Ground

by Kirsten Weiss

  “That's okay. There's something else I want to talk to you about. Are you at Ground? Can you come to my realty?”

  “I'm at the hospital, but I'm on my way downtown.” Downtown meaning Main Street. “Can we talk over the phone?”

  “I'd kind of... It's important. I'm not sure if I'm right or not.” Her voice came in a rush. “I found something. It only makes sense if I show it to you.”

  Excitement sped my pulse. Had she discovered something about Matt’s murder? “Found what?”

  “The only way it will make sense is if I show it to you.”

  “If you've learned something about Matt’s death, you should call the police. Now.”

  “But they'll think I killed him!”

  “Why would they think that?”

  “Because my name is on the deed.”

  Confused, I fumbled one-handed with my truck keys. “What deed?”

  “Matt made things so complicated. I'll explain when you get here.” She hung up.

  Shoving the phone into my pocket, I unlocked my truck. I wasn't thrilled with Phoebe's cryptic message, and for a moment I toyed with the idea of calling Brayden. But he’d made it clear we shouldn’t be seen together until things cooled off. And it was only Phoebe.

  I sped along the mountain highway toward Doyle. My headlights flashed across thick tree trunks, monochrome in the night.

  An SUV loaded with ski equipment pulled out in front of me, and I slowed. The SUV took its time, probably unfamiliar with the road's curves.

  Impatient, I tapped my fingers on the wheel. Now that I'd made the decision to see Phoebe, an urgency sped my pulse. I had a bad feeling. I wasn’t worried about meeting Phoebe, but I'd learned to trust my bad feelings.

  Finally, the SUV reached the turn-off to Doyle. It continued on, higher into the mountains. I peeled off the highway and sped onward.

  The F-150 hit a patch of ice and fishtailed. My breath caught, my hands tightening on the wheel. And then my new tires reclaimed the road. I moved forward smoothly, passing a stone barn that had been converted to a wine tasting room, then veering left onto Main Street. I slowed and pulled over, parking beneath a street lamp across from Phoebe’s realty.

  Its windows were black.

  Uneasy, I bit my bottom lip.

  A block away, light and noise and security spilled from a restaurant.

  Phoebe had definitely told me to meet her here. There was only one realty in Doyle – I couldn’t have confused the address. Had she called me from somewhere else, and now she was late for our appointment? Had she chickened out and ditched me?

  Sitting in the truck, I called her on my cell phone. The call went to voice mail.

  No, I was absolutely not going to check out the realty. This was getting too much like one of those TV shows, where the heroine rattles the knob and the door is unlocked and a killer is waiting inside. Nope. No way was I playing that game.

  The streetlamp beside me flickered and went out, plunging my cab into velvety darkness.

  On the other hand, a quick peek couldn’t hurt. Could it?

  I stepped from my truck and crossed the street. The realty windows were full of flyers for vacation homes for rent. I peered between the flyers, trying to get a look inside. All I could make out were disembodied shadows.

  Oh, what the hell? I tried the knob. Locked.

  She wasn’t there. Phoebe probably had called me from elsewhere and gotten delayed. Maybe she hadn’t picked up my call because she didn't like answering her phone while driving. A lot of people didn't. But annoyance sparked inside my chest.

  The realty stood at the end of a line of 19th century, clapboard buildings. I walked around the corner to the alley. An exterior light was on above the realty's rear door. I rattled the knob. Also locked.

  So that was that.

  I turned to leave, but something, an instinct, hooked my gut. Hesitating, I walked to the rear window. I cupped my hand to block the reflection from the overhead lamp and looked inside.

  Phoebe England lay on the floor, her blood pooling in the sisal carpet. Her eyes were wide and staring.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I gaped at Phoebe, prone on her office floor. A near-black stain spread from her chest. Her wide eyes, so lovely in life, were lifeless.

  I fumbled in my purse for my phone. Hands shaking, I dialed nine-one-one. The conversation went much as it had the last time I'd phoned. The shock of finding Phoebe’s body, the thought the killer might still be nearby, strained my voice, and my breath came in hard, painful gulps.

  Minutes later, the first officers arrived. The lights from their black-and-white bathed the darkened alley in shifting blue and red light. Tall, dark and grim Hernandez and his baby-faced partner, Owen, stepped from the car and strode toward where I huddled beneath the exterior light.

  “She's inside, on the floor.” My voice cracked.

  The two men rattled the knob.

  “She called me thirty minutes ago,” I said, “maybe a bit more, asked me to come over. She was alive then.”

  “Stand back.” Hernandez kicked the door, and it splintered inward. Something metal clanged to the floor.

  I moved forward, but Owen laid a gentle hand on my arm. “Wait here.”

  The two officers rushed inside. A few minutes later, Hernandez emerged. He clicked a button on the plastic recording device attached to the collar of his parka. “I'll be recording us again, okay, Ms. Bonheim?”

  “Okay. Is she…?”

  He shook his head, and I took an involuntary step backward. My neck muscles corded. She was dead. I’d known it, but had hoped by some miracle I was wrong.

  “I'm interviewing Ms. Jayce Bonheim,” he said into the recorder. “Did Ms. England call you on your cell?” he asked me.

  “Yes.”

  “May I see your phone?”

  “Sure.” I handed him my cell phone.

  He checked the call history. “I see you received a call from Ms. England at six-sixteen. It lasted approximately two minutes. And it looks like you called her back at six thirty-two.”

  “My call went to voice mail,” I said.

  He nodded. “We'll be able to confirm that when we find her phone. Why did she ask you to meet her here?”

  “I'm not sure,” I said. “She told me she'd found something and needed to talk to me about it. She was worried that the police would blame her for Matt's murder.”

  “She said that to you?” he asked sharply.

  Red lights flashing, an ambulance pulled into the alley.

  Hernandez pointed the EMTs to the door. Brayden was one of the paramedics, and I straightened, my heart beating more rapidly. His movements were sure, his muscles straining against his black uniform jacket.

  His gaze drilled into mine, then his mouth compressed, and he hurried inside the realty office.

  My heart dropped into a briar patch of emotions. What had I expected? For Brayden to sweep me into his arms and tell me everything would be okay? Brayden was on duty, his first duty was to the victim, and he'd told me we shouldn't speak.

  “You were saying?” Hernandez asked me.

  “What?”

  “Ms. England thought she was a suspect in Matt Zana’s death?”

  I swallowed. “Not in those words exactly, but yes. She said something about her name being on a deed.”

  “What else did Ms. England tell you?”

  “Only that I should meet her here. I told her if she knew something about Matt's death, she should tell the police, but...” I shrugged helplessly.

  “What time did you arrive?”

  “I parked across Main Street and saw the lights in the realty were off. That’s when I called her back. Like I said, Phoebe didn't answer. I thought maybe she'd called me from somewhere else and was on her way here.”

  “So why did you check the alley door?” he asked.

  “I guess I got impatient,” I said, my voice stilted.

  The sheriff's SUV pulled into the alley, and Sheriff
McCourt stepped out. She was in uniform, and she didn't look happy. “Jayce Bonheim. Again. I think we'll complete this interview at the station.”

  *****

  “How long did the police hold you last night?” Lenore asked.

  “Three hours.” I groaned and set another container of my “special” tea on the end table by Karin’s hospital bed. “Poor Nick. With all the business I've been giving him, he's going to regret that friends and family discount he promised.” And he hadn't blamed me for Karin's shooting either. He didn't have to – I still blamed myself.

  “Or he'll be a part owner in Ground.” Karin smiled. Her hospital bed was angled so she could sit up, a step forward in her recovery.

  The scent of roses hung heavy in the air. Nick probably didn't know that roses were associated with healing and protection as well as love. Karin could use all the help she could get – magical and medical.

  Lenore, her white turtleneck rumpled, sat cross-legged in the window seat. Gray morning light, filtered through clouds of iron, lit her golden hair. I should be at Ground now. But I'd taken the day off, thanks to Darla. At this point, I didn't care how many coffee mugs she broke. My luckless assistant manager was a champion, and I was grateful she was on Team Jayce.

  Anxious, I studied Karin. The doctors had marveled at her recovery, but her face was an unhealthy shade of bone. “Never,” I said. “I'll pay Nick. Don't you worry.” I stood and grabbed a vase of roses, refreshing its water from the nearby sink.

  “I'm not worried about the money,” she said.

  “No,” I said. “We’ve got bigger problems.”

  “Why would someone kill Phoebe?” Lenore's eyes, more gray than blue in the room’s unnatural fluorescent light, widened. “Because she was having an affair with Matt?”

  “If that rumor was true,” Karin said.

  “It was,” I said. “She basically admitted it to me.”

  “We know Phoebe wasn’t the killer,” Karin said. “But Matt’s wife had good reason to kill them both.”

  “When Phoebe called me,” I said, freshening another vase, “she told me her name was on a deed. But what deed?”

  One corner of Karin's mouth angled upward. “Just go to the county clerk's office online. You can search property records by name.”

  “Where's your laptop?” I dumped water from a third vase and refilled it.

  Karin gave me a look.

  “I know you haven't been in the hospital all this time without working on your laptop.” I returned the vase to its place atop a dresser. She was a writer first. Karin without a laptop was like me without a glamour spell. I never left home without one.

  She dug beneath her covers and pulled out a slim tablet. “Nick brought it to me. Take it.”

  “Fantastic.” I flipped it open — the computer was already booted up and in sleep mode. Quickly, I navigated to the website for the county records and typed in Phoebe England's name. A list of records popped onto the screen. “There's gotta be twenty here,” I said, dismayed.

  “Let me see.” Karin held out her hand.

  I handed her the computer, and her fingers skimmed across the screen. “Okay. The good news is all these records seem to be for a single piece of property at 329 Freeman Street.” She frowned. “I wonder what's there?”

  “Map it online,” I said.

  “I will, but... Here.” She returned the computer to me. “Phoebe’s not the sole owner, not on the deed at least. Eric Gertner's name is on it too.”

  “Eric Gertner?” I asked. “But he's... He was best friends with Matt. Matt's wife said the two were up to something,” I muttered. But this couldn’t have been it – Phoebe was on the deed, not Matt.

  “It looks more like Eric was up to something with Matt's girlfriend,” Karin said dryly.

  “A possible motive for Matt to kill Eric and Phoebe,” Lenore said, “not the other way around.”

  “Or for Rasha, Eric's wife, to murder Phoebe?” Karin said. “How was she killed?”

  “Shot,” I said. “But even if she wanted Phoebe dead, she had no reason to kill Matt.”

  Karin rubbed her temple. “Sorry. I was getting lost in what-if land.”

  Lenore shot me a worried glance, then said to Karin, “A normal place for a writer to spend time in. How do you feel?”

  “Fine,” Karin said. “I can't wait to get out of this mausoleum.”

  But our sister looked tired, something I should have noticed sooner. I cleared my throat. “It’s not that bad. Has the doctor said when you'll be released?”

  “No.” Karin shook her head against the pillow. “They're hopeful I'll be out in a few days, but they said they have to assess my condition.” She rolled her eyes. “I hear that a lot.”

  “I'm so sorry,” I said. “If I hadn't—”

  “Oh, shut up,” she said. “Stop thinking this was your fault. It wasn't. So what's at 329 Freeman Street?”

  I hesitated. Karin needed to sleep, but she'd kill me if I used that as an excuse to keep her out of the investigation. But she wasn’t going to be doing any investigating from the hospital. It didn’t matter what I told her.

  I entered the address into the mapping website and clicked for a street view. An image of an empty lot and a tangle of manzanita flickered onto the screen.

  Frowning, I clicked back to the map. It looked like the site of the old wellhouse, but I couldn't be sure. Why would Eric and Phoebe want this ruin?

  “Well?” Karin asked.

  “It looks like an empty lot,” I said.

  “Maybe they planned to build something on it?” Lenore asked.

  “Maybe,” I said. “I'll go check it out.”

  Lenore glanced at her watch. “I've got to get to the bookstore, but I'll return to the hospital this evening. Do you want anything, Karin?”

  “Could you plug in my computer before you leave? It's running out of juice.”

  “Sure.” I plugged it in and set it on the adjustable table near her bed, within easy reach.

  We said our goodbyes, and Lenore and I left.

  “What do you think?” I asked in the elevator.

  “She's going to be fine, and you need to stop blaming yourself.” Lenore smiled.

  “That bullet was meant for me,” I said grimly. But I didn’t feel grim. I felt scared and guilty.

  “You couldn’t have known what would happen.”

  No, my magic didn’t work that way. Maybe if I’d more common sense, been more like Karin—

  She grasped my shoulders and shook me. “Stop it. By the way, Karin told me about the engagement, so you don't have to keep it a secret anymore.”

  The elevator doors slid open, and we stepped into the modern tile hallway. Through glass walls, an atrium filled with ferns and a stand of three pine trees glistened, damp from last night's rain.

  I forced a smile. “That's a relief. She was going to tell you sooner, but...” Someone had shot her before she'd had the chance.

  “Right.” Lenore’s lips flattened.

  We went to our separate cars, and I followed Lenore up the winding highway into Doyle. I peeled off and onto Main Street and wound my way to Freeman, a residential road lined with grand homes set back from the road and hidden amidst the pines. In Doyle, this was the good side of the tracks, though we didn't have any actual tracks. The doctor lived in this neighborhood — we’d all gone to a holiday party at her house when we were kids.

  I slowed at 327 Freeman, a house straight out of Gone with the Wind. The lot beside it was a tangle of brush and pine. I stopped on the side of the road.

  Stepping from my car, I pulled my long, fringed green cardigan tighter. It was cold enough this morning that I could almost believe it would snow here today, even though this was the lower elevation. Snow in west Doyle was rare.

  There were no sidewalks here, a trick to discourage the proletariat from strolling and staring at the mansions. I couldn’t entirely blame the homeowners. The massive houses were gawk-worthy.

 
; I walked down the damp road. Brown pine needles lined the shoulder. I paused, scanning the lot. It looked like the scene from the picture. The manzanita leaves had dropped, and its smooth branches were the color of dried blood. They made a seemingly impenetrable barrier.

  But I knew better. As a child, I'd played here and found the mazelike deer paths through the manzanita.

  Behind the brush and to the right rose an octagonal stone structure with a red-tile roof — the old wellhouse. A shimmer of gold glinted through one of the arched openings.

  I wound through the manzanita, following the trail I knew would be there. The wellhouse had been an irresistible draw when we were kids. Our aunt had warned us away from it with stories of children who'd fallen through the wood floor, never to be seen again.

  I pressed my hands to both sides of a cold, stone arch for a window and leaned through. The wooden floor was cracked and gray with rot. Someday, my aunt's horror story would come true. A child would fall through and never be seen again.

  Green and gold mosaic tiles surrounded a tap in the wall. No well water trickled from its rusted pipe now.

  What had Phoebe and Eric planned to do with this property? There was one way to find out — ask Eric. But instead of turning and leaving, I walked around the small, eight-sided building to the entryway.

  Memories of my childhood flooded me. Playing here with my sisters. Conjuring stories of lost princes and evil witches, ignorant that we were witches. I'd believed this place had been magic then, even before we’d learned of our heritage. Maybe a part of me had always known.

  No. I swayed, shocked. I'd done magic here.

  We'd made this our fort, decorating it with pine cones and other forest treasures. And then the property had changed hands one hot summer. No Trespassing signs had gone up, and we'd been warned away, our prizes scattered. The three of us had snuck back at twilight one evening and loosed our rage in a childish rain dance. To our delight, the rain had come, a storm that shook the mountains and widened the streams.

  Soaked to the bone, we'd fled to our aunt's home. She'd said nothing to us, but my sisters and I never again spoke of that day. In fact, I'd never remembered that day until now. Had our aunt put a spell on us to forget?