Familiar Motives

by Delia James

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I’ve just . . . it’s been a crazy couple of days.”

  “I know,” he said softly. He stuck both hands in his suit pockets. “I’ve been . . . I keep thinking I should call, and then I keep thinking I should give you space and . . .” He sighed. “What can I do to help?”

  “Maybe you should help yourself and stay away.” I’d meant to be firm. Someone around here should be strong and sensible about this. But the words came out as only a whisper.

  “No,” said Sean. “That is definitely not the answer. Would you like to use one of your lifelines?”

  “You have no idea how much.”

  Sean scratched his chin and gave every appearance of considering this carefully. “Well, I hate to throw you into the arms of another man, but, you know, that looks like Frank Hawthorne over there.”

  I followed his gaze. “You mean the guy standing on the fringes casually taking notes? Yes. I do believe that is Frank.”

  “Go get ’em, tiger,” he said. “And call me tonight?”

  “Okay. I will,” I said, but I seemed to be having trouble turning away. There was something I wanted to ask, but I had no idea how.

  Sean grinned. “And just in case you were wondering, Anna, you are not going to scare me off.”

  “No,” I answered. “I guess I’m not.”

  And he smiled and I smiled and his eyes twinkled, and I think, for just a minute there, my eyes might have twinkled back.

  • • •

  I PAUSED BY the buffet table for a plate of carrot sticks and miniquiches. This was mostly protective coloration. It allowed me to look semicasual as I strolled toward Frank Hawthorne, who stood at the edge of the gathering in a dark blue suit and overcoat I had no idea he owned.

  He still had his notebook out and was still scribbling. I suspect he’d started when the service did and hadn’t stopped since.

  “Hi, Frank.” I held out the plate of snacks.

  He waved the end of his pencil at me in greeting but shook his head at my offered plate of carrots and quiche.

  “Notes on the service?”

  “Head count,” he answered, without hesitation or any trace of shame. But that’s Frank, an unabashed professional, even at a funeral.

  “Anybody in particular missing?” I asked him, thinking about how Rachael Forsythe kept watching the crowd.

  “Actually, there is,” said Frank. “Cheryl Bell.”

  I could not believe I hadn’t noticed that. But he was right.

  “Well, she wouldn’t exactly be welcome, would she?”

  “She doesn’t have to be welcome. There’s a camera truck up the street. I can’t believe she’s missing the chance to be in front of it.” He paused. “I don’t suppose you saw Kristen Summers, did you?”

  “She didn’t come,” I told him. “She said she didn’t want to cause problems.”

  “Can I ask who told you that?”

  I smiled. Frank shrugged and made a few more notes.

  I took a deep breath. I hated using a funeral to ask awkward questions. It felt disrespectful, but I didn’t know when I’d get another chance to bring this particular subject up with Frank. “Frank . . . have you heard anything about Ramona Forsythe having any kind of legal trouble?”

  Frank’s pencil went still. “Why do I get the feeling I could ask you that same question?”

  I bit into a carrot stick. Frank frowned. “Anna, are you going to try to tell me you are protecting a source?”

  “No, not really. But . . . I was talking to Enoch Gravesend yesterday, and something he said, or, rather, something he didn’t say, got me wondering.”

  “Uh-huh.” Frank scribbled down another note. “Well, there’s certainly nothing on the surface. I’ve been looking. When I haven’t been fielding phone calls about the cat.” He grimaced. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything about her, have you?”

  I shook my head. Last night had been another long one, with Alistair not home, and his kibble bowl was full in the morning. I was starting to think Julia must be right. It had to be magic that was keeping Ruby so thoroughly hidden. I wondered again if she was even still alive.

  “Did Enoch not say anything else helpful?” prompted Frank.

  “Well . . . he didn’t talk about Pam Abernathy.”

  Frank considered this. “Did he talk about Cheryl Bell?”

  “Her he talked about. At least, he talked about the lawsuit.”

  “Hmm. Interesting.” Frank made another note. “Thanks. I’ll do some digging. See what turns up.”

  I wondered if Frank knew that Kristen was staying with Val. I wondered if he and Kristen had talked yet, with or without Pam there, and what they’d said.

  I glanced over at the little knot my coven sisters had formed around Julia. Kenisha was not standing with the others. She was on her own, standing by the far edge of the pavilion, sipping something from a paper cup, and watching me and Frank.

  I grimaced and turned away before Frank could see whom I was staring at. Too late. He made another note.

  “Um . . . Frank . . . ,” I began, but I was too slow.

  “Sorry, Anna, gotta go work the crowd.” He smiled. “But I will call you if I find anything, okay? Okay.”

  Before I could answer, Frank had slipped away into the gathering, stopping to talk with people here and there and to pet the dogs and admire the birds and the hamster. Frank was a people person; that was part of what made him such a good journalist. Everybody liked him, and they liked talking to him.

  I sighed and tried not to feel guilty about us both.

  So, Anna, what do you do now? I asked myself as I popped a now-cold miniquiche into my mouth. Myself had very few useful ideas. I didn’t like the glances the Forsythes, particularly Wendy, were casting at my coven sisters. I didn’t like how the coven was on one side of the pavilion, while Kenisha was alone on the other. I didn’t like both Kristen and Cheryl not being there.

  I didn’t like the feeling I’d come here just to fish for gossip. I really didn’t like the feeling that if I stayed, I was going to ask one question too many.

  For once, I decided, I would listen to the better angels of my nature. I tossed my empty plate into the recycling bin. It was time for me to give my condolences to the family and go. No. Really. This time I meant it.

  As usual, however, it turned out my better angels had shown up a little late.

  “Excuse me, Anna Britton?”

  I turned and found Rachael Forsythe standing right behind me.

  28

  “HELLO, RACHAEL. I’M very sorry for your loss.” It is, of course, the standard phrase, but I did mean it.

  “Thank you.”

  Rachael Forsythe had her mother’s round, open face and her same brown hair, although she wore hers cut in a pageboy.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to know your mother better,” I went on, mostly to stave off any kind of awkward silence, which would be very awkward indeed.

  “You made an impression, though,” said Rachael. “She talked about you.”

  “She did?” I drew back, just a little.

  Rachael shrugged. “We talk a lot. That is, we did. We . . .” She shook her head, hard. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. When my mother died, we were so busy for a couple of weeks, with all the arrangements and the thank-yous, it was like I could put what happened out of my mind, but then I’d sit still for five minutes and it would hit me that she was really gone.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I cried. A lot. And I had my family, and my dad . . .” I stopped and bit my tongue. No one had talked about Rachael’s father yet. There was usually a reason for that.

  The corner of Rachael’s mouth twitched. “Mom and Dad split up when I was in high school. He died bungee-jumping with his twenty-year-old thi
rd wife.” She looked at my face. “Don’t worry, no one knows what to say about that.”

  I felt myself smile, just a little. “Sometimes there’s just nothing good to say.”

  “Like how right now there’s no good way to ask what Mom said about you?” suggested Rachael.

  Busted. Again. I really was going to have to do something about this complete lack of a poker face. “Yes, like that,” I agreed.

  Rachael’s smile was sad but genuine. “Mom told me you were a member of Julia’s coven.” She nodded toward my mentor where she stood with a group of women and their dogs. “Which put you on the wrong side of some old family arguments. She said that you were Alistair’s partner and Annabelle Blessingsound’s granddaughter, and that you sometimes . . . you had a knack for finding things out.”

  She looked across the crowd, but the distance in her gaze told me she was seeing something much farther away. “My mother really was murdered, wasn’t she?”

  What should I say? What would be kinder? But there was no kind way to talk about a mother’s death. The only question was whether I’d lie or tell the truth. And I was not going to lie.

  “I think she was, yes,” I said. “So do the police.”

  “Because of something to do with Ruby?” There were equal parts fear and hope mixed into that question, and something else as well: anger.

  “Nobody’s sure yet. But the police have their best people on this. Including Kenisha Freeman.” I nodded to where Kenisha stood with Pete Simmons. Trish had come up to them both, and they were talking while she restlessly thumbed her phone. “She’s a coven sister and she knows what she’s doing.”

  “I’m sure she does.” Rachael rubbed her gloved hands together, hard, like she was trying to get rid of something nasty. “Aunt Wendy says you’ve already been . . . well, Aunt Wendy calls it sticking your nose in.”

  Aunt Wendy right now was standing with a cluster of other Forsythe family members near the lectern and staring daggers at her niece and me.

  Rachael grabbed my hand and held on.

  “I just wanted to say, please keep going,” she said. “Whatever happens, whatever Aunt Wendy says, promise me you won’t give up. I want whoever did this found. I want them locked up. I want . . .”

  Whatever Rachael wanted, she couldn’t finish telling me. I looked into her eyes and saw the echo of a kind of pain and anger I remembered all too well. Even though I understood it, Rachael’s intensity made me uneasy. “Rachael, can you answer a question?”

  She glanced sharply over her shoulder, looking for her aunt Wendy, I was certain. Aunt Wendy was gesturing the Forsythes she was standing with toward the line of cars parked on the street.

  “Anything,” Rachael said.

  “Did your mother own a computer?”

  “Of course she did. In fact, I just helped her set up her new laptop when I was home on break. Why?”

  “The police can’t find it. Did your mom say anything about losing it? Or if it got stolen? Or . . . ?”

  Rachael picked up on that hanging “or” right away. A light sparked in the back of her eyes, and she fished in her small black purse.

  “Do you know, I’m going to have to clean out Mom’s rooms, but I’m not . . . not ready yet. Maybe you can go in . . . and take a look for me?” She held out the keys.

  The hairs on the back of my neck prickled, and I glanced around. There was Julia, and yes, she was watching me and Rachael. I thought about the spell of attraction she worked on me and for me, and my stomach turned over uncomfortably.

  “I . . . um . . . Are you sure, Rachael?”

  “Please,” said Rachael softly. “It would really help. I need to know there’s somebody who’s on my side.”

  I heard what she was saying at the same time I looked into her eyes. There was something else there, beyond the grief and the anger: a cold determination that I recognized and understood. That didn’t stop it from sending a cold thread of fear through me.

  I told myself I was already up to my neck in this. I was already asking questions and digging dirt for Val and Kristen, and Kenisha and Julia, and myself. Adding one more person to that list wasn’t going to make any real difference.

  I closed my hand around the keys and nodded. I just couldn’t turn away from someone else who had just lost her mother.

  Rachael did not smile. Grim lines settled into place around her eyes, and for a moment, she looked a lot like her aunt Wendy, who just happened to be sailing right up to her side.

  “Rachael, there you are.” Wendy’s smile was thin and small as she took her niece’s arm. “I’ve been looking all over for you. It’s time to leave for the cemetery, dear.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Rachael, but her eyes did not leave mine. My fingers prickled. It’s the cold, I told myself. Really. Just the cold.

  Aunt Wendy’s gaze flickered between us. “Could you go find Angela for me?” she asked Rachael.

  Rachael blinked, and the prickling vanished. “Right. Yes. It was good talking to you, Anna. Be sure to bring Alistair by the clinic soon. I’m helping Jeannie and everybody out with the special patients, and I’ll be glad to have a look at him.”

  This last remark came out of the blue, but I knew what it was. It was Rachael’s way of providing cover for this conversation, and the next one—the one we were going to have after I’d searched her mother’s apartment.

  Whatever Rachael thought I might or might not find, she did not want Aunt Wendy to know I was looking.

  Rachael nodded once, as if confirming my thought, and moved away into the crowd, leaving me to face the formidable, and quietly seething, Aunt Wendy.

  At least I thought she was seething until I took a second look. Those were tears shining in her eyes.

  “Now, Anna Britton.” She faced me without any other greeting. “I don’t know what you think you’re up to, but you need to stay out of this. Whatever she said to you, you should realize that she is furious and she is not thinking straight.”

  I found myself wondering which “she” Wendy was talking about. Was it Rachael or Julia? I opened my mouth to ask, but Wendy had already turned away and stalked back to the cluster of her family who were gathering to go say their last farewells to the mourners.

  Well. What now? I bit my lip and glanced toward my coven sisters where they were gathered around Julia, all of them talking together. Almost all of them. Kenisha was still on her own at the far edge of the gathering, sipping her drink and watching us. I was sure she’d seen me with Rachael and Aunt Wendy, and probably Frank as well.

  I didn’t like the fact that she was not over with the others. I really did not like the fact that I was standing here with Rachael’s keys in my pocket.

  But I realized all at once that those keys gave me a perfect way to square at least one of the particular circles that surrounded me.

  I headed through the thinning crowd toward Kenisha.

  “Hey, Britton,” she said softly.

  “Hi,” I said back. “Not feeling much like socializing?” I nodded toward the others.

  “Nope.”

  “Nothing new wrong?”

  “Not yet. I just don’t want to accidentally start something.” I wished she wasn’t looking at Julia right then.

  “You know, if you’re really worried about Julia, you could just talk to her.”

  “I know. It’s going to have to happen, but . . .” She didn’t finish that sentence, and she clearly did not like the fact that she couldn’t finish it.

  I decided now would be a good time to change the subject. “I was talking to Rachael Forsythe.”

  “I noticed.”

  “She’s really upset.”

  “Noticed that too.”

  “She gave me the keys to her mother’s apartment.”

  Kenisha’s head snapped around. “She what?”

&
nbsp; “She gave me the keys to her mother’s apartment. She asked me if I would look for that missing laptop, because she’s not ready to go in and face it yet.” I paused and made sure I had her full attention.

  “She asked you to go look in her mother’s apartment?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she gave you the keys? All on her own? Without any prompting?”

  “Yep.” I held the ring up for her to see.

  “That’s . . . unexpected.” Kenisha did not like this turn of events, I could tell. But I couldn’t tell exactly why.

  “Do you think I shouldn’t go?”

  “That depends,” said Kenisha slowly. “Do you think there’s something there Rachael Forsythe really wants found?”

  I lowered the keys. I also thought about the anger in Rachael’s eyes. It was the kind of anger that could lead you to do something foolish.

  “Yes,” I said slowly. “I think it’s possible.”

  “Then I think you should go,” Kenisha told me. “And I think you should take me with you.”

  29

  THE FIRST THING I noticed when I pulled into the parking lot of the Riverview Condominiums was that all indications that the place had recently been a crime scene were gone. The second was that Kenisha, despite the fact that I knew she hadn’t gone a mile over the posted speed limit, had somehow beaten me there.

  This time there was no helpful neighbor to hold the door, so we used the keys to get inside. As we headed down the hallway, I dug my hand into my purse and curled my fingers around my wand.

  “Anna?” Kenisha stopped in front of the door of 2B.

  “Yes?” I blinked at her. The air was still heavy with anger and greed. I should have taken the time to get my shields in place before we came in, but I’d been too distracted with my thoughts about the funeral and how Rachael had been so ready to let me into her mother’s apartment. And then there was Aunt Wendy, who was guarding her family as if there might be something to hide. And what about Kristen, who hadn’t been there? And Pam Abernathy? And Cheryl Bell?