Witch in the House

by Jenna McKnight

  “Movies.”

  Life should be so easy. She’d made a promise that, on the surface, was all fine and good, and she’d never break that promise. Truth was, though, she’d already used witchcraft on Mason, but if she confessed that the only reason he was there was due to a spell she’d cast, he’d be hopping mad that she’d done so already, or that she hadn’t told him up front yesterday. While he seemed to be an upstanding guy, she hadn’t known him even two weeks, so how did she know he wouldn’t retaliate by giving away her secret?

  Wouldn’t that make a great front-page headline?

  Witch’s Husband Dies Twice

  Couldn’t be much worse than the trash she was skimming. “Who are these people they’re quoting? Listen to this. ‘We played poker every week.’ News to me. ‘We weren’t allowed to play at Mystic Manor, though.’ Bullshit. Anonymous, of course. Now I ask you, is this responsible reporting?”

  Mason puffed up. “You want Rambo and Bond to deal with them?”

  He made her laugh. “You kind of lost it without the scowl and the crouch. I half expected you to whip out a gun.”

  “The dog stole it.”

  “Do you see imaginary dogs often?”

  “If I did, they’d be little ankle biters.”

  A beat passed when neither said anything. Jade decided there was no time like the present. “Seriously, Mason. You know a lot about me, but I hardly know anything about you.”

  “I shoot pictures, love, not people. Totally boring. What else is there to know?”

  “Exactly.” She waited expectantly, knowing there was a lot more to this man than met the eye, yet he was very tight-lipped about it.

  He’d taken ten minutes this morning to prepare a tray and bring it upstairs, piled high with Weezy’s flaky, homemade cherry turnovers, juice, and even the damn newspaper. He pushed it aside and proceeded to crawl on top of Jade and show her he wasn’t boring at all.

  He nipped at her neck, pushing the narrow strap of her nightgown off her shoulder. “Guess your mirror trick didn’t work on the reporter.”

  “It’s not a trick. Call it a spell or call it magic, but not a trick. And I told you, the energy wanes.” As was her focus at the moment. “I forgot to renew it. I’ve been busy.”

  She glared at him, because really, if he weren’t so sexy and persistent and here, she would’ve remembered that the reporters would feed off last week’s death certificate and this week’s wire transfer, the fact that there’d been a memorial service on the first anniversary of Doug’s disappearance and now, according to the article, maybe there’d be another.

  Could she have prevented this attention-grabbing headline by talking to Tricia Sherwood?

  Not likely, if experience was any judge.

  But because Mason was so sexy and persistent, along with funny and just downright likeable, she couldn’t maintain the glare longer than five seconds, which is exactly how long it took him to nibble his way to her breast. Heat arrowed right to her core, and she unashamedly stretched and purred beneath him.

  She’d never had a Bond/Rambo spy fantasy before, but she was working up to it.

  Mason awoke to a ringing cell phone later that morning. He scratched his chest and blinked, trying to orient himself.

  Oh, right. Jade’s room. No wonder he was so warm on the right side. Jade was snuggled in to him, using his shoulder as a pillow, her nude body soft and pliant and plastered to his, just as he liked. She might have insomnia, but it seemed if he kept her satisfied and worn-out, she was his for the whole night.

  A double reward.

  The phone started up again, insistent.

  “Mine or yours?” he asked through a yawn.

  “Are you kidding me? I have a cheery little ring, not a foghorn.” Jade rolled away, her touch replaced by a cold draft as she pulled the covers with her.

  Damn. Mason answered with a brusque, “H’lo?”

  “I’m looking at our friend,” Anthony barked.

  Instantly on high alert, Mason bolted to the edge of the bed. “I’m listening.”

  “Right at him.”

  Jade couldn’t overhear, but all the same, he hurried into the adjoining bathroom and closed the door. For good measure, he turned on the water.

  “Better get down here, Mase.”

  “Get a picture.” He stepped into his jeans, sniffed yesterday’s shirt to see if it would do.

  “Camera’s not working. Get on it, buddy. He’s the right height, gone a little pudgy around the middle and in the face, but the bone structure’s dead on. Pun intended. I’m sitting outside the café at Main and Chapel.”

  “I don’t know. You think it’s Stockard?” Mason snapped off a dozen long-range photos with Anthony hovering behind him.

  “Could be.”

  “Not positive, though. Hungry?”

  “Couldn’t keep me out.”

  Ordinarily, Mason would leave the big camera and lens in the car when approaching a subject, but since he was supposed to be out photographing eagles anyway, he kept it with him as part of his cover. He had a palm-size camera in his pocket and the Glock in its holster.

  Like everyone else, he and Anthony were wearing ball caps today. Anthony’s said “Pete’s Garage, Love ’em & Leave ’em.”

  “Friend gave it to me,” Anthony said, when Mason stared at it.

  “Accepting gifts from strangers.” Mason tutted. “The bartender will be devastated.”

  “Leave it to you to wear a fish.”

  “Couldn’t find one with a sunken boat.”

  “I guess not.”

  They settled at a four-top by the window. Mason didn’t have to ask Anthony to point out the target; it was like looking at a bad “after” photo.

  Mason ordered coffee, eggs, hash browns, bacon, the works. Anthony ordered coffee and a corned beef sandwich, and commented that the only thing he still liked about West Bluff was Weezy’s cooking.

  “You’re not getting bad vibes?” Anthony asked. “In general, I mean?”

  “Nope.”

  Anthony studied Mason intently. “Yeah, guess not.”

  “That why you’re making yourself scarce?”

  “I keep moving around, hoping something will catch my attention and make sense.” Anthony shrugged. “Nothing so far.”

  They both watched Pudgy’s beer glass and flatware like hawks; photos would be good, fingerprints conclusive.

  “I thought that was you I saw come in here.”

  Lyle stopped by their table, blocking the view. Mason sat back in his chair and sighed with deceptive calmness.

  “Brenda told me she talked to you. I can’t believe you’re here.”

  Mason kicked out a third chair. “Take a load off, Lyle.”

  Looking surprised at the invitation, Lyle sat. Eyebrows raised, Anthony tossed Mason a silent query.

  “The florist.”

  “Ah.” Anthony sat up straighter.

  “Don’t go reaching for any hardware, boys,” Lyle said, and Mason and Anthony both chuckled at the ridiculous line, so much so that Lyle frowned and said, “What?”

  “Nothing,” Mason said. “Want a beer? It’s on me.”

  “His thirty days aren’t up yet,” Anthony said, meaning Mason’s.

  “What? Oh. Hey, I don’t expect you to pay that. That was Brenda’s doing. She went crazy with the red marker.”

  “Being a little hormonal, was she?”

  Lyle flashed a proud poppa-to-be grin, then remembered who he was flashing it at, and his expression sobered.

  “I’m not stalking her,” Mason said. “I explained—”

  “She told me what you said. I know what you do.”

  Mason threw up a hand. “So much for confidentiality. Look, Lyle, you can’t be telling anybody why I’m here.”

  “He knows why we’re here?” Anthony whispered harshly across the table.

  “Not exactly,” Mason said, trying to save the job he’d resigned days ago. Pure reflex.

  “It
was easy enough to figure out,” Lyle said. “I can’t believe someone thinks Jade is capable of murder”—he had the decency to lower his voice, further attesting to the fact that he knew and liked her—“and I think it’s despicable that you’re staying in her house, accepting her hospitality, while you try to prove she did it.”

  Anthony leaned toward Lyle. “That’s not exactly why we’re here.”

  Lyle surged to his feet, sending his chair scraping backward. He forgot to keep his voice lowered. “If you don’t agree to leave town right now, I’m going up to Mystic Manor and tell Jade what you’re up to.”

  Heads swiveled their way. Anthony mumbled a curse, then tried to smile their way out of the unwanted attention.

  “Sit down before I shoot you in the foot,” Mason said lightly, banking on Lyle thinking he wasn’t joking.

  Color draining from his face, Lyle sat. If Mason hadn’t snaked his foot out and pulled the guy’s chair under him, his tailbone would’ve kissed the floor.

  Jade had helped Lyle. Somehow. Mason knew that without question. And now Lyle was feeling protective.

  The threat of having his cover blown before he had a chance to reveal his own secret had been worrying Mason long enough to make him do more thinking about relationships than he’d ever wanted to do. Jade was the most confident, comfortable-in-her-own-skin, selfless woman he’d ever met. Being with her, part of her life, was like nothing he’d ever been prepared to feel.

  In fact, it didn’t seem right. People didn’t go around every day feeling like this. They couldn’t; wasn’t possible. If they did, everybody’d know it. No, what he had with Jade was something special. Something indescribable. Something worth fighting for. And that meant protecting his secret at all costs.

  “The way I figure it, you owe me one,” Mason said.

  “I—What?”

  “You stole my bride, Lyle.” Since the guys at the neighboring table were openly staring, Mason turned his head and included them in the conversation. “There I was, all dressed up in my tux at the church. And where was my bride? Running off with this lightweight. Now I ask you, doesn’t he owe me one?”

  Nods all around. Hopefully they were forgetting Jade’s name had even been mentioned.

  “See, Lyle. They think you owe me.” For Lyle’s ears only, he added, “I just a need another day or so. Then I’ll tell Jade everything.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “I know where you live, Lyle.”

  Lyle rose to his feet again, with a whole lot less surge this time. He sputtered and headed for the door, but, last thing before he left, he turned back to Mason and nodded. “One day.”

  “Might need a couple.”

  He didn’t linger. Pudgy was behind him, in a hurry to leave, urging him through the door.

  “Hey, Stockard,” the gruff short-order cook behind the counter barked. “Forgot t’pay again, asshole.”

  Anthony’s head twisted toward their target. Mason quickly checked the counter, only to see Pudgy’s spot already cleared. Fingerprints, gone.

  “Don’t have my money yet, Caleb. I’ll pay when I get it.”

  “Aw, go crawl back in your hole,” the grizzled cook sneered to Stockard’s departing back. To those remaining at the counter, but no one in particular, he said, “That widda’s no friend a’mine, but seems to me somebody oughta do ’er a favor and tell ’er the truth ’bout that lowlife.”

  Chapter 18

  P ink hearts, as agreed. Cupids with arrows.

  Jade was wrapping dozens of West-Bluff-correct homemade treats for Jazzy’s party. Valentine’s Day was the next day, but with no school on Saturday, the class was celebrating early.

  She was just about to leave when Buzz stomped snow off his boots and came in with the mail. It was already ten o’clock. If she didn’t deliver these in the next fifteen minutes, the teacher was going to have heart failure.

  “Did they change your route again?” she asked. Buzz normally timed his arrival to chat with Weezy and Noah, who both started at the crack of dawn.

  Buzz sighed loudly, alerting Jade.

  “What?”

  “Supervisor says I have to give you this.” He handed her a slip of paper. “I’m sorry as all get out.”

  Jade read the notice that her mailbox was not regulation and must be replaced, as well as relocated to the other side of the road. “What?”

  “It isn’t right.”

  “I’ll say it’s not!”

  “No, I mean I looked at it. It is regulation. You’re just being hassled.”

  Jade slapped the notice onto the breakfast bar. “Well, thank you, Tricia Sherwood.”

  “Shoulda let Noah give her a noogie.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m real sorry I had to be the one to give it to you.”

  “How do I appeal it? No, wait, I have to deliver these to Jazzy’s classroom. Tell me tomorrow, okay?”

  “I’ll bring the forms. You bring the power.”

  He looked at the treats hungrily. Jade pulled back the red-heart-covered clear plastic and put two on a napkin for him. If she hadn’t been flustered by the time and the notice, she would’ve done it sooner.

  “Thanks. Oh, one more thing.” Buzz reached inside his coat and pulled out a brown box. Long and narrow, it had specks of raw earth stuck beneath the clear packaging tape holding it together. “Expecting this?”

  “Mother.”

  He immediately held it at arm’s length, gingerly. “Great. I was keeping it warm. My innards aren’t going to suddenly shrivel up or anything, are they?”

  She squinted at him. “Hmm. How do you feel?”

  “Funny. I know you gotta go. I’ll set it in the drying room.”

  After the party, Jade found a ticket on her windshield. Malfunctioning taillight. How the heck could someone know it malfunctioned when the car was parked?

  Small pieces of red plastic on the asphalt were a clue. Thanks to Tricia Sherwood, Jade’s low profile was blown. People were suspicious of her. Generally she stayed beneath their radar, and they left her alone.

  She promptly conferenced Annie and Courtney, and warned them to be on the lookout for trouble.

  “She snuck up on me in the tampon aisle,” Annie griped. “I hate that.”

  “You know what you can do with that?” Jade began to suggest a simple spell.

  “Oh-h-h-h trust me,” Annie said with a drawn-out laugh. “Already did it.”

  “Well,” Courtney said. “I got pulled over with Jazzy in the car and questioned by that shit-ass sergeant who’s lived here for—”

  “The cops,” Annie gasped. She sounded distressed, but Jade thought now wasn’t a good time to go into it.

  “Thank you for interrupting. Now I can say it again. That shit-ass sergeant who’s lived here for ten years because he thought I fit the description of someone suspected of childnapping.”

  From Courtney’s language, Jade surmised Jazzy presently was not within earshot.

  “Shit-ass?” Annie giggled.

  “He questioned my child.”

  “Ooh. He’s lucky it was you,” Annie said. “Jade’d make sure he was too busy to do that again.”

  Out of curiosity over the whole witch thing and with more information under his belt, Mason revisited the locked bedroom.

  One altar sat on top of an old, dark, heavily carved dresser. Mason opened the top drawer. He’d checked them all previously, but hadn’t found anything to point toward finding Stockard or his body, and he’d moved on. He lingered now.

  Candles in every color of the rainbow. Red for sex, love, lust, and right now; he had no trouble remembering that one. Orange and yellow, he didn’t remember what they were for. All colors related to more than one intention, but he wasn’t going for a degree in this stuff.

  Hey, not bad for a few hours of reading, though. Maybe Anthony’s discomfort had to do with a spell in the house. Maybe not; he hadn’t felt it the first week.

  The second drawer held a larg
e flat box with dividers, a rock or crystal in each cubby. There was incense, not one or two, but many. Little jars of oils: rosemary, patchouli, jasmine. Like candle colors, every item had multiple intentions. Now he knew what the charcoal discs were for, how a witch would light one and sprinkle a crumbled herb or a mixture of herbs on it as it burned, scenting the air.

  Energy, Jade had said. Witchcraft was all about energy.

  Mason got the feeling this altar belonged to Jade’s mother, the other to her father.

  The marble-topped table had only a center drawer with a few white candles, two oils, and a dozen cones of incense divided into two bags. Seemed the crystal bowling ball sitting on a heavy three-legged silver stand was the main tool here. He hadn’t read enough yet to know what that was about. All he had was a picture in his mind of a gnarled old crone bent over it, holding a young woman’s smooth hand, telling her how many children she’d have and what tragedies would befall them if she didn’t heed the signs.

  Maybe he’d seen too many movies.

  His phone vibrated on his belt, and he answered.

  “It’s probably not him,” Anthony said wearily. “I turned up a photo of Stockard’s lazy-ass brother. Unless Dougie killed the guy and took his place, which isn’t totally inconceivable coming from someone who stands to make a million bucks doing it, it was Davy Stockard we saw today.”

  Mason started pacing. “Which would explain the other two, how?”

  “Exactly. And I think his parents would’ve noticed.”

  “Anybody talk to the guy who sold them the insurance?”

  “Courtney’s husband brokered the deal. Looks aboveboard.”

  “Damn.”

  Mason signed off, thinking about look-alike brothers while he stared at the crooked collage of building photos, which fell off the wall when he straightened it. Catching it was fortuitous. Besides saving it, he discovered papers stuffed inside the back.

  He unfolded old, faded, cracked paper, heavily marked with minuscule notations and hard-to-decipher glyphs.

  Hallelujah, a set of building plans.

  The cellar was there, all right, and just as large as the house, not the little laundry section he’d found. If he was reading it right, there should be a full cellar, divided roughly into thirds. He’d been in the middle one. He traced what appeared to be a passageway with his index finger. If it was, then access to the southern section was right…about…