Waking the Witch

by Kelley Armstrong

  "You aren't actually going to read that, are you?" Adam said, one eye open. "If it bursts into flames, it's not my fault."

  "Tiffany's Bible was open to Exodus 22. I just realized why that's familiar. It's the one Bible verse I know. Exodus 22: I8." I pointed to the verse. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

  "Shit." Adam scrambled up. He read the verse, then swore again. "The Bible was open to that page?"

  I nodded. "It can't be a coincidence. Maybe it was suicide. She was up to something and was worried I was coming after her. That might have been her final message."

  "To who?"

  "Me. She knew I was coming over."

  "And she knew no one else would hear the baby crying and get there first? She knew you'd break in if she missed her appointment? She knew you'd notice the Bible and realize which passage she meant?" He shook his head. "No, whoever killed her left that."

  "As a message?"

  "Maybe." He sat upright and pointed to the chair. "Hand me my laptop."

  I passed it over, then sat on the edge of the bed as he opened the database and started typing. When the chapter reference didn't work, he tried the text itself.

  "I've heard that verse," he murmured as he kept looking.

  "Yeah, it's a famous one."

  "No, I mean--" He glanced up at me. "How do you know it? Your mother doesn't strike me as the Bible study sort. Paige might respect all religious faiths, but that's one passage she wouldn't repeat. Was it the Coven? It sounds like something they'd use."

  "As a motto, no doubt. Proof that the world hates us and we have to hide. But I don't remember hearing it there. I don't remember where I heard it at all. But it stuck in the back of my mind."

  "Let me call my dad." He grabbed his cell phone, then stopped. "No, last resort."

  His dad had a stroke a few months ago--Robert was in his seventies--and Adam hated bugging him with anything that wasn't life or death.

  "If it's about witches, then Paige--" I glanced at the clock. Nearly six ... and three hours earlier in Hawaii.

  "Let's hold on to the call a friend' card for a minute. Tiffany dies with a Bible opened to averse about killing witches. Yesterday she said someone's been spying on her. You said someone's watched you a couple of times. What do you and Tiffany have in common?"

  "We're both young and hot. Well, in her case, less so on both counts, but close enough." I caught his look. "Oh, you meant the witch part. Okay, so there's a chance we have someone in town out to kill witches. Big surprise. Not like we haven't been dealing with that for the last few centuries. Totally unfair, when there are much worse things running around out there. Mass murderers, serial rapists, half-demons ..."

  "Thanks."

  "I'm just saying, in general, one would think demon blood would inspire more persecution than being able to make healing potions. But if we do have a killer targeting witches, how does that tie into the other murders? Sure they're young women, but they aren't--" I stopped. "Or are they?"

  Adam shook his head. "Ginny's file shows she's got an uncle in jail, and he's her mom's twin brother, which means Paula Thompson is no witch, ergo, neither is Ginny. We already know Claire had a brother, so no witch there either."

  "Michael was her half brother on their dad's side. And if she was a practicing witch, that might explain why she investigated the commune. Her friend mentions something that sounds supernatural and she gets worried. Turns out to be Santeria, but by then, she's already been targeted by the killer."

  "Okay, but Ginny ... ?"

  "There were two people killed that night--a fact we keep overlooking because Ginny comes with her own obvious suspect."

  "Brandi." He nodded. "Brandi is a witch. The killer goes after her. Ginny and Brandi are inseparable so he takes Ginny out, too, then laughs as everyone zeroes in on the abusive boyfriend theory."

  "Time to get to know a lot more about Brandi Degas."

  GREAT IDEA. BUT as soon as we started the research, I was reminded why we'd overlooked Brandi from the beginning. Because Mr. Mulligan had been right--she was little more than Ginny Thompson's shadow. I hadn't been able to form a single theory where the target was Brandi alone. But now I had one, and my bio check showed no brothers or uncles, which would have ruled out witch-hood.

  We needed to chat with Brandi's mom.

  IT WAS STILL way too early for an interview.

  "I'll grab breakfast," Adam said when I headed for the shower. "I'll get it at that coffee shop so I can thank the server for running stuff over for me."

  "Good idea. Oh, wait. When you talk to her, you're my boyfriend."

  "Huh?"

  "She jumped to that conclusion and I figured she might not bring the food if she wasn't aiding the cause of true love, so ..."

  "You lied to get room service. Well, considering I'm walking out of your room at seven in the morning, we'd better not straighten anyone out. If I grab your ass in public, then, I'm just playing my part."

  "And if you get your fingers broken for it, I'm just playing mine."

  He laughed and left.

  THE JEEP WASN'T running well, but it was running. Good enough. Jesse was gone when we set out, so I texted him to say we'd catch up later. When we arrived at Carol Degas's house, I double-checked the address. It was on the outskirts of town, and I expected to see a dump. The house was tiny, yes, and it showed its age, but it was as well kept and tidy as Paula's mobile home, with fresh yellow paint, flowers in the tended garden, and a multicolored wooden Welcome! sign on the door.

  "Carol must have moved out after Brandi died. Probably couldn't afford the upkeep without her daughter's rent money. Shit."

  "She might have left a forwarding address with these folks." Adam rapped the door. "Wouldn't want those welfare checks to get lost."

  I could hear gospel music playing inside. At least we weren't waking up the new owners. Adam knocked again, and finally the door opened. There stood a tiny old woman, with a deeply lined face and hands that trembled as she clutched the door.

  "We're looking for Carol Degas," I said. "She used to live here."

  "Still does," the woman said in a reedy voice. "I'm her."

  According to the file, Carol was fifty-two. No matter how hard I looked at this woman, she didn't appear a day under seventy.

  "We're in town investigating--"

  "Brandi's murder. I figured that was who you were. I've been wondering when you'd come see me." She held open the screen and ushered us in.

  We followed her into a hall lined with cheap religious prints. Gospel music boomed from deep in the house. I squinted at a needlepoint hanging on the wall. A Bible verse of some kind, but damned if I could read it--half the stitches were out of place.

  "I've found Jesus," Carol said, beaming.

  "Huh," I murmured under my breath. "I didn't know he was lost."

  Adam gave me a look, his eyes telling me to watch it, his lips holding back a smile.

  She waved us into what must have been the living room, but looked more like a Vegas chapel, every inch of space crammed with cheap china Madonnas and butt-ugly cherubs.

  "Do you know Christ our Savior, child?" Carol said as we sat.

  "Not personally."

  I got another look from Adam, who prodded me onto the loveseat, then sat beside me, close enough to elbow me if I got out of line.

  I have nothing against organized religion. Well, not much. But if you're going to have a religious conversion and clean up your life, then do it when your child is born, not after she dies.

  "How about you, young man?" Carol said, turning to Adam. "Have you accepted Christ into your life?"

  "I'm still ..." Adam gave a sheepish shrug. "Looking, you know? Trying to find the right church. Which one do you belong to?"

  "Our Holy Savior in Battle Ground. It's a very old church. Small, but old."

  "Can't say I've heard of it. Maybe I'll check it out. How does it feel about ... ?" He squirmed. "I've got this problem. More of a question, really, and I
'm having a hard time finding the right answer from the churches I've tried." He glanced sharply at me. "Don't give me that look."

  I wasn't giving him any look, but I rolled my eyes on cue, murmuring, "Not this again."

  "It's bugging me, okay?" He turned back to Carol. "I've got this good friend who's been dating this girl and she's into ... stuff. Occult stuff."

  "Occult?" Carol's eyes widened.

  "It's not occult," I said. "I keep telling you it's--"

  "Witchcraft, I know. She says she's a witch."

  Carol frowned. "Wiccan?"

  "No, this one says she's a real witch."

  Carol looked genuinely confused. "You don't mean devil worship, do you?"

  "It is Wiccan," I said. "A branch of it anyway. And I keep telling him it's not occult; it's an earth-based religion."

  "I don't think I'd call it a religion myself," Carol said slowly. "But if they do, then maybe ..."

  "What does your church say about stuff like that?" Adam asked.

  "I don't know. I'd have to ask. Personally, I don't agree with it."

  "See?" Adam said to me.

  "She said she doesn't agree with it. She didn't say she thinks 'something should be done about those people.'"

  "I was kidding."

  "No, you weren't."

  "I'd had a few beers."

  "So which was it? You were drunk or you were kidding?"

  As we faced off, Carol said timidly, "I might not agree with it, but the Bible teaches us to respect the customs of others."

  "No, the Bible says 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,'" Adam said. "It's right there in black and white."

  "I can't believe the Bible would say ..." She stopped herself and nodded. "No, our pastor does teach us that the Bible includes passages that have been misinterpreted. The teachings of Christ are clear. We must respect others, even if we disagree with them. That's what my pastor said about homosexuals. I might not agree with their choices, but Christ would want me to treat them the way I want to be treated. I think he'd say the same about witches."

  "We'd like to ask you a few questions about Brandi," I said.

  If there was one word to describe Carol Degas, it was vague. Not evasive, just, well, not entirely present. It was as if all those bottles of whiskey had washed away both her personality and her memory, and she was just struggling to hold on, clinging to her new religion with a death grip.

  She could talk about Christ, and that's really all she could talk about. Seemed to know him better than the daughter she'd lived with for twenty-five years.

  "I wasn't a good mother," she said, finally. "I know that and I accept my share of the blame, but it's like Pastor Williams says--no one is entirely responsible for another person, even a child. They grow as they will. Look at Ginny Thompson. Paula is a fine woman. She might not be a churchgoing Christian, but she's a Christian at heart. Look at how her daughter turned out, in spite of that. I do feel guilty about Brandi, though. The dreams prove that, Pastor Williams says."

  "Okay, so about that night--"

  "The dreams prove that," she continued, as if I hadn't spoken.

  Personally, I had no interest in Carol Degas's dream life, but obviously she wanted to tell me.

  "I dreamed that the little girl died," she said.

  "Little girl?"

  "Ginny's daughter. I dreamed that I heard Ginny and Brandi planning to kill Kayla, so Cody would take Ginny back. They were right in this house, in the basement, gathering up supplies. I heard them, and they then left and I knew I had to do something. So I tried calling Paula. She always knows what to do. Only I couldn't finish dialing the number. I kept trying and trying, but I couldn't do it, and then I passed out and when I came to the little girl was dead and I cried and cried, because it was all my fault."

  She looked at me expectantly.

  "Okay..." I said.

  "The little girl was Brandi," Adam said.

  I turned to him. "What?"

  "Subconsciously, it was Brandi. Her little girl."

  Carol nodded emphatically. "That's exactly what Pastor Williams said. When we dream, things aren't always as they seem. Kayla was Brandi. Brandi and Ginny represented evil in the world. They conspired to kill my little girl and I didn't do anything to stop them. I wanted to, but I was too drunk, too ..." She searched for aword. "Ineffectual. That's what the pastor says. It proves that I felt guilty."

  "Okay ..." I said.

  "I even dreamed they were going to kill her in the same place where they died," Carol leaned forward. "They were going to drug her and take her there and make it look like a pervert did it. And that's exactly what happened to my baby, isn't it?"

  "Except for the pervert part," I said. "There was no sign of--"

  Adam nudged me to shut up, then said to Carol, "Your pastor is right. It's your subconscious speaking. You feel guilty, but you've used it to turn your life around, and that's the important thing."

  She nodded, satisfied.

  I wasn't.

  Maybe that was the humane thing to do--give the old woman some peace. But I couldn't cut her any slack. If she'd cared, she should have done something before her daughter died. If she felt guilty now, she should be out volunteering at a day care or soup kitchen, not sitting around listening to gospel music and moaning about how guilty she felt.

  thirty-two

  After we left, I said, "Were you serious about that dream crap?"

  Adam shrugged. "It makes sense. Her psyche can't deal with the guilt, so it displaces it with a dream about the death of someone else's daughter."

  "It's not just her psyche that can't deal. Carol Degas is a human ostrich. And that dream? I think it's bullshit."

  "Well, one thing I'm ninety-nine percent sure on is that Brandi wasn't a witch. Nor did Carol somehow find out that Tiffany Radu was one and kill her, thinking she was following a Christian precept. Seeing all the religious stuff in her house made me think we might be onto something, but there's no witch-hunter--" He stopped, frowning.

  "What?" I said.

  "Nothing. Just ..." He shook his head. "Nothing. Anyway, back to the dream, I'm wondering if it's more than a garden-variety guilty conscience. "

  "You think she had something to do with her daughter's death?"

  "Not overtly, but maybe there's something she's not telling us. Or something she isn't really aware of herself."

  "If she does remember something, we'd better hope it comes in another dream, because short of hypnosis, that woman isn't going to ..."

  When I trailed off, it was his turn to look over and say, "What?"

  "I need to trace a call," I said.

  I CONNECTED TO the office database and dug up the number of a half-demon phone company exec who helped us whenever she could, repayment for Paige getting her out of a Cabal commitment uglier than any cell phone contract.

  "Lina," I said when she answered. "It's Savannah Levine. Can you check a phone record for me?"

  "Absolutely. Do you have the number?"

  I gave it to her, then said, "I need to know if any calls were placed from that number on the night of November 18 last year."

  "There's one." She rattled it off. "Do you want me to check the source?"

  "No, I recognize it. Any other calls after that?"

  "No." Keyboard tapping chattered across the line. "But there is one from the second number, made just over an hour later to a cell phone." She gave me the number. "Do you want me to check with the cell company for the registered owner?"

  "Maybe not. Hold on." I pulled up my contact list and entered the number. "No, seems I already know it."

  I thanked her, then signed off and told Adam what I'd found.

  "Shit," he said.

  "Do you remember what caliber of gun was used in the murders? Thirty-eight, wasn't it?"

  "Right."

  "The kind of gun a guy in Columbus might keep under his mattress, wave around when he's drunk, get confiscated if it's not properly registered ..."

&
nbsp; He frowned, but didn't ask, just drove as I explained my theory.

  PAULA AND KAYLA were at home, Paula clearing away the breakfast dishes as Kayla got out her books for the first lesson of the day. I introduced Adam. Kayla sized him up.

  "You're a private eye?" she asked.

  "I don't look like one?" he said.

  "No."

  He laughed. "How about Savannah? Does she?"

  "More than you."

  "It's all about the edge," I said. "I have one. You don't."

  "All right," Adam said to Kayla. "Forget the lock-picking lesson, then."

  "Lock-picking?" she said.

  He took a lock-pick gun from his pocket and her eyes rounded.

  "I was going to give you a lesson while Savannah talks to your grandma," he said. "But if I'm not proper PI material, then I wouldn't be a proper teacher ..."

  "What's this?" Paula said, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

  I introduced Adam as my coworker and friend, then said, "I need to talk to you alone, Paula. Is it okay if Adam takes Kayla outside, shows her how to use the lock pick?"

  She looked at Adam. "I don't think--"

  "Please, Grandma?"

  "They'll be right at the front door," I said. "If we sit in the living room, you can see them through the window."

  "I suppose so ..."

  They left. We went into the living room, and Paula positioned her chair where she could see the front steps as they worked on the lock.

  "There's been a major development in the investigation," I said. "I wanted you to be the first to hear it. As you know, the gun used to kill Ginny and Brandi was never found."

  "Has it been?"

  "No, but it's been identified as a gun that was stolen from the police station's evidence locker a few years ago."

  Paula glanced at me and I kept my eyes as wide as possible, giving no sign I was bullshitting her. I was good at that.

  I continued, "That's when you worked at the station. Do you remember it?"

  "Vaguely," she said. "It wasn't in the evidence locker, though. Just in the office. Confiscated from Bill Martin--a local no-good. They figured he'd broken in and gotten his gun back."

  "Maybe, but that's not what they think now. In fact, Chief Bruyn swears he knew who took it, he's just not telling me."

  Paula swallowed.

  "Of course, whoever took the gun isn't necessarily Ginny's killer," I said.

  Paula nodded.

  "But the person who did take it should come forward before Bruyn comes knocking. I'm sure whoever took it had a good reason. But then, when it went missing, she couldn't exactly report it, since it was stolen goods in the first place." I caught and held Paula's gaze. "That gun must have been taken by someone who had access at night. Someone like the cleaner."