Scarlett couldn’t help but remember the way Betty had run that cigar along her face and smelled the scent of smoke—the way she’d sucked it in deep as if she needed the smoke more than she needed air.
“It was Betty,” Scarlett said.
“Betty is too frail,” Eleanor replied shaking her head immediately. “She’s been sick. That kind of magic could kill her.”
“It was definitely Betty,” Scarlett said again. “Lex call whoever examined Herbert after he died and see if there were signs of…neglect.”
He couldn’t though because she’d wrapped her arms around him as if to protect the future version of him, the old frail Lex. He cupped the back of her head and then her jaw and asked, “Are you all right?”
Her emotions were running high. Too high maybe for what felt normal in her head, but it didn’t seem to matter. What mattered was that she needed to feel him breathe and be sure he was ok.
“We need to get Betty to quit targeting us and then forget about the murder,” Scarlett suddenly said.
“Scarlett,” Mom said, shocked. “If Betty killed someone, we need to do far more than that.”
Scarlett took a long drink of her tea and considered in her mind, but she just couldn’t feel too bad for Jennifer…not if the guesses they made were right.
“I’m not saying murder is ok,” Scarlett started. She looked at Lex, imagined the elderly version of him, needing something and being left to die. “But…in these circumstances…the eggs are already broken. It is isn’t like Betty is going to go on a rampage.”
Gram snorted and then choked back a laugh.
“I don’t feel good,” Scarlett admitted. She took another long drink of the tea, but it might have been too late. Or maybe it was her leg. She was tired and her head was fuzzy and people were cursing her best friend and true loves were dying, and…it was just a lot. “Betty and Herbert were red threads, weren’t they? Soul mates?”
Eleanor slowly nodded.
“It was definitely Betty,” Scarlett said. “She might be frail, but it wouldn’t matter. Someone could burnout their life force for the magic necessary to kill the person who murdered their true love.”
“Even if you’re right…” Lex started. “She’s not dead.”
“But she’s all scratched up and…you know…broken inside.”
Eleanor glanced at Gram and Henna and said, “It’s possible she’s injured herself with trying to do magic she didn't have the strength for. Petra hasn’t been wrong that something was off with her grandmother just wrong about the cause.”
Henna, Gram, and Mom did one of their silent conferences seeming to speak whole conversations without words.
“She’s not strong enough,” Eleanor said. “And she’s a good woman.”
“But if this woman had been complained about time and again,” Scarlett mused. “If she’d been complained about and people weren’t listening—maybe…maybe it felt like…saving someone else?”
“I don’t like this,” Eleanor said. “Betty is a good woman…”
“I’d probably kill someone if that happened to José.”
“But…well…” Eleanor stuttered and the looked
“The wind didn’t touch her when she got so angry with us in the woods. When Petra put out Betty’s cigar,” Lex said. “You can fly with the east wind, Scarlett. What could Betty do with it? Would the east wind do that?”
“It’s not a person,” Mom said. “The east wind is a force of nature. It connects randomly…almost cruelly. To Scarlett and Harper but not to Briët’s daughters. It doesn’t make sense.”
“It makes sense,” Scarlett said rubbing her hand between her brows. “To the east wind. It doesn’t have feelings. Not like we do. It doesn’t believe in right and wrong. If Gram wanted the east wind to throw you from a building and it wasn’t being capricious, it would.”
Lex shook his head, marveling and then said, “You druids are a sneaky bunch.”
“We’re the ninjas of the supernatural world. You never realize we’re coming until it’s too late.”
“I’ll make some calls,” Lex said. “If what you’ve guessed is true, we can probably keep Betty from jail.”
“A mental hospital won’t be better,” Eleanor sighed, “And it is true. I don’t suppose you can feel it, but I can.”
Lex started making calls while Harper showed up with the pizzas. She and Gus walked into the apartment, took a look around, and Harper said to Gus, “There isn’t enough ice cream for this.”
“But there is enough pie,” he said.
“No,” Scarlett called, but it was too late, and he was down the stairs.
“It’s ok, honey,” Henna said. “You’re gonna be too sick tomorrow to work anyway. I’ll restock when I cover you.”
Scarlett glanced at Henna around the room and then moved to the pizza box. There was cheese, a tofu sweet chili thing, and one loaded with every kind of meat.
“No one got bacon?”
“Sorry,” Harper said. “I was craving something spicy and I forgot.”
Scarlett paused, leaned in and took a deep sniff, and then took a piece of the carnivore.
“Are you feeling all right?” Eleanor asked Scarlett gaze on her pizza.
Scarlett shrugged and then said, “No not really.”
She put away several pieces of pizza as much of the tea as she could stomach, several pickles and then said, “I need to sleep.”
Gus and Lex were staring at Scarlett with their food mostly untouched.
“What? Can’t I have a craving?”
“Mommy you ate things I can talk to,” Luna said disgustedly. Her gaze was fixated on Scarlett in blatant disappointment.
“Oh,” Scarlett looked at Luna and then suddenly felt sick. She ran to the bathroom and vomited it all up and then curled into her bed.
“Are you all right?” Lex asked, pushing back some of her loose hair and tucking it behind her ear. He felt her forehead. “You don’t have a fever. I wouldn’t think that getting this cold would make you puke.”
Scarlett shivered but it was at the concern in his voice. She tangled her fingers with his and said, “I don’t suppose I should be surprised that murder is so dark. When you watch a crime TV show, it reflects on the puzzle of it…I wouldn’t have expected to find out who hexed our place, who hurt Gus, who murdered that stupid woman and think…yeah, I would do that. Maybe I’m just sick because I identify with a murderer.”
“You say you would have done the same, but I know you better than that Scarlett,” Lex said. “Don’t convict yourself of a crime you haven’t committed.”
Scarlett shook her head against his palm and said, “Sooner or later you’re going to realize I don’t deserve the pedestal you have me on.”
He laid down on the bed with her, wrapping her up in his arms and helping her to control the shivers that were racking her body. After a few minutes, Luna came into the bedroom and said, “I’m sorry I made you throw up, Mommy.”
Scarlett smiled over at her baby, trying to pretend that she didn’t feel terrible. “You didn’t, little bean. Mommy is just not feeling super good.”
Luna’s face was concerned as she examined Scarlett and then she said, “Will Santa help you get better before Christmas?”
“I hope so,” Scarlett said, patting the bed next to her.
Luna skipped across the room and climbed into the covers with Scarlett. The chill hadn’t quite fully faded as Luna wrapped her arms around Scarlett and asked if they could watch a movie. Lex turned it on and in a few minutes Ella laid across the bottom of the bed and Harper and Quinton sat on the floor at the foot of the bed. Scarlett was too sick to join the family, so they’d joined her. She ignored the inane songs that would provide the soundtrack to her sleep and slipped into the darkness.
Chapter 14
Lex answering the phone woke Scarlett. The girls weren’t in the room anywhere, and the darkness of the evening had changed to the full stillness of late evening.
> “Thank you for returning my call,” he said with that formality that he used when he was trying to pretend he was devoted to being sheriff. He wasn’t really. Scarlett was sure he missed his days of being a PI and not carrying so much about little things like the law. “Really? Ok. And it was fairly evident?”
There was a murmur that Scarlett couldn’t hear. She sat up slowly, testing her illness. But other than the cloudy effects of a head cold, it was gone. Perhaps it was just food poisoning that had made her so sick, or her body rebelling against eating things that Luna could talk to. But Scarlett ate bacon nearly every other day and she had yet to puke it up.
Harper was sitting at the kitchen table with Quinton and Gus, when Scarlett walked out.
“You got me sick,” Harper said, breathing into her tea.
“You got me sick,” Scarlett countered.
“You puked first,” Harper said accusingly.
“That’s because I got so wet when I found Gus’s voodoo doll. This is all your fault,” Scarlett told Harper. “Everyone knows it.”
Harper laughed at that and then said, “So you feel like you’re gonna puke your brains out?”
“What? No. I have a cold,” Scarlett said. “I’m all done puking.”
“So you want some more pizza?” Harper asked. It was a challenge, but Scarlett ignored her sister.
“No. Gross. I just puked it up. I want a pickle, tomato, and cheese sandwich.”
She rose to make one for herself on the dark rye bread she’d been craving lately. Usually she couldn’t commit to one kind of bread, but lately, only rye sounded good.
“Mmm,” Harper said. “You’re blind.”
“You’re blind!” Scarlett sniffed and then said. “The apartment doesn’t feel right yet.”
She rose and wandered it with her eyes closed. It took her out of her apartment and down the hall. There was a closet, and it should have been empty given only Harper and Scarlett occupied apartments in the building. But there was something off about it.
“What’s she doing?” Lex asked.
“She said there is something off about the apartment and then started wandering down the hall.”
“Scarlett,” Lex called. “The family of the little girl who was suing Murphy called. And I got an email about the doctor report for Herbert. It could have been neglect as easy as old age.”
“We need to talk to Betty,” Scarlett said. “It still doesn’t explain why she targeted us. Why come after Gus and why hex bag our place?”
Harper looked at Quinton and Gus and back at Scarlett.
“Scarlett was feeling pretty under the weather,” Harper started. “Maybe let me and Lex go.”
“No,” Scarlett said. “It was my apartment that was hex bagged and Gus is an attack on us all. And…” She was running out of reasons, but she wasn’t going to be left behind.
“Scarlett is coming,” Lex said. He glanced at Harper and said, “Someone who is scary needs to stay with Gus just in case.”
Harper and Gus both frowned at Lex but he said, “I know we found the voodoo doll. I know that it was taken apart. I don’t care. Luna and Ella are here, and Harper doesn’t have the same soft spot for Gus.”
“I like Gus,” Harper said.
“You would slaughter just about anyone to keep Luna and Ella safe including a sweet little old lady who just lost her true love.”
“Well that’s true enough,” Harper said. She grinned at Lex and said, “I’m ok with being benched if it’s because I’m the most vicious. Come on, Gus. You’re benched until this is over and Quinton is on my team.”
Scarlett and Lex drove to Betty’s house. The light was on, and they found Petra behind the house calling for her grandmother.
“Did you use the knowing?” Scarlett stared through the trees. Why was it so dark? It seemed extra dark. Scarlett had felt this before. Betty was the one who’d introduced Scarlett to the feel, so it was easy to find this time.
Petra, however, had no idea what was going on.
“I guess that rules her out,” Scarlett said to Lex. He looked pale in the darkness, and she reached out, tangling her fingers with his.
Petra wailed and said, “I can’t find my magic. Without my magic, how am I supposed to find grandma?”
“You could use your brain,” Scarlett said, hearing the meanness in her voice and hoping it was the hex bag and not just because she was becoming her Gram. “It’s the hex bag, idiot. Shake off the darkness and find your magic the same way you always do.”
“Grandma wouldn’t do that to me. She wouldn’t hex bag me,” Petra said. She sniffed and her hands were shaking as she wiped her face.
“But she did,” Scarlett countered. “Obviously. Where is your grandma?”
“I don’t know. I was stupid enough to take a shower and go to bed,” Petra said. “Where is that hex bag?”
Scarlett didn’t answer. She had seen how it had taken Eleanor, Gram, Henna, and Mom to take apart the voodoo doll. She wouldn’t have thought that Betty was pulling her punches, but she had been. This hex bag was a whole other thing, and Scarlett wasn’t going to mess with it on her own.
“You need to get away from here,” Scarlett told Petra. “Eleanor and some others will come take care of the hex bag.”
“You can’t tell them,” Petra said with a plea. “They’ll find out…”
“That your Grandmother killed Jennifer Murphy? They already know.”
“They can’t know that,” Petra said. “There isn’t any evidence.”
“You don’t need fingerprints as much when it comes to using magic to murder though, do you?” Lex asked.
His fingers were anchored with Scarlett and the two of them, united, seemed to be protecting them some from the effects of the hex bag. Scarlett wasn’t sure how long that would protect them.
“We need to find her,” Scarlett said to Lex. “If she’s hex bagged her own granddaughter, she won’t be safe around anyone.”
“That’s not true,” Petra said. She headed back to the house, slamming into it. The effects of the hex bag were lesser here, which Scarlett didn’t understand at all. “She only…she’s not…”
“She only wanted to hurt Murphy?” Lex guessed. He had kept Scarlett’s hand, and Petra glanced between the two of them and then slowly nodded.
“She’s not an evil woman. Grandma truly believes that Jen killed Grandpa.”
“It seems like she probably did,” Lex told Petra who stared at him as if he’d just backhanded her.
Petra crossed to the living room and slumped onto a couch. She opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it again.
“Grandma…she must hate me,” Petra almost whimpered. “She kept saying that Jen wasn’t doing her job, but whenever I came around…everything seemed fine. And Jen was so nice. After grandpa died…everything changed. The moment Gram had him buried, she was a different woman.”
Scarlett looked around, using her magic, she found nothing.
“Was it your Grandmother who hexed Gus?”
Petra hesitated.
“She’s cleared out pretty well. You might as well tell us,” Scarlett told Petra.
“Like that means you aren’t going to look for her,” Petra snarled. But she deflated as she added, “I should have just listened to her. Or the knowing. But…it’s so hard you know. Taking care of your family while they pass. It’s so hard.”
“Why did she target us?” Scarlett asked motioning to herself and Lex. The truth was—Scarlett didn’t have a lot of sympathy for Petra at the moment. Scarlett was sorry Herbert had died, but Petra was right. She should have used the gifts she had been given. Things would have been a lot different if she’d just listened to her grandmother.
“She said you needed to be distracted. She had a three-pronged plan,” Petra said. “I didn’t know what until later, or I’d have stopped it. I swear.”
“Three prongs? Something beyond Gus and the hex bag?”
“Why us?” Lex asked at the same time
. The magic was hitting them, Scarlett could see it in the way he was becoming harder and harder.
Petra nodded looking at Scarlett and Lex. Petra opened her mouth, closed it, and then said, “I didn’t know what they were before…she just got away from me, walked into your place, and…”
“Why us?”
Petra stared for a moment and her question was truly baffled when she asked, “Don’t you know?”
“No!” Scarlett and Lex snapped together.
“But you’re the sheriff and the people who stopped the last crimes. Every time something happens that threatens Mystic Cove, the Oakens, their pet warlock, and their pet vampire step into the rescue. I thought Grandma was being totally irrational about Jen, and I still thought she was right on about you.”
Scarlett waited. She didn’t want to know what the third prong was, but Petra didn’t say anything else. Ok, so Betty had done something else to Scarlett or her family, and they’d have to figure it out.
“She what?” Scarlett snapped. “You guys can’t just hex bag a person’s home and then pretend you didn’t know what you were doing. How dare you not tell us it was happening? How dare you…violate Gus like that? You deserve the karma that is coming your way. How dare you pretend you don’t know what the ‘third prong’ is.”
Petra leaned away, her gaze not meeting Scarlett’s
Scarlett leaned into Petra and said, “Being a traveling druid is pretty hard. You should get ready for that.”
“What? Why? I didn’t…”
“Do you think the circle will stand by when you use your knowledge of me and my family to hurt us?”
“But Grandma…”
“You did nothing,” Scarlett hissed, “but watch as my daughters, friends, and family were in danger.”
“But you’re fine,” Petra said, only her gaze slid from Scarlett’s again, and she was sure that missing third prong was going to be a weighty one.
“You’re going to need to be finding a new place to be a druid. What else could you do?”
Christmas and Curses: A Mommy Cozy Paranormal Mystery (Mystic Cove Mysteries Book 6) Page 10
