Witch, Interrupted

by Amanda M. Lee

  “She’s doing a good job,” I muttered.

  “You’re beautiful. You always are.”

  “And you’re definitely feeling emotional.” I struggled to prop myself on my elbows. “I’m okay. I’m better. I’m even good enough to fix my makeup.”

  “You don’t need makeup.”

  “I feel as if I do.”

  “Well, you don’t.” He pressed a light kiss to the tip of my nose. “You’re okay.”

  “Yeah. I got lucky. I only took the one sip. Thistle recognized right away what was happening. I’m not sure I would’ve figured it out on my own.”

  “Then I owe her an ice cream cone or something,” Landon said dryly. “I need to reward her for saving your life.”

  “And ice cream is the best you can do?”

  “Don’t push things too far, Bay.” He dropped his forehead against mine. “You scared the life out of me. You have no idea how terrified I was seeing you on this couch. It looked as if you could slip away at any moment.”

  “He’s exaggerating,” Thistle countered. “You didn’t look that bad.”

  “Thank you,” I muttered, causing Landon to chuckle as he dragged me against him for a long hug. “As for Chief Terry, even if he takes our side — which I expect he ultimately will — he’ll put up a fight at the start. We need to sit him down and explain things to him.”

  “He’s not my first priory,” Landon argued, pulling back. “You’re my priority. If I have to arrest her against his will, I’ll do it. Besides, he’s not in the office.”

  I furrowed my brow. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s not in the office.”

  “But I ... you’re investigating a murder. He’s always in the office when you’re investigating a murder.”

  “Not this time.” Landon carefully combed his fingers through my hair. “I figured he was with Melanie, maybe running late. I left him three voicemails about Hopper’s files. I told him about the judge stalling. I managed to place a call to a federal judge who promised to issue a warrant within the next hour, so ultimately it won’t matter. I thought Chief Terry would want to know.”

  He would definitely want to know. In fact, he would be champing at the bit to take the files we stole days before and reunite them with the other files so he could get that albatross off his back. It was one less thing to worry about, and Chief Terry was a big proponent of whittling his worry list.

  “Did he not come in at all today?” I asked after a beat.

  “No.”

  “That’s not like him.”

  “No, but after last night’s dinner I figured he was soothing Melanie’s hurt feelings,” Landon explained.

  “Melanie is at work. She had a class first thing this morning. Chief Terry wasn’t there.”

  “Oh, well ... .” Landon licked his lips as his demeanor shifted. “You don’t think she’s done something to him, do you?”

  “I think we need to track him down right now.”

  “Definitely.” Clove wrung her hands as she stood at the end of the couch. “We need to find him right now. Bay’s not the only one who loves him.”

  “I know that.” Landon climbed to his feet. “I’m going to place a few calls. If he doesn’t answer, I might need you guys to help me track him down.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “That locator spell thing you guys do. We might need it.”

  That made sense. “You worry about your calls.” My muscles felt slightly stretched as I stood, but I was rapidly returning to full health. “We’ll get the spell ready.”

  Landon nodded. “We need to move. If she’s unstable enough to poison Bay there’s no telling what she could do to Chief Terry.”

  That’s exactly what I was afraid of.

  Twenty-Eight

  We were ready to cast the locator spell when Landon rejoined us at Hypnotic forty minutes later. He was grim.

  “No luck?” I asked, my stomach sinking when he shook his head.

  “No one has seen him since last night. In fact, I think we were the last ones to see him. It’s as if he fell off the face of the earth after dinner last night.”

  “That’s probably because Melanie backed him into a corner,” Thistle mused. “She was probably melting down and demanded he make a choice. He either refused to do it or made the wrong choice ... at least from her point of view.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “He could already be dead.”

  “Don’t go there, Bay,” Landon chided, his hand landing on my shoulder. “Don’t let the fear in. Killing Chief Terry would net her nothing but trouble.”

  “She’s not stable. I mean ... she poisoned me. If she’s not stable, that means she’s not rational. She might not be thinking about the bigger picture.”

  “I know, but I refuse to believe the worst until I have no choice.” He pocketed his cell phone. “We need that spell. I have no idea where that woman lives and I can’t find an address in Chief Terry’s official search program. I went through his office. She must live around here.”

  “Then we’ll find her.” Thistle was firm as she clutched a baggie full of ingredients. “We need a private place to cast this. The last thing we need is other people witnessing us work our magic.”

  “Where do you suggest?”

  “Well ... .” Whatever Thistle was about to say died on her lips when a hint of movement appeared at the front door. We all turned our eyes in that direction and I couldn’t hide my frown when I realized Aunt Tillie was on the scene.

  She stood on the sidewalk, a glowing orb of light hovering over her right shoulder. She had an impatient look on her face, and when she planted her hands on her hips her message was clear.

  “Oh, geez,” Clove muttered. “What is she doing here?”

  “That’s probably my fault.” Landon looked resigned. “I called The Overlook to make sure none of them had seen Chief Terry. I tried to play things down, but I’m not sure how successful I was.”

  “If Aunt Tillie got them all worked up I’m surprised they’re not here,” Thistle said as she tugged open the door and fixed our great-aunt with a dubious stare. “People are going to notice that thing flying so close to your head.”

  “I’ll tell them it’s my pet bird,” Aunt Tillie replied dryly. “I’ll name it Thistle because it’s a dodo.”

  Thistle rolled her eyes. “That was weak.”

  “I’ll think of something else and get back to you.” Aunt Tillie shifted her gaze to me. “Your buddy on the bluff started talking, by the way. I have some information for you.”

  Holy crap! I’d totally forgotten about Hopper. I left him under Aunt Tillie’s watchful eye. I expected him to break sooner rather than later, and it looked as if I was right. “What did he say?”

  “I’ll tell you during the drive. It plays into what’s happening now. I heard Winnie in the kitchen after Landon called. She thought it was weird he was looking for Terry. Given what that loony doctor told me, I realized what was going on.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Landon folded his arms over his chest. “What’s going on?”

  “Melanie Adams did something to Terry. He’s missing, and you’re worried enough to make calls. You guys need to find Terry, which is why I conjured this.”

  The sentry wasn’t human, or sentient, but it seemed to glow brighter with her words. It was almost as if the spinning ball of light couldn’t wait to be set free.

  “We were going to do it,” Thistle offered. “We were going to wait until we had privacy to do it, but this works.”

  “We don’t have time to waste. When you hear what I have to tell you about Hopper’s dealings with Melanie you’ll wish we’d acted sooner. We need to go.”

  I often questioned Aunt Tillie’s motivations and decision-making skills. The look on her face told me this was the time to do neither.

  “So, let’s go,” I prodded. “We have a lot to catch each other up on.”

  “And we have to find Terry,” Aunt Tillie said. “He needs us
.”

  I didn’t like the way she phrased it. “Yeah. We definitely need to find him ... alive.”

  “Then let’s move.” Landon didn’t put up an argument about Aunt Tillie joining the team. That’s how I knew he was legitimately worried. “The sooner we find him, the sooner we can take that witch down.”

  “Don’t insult witches,” Aunt Tillie chided. “She’s not a witch. She’s a ... .”

  “Let’s not go there.” Landon held up a hand to cut Aunt Tillie off. “We need to move. Given what Melanie did to Bay, I have a bad feeling about what she has planned next.”

  Aunt Tillie made a face. “What did she do to Bay?”

  “We’ll tell you on the way.”

  “SHE DID WHAT?” Aunt Tillie was positively apoplectic when I related the tale of my poisoning once we were in Landon’s Explorer.

  “She poisoned Bay,” Clove replied helpfully. “But we saved her.”

  “I saved her,” Thistle corrected. “I realized she was acting wonky and figured it couldn’t hurt to flush her system.”

  “See, you’re not entirely useless when it comes to magic,” Aunt Tillie drawled from her spot between Clove and Thistle in the back seat. “The locator sphere is heading to the east, Landon.”

  In the driver’s seat, Landon scowled. “Do you think I can’t see that?”

  “I think you’re crabby,” Aunt Tillie replied. “Why is he so crabby?”

  “He’s upset about Bay being poisoned,” Thistle replied. “He’s not happy about Chief Terry going missing either.”

  “We’re all upset about that.” I craned my neck to see Aunt Tillie’s face. “What happened with Hopper?”

  “First, I just want to point out that you told me to torture him,” she started.

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “I did a few things, tests if you will. Ultimately I sang until he agreed to spill his guts.”

  “That’s all it took?”

  “I cast a spell so I sounded like a boy band.”

  “That would do it.”

  Aunt Tillie’s grin was sly. “Once he started talking I couldn’t shut him up.”

  I was almost afraid to ask. “What did you find out?”

  “He’s a sick man.”

  “We figured that out on our own.”

  “No, I mean really sick.” Aunt Tillie wrinkled her nose. “He’s been having sex with patients for years. The reason he moved to Hemlock Cove wasn’t because he liked the town. He moved because he was getting heat from the Traverse City Police Department. They were investigating him for sexual misconduct.”

  “That sounds ... lovely,” Thistle drawled. “Why wasn’t he arrested?”

  Aunt Tillie shrugged. “I have no idea. He didn’t know either. The thing is, he wasn’t just treating couples. He was also treating women on the side.”

  “We already knew that,” I reminded her. “He was seeing Mrs. Little.”

  “Yeah, I know how that came about, and it’s a good story.” The evil flash in her eyes told me she was going to use whatever information she uncovered to go after Mrs. Little. While I was interested to know why Hemlock Cove’s most upstanding citizen would sign up for therapy, we had other things to worry about.

  “What about Melanie?” I asked, getting straight to the heart of matters. “What does she have to do with Hopper? I mean ... you made it sound as if she played into Hopper’s story as much as Chief Terry’s peril.”

  “She does,” Aunt Tillie confirmed. “She’s the psychopath.”

  Somehow I already knew that. How was up for debate — and at a later time — but it wasn’t a surprise. “We need all the information you have, and we need it fast.”

  “Are you telling me to keep my story short?”

  “I’m saying you can make the story as long as you want when you’re telling it the second time around. For now, you need to keep it short.”

  “Fair enough.” If Aunt Tillie was offended by the admonishment she didn’t show it. She loved Chief Terry as much as the rest of us. She understood we were working on a truncated timetable. “Hopper started seeing Melanie as a patient two years ago. She owned a yoga studio in Traverse City. It was popular for a time, until it came out that Melanie was running special one-on-one classes with a few of the men.”

  I let the information settle for a moment. “She was a reverse Hopper.”

  “Pretty much,” Aunt Tillie agreed. “She got in trouble because some of the wives found out and confronted her. The business went downhill quickly. Her studio was vandalized and she was in danger of going bankrupt.

  “She started seeing Hopper for her mental issues,” she continued. “Hopper agreed to keep it on the down low and fill out the appropriate paperwork, and they started meeting twice a week. It wasn’t long until they recognized sexual deviancy in one another.”

  “Hopper told you that?” I was incredulous. “He doesn’t seem the type to admit his faults.”

  “Oh, I embellished a little,” Aunt Tillie admitted. “He told me that they were attracted to one another, and rather than fight the attraction they gave in to temptation.”

  “The language is getting a little flowery,” Landon complained. “Get to the heart of the story.”

  “Fine.” Aunt Tillie glared at the back of his head, making me think she had plans for retribution later. “They had sex for a bit and Melanie let a few things slip, like the fact that her parents mysteriously disappeared at a time she needed money. Their disappearances allowed her access to their bank accounts.”

  The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach I’d managed to shake earlier was back. “She killed her parents?”

  “There’s no proof of that. Hopper deduced it. He was willing to help her spend the money, but he was suddenly leery of her. She picked up on the change in his attitude.”

  “This glowing orb thing is heading into the woods,” Landon noted. “Melanie must have Chief Terry in a cabin or something.”

  “Or he’s already dead and she dumped his body in the woods,” I muttered.

  “Bay.” Landon’s tone was low and full of warning. “Don’t be a defeatist. We’ll find him. Alive.”

  I wanted to believe that with every fiber of my being. When I thought too hard about what we were facing, though, I couldn’t shake the sensation of dread rolling through me. “Go back to your story, Aunt Tillie,” I prodded. “I want to hear the rest of it.”

  “It’s pretty simple. Hopper didn’t stop sleeping with Melanie. He kept spending her money. Then, one day, it was gone. Melanie was getting progressively unhinged, to the point she was stalking him. She followed him after work, called him fifty times a day and pretty much made his life hell.”

  “So, she really is a psychopath,” Thistle noted.

  “Pretty much,” Aunt Tillie agreed. “She did a lot of weird things to him. She broke into his house and stole his sheets. She left photographs of herself in frames around his house. Hopper said he was firm and ended things, but she refused to accept his decision.”

  “She sounds like a total nutball,” Landon said.

  “I believe I told you that the day I met her,” I muttered under my breath.

  He cast me a sidelong look. “You said that before you had any proof.”

  “It was a feeling ... one that turned out to be right.”

  Landon exhaled heavily. “I’m never going to hear the end of this, am I? You were right about Chief Terry’s girlfriend. She’s crazy. I should’ve let you step in sooner to get rid of her.”

  “Pretty much.” I flashed a smile. “I think this should be a lesson that you should never doubt me again.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “I’m not done telling my story,” Aunt Tillie barked, causing everyone in the Explorer to focus on her once again. “That’s better.” Her smile was serene as she folded her hands in her lap. “Anyway, Hopper thought he was smart and called the police. He claimed that Melanie was a former patient and she’d developed an unnat
ural attachment to him. Because he recognized the signs that she was going off the rails, he ended their sessions, but she continued to follow him around.”

  “I’m guessing he conveniently left out the part about sleeping with her,” Landon offered.

  “Oh, he totally lied to the cops and doesn’t deny it,” Aunt Tillie said. “He said he had to protect himself. Given how Melanie has been acting, that doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. Anyway, the radio station hired security guards to protect him and he had a security system installed in his house.

  “Melanie apparently set off the security alarm multiple times and was arrested, but she violated countless restraining orders and refused to give up no matter how many warnings she was issued,” she continued. “About this time, Hopper had his own trouble with a few husbands and was looking to get out of Traverse City. He used Melanie as an excuse and moved to Hemlock Cove. The radio station set up a studio in his basement so he could record from there, and he had a fresh new crop of women to choose from.”

  “He simply moved his operation to a new location,” I complained bitterly. “I shouldn’t be surprised, but ... .”

  “He’s a total tool,” Thistle finished. “I’m more interested in Melanie than him. He got what was coming to him. I’m guessing Melanie is the one who delivered that fate.”

  “No matter how hard I pushed, he couldn’t remember the night he died,” Aunt Tillie said. “I don’t know if that’s because he can’t bear the thought or something else is going on. It hardly matters. Melanie is clearly crazy.

  “She followed Hopper to Hemlock Cove and she settled in before he realized she was here,” she continued. “She opened a new yoga studio and ingratiated herself with certain members of the community ... including several of Hopper’s patients. When Hopper confronted her, she said she would out him to his patients if he spilled the beans about her. They were essentially blackmailing each other.”

  It made sense. It was sickening, but it totally made sense. “At some point Melanie must have decided to move on,” I deduced. “She met Chief Terry. He was nice to her. She said she was impressed because he came out to check on her after a security breach. She was all fluttery because he did it himself and didn’t send an underling.”