Anna Denning Mystery Series Box Set: Books 1–3

by Karin Kaufman

  “She needed to sell her house, Anna. My Hollister money is as real as my Hollister name.”

  “Have you considered that the other group members might find out who you are before Alex tells them? Changing your name on a few records isn’t going to hide your identity for long.”

  Zoey puffed out her cheeks. She was weary of plotting her moves, considering alternatives in case something didn’t go as planned. She had set the wheels in motion long ago, entering the master’s program at Colorado State then joining the Elk Valley Historical Society, and now she simply wanted her revenge. Her patience for the long game was over. “They’re not looking at me. They have no reason to. Right now they’re focused on restoring the Morgan-Sadler House.”

  “They are fascinated by that house.”

  “Obsessed is more like it. Alex calls the house a hive and the rooms cells. Like in a honeycomb.” Zoey saw the shocked look on Anna’s face and laughed. “Let’s just say Alex has a problem.”

  “You’re taking this too lightly.”

  “Anything but.” Zoey’s smile faded. “I’ve known these people longer than you have, and I take them all very seriously. In my unprofessional opinion, Alex should be in a mental hospital—in a room right next to Maddy and Paul. Maybe Clovis too. And that’s being generous, because one or more of them murdered Russell and should be in prison.” She shifted in her seat again, leaning her back on the door, looking directly at Anna. “I need to find out more about them, especially Paul and Maddy, and you can help me with that.”

  “How?”

  Zoey cocked her head sideways. “Oh, come on. You know more than you’re saying. I’m going to the Gilmartins’ Halloween party, and forewarned is forearmed. Don’t let me go in there without knowing what you know.”

  “Is that why you canceled your own party?”

  “I decided it was more important to visit their lair. I’m running out of time, Anna. Tomorrow’s Halloween.”

  Once more Anna was torn. Should she tell Zoey who Paul Gilmartin really was? Even Maddy didn’t know his real identity. If Paul was nothing more than a lousy, greedy ranchland neighbor with a tragic past, what right did she have to blow his world apart? But he was into demons, too, she told herself, and he had threatened her at the Harvest Festival, she was sure of it. She waged an internal battle, pitting Paul’s right to privacy against Zoey’s real need to know that he might be a damaged and dangerous man.

  “When you use a word like ‘lair,’” Anna said, “I hope you understand how close you are to the truth.”

  “The funny thing is, when I asked Maddy how many people were going to be at her house, she said, ‘House?’ Like that.” Zoey frowned, imitating Maddy. “‘House?’ Then she did that giggle of hers and said something like ‘Gee, who knows?’”

  “Will it be at their house?”

  “I’m thinking it will start someplace else first and they don’t want an anti-demonite like me showing up. Then they’ll do the showplace Halloween party at their house.”

  “But Clovis told me the Gilmartins had twenty people in their back yard chanting last Halloween.”

  “So maybe that’s what Maddy meant?” Zoey lifted her shoulders. “It’ll be in the back yard, not the house?”

  Anna couldn’t decide if Zoey was being brave or foolish. It was clear now that she wasn’t naive—she knew the sort of people she was dealing with—but her casual attitude about what she was about to do and where she was about to do it concerned Anna.

  “I’m bringing my camera,” Zoey said. “Imagine photos of Paul Gilmartin calling a demon showing up on the Internet.”

  That did it. The image of Zoey snapping a photo the Gilmartins and their guests might kill to keep private was too much. Anna could no longer be silent. She hated the idea of telling Paul’s secret, especially to someone who had no scruples about spreading it, but neither did she want to be responsible for Zoey entering the Gilmartins’ territory unarmed.

  “What I’m going to tell you needs to remain a secret, at least for now,” Anna began. She swung her arm over the seat back, drew her right leg onto the seat, and reclined against her door, facing Zoey.

  Intrigued, Zoey leaned forward. “I’m listening.”

  Anna told her about Raymond Dayton Toller, the thirteen-year-old traumatized son of Jennifer and Peter, Sadler’s head honey maker, and about Raymond changing his name to Paul when he turned eighteen. Zoey’s jaw dropped. Anna again cautioned her to keep the information to herself, knowing as she did that she, not Zoey, had just let Paul’s secret loose into the world. Where it traveled from here was her doing.

  After a moment, Zoey said, “Did Peter Toller change his name too?”

  “Paul thinks he might have. He hasn’t seen him since he was eighteen.”

  “So he says.”

  Anna had to agree. There was no reason to believe Paul’s version of events. “Supposedly Maddy doesn’t know his real name is Raymond Toller, but I’m having second thoughts about that.”

  “He tells Maddy everything.” Zoey rested the back of her head on the car window.

  “But she doesn’t tell him everything,” Anna said. “Like about Alex.”

  “You noticed?” Zoey said with a smile.

  “It’s hard to miss.”

  “Maddy accused me of having an affair with Alex.”

  Anna laughed, picturing Alex and Zoey together, Alex adjusting the lopsided brown hide atop his head with every shimmy of his hips.

  “She thinks that’s why he nominated me to the historical society. Just because we talk and I pretend to laugh.”

  “Maybe Alex suggested that’s why he nominated you. He’s desperate to make her jealous.”

  Zoey groaned and held her stomach. “I wouldn’t put it past him. They lie to each other, you know. They all lie.”

  Anna stopped laughing, recognizing the truth of Zoey’s statement. “What if . . .”

  Zoey sat forward. “Don’t worry about it. He could say something like that, but would Maddy believe him? She knows he lies, he knows she lies, and on and on. It all figures into my plan.”

  “You don’t have a plan,” Anna gently chided. “And tomorrow they’re going to figure that out. Twenty demonology students high on Halloween.”

  “So come with me. Join forces.”

  “Not going to happen,” Anna said, her confrontation with a pack of surly witches last Christmas Eve springing to mind. She had promised Gene not to put herself in such a position again. “Take Clovis with you. Believe me, that woman can take care of herself.”

  Zoey had turned her attention to Elk River Road, a frown forming on her face. “I think that’s Paul’s car.”

  Anna swung straight in her seat. A silver-colored sedan with a dented rear bumper was backing up on the road, wobbling slightly at the hands of a driver unskilled at moving in reverse. It slowed, straightened, and pulled alongside the Jimmy. A moment later Paul got out, circled the hood of his car, and bent down to look at Anna.

  “Hello, Paul,” she said as she rolled down the window.

  “Have you seen Maddy?” he asked. He was agitated, with no time for pleasantries.

  “Why?” It was a silly answer, but Anna didn’t want to be grilled on where Maddy had been and what she’d been doing—or how Alex looked like an insect while doing it to her—and she was afraid if she answered in the affirmative, those would be Paul’s next questions.

  “Because she’s my wife and I’m looking for her,” he said in a cold, flat tone.

  “Have you tried the Morgan-Sadler House?” Zoey asked.

  “That’s where she was supposed to be.”

  An image of Maddy and Alex coiled together in an upstairs room made an unwelcome appearance in Anna’s mind. “She’s not?”

  Paul’s eyes squeezed shut as he fought to contain himself in the face of such slowness of mind. He scratched his beard then ran an index finger over his short but scrubby moustache.

  Anna gritted her teeth. Why didn’t he just s
have the thing off if it bothered him so much?

  “Obviously not,” he said, daring to look once more at her. “I need to get hold of her.”

  “You didn’t see her car there?” Zoey asked.

  “Of course I didn’t,” he said, lifting his eyes to the heavens. “It’s the first thing I looked for.”

  It was then Anna noticed that his cheek met his neck almost entirely unfettered by a jawline. That’s what the beard was for. Camouflage for a lack of jaw. Itchy it might be, but it worked. Her gaze dropped to his left wrist, hoping to see a glimpse of the black-green tattoo there, but his barn jacket covered it.

  “It was just a thought,” Zoey said. “She might have parked somewhere you didn’t see her.”

  “What are you staring at?” Paul said, his eyes swiveling back to Anna’s.

  “Nothing. Cripes, Paul, calm down.”

  “Sorry.” He stood straight and backed away from the window until he was up against his car, where he could see Anna without bending down. “It’s important I find her.”

  “If she’s not at the house, I don’t know where she is,” Anna said. A response that had the advantage of being true without revealing the potentially messy fact that she’d seen Maddy there. Maybe that was why Paul was so agitated. He knew Maddy was supposed to be at the house, and he’d seen Alex’s car there. Despite what others said, he wasn’t blind to their affair.

  “All right, thanks.”

  “If we see her, we’ll let her know you’re looking for her.”

  Zoey scrunched down until she could see Paul out the window. “Is the party still on for tomorrow?”

  The unexpected change in subject caught Paul off guard. “What? Yeah. Yeah, no, we haven’t changed anything. Still on.” He nodded, climbed into his car, and in seconds was speeding down Elk River Road.

  “That’s one hyped-up, unpleasant man,” Zoey said.

  “Have you ever seen his tattoo?” Anna said, touching her arm behind her wrist. “Near his watch.”

  “Yeah, it’s a sigil of Asmo-whatchamacallit, like Maddy’s.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Anna started the Jimmy and pulled from the curb, heading for the Harvest Festival grounds. “That reminds me. Maddy showed me the sigil on Esther’s house and said either you or Esther found it, she didn’t remember who.”

  “I did.”

  Anna shot a look at Zoey. “You didn’t carve it, did you?”

  Zoey chuckled. “You really don’t trust people. Why would I do that to Esther?”

  “Why would you buy her house when you could have just given her the money to keep up with the repairs?”

  “We’re back to that again?” Zoey threw her hands up, annoyed that Anna had again broached the subject.

  “How can you even afford it?”

  “An inheritance,” Zoey said. “From my dead parents. That’s how I got the money for Esther’s house. Satisfied?”

  “You can’t blame me for being suspicious.”

  “Do you know how badly Alex and the Gilmartins want that house? If Esther still owns it, they still have dreams of taking it from her. If something happens to her, the house goes on the market and they’ll put their money together and beat out any buyer.”

  “Let’s say that’s true. Alex or the Gilmartins would kill to have that house. What’s to stop them now? They still think Esther owns it.”

  “Not for long.”

  “What did you do, Zoey?”

  “Yesterday Esther started putting out the word that an outsider named Emma Hollister bought her house.”

  Anna pulled the wheel sharply toward the curb and braked.

  “Anna, you gotta stop doing that.”

  “This isn’t a joke. In your wildest dreams do you not think they’re going to find out who Emma Hollister is?” It was infuriating. Zoey’s need for revenge had made her reckless—mindful of Esther’s safety but heedless of her own.

  Zoey stared ahead, watching the raindrops that now began to hit the windshield. “Listen, this is anything but a joke. But if you think I’m going to cower in fear of these—”

  “I’m just asking you to be smart.”

  “I appreciate that.” She met Anna’s eyes. “But I can handle myself.”

  “Not with three or more of—”

  Zoey raised a hand to quiet Anna. “You said it yourself. If no one knows the house has been sold, Esther’s still in danger. What would you have done?”

  “Found a better way.” Zoey had a small point—a very small one—but that did nothing to quiet Anna’s growing sense that she was putting her life at peril and was oblivious to the fact.

  Zoey unzipped a pocket on her jacket, took out a small photo, and held it out for Anna to see. “It’s not just Esther I’m thinking about.”

  Anna leaned in. A man, a dog, and a little girl sat on the bumper of a vehicle of some sort—some kind of farm or ranch equipment, as far as she could tell. The photo was crimped at the corners and faded slightly, probably a couple decades old. “Is that you and your dad?”

  “Yes. And his dog, Zoey.”

  Anna looked up.

  “He adored that dog.”

  Anna looked once more at the photo. Stamped in metal above the ranch vehicle’s grille was the name of the manufacturer. Eberhardt.

  “We’d better go,” Zoey said, pocketing the photo and tipping her head at the windshield. “I need to get off the Harvest Festival grounds before my car gets stuck in the mud.”

  Anna threw the Jimmy into gear and sped away from the curb. They entered downtown and a minute later exited it, all the while in silence. A quarter mile from the festival grounds, Anna spoke.

  “I forgot to ask. How did you find the sigil on Esther’s house?”

  “Esther told me she heard noises at the back of her house, the night before we went to the bank. So I went back there, looked around, noticed Esther’s gnome was lopsided—and she keeps it straight, you know? I thought it might be animals getting through a hole in her foundation. So I looked for holes and found the sigil.”

  “Then you told Maddy about it?”

  “No way. I didn’t want that woman on the property. I don’t know how she found out, and I know Esther didn’t tell her.”

  “But she said either you or Esther did.”

  Zoey gave Anna an exasperated look. “Come on.”

  “All right, I get it.”

  “You want my guess how it happened? Alex did it for Maddy. He carved it and then made up a story about how he found it.”

  One of the three did it, of that Anna was sure, and Alex was at the top of her list. Paul was a close second. She made a right into the festival parking area, noting the firmness of the ground beneath her wheels. “It’s not muddy,” she reported.

  “The white one, there,” Zoey said, directing Anna to an older-model white Subaru.

  Anna stopped just in back of the car and threw the Jimmy into park. “So let’s think about this. Maddy told a bald-faced lie about you finding the sigil, even knowing Liz and I would talk to you about it and find out she lied.”

  “That sounds about right,” Zoey said as she reached for the door handle.

  “Zoey, listen to me.” Anna put a hand on her arm, stopping her from opening the door. “You’d better put some thought into this. Why would Maddy do that unless she doesn’t care if you find out?”

  “What does it matter? They always lie.”

  “Not like this. Not so blatantly.”

  “Why lie about a sigil on Esther’s house?”

  “Because they’re demon freaks and they’re on to you, Zoey.”

  16

  Anna slowed and searched the curb for a parking place near the Buffalo Café. She had been meaning to buy a couple of Grace’s Halloween cupcakes since seeing them the day before, when she’d met Paul in the café. Gene was whipping up dinner again tonight—they’d finally agreed that he was the better cook—and she needed to bring something to the feast. She was pretty sure his qualms about Ha
lloween didn’t extend to orange and black cupcakes.

  She found a vacant spot across the street from the Buffalo, parked, and sprinted across the road. Inside the café, warm air laden with the aromas of cinnamon and coffee greeted her. She had to maneuver around fifteen or more customers as she made her way to the counter—traffic more common to June than late October.

  “You’re busy tonight,” Anna said.

  Grace set a stainless jug next to her espresso machine and turned. “Oh, I’m glad it’s you and not five people all wanting large lattes. It’s been like this since noon.” She stepped to the counter, grinning and wearing an exaggerated expression of exhaustion. She was tired, Anna noticed, but a happy tired. “Am I going to complain about too much business?” Grace asked herself rhetorically. “No, I am not. Not these days.”

  “Not in October,” Anna said. “What’s going on?”

  “Lots of foot traffic on Summit. Halloween? I have no idea, but I thank God for it. The last half of September was slow, and in the past week I’ve more than made up for it. Now what can I do for you? Tell me you’re not having coffee. It’s almost five o’clock.”

  “I wanted to take home cupcakes.”

  “Good.” Grace slid to her left and laid her hands on either side of a cookie sheet full of cupcakes. “They’re Molly Trenton’s. She wants to open a bake shop, but she’s starting small, offering store owners a percentage to sell what she bakes at home.”

  “Good idea.”

  “She’s had to deliver twice today.”

  “A run on cupcakes.”

  “That man you were with yesterday, what’s his name?”

  “Paul Gilmartin.”

  “He was in here this morning, cleaned me out. Two dozen cupcakes.”

  “He’s having a party tomorrow.”

  “I see. Well, he wanted all black bats.”

  Anna smiled. “I’ll have to tell Liz. I like the jack-o’-lantern ones. Can I have two?” She poked around inside her purse and pulled out a five-dollar bill, putting it on the counter.

  Grace raised the plastic wrap, removed two cupcakes, and gently arranged them inside a white waxed bag. “I’ll tell you something,” she said, handing the bag to Anna. “Hand underneath the bag or they’ll go sideways. I’m considering not letting him in here again. Trouble is, he’d probably sue me.”