“Her body was found in a cave at the Hollow Creek a few days ago.”
The realization of my words washed over William. “No,” he said shakily. “Ken is a good man. He wouldn’t . . . he couldn’t . . . oh, God.”
Thirty
I was in a hurry to find Thistle and Clove when I left the newspaper. Had I been thinking, I would have called Landon or Chief Terry and told them what I had found out. I figured both of them would be in town square, though, so I could tell everyone at the same time. That apparently wasn’t in the cards.
“Hello, Bay.”
I gasped when I saw Ken Trask standing outside of the newspaper. He was still dressed in his khaki pants and blue button-down shirt from earlier this afternoon. His face, though, his face was completely different. It was like he was wearing an evil mask – like that hateful china doll. Or maybe, and I suspected this was actually the truth, the mask he wore was the one that made him look normal.
“Mr. Trask, it’s good to see you again,” I lied. I was trying to keep my voice even, but I wasn’t sure it was entirely working.
I glanced around, hoping to see anyone from town. Heck, I would have settled for a tourist at this point. Unfortunately, this was the one time no one was around the newspaper offices – because, of course, everyone was in the town square.
“Who are you looking for?” Ken asked.
“No one,” I lied smoothly. “Can I help you with something? If you’re looking for an advertising rep no one is here right now.” I was trying to act like nothing was out of the ordinary.
“Actually, yes,” Ken said, narrowing his blue eyes in my direction. “You can tell me where the money is.”
So much for pretending this was just a normal conversation. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t, Bay,” Ken rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily. “I’m tired. You have no idea how tired I am. I’m not in the mood for your games.”
I thought about crying out – but with the sound of the band playing from a few blocks away, I knew it would be a fruitless endeavor. Ken wasn’t exactly an imposing figure, but he did have four inches on me --- and about fifty pounds. I didn’t know if I could take him in a fair fight. Of course, Ken had no intention of making it a fair fight.
I saw him pull a long handled knife from his pocket and push it towards my mid-section. When I felt the cold point touch my skin through my T-shirt, I shivered involuntarily. “I don’t know where the money is,” I said.
“I don’t believe you,” Ken said menacingly. “You and your cousins were down at the caves. I saw you. You’re the reason I’m in this mess.”
“Why?” I challenged him. “Did we force you to kill Myron?”
“I didn’t want to kill Myron,” Ken seethed. “If he wasn’t such a useless drunk, none of this would have been necessary.” Ken poked me with the knife again. “Now move.”
“Where?”
“To your car.”
“It’s parked behind Hypnotic,” I lied.
“Isn’t that your car right there?” Ken pointed with the knife.
“Oh, yeah, I forgot.”
“Get in,” Ken ordered.
I took one last look around in the vain hope that I would find some help and then I did as I was told. Ken was obviously unhinged. If he killed Myron in the middle of town with a bunch of people only a few hundred feet away, he would have no problem doing the same to me.
“Where are we going?” I asked when we were both in the car.
“Back out to the Hollow Creek,” Ken said.
“Why?”
“To find my money.”
“I thought it was in the cave with Ellen,” I said bitterly as I navigated my car away from town and my only chance at safety.
“It was in the cave,” Ken said. “Myron moved it when he was drunk one night and couldn’t remember where he put it.”
“What makes you think it’s out there?”
“Where else would it be?”
“Why did you guys put it in a cave anyway?”
“That was Myron,” Ken said angrily. “He decided where to put the money. We wanted to spend it, but he said it was stolen money and it should go for something good.”
“So you all stole it together? You, Myron, Bill Kelly Jr. and Mike Wellington?”
“Myron is the only one who stole anything,” Ken corrected me. “When we got home, he told Bill and me about it. We agreed to help him.”
“Help him?” I raised my eyebrow suspiciously. “I have trouble believing that. You just wanted the money for yourselves.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” Ken challenged me. “The money was already stolen. It wasn’t doing anyone any good rotting in a cave somewhere.”
“So why didn’t you and Bill just take it?”
“Because Myron couldn’t remember where he hid it,” Ken replied disdainfully.
“Let me guess, you guys went out there to help him remember?”
“We tried,” Ken said. “We were very patient with him. We spent decades looking for that damn money. Each time Myron would remember where he hid it, we’d go there and then he would remember he’d moved it again.”
“That must have been frustrating,” I said with faux sympathy.
“You have no idea,” Ken said. I was disgusted to see he was using the knife to pick between his teeth when I glanced over at him.
“How do you know the money is even still out there?” I asked pragmatically.
“Where else would it be?”
“Why do you think I’ll be able to find it?”
“You found Ellen,” Ken said angrily. “You’ll find the money. I have it on good authority your family has special abilities when it comes to things like this.”
I ignored the comment about my family. “Why did you kill Ellen?”
“She was going to leave me,” Ken said simply. “She said she was going to take Myron away from here and get him some help.”
“And you couldn’t have that if you were ever going to find the money?” I supplied.
“Exactly. Park here.”
I killed the engine and looked to Ken expectantly. “I don’t know what you expect me to do. We didn’t find the money when we were out here before. I don’t think I’ll be able to find it now.”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Ken said ominously. “I’m running out of time.”
“Because they identified Ellen’s body?”
Ken looked surprised. “I didn’t know they had. I knew it was only a matter of time, though. I have you to thank for that, don’t I?”
I guess he did. “You’re welcome.”
Thirty-One
The trek from the road to the Hollow Creek was unbelievably hard – especially since Ken insisted on being one step behind me and every time I stopped to decide which direction to take he bumped into me with the point of his knife.
“I see you got a new knife,” I said as a means of conversation – a really creepy conversation, granted, but a conversation all the same. Really, what else were we going to talk about?
“I have a whole set,” Ken said. “I was sad to leave the one behind in Myron, but I was in a hurry.”
“I bet,” I said. “It took a lot of guts to kill him with everyone so close. “ Or a whole lot of crazy.
“I didn’t mean to do that,” Ken said hurriedly. “He just wouldn’t answer my questions and . . . it was one of those spur of the moment things.”
“A crime of passion?” I suggested.
“Yeah, a crime of passion.”
“Like with Ellen?”
“No, I knew what I was doing with Ellen,” Ken grimaced. “What a bitch.”
“Everyone said she was a nice woman,” I argued.
“Nice to everyone but her husband,” Ken interjected.
Oh, he was one of those. “So, what? She didn’t wait on you hand and foot?”
“She was more worried about Myron. Poor Myron. Myron was a drunk. That’s what M
yron was,” Ken ranted. “Myron was a stupid drunk to boot. He had a million dollars in gold coins from Iraq, and he lost them.”
“A million dollars?” That sounded unbelievable to me. “How do you know what it was worth?”
“It was an estimate,” Ken said, catching himself before he tripped over a tree root. Too bad, that would have at least given me a chance to run. Maybe I would have gotten really lucky and he would have impaled himself on his own knife.
“So you don’t know how much it’s worth?”
“I’ve never actually seen it,” Ken admitted. “Myron told us about the money after he hid it.”
“How do you know it’s even real then?”
“Why would he lie?”
“He was a drunk,” I pointed out. “They lie.”
“He wasn’t lying about this,” Ken said evenly. “Ellen saw the money once. She told me.”
“Maybe she was lying, too?” I don’t know what I was trying to accomplish. I was just buying time at this point. Time for what, I still didn’t know. I was alone out here. Thistle and Clove weren’t here to back me up. It was just Ken, his really big knife and me.
“The money is real,” Ken said irritably. “And I’m the only one left who can lay claim to it. It’s mine.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“I’m going to move away from this place.”
“Where?”
“Some sunny beach that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the United States,” Ken said simply.
“That sounds nice.” I wouldn’t mind being on a beach myself right now – and not the cool and dark beach of the Hollow Creek.
When we got by the waterfront, I turned to Ken for further direction. “Now what?”
“Find the money,” Ken barked.
“How?”
“Do one of your witchy little tricks.”
“What?” I feigned ignorance.
“Don’t, just don’t,” Ken admonished me. “This whole town knows about your family. They know you’re all odd. They know you do spells, and you curse people, and you make little potions in your cauldrons.”
“You watch too much television,” I muttered. “We don’t do any of that. Well, Aunt Tillie curses people, but usually only people she’s related to.”
“Yeah, your Aunt Tillie is a nut,” Ken agreed. “She’s terrifying.”
“You have no idea,” I agreed. “Her wrath is terrible.”
“It’s a good thing I’ll be gone before she finds out I’m the one who took you,” Ken said. “I would hate to see what she would do to me.” He seemed amused – and scared – at the mere prospect of Aunt Tillie’s anger.
“If you think distance can still her wrath, you’re deluding yourself,” I warned him.
Ken looked momentarily flummoxed. “What do you mean?”
“Aunt Tillie’s curses can’t be stopped by an ocean,” I said.
“I guess we’ll just have to see about that, won’t we? I don’t have a lot of choices here,” Ken said.
From his point of view, I could see his reasoning. Damn.
“So . . .”
“So what?”
“So cast a spell and find my money,” Ken said snappishly.
“What spell would you like me to cast?”
“I don’t know, something that helps you find stuff,” Ken said.
“I call upon the ancient power to find the gold,” I intoned. “Poof.” I looked around haphazardly. “It didn’t work.”
“Was that a real spell?” Ken narrowed his eyes at me suspiciously.
“I don’t know, you tell me. You seem to know about all this witchy stuff.”
“Don’t get snarky with me!”
“You’re asking me to do something I’m not capable of doing,” I argued.
“Well who can do it? Can your cousins?”
I didn’t like the look in his eyes. There was no way I was going to unleash crazy Ken on my cousins. “No. We’re not witches,” I said. “Not like you think. We don’t have magical powers. We can’t wiggle our noses and make things happen. This isn’t Bewitched or Charmed.”
“What’s Charmed?”
“It was a television show about witches,” I said irritably.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It doesn’t,” I replied. “I was just explaining that I can’t make things magically happen – just because you want them to – like on television.”
Ken regarded me, his gray eyes dangerously slitted in overt anger. “I just think you’re not properly motivated.”
What was that supposed to mean?
“You will be,” Ken promised. “You will be.”
I opened my mouth to ask him what he meant by that, but I realized too late what was about to happen. It was like it was happening in slow motion, and yet I was still incapable of stopping it. Ken raised his hand, and I could see a tree branch in it. Darkness overcame me at the exact moment I realized he was going to hit me with it.
Not again. Aunt Tillie would never let me live this down.
Thirty-Two
I probably have brain damage. That’s the first thought that went through my head when I started to regain consciousness. I’ve passed out twice in the past six weeks – and now I’ve been knocked out. That can’t be good.
The second thought was that the head blow had obviously rendered me blind. The third was that, even though I thought my eyes were open, they actually weren’t. When I did open my eyes, I wasn’t surprised to see Ken looming over me from my prone spot on the ground.
“Gah!”
“It took you long enough,” Ken griped. “You were out for more than an hour.”
I tried to struggle to a sitting position, but the endeavor was harder than it should have been since my hands were tied behind my back. What the hell? “Why am I tied up? And why did you hit me in the head, you ass?”
“You weren’t being helpful,” Ken said simply. “I had to motivate you to help.”
“And you thought hitting me in the head and tying me up – and leaving me on the ground with bugs crawling on me, ugh -- would help?”
“Sorry about the bugs,” Ken said. He actually sounded sincere. “Hitting you in the head was a necessary evil. I tied you up because I figured you would wake up while I was gone. I had no idea that you would stay out so long.”
“I’ve had a problem losing consciousness lately,” I admitted ruefully.
“Maybe you have a tumor?” Ken suggested helpfully.
“That would be nice,” I muttered. “Wait, you tied me up and left me here? Why?”
“I had to get some help in persuading you to do what I want.”
Crap. Had he gone back to town and grabbed Clove or Thistle? I looked around the small clearing, hoping against hope that Clove and Thistle were still safe. When my gaze landed on the individual Ken had grabbed, I felt my heart sink.
“Well, this is just another grand situation you’ve gotten us in.”
“Aunt Tillie,” I grumbled. “You went to the inn and grabbed my Aunt Tillie? Are you crazy?”
Ken rubbed his jaw tiredly. I couldn’t help but notice that he had a darkening spot between his ear and chin. Aunt Tillie must have put up a fight. He was lucky she hadn’t clawed his eyes out and served them in a soup for lunch.
“I was actually hoping to get your mom or one of your aunts, but they were busy in the front of the inn,” Ken admitted. “I waited for a half an hour, but they never came back. I had to settle for your Aunt Tillie.”
“That must have went over well,” I mocked him, glancing at Aunt Tillie. She had been ridiculously quiet during this whole situation. She was probably plotting something. Of course, I couldn’t tell because she was wearing those stupid sunglasses.
“She’s got a lot of energy for an old lady,” Ken said.
“Who are you calling old?” Aunt Tillie barked.
“I didn’t mean any disrespect,” Ken held up his hands in surrender. H
e was scared of Aunt Tillie, this was good. Of course, I was scared of her, too. Especially given the fact that she was being unusually quiet. I wouldn’t want to be Ken right now. I wasn’t thrilled with being me, either.
“This guy is an idiot,” Aunt Tillie said, raising a gnarled finger and pointing it at Ken angrily. “You have no idea the rain of shit I’m going to bring down on you.”
I had to give it to her; she was an imposing sight – despite the sunglasses.
Ken swallowed hard. “I just want my money.”
“Your money? It was stolen money. You didn’t steal it. Myron did. You’re so lazy, you’re trying to steal from a drunk who did all the hard work,” Aunt Tillie admonished Ken in a raspy voice.
“That’s not the point,” Ken protested. “I put up with Myron’s drunken ass for years with the promise of that money being dangled over my head for the entire time. That’s my money. I earned it.”
“How did you earn it?” Aunt Tillie challenged. “Did you try to help Myron with his drinking problem? Or did you kill the one person who was trying to help him? Your own wife. You killed your own wife. You’re a dick.”
“Do you have Tourette’s?” Ken asked. “You’re swearing like a sailor, and I’ve never even heard you so much as curse once before.”
“What can I say? You bring it out in me.”
“All your niece has to do is find my money,” Ken growled. “That’s all I’m asking for.”
“How do you suggest she do that?”
“You can use one of your witchy tricks,” Ken suggested. “She cast a spell earlier, but it didn’t work. I don’t think she was really trying, though.”
“You cast a spell for this idiot?” Aunt Tillie turned towards me. She didn’t look happy.
“No.”
“I didn’t think so,” Aunt Tillie turned to Ken again. “She’s a pain in the ass, but she’s not stupid.”
“Well, then you need to cast a spell to find my money,” Ken hedged.
“No.”
“I said you had to.”
“No.”
“What the hell?” Ken looked like he wanted to kill someone. “I’m the one with the knife. You do what I say.”
Every Witch Way But Wicked (A Wicked Witches of the Midwest Mystery) Page 17
