She stayed up all night making sure they were perfect. Sadie even offered to make them for her, but she wanted to make them herself because they were for Dale.
Those two had danced around their feelings for years.
“Oh, hi, Malady, who drove you here?” he asked, looking behind me.
He was constantly on the lookout for Agnes and every time she found out she wasn’t with me he made a sour expression. Dale really knew how to make a girl feel special.
“Daniel. He’s parking. Can you lead me to Mason now?” I asked, swatting at the powdered sugar in the air. It was going to cling to my black dress that was inevitable, but I was going to try to keep it away.
"Yeah, but just to let you know he has a visitor back there with him right now," he said, getting up from his desk and placing his hand on his black pants leaving two white handprints.
I guessed that it was Mrs. Blanchard visiting her son, but I was way off. “Who?” I asked.
“Sutton Talbot,” he said, disbelief evident in his tone.
Sutton was Alison's older sister. She left Cat's Cradle four years prior to her mother's will and her mother disowned her. After that Mrs. Talbot pretended like she only had one daughter. I highly doubted that Sutton had lost any sleep over it because her mother always put Alison on a pedestal while Sutton watched.
"When did Sutton get back in town?" I asked Dale, holding on the strap of my purse. It was a force of habit when I was inside of the prison. I knew the inmates couldn't to me and steal my purse, but still. They were some scary dudes in there especially the bald one who was completely covered in tattoos. I'm talking the intricate ink everywhere. All you could see was his eyes. And as if that wasn't enough he growled every time someone walked by. That day he was feeling extra saucy because he liked the bar of his cell too.
Awesome.
“Simmer down, Killer. He’s a strange one,” Dale said, narrowing his eyes at that scary inmate, “She said she got in yesterday for her sister’s funeral.”
That would have made perfect sense, but she didn't show up at her sister's funeral. So, why was she back in town?
“Of course, Alison’s funeral,” I replied, watching Dale try to the key to the visitor room. Trying was the key word because that had to be the heaviest key ring in the world. Finding the right key, he unlocked the door and held the door open to let me in.
“Here ya go, Malady. Press the button when you’re ready to leave,” he said with his signature goofy grin, “Do you want me to send Daniel in?”
I needed to tell Mason everything I had found and that meant Daniel couldn’t hear it.
“No, please keep him out there,” I begged, clasping my hands together.
“I won’t let him back,” he promised, going in for a hug.
I just about hugged him when I remember that he was covered in powder sugar. “Dale, powdered sugar on a black dress is not a good look.”
“Oh right, sorry, Malady,” he said, looking down at his hands.
He turned to walk away and I saw the sugar hand prints all over his pants. That’s when a lightbulb went off.
“Dale?” I called after him.
“Yeah?” he asked, turning around.
“Do me a favor?” I asked.
"As long as it isn't illegal," he said, puffing out his chest so that I could get a better look at his badge.
"It isn't illegal, Howdy Doodie. When you see Daniel give him a big ole pat on the back for me will ya?” I asked.
He looked me as if I had lost my mind. “Um, yeah sure.”
That boy was a dumb as light post. We had just had a conversation about the powdered sugar all over his hands. He should have been able to put two and two together and figure out why I asked him to do that.
I was surrounded by idiots.
Shaking my head, I walked into the visitor room. Mason spotted me and smiled. That caused Sutton to whip her head around to see who was there.
“Malady Norwood, on my word. I think you’ve gotten prettier,” she said, getting up from her seat and hugging me.
Sutton Talbot’s demeanor was sugary sweet unlike her sister’s sour attitude, but I always though Sutton was too sweet. She seemed like behind her kind eyes laid a girl even meaner than her sister if that was even possible.
“Oh, well, thank you, Sutton. I didn’t know you were back in town,” I told her, taking part in the most awkward hug in the history of hugs.
"I couldn't miss my sister's funeral," she said, and I could have sworn that a tiny smile danced on her lips before being replaced with a frown.
I knew it was crazy, but she was giving me the feeling that she was happy her sister was dead. “I just came from your sister’s funeral and it’s funny I didn’t see you there,” I said, tilting my head to the side as I waited for her answer.
She pressed her mouth into a thin hard line. “You must have missed me because I was there,” she said, small beads of sweat forming on around her hairline.
Looking down at her clothing, I saw that she was wearing yoga pants, a tank, and tennis shoes. “Did you wear that?” I asked, pointing at her get up.
The lawyer in me is getting suspicious at the sight of her.
“I changed and ran here,” she said, avoiding eye contact with me, “Well, I’ve got to jet. See ya, Mason. Bye, Malady.”
And with that, she was ran out of the door.
“What did she want?” I asked Mason, sitting down on the empty chair across from him. “I have no idea. She just said she wanted to check on me and to let me know that she always cared about me. She said she still does,” he said, drawing his eyebrows together.
That was odd.
“She lied about being at Alison’s funeral. She wasn’t there,” I told him, pulling the letter I found at Aaron’s house for him to read, “Do you know anyone named Aaron Golden?” I asked.
“No, should I?” he asked.
So, he didn’t know that his fiancé had a boyfriend. That was going to go over well. “Aaron Golden was in a relationship with Alison at the same time as you,” I told him, closing my eyes waiting for him to blow up, but he didn’t. He just sat there waiting for me to say something else.
“Did you know she was having an affair?” I asked.
“No,” he answered simply.
I expected for him to be steaming from the ears upon learning his fiancé’s secret, but he didn’t care. Not even a little bit.
"I found this letter with some of the help from my friends in Cold Creek," I said, sliding the letter across the table for him to read. "You have friends in Cold Creek?" he asked, looking at me as if I was lying to him.
“Why is that hard to believe? I’m a friendly person.”
It was true; I was a friendly person most of the time. Me being friendly wasn’t that farfetched.
“You’re not really a people person, Mal. But, what I meant is no one here has friends from Cat’s Cradle from Cold Creek.”
He didn’t know how wrong he was, but I was about to inform him. “Alison had a friend from Cold Creek. Just read the letter, Mason.”
Sighing, he picked up the folded piece of paper and read the whole thing what seemed like five times. It was like he was studying for a major test and he really wanted to ace it. "Alison wrote this?" he asked, holding the letter up.
“Yep, it’s her handwriting. See the little heart by her name? You know she signs everything like that. Even checks. So, are you angry finding out that she felt like something was forcing her to be with you?” I asked, digging through my junk filled purse that was doubling as my briefcase those days. Finding Aunt Misty’s spell book, I waved my hands over it until it was the page I wanted.
"No, I'm not mad at all because she described how I felt as well. It was like I had to be with her no matter what. I wasn't happy, Mal, but I couldn't leave her. We danced together at prom and it was like from that moment I had the constant urge to be around her. My friends made fun of my parents and me had test ran on my brain. They thought
I had a tumor that was clouding my judgement," he said, sitting the letter on the table.
“I need to tell you something and I don’t want you to think I’m crazy,” I said, folding my hands on top of the book.
“Mal, you’ve already told me you’re a witch. Do you really think that anything you could tell me would make me think you’re crazy?” he asked, smiling at me.
He had me there. If finding out, I was a witch didn't make him run for the hills then I guess nothing would. "Alison's ghost keeps visiting me and she's giving me clues to solve her murder," I told him, only opening one eye to watch his reaction.
“I was wrong that makes me question your sanity,” he said, nodding his head.
I knew I sounded like I needed to be thrown in the loony bin I really did, but I was telling the truth. “Just hear me out, okay?” I asked, turning the book around
He nodded in response. "After Agnes and I found a symbol etched into Mrs. Abernathy's attic wall Alison showed up. I searched for the symbol until I discovered that it was connected to the Blackwater coven in Cold Creek. When I got there, I found out that the symbol was a love spell and then Alison led me to the letter. She wanted me to find it, Mason. Wait a minute, do you know what this means?" I asked, slamming my hands down on the table.
I hadn’t pieced it together until I said it all out loud.
“No idea,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.
“Someone put a love spell on your relationship, Mason,” I told him, realizing I was one step closer to getting him out of that shoebox they called a cell.
“A love spell? You think?” he asked.
"I know it was a love spell. Now, I've just got to figure out who put a spell on you," I said, tapping my finger on my chin.
I was one step closer to unraveling the mystery. I may not have figured who was framing Mason for Alison’s murder and abusing their magic on him, but I had one foot in the door.
Chapter 20
“Who’s our top suspects?” Daniel asked, looking through all of our files we had accumulated over the course of the case.
“First we have the jilted ex-boyfriend, Aaron Golden. His motive pretty much speaks for itself. Next, we have one Mrs. Jamie Talbot,” I started before being rudely interrupted by Daniel for like the millionth time that day.
“Wait, wait. Why on earth do you think Alison’s mother would want to murder her own daughter?” he asked, leaning back in his chair.
“Because the monster didn’t shed a tear at her own daughter’s funeral. That’s not normal behavior,” I argued only to be shut down again.
“That’s insane. Maybe she was trying to stay strong for her husband,” he said, speaking without knowing all the facts.
Living in Cat’s Cradle came in handy sometimes because everyone knew everything about everyone. So, I knew Jamie Talbot wasn’t staying strong for her husband because she no longer had one.
“Her husband left her on the day after senior prom. It was a huge scandal,” I told him, sounding like one of the old birds at the hair salon. Those ladies could do some gossiping, it was like they lived for it and I always thought that all of the gossips in Cat's Cradle was the reason they were still alive. They were all as old as dirt. I think a few of them even around when George Washington was president.
"Okay, maybe she likes to grieve in private. She didn't kill her daughter and you know you couldn't convince anyone in this town that she did. Everyone I spoke with at the funeral said Mrs. Talbot was a doting mother and that Alison was her proudest accomplishment," he said, pretending to write down important notes, but I knew he was doodling because I had been guilty of doing the same thing.
Aunt Misty always said you couldn’t call yourself a lawyer until you doodled on a legal pad.
“Fine. Moving on to the next suspect, her name is Sutton Talbot. She’s the victim’s sister,” I told him, avoiding tell him he was right about Alison’s mom.
“Now, tell me why you think her sister murdered her and you better have a better reason for suspecting this family member,” he said, laughing.
“She was always jealous of Alison because she was the favorite child. And she claimed that she was in town for her sister’s funeral, but she never showed up. Also, she was dressed too casually for her sister’s funeral and she was visiting her sister’s alleged murderer. Something about he doesn’t sit right with me,” I said, looking over the notes I had written down shortly after my run in with Sutton.
The only thing that wasn’t matching up with it being Sutton was she had zero connection with magic and witchcraft as far as I knew.
“Alright, how about we start off with Sutton and work our way to Aaron?” he asked.
“Sounds good to me. You ready to go now?” I asked, gathering my things.
“Like right now right now?” he asked, looking down at his watch, “The day is almost over and I’m tired.”
He was such a baby sometimes. "Fine, I'll just go along. You really could use your beauty sleep."
He didn’t like my joke, but he rarely did because they were usually at his expense. I couldn’t help myself he was just so darn easy to make fun of. If poking fun at him was my job I would have been making it rain, but sadly it wasn’t and the only rain I was feeling was actual rain.
“Do you have someone to drive you? Not that I care or anything,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.
I really needed to invest in my car, but until I could afford it, I was stuck to sharing Aunt Misty's contraption of a car with my whole family. Sadie was helping Aunt Misty out with filing her disaster of an office.
“I already knew you didn’t care, but thanks for clarifying that for me and yeah, Sadie will drive me,” I told him, pulling my hair back in a bun.
Grabbing his briefcase and swinging his coat over his arm, he stopped to look at me and for a second there I thought he was going to say something nice. I should have known better. I thought I was smarter than that.
“You don’t look very professional with your hair like that,” he said, rubbing his free hand all over my hair messing my perfect bun up.
“You suck as a partner and as a human!” I yelled as he walked out of the building with a huge grin on his face.
Feeling good about my insult, I giggled. Hearing a something fall to the ground in the file room, I saw that a file cabinet had fallen through the wall and resulted in a huge hole giving me a straight view into Aunt Misty’s office.
“Are you happy now?” she asked, flaring her nose.
“No, I’m so sorry, I really am, but I need Sadie to drive me to question one of my suspects. Love you. Bye,” I said, grabbing Sadie by the arm and pulling her to the door.
“Does the suspect have a name?” she asked, unlocking the car and climbing inside.
“Sutton Talbot,” I said, getting in the car and fastening my seatbelt.
“I’m sorry. Did you say Sutton Talbot as in Alison’s sister?” she asked, already driving to where I was going to ask her to take me. She was perfect like that.
"Yep, that's the one. I'm so envious of you," I told her, causing her to look at me out of the corner of the eye making sure she never took her eyes fully off of the road.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because you’re perfect, Sadie. You don’t hurt people when you happy you make people happy,” I told her, leaning my seat back to rest my eyes. Looking over all those legal documents had really done a number on them.
“Being perfect isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, Mal. I mean look at this,” she said, enchanting the car to steer itself and running her hands roughly through her hair. If I would have done that my hair would have looked like a birds nest, but hers looked like a luxury shampoo add.
“That looks fabulous actually. I have no idea why you’re complaining about doing that,” I said, looking out the window as we passed by my old high school.
“It’s the constant pressure of everyone expecting you to be perfect that gets to me. I want to have off days li
ke everyone else. I would kill to be able to be reckless and make a mistake,” she said, gripping the steering wheel so tight I thought she was going to pull it off.
"Calm down, Sis. You may need to let the air run and lie down for a bit. You're talking crazy and it's scaring me," I said, patting her back as she parked in front of the gym, Work It! It was a regular spot of Suttons when she lived in Cat's Cradle.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m going to do,” she turning the air up as high as it would possibly go.
It was like a Stepford Wife whose batteries were dying. So, in other words, it wasn't pretty.
Cursed at First Sight (Cursed Coven Cozies Book 1) Page 11
