his fists.
Like a balloon losing all of its air, I sank into the leather. "I was hoping you'd tell me yourself."
There was a pause in his anger, like being in the eye of the storm. Then, it was all gone, and it was just Wyatt sitting there, looking tired and older than I'd ever seen him.
"Maybe I should have." He pinched his nose. "It's...I don't like to talk about it."
I knew all about painful memories you wished would just stay buried. "Your past seems connected to this case," I said gently. "I really need to know what we're up against."
Without a word, he pulled out his wallet. After fishing around for a moment, he brought out the same picture I'd seen in his mother's attic. He handed it to me, the edges worn from years of carrying it close.
"Keith and Nathan were my best friends. We were inseparable all through high school." He turned and stared out the window, but I could still see the reflection of his face. "I was the one that convinced Nate and Keith to go into the Army with me."
I didn't dare interrupt him because I was afraid if he stopped now, I'd never hear this. And I really needed to hear this.
"I thought Nate wouldn’t go for it—he was headed straight for college." Wyatt gave me an ironic smile. "I should have gone with him, but I was all caught up in the idea of being a soldier."
