Old Flames (Lainswich Witches Book 9)

by Raven Snow

  At that, Eric’s expression grew sheepish. “I was trying to make you those muffins you like.”

  Rowen was touched by the sentiment, albeit a bit confused. Eric cooked, but he didn’t bake. She was sure he could since he was handy with a lot of things. It was just something she had never seen him do. “That’s sweet, but I just made those muffins yesterday. I have some left over if you want them. They’re usually pretty good on the second day still.”

  Eric swore again. “I put the timer on and went into the other room to finish up some work. I have a cheating spouse I have to find, and they’re giving me some trouble. I got so wound up in that, I didn’t hear the timer go off. I smelled it first.”

  Rowen gave her husband a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “Well, it was a nice thought,” she said, even though it really wasn’t. She was a bit offended that he had either forgotten or failed to notice the muffins she had made yesterday. He had always liked them too.

  He didn’t look like he bought her thanks. With a sigh, he stood. “I’ll go clean them up.”

  “Need any help?”

  “It’s not really a two person job. Don’t worry about it.”

  Rowen pressed a kiss to her husband’s forehead and got up. She headed back upstairs to get ready. Today was a big day, after all. She had the Hawthorne case to work on. Then, when she finished up with that, she would need to head next door and see if she could help Eric with this cheating spouse business of his.

  She glanced at the clock. It was seven, which meant that Rose was probably already at work. Not for the first time, Rowen reflected on what a good decision putting her in charge had been. She was so dedicated. All the more reason for Rowen to get there and help out.

  Rowen checked with Eric on her way out the door. He had gotten his mess cleaned up and was now leaning against the counter, gloomily eating one of the muffins she had made yesterday. “I’m taking my own car just in case one of us works later than the other,” she said. Rowen didn’t want a repeat of last night. The whole ride home last night, Margo had filled the space between them with a haughty kind of silence Rowen just couldn’t stand.

  Eric gave a nod. “Be careful,” he told her around a mouthful of muffin.

  Rowen headed out the door and got into her car. She was pulling out of the driveway when it hit her that she hadn’t kissed her husband goodbye. She hadn’t told him to have a good day or anything. For a moment, she considered pulling her car back in, going inside, and correcting that, but that seemed silly. She would just make up for it when he got to work. He only worked next door.

  Rowen got to work a little earlier than she normally did on a Tuesday. She didn’t see any of her cousin’s cars—not even Rose’s. That was odd. Rowen parked and scanned the other parking spaces. She immediately noticed Ben’s police cruiser. Well, that might explain it. She marched right up to the police cruiser on the way to the door. The windows were a bit fogged, and she doubted it was entirely from the morning chill. She couldn’t resist knocking on the window.

  There was a shriek from inside the car. Rowen could hear some muffled conversation going on. After a moment, the window was rolled down. Rose was wholly focused on the mirror on the back of the visor. Her long black hair was noticeably disheveled, the faint pink tint of her lip stain was smeared, and as quickly as she could, she was trying to fix it. Ben, meanwhile, looked entirely at ease. He offered Rowen a smile from the driver’s side. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning,” Rowen returned, folding her arms and leaning against the open window. “Driving my cousin to work today, are we?”

  “I’m picking her up tonight,” he explained. “We’re having a date night.”

  “Well, good for you!” Rowen meant that, though after saying it she worried it had come off as a little annoyed. She couldn’t remember the last time Eric had taken her out on a date. Must be nice. “Where are you going?”

  “I made reservations at the Thai place we like.”

  “Do they need reservations?”

  “Not really, but there’s a particular seat she likes.”

  Rowen saw Rose’s face color a bit more, like she didn’t want Rowen hearing that. Honestly, Rowen wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it. It was making her feel a little jealous.

  Rose finished fixing her hair and reapplying color to her lips. She looked like she was about to say something when Ben’s police radio cut on. It spat out a bunch of crackly words and numbers that Rowen didn’t quite understand, and Ben picked up the radio. His face had gone very serious. “Copy. Heading over there now. If there are any other patrols in the immediate area, send them that way.” He put the radio down and looked at Rose. “I’m going to need you to get out.”

  Rose didn’t budge. This was obviously something they could use as a story. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  Ben gave his girlfriend a flat look. “You know as much as I do.”

  “Can we ride with you?” asked Rowen, expecting a story. As the Chief of Police, Ben always had access to a lot of very good stories.

  “No.” Ben rolled up the window, forcing Rowen to back off. A few seconds later, Rose got out of the car. The engine to the cruiser revved, and within moments, Ben was on his way.

  Rowen sighed, watching him go. She wanted to know what that story was all about. She couldn’t help it. Of course, Rose wouldn’t want her interfering with Ben’s work. That only seemed to complicate their relationship.

  “Let’s get in your car,” blurted Rose.

  “What?” Rowen looked at her cousin, trying to make sure that she had heard her correctly.

  “Let’s get in your car,” she repeated. “Let’s see what’s going on.”

  “Will Ben be all right with that? Didn’t you have a talk about—”

  Rose shrugged. “We said we wouldn’t openly help each other with our work. If it was something that might really get him into trouble, he would have flat out told me not to come. This is a murder, though. We’re allowed to go there and try and get a comment.”

  “A murder?” That gave Rowen a chill. She had been waiting for a murder and was a little afraid to find out who it was. “Do you know where it is?”

  “You didn’t recognize the address?” Rose raised her eyebrows. “It’s Seraphina’s house.”

  Rowen felt her heart drop. “Seraphina was murdered?”

  “It’s too soon to officially declare it a homicide. Technically, it’s just a death that looks suspicious right now. And we don’t even have all the details yet. It might not even be Seraphina. Was there anyone else staying at the house.”

  A cold chill moved through Rowen. She’d feel guilty if something had happened to Seraphina. She’d be devastated if anything had happened to Flint. She barely even realized her body was moving for her car. “Let’s hurry,” she called back to Rose, already getting her keys out.

  “This isn’t your fault. Whatever we find out, you have to know this isn’t your fault.”

  Rowen wasn’t ready to believe that. All she wanted was to get there as quickly as possible. Whatever she found out, she had a feeling that she wasn’t going to like it very much.

  The ride took considerably less than twenty minutes. Rowen might have broken a few traffic laws on the way there. At least there weren’t many police officers around to see her. Most of them appeared to be parked around Seraphina’s large estate. There was already yellow police tape up.

  On the way over, Rose had been on the phone with Willow’s boyfriend Benji. He mostly worked for Channel 2, but sometimes he moonlighted as a cameraman for them. They didn’t often need a cameraman, but sometimes a video could add a nice touch to the website. Rose clearly thought such a touch was needed now.

  Speaking of Channel 2, it appeared that they hadn’t beat Rowen and Rose. It was just a bunch of emergency responders so far. Maybe there were detectives inside already. There were no civilians gathered around the police tape. Seraphina lived too far out in the country for that. The homes were all at least a
mile apart from one another.

  Rowen finished appraising the situation and hurried right up to the police tape. “Excuse me!” she called to the nearest officer. He was speaking to someone else and merely glanced over and waved her away when he realized she was a civilian. Rowen didn’t have time for that. She was far too anxious. She ducked under the police tape.

  “Whoa, there!” yelled the police officer, hurrying toward her. “You can’t come in here. This is a crime scene. It’s very important that you stay behind that yellow tape.”

  “I just saw the deceased yesterday,” Rowen blurted. She wasn’t sure who was dead yet, but whoever it was she bet it had been one of the people who had been here yesterday.

  The policeman raised an eyebrow. “Wait back at your car. I’ll send someone out to you.”

  Rowen did as she was told. Rose followed, still texting away on her phone. It wasn’t long before Ben came walking out wearing a frown on his face. He had a very soft, sweet face for someone who was so stern a lot of the time. Even Rose put her foot down. She didn’t look too sure about their being there all of a sudden. Rowen would have felt worse about potentially instigating a fight, but she was so on edge it was hard to care. “Who was murdered?” she asked.

  Ben met her question with a question of his own. “Were you really here last night?”

  Rowen nodded. “She was,” Rose added. “She had a feeling someone was about to be killed. She thought it might be Seraphina.”

  Ben sighed, taking the bridge of his nose in between his middle and pointer finger. “Fantastic.” He turned his frown on his girlfriend. “You don’t think either one of you could have told me about this? Something like, ‘Hey, Ben, heads up. There’s a murder coming, probably.’”

  “Sorry,” Rose murmured. “That would have made a lot of sense in hindsight.”

  “Come on, Rowen. Come in here with me.” He raised a hand, stopping Rose from going any further. “Not you. I know you. You’re going to be in there doing newspaper things. You stay out here with all of that.”

  Rose slumped back against the car. “Fine, but please give me the details. Like, as soon as I can have them maybe?”

  “Don’t I always?” Ben started walking back toward the house, but Rowen was dragging her feet.

  “Who was it?” she asked. She wasn’t sure she could go in there and look at a body if it belonged to Flint.

  Ben pulled her along until they were out of ear shot of Rose. “It was Seraphina.” He spoke very softly.

  Rowen shouldn’t have felt relieved, but she was. “What happened?”

  “You’ll see.” Ben said something to the police officers in the entryway and moved past them, into the area Rowen had visited before. From here she could see the lawyers back in the room they seemed to stay in. This time their attention was on a police officer sitting across from them. Rowen spotted Flint immediately. It was like he felt her eyes on him, and he turned. His face was paler than usual. He gave her a small wave then spread his hands as if to say this whole thing was crazy.

  For Rowen, it had felt like an eternity driving there. The relief of seeing that Flint was all right had taken quite the literal load off her chest. Except now it was sinking. It felt wrong to be happy when someone else had been murdered.

  Sure enough, there was Seraphina Hawthorne being zipped into a body bag at poolside. There was a puddle forming around her and her light hair was fanned out around her head. Her makeup had actually held up, Rowen noted. She looked very glamorous even in death. She would have been happy to hear that.

  “We figure it happened sometime last night. We’ll have to hear back from the lab boys, but the people here put her murder at about midnight. She had those lawyer guys of hers working late. The camera shows them being out a little after eleven. They say she’s been in the water for a few hours.”

  “Well, she certainly doesn’t look it.”

  “I know, right?” Ben shook his head. He was a busy man with a tight schedule. “If you pick up anything around here or saw anything suspicious yesterday, I’d like to know.”

  “Are you sure it’s murder?”

  “Signs of a struggle everywhere. I trust you won’t publish the details. There isn’t any official statement. It’s just a working theory.”

  Rowen tried to think of anything that might be helpful. “Well, you probably already know that her ex-husband is in the hospital. I guess he would be an obvious suspect, but I don’t see how.”

  Ben nodded. “We knew that already, but thank you,” he said, but in a way that felt guarded, like he was holding something back.

  “I’ll walk around really quick, if you don’t mind.”

  Again, Ben nodded. “I would appreciate it, but please try to make it fast. A random woman walking around sensing a crime scene is a bit of a distraction.”

  “I’ll make it quick.” She paused. “Actually, could you do me a favor? Do you think Flint could come with me on this?”

  Ben’s expression immediately soured. “I was hoping you hadn’t caught wind that he was back in town.”

  “Why does everyone keep acting like he was the worst thing that ever happened to me?” Geez, they’d both been kids at the time. If anything, they had both been a couple of idiots. There was no need to take it out on Flint. “You know as well as I do that he’s good at this sort of thing too. He could be a big help. You’re not going to let this poor, innocent woman’s murder go unsolved just because of some old, petty grudge, are you?”

  Ben snorted. “Seraphina Hawthorne was anything but innocent.” He motioned for her to go on ahead and have at the crime scene. “But, fine. I’ll go get him if you think it’ll help. Just make sure that he doesn’t touch anything.”

  “Yes, sir.” Rowen was careful to mind the men photographing various shots of blood splatter as she skirted around the sidewalk. She got to the body bag. It was zipped shut by now which suited Rowen just fine. She would much prefer not to see more of what was inside. She could sense everything just fine from out here anyway.

  Unfortunately, there wasn’t a whole lot to go off of. Oh, there were plenty of emotions in the air. It was just that there were so many of them and they were so varied. Some of these were most certainly from the professionals combing over the scene. She didn’t blame them. They were just doing their job, and there was no guarantee that she would have discovered anything more helpful.

  “I can’t believe you volunteered me for this,” said Flint, coming up behind her. He chuckled, but Rowen didn’t miss the slight sigh there.

  “You don’t have to help if you don’t want to,” she said quickly. She didn’t want to force him into anything. It had been so long since they last spent time together, it was hardly fair he showed up now and she just started telling him what to do.

  “It’s just that I don’t want things to look too strange around colleagues.” He motioned over his shoulder, back inside to where the other two lawyers were waiting. “They don’t really know about my background in these sorts of circles, you know? But this is fine. I’m sure this looks pretty innocent.”

  “You know I was so worried it might be you in a body bag up here.” Rowen couldn’t keep that to herself any longer. It was like a big pink elephant standing around the pool. She had to just blurt it.

  Flint raised his eyebrows. “Oh?” He bit at his bottom lip to try and keep from smiling. “That’s sweet. I don’t know why it would have been me. That seems very unlikely, but I’m touched.”

  Rowen gave him a shove that very nearly sent him tumbling into the pool. She had to reach out and catch him by the arm, and they received a few very dirty looks from the police. “Sorry,” Rowen called, echoed by Flint. She turned back to him. “I didn’t know when the crime happened. I knew you were spending a lot of time over here. I don’t think it was that unusual to be a little afraid.”

  “I guess,” Flint conceded. “We were actually the ones who found the body.”

  “Oh?”

  Flint nodded. �
�I got here and everyone else was sitting around in their car. I figured that meant she had us waiting. She did that sometimes, you know? She would have us wait for a few minutes down here while she got ready. Always liked to look her best. We would all do paperwork in the car until then. Again, really weird business set-up she had but who was I to argue? She was paying us a mint. Anyway, fifteen minutes passed and I went to knock. Twenty minutes passed and I called her. Something felt strange, so I walked around the side of the house to see if I could look in through any of the windows and…well….”

  “Did your colleagues see her?”

  “I guess. After a while they all got out of their own cars and started peeking in through windows and stuff. I yelled when I found her, so they came rushing on over. It’s not like that took long.”

  “So you felt this place before anyone else got here.” That could be useful. Flint was good at sensing strong emotions just like she was. Was there anything lingering around that you can remember?”

  “Passion,” Flint said immediately.

  “Like romance?” Rowen’s mind immediately went back to Hawthorne. She still felt it was unlikely that it could have been him.

  “Just passion. In general. There are a lot of different kinds of passion.”

  Rowen felt for the passion, but of course that wasn’t much to go off of. “Most crimes are crimes of various kinds of passion. Can you be any more specific?”

  “They cared about each other.”

  “But that passion went bad. That other person killed her.”

  Flint shrugged. “Passion can do that.”

  Rowen looked down at the water for some time. It looked so serene now. There wasn’t even any visible discoloration from the small amount of blood. “Do you have any theories?”

  “I really didn’t know Seraphina that well outside of business. She seemed like someone who has broken a lot of hearts in her day, spurned a bunch of lovers.”