Careful What You Witch For

by K. J. Emrick

  Being in jail did not agree with her.

  The Masquerade shroud that had enveloped her when Addie first saw her had started to dissolve away. She was mostly herself again. Addie doubted that something like that ever really left a person. She hoped that she would never have to find out for herself.

  Lucian was at a desk off to the side. He practically jumped up as soon as he saw them, smiling a little smile that seemed to be just for Addie. He looked tired, too. She reminded herself that he was working with very little sleep, as well.. In his own way he was just as dedicated to the people within his jurisdiction as the sisters were. Not just Birch Hollow and Shadow Lake, but also Chapelhurst off to the east. That was a lot of people to watch over and protect.

  The difference was that Lucian could go home at the end of his day and let someone else take over for a while. Addie didn’t have that luxury. Then again, here he was, after being at Pendulum Lodge until well past midnight last night. That sense of duty and responsibility was one of the things she found so attractive in him.

  When their eyes met, she felt it. Like electricity running along her skin. There was definitely something going on between them. Something magical.

  Pun intended.

  “I’ll take it from here, Brenda,” he said to the officer that had led them back to this corner of the station. “Thanks.”

  Officer Brenda nodded, but then she hesitated, motioning with her head for Lucian to talk to her out in the hall.

  Addie knew what was coming, and sure enough as she listened with her heightened witch senses she heard Officer Brenda asking why they were letting three civilians in to talk to their prisoner. Addie waited to hear what Lucian would give as an answer.

  Willow didn’t.

  “We’re advisors,” she said, raising her voice with a little smirk. “We advise on things you wouldn’t understand.”

  Brenda came back to the doorway. “Things I wouldn’t understand? You mean, like murder? I think the police know about murder. What are you three, some sort of experts?”

  “On murder?” Willow actually laughed at that. “Hardly.”

  The two women stared at each other for a long moment, until finally Addie turned Willow away, and Lucian went up the hallway with Officer Brenda at the same time.

  “That’s enough,” Addie said to Willow, “don’t you think?”

  “What?” Willow asked all innocently. “I only told her the truth.”

  “Sisters,” Kiera said, “let’s get back to what we came here to do, shall we?”

  From her jail cell, not-Eileen raised her head, pushing her long brown hair back behind her ears. “What did you come here to do?”

  “Actually, we’re here to talk to you,” Kiera told her kindly. “Do you remember us from Pendulum Lodge?”

  “Yes,” was the quiet answer. “You were there when they arrested me.”

  “Because you aren’t who you say you are. It sounds like the police had a good reason to arrest you. Especially with your husband lying dead in that chair like that.” Addie gave Willow a stern look but said nothing as Willow shrugged her shoulders in a couldn’t care less attitude.

  Not-Eileen threw her hands in the air with a sudden burst of agitation. “I know! Don’t you think I’ve wanted to tell Danny for years who I really was? The whole truth? I’ve just lived this lie for so long that there was no going back. I am who I am. I can’t change that now.”

  Willow leaned against the bars of the cell. “So what do we call you, then? If you aren’t Eileen Bellinger, who are you?”

  The woman’s eyes looked sad. “I was Eileen Bellinger. I was Danny’s wife. I loved him… so very much.”

  For a moment, the Masquerade reformed itself, wrapping itself tight, clinging to the woman like a second skin. Just as quickly, it sloughed away again.

  “I remembered my name, you know. It took me a while, but I remembered who I used to be. My name was Bethany.”

  “That’s a nice name,” Addie told her.

  “It was my grandmother’s name, I think.” She took a moment to breathe. “So, yeah. Call me Bethany. Not that it matters now. Danny is gone, and he’ll never have the chance to know me for who I am.”

  “Did he love you?” Addie asked. “Did he love you like you loved him?”

  Bethany stared at her like the question had never occurred to her before. “Um. Yes. I think so… He loved me. I know he loved me. We didn’t just say the words to each other, either. We showed our love every day. Yes. I know he did. And he knew I loved him, too.”

  “Then he knew everything he needed to.”

  When Addie told her that, a ghost of a smile came and went, changing Bethany’s expression until it wasn’t quite so gloomy. “Thank you for that. I’ve been in kind of a daze since I found Danny… like that. I’m not even sure what day it is anymore. Have they found who killed him?”

  Addie was sort of hoping that Lucian or one of the other officers would have told Bethany this part already. She supposed that everything had been happening so fast today that no one had thought of it yet. Or maybe Lucian had been waiting for the sisters to talk to her first.

  Either way. it was on them to tell her now.

  Kiera spoke first. “We believe it was Eugene Forrester.”

  Bethany blinked at Kiera, and then at Addie, and Willow too. “I don’t understand.”

  “Eugene is dead as well,” Kiera explained further. “According to Rosemary, Eugene is the one who killed your husband.”

  “No. That can’t be.”

  “Everything seems to indicate that yes, he did.”

  Kiera said the words gently, but Addie could still see Bethany recoil from them as if she’d been slapped. The idea of her husband being dead, and her secret world being revealed, had been hard enough but now this… it was all becoming too much for her.

  Addie couldn’t help but be impressed at how this woman had held things together this far. What would she be feeling herself if her world started to crumble around her? She at least had her sisters to support her. From what she understood of Bethany’s life story, this woman had no one left in her life. She must not have many close friends, for fear of her secret getting out. She and her mother had severed all ties to their family, for fear of an abusive man finding them.

  She was all alone.

  Addie stepped closer to the bars of Bethany’s holding cell. No, she was not alone. She had the Kilorian sisters. “Bethany, can you think of anyone who would want to hurt Danny? Why would Eugene have killed him in the first place?”

  “I’m telling you he didn’t do that!” Bethany had her hands up over her ears now, trying to block out the hateful words. “He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. Eugene and Danny were best friends.”

  “It was either him,” Willow said, “or it was one of the others in the lodge. Would it be better if it was one of the others?”

  “Yes!” Bethany said immediately, and then gestured helplessly with both hands. “I mean, no. I don’t know what I mean. Those other three… I don’t really know them. Eugene brought his new girlfriend. I guess they met at whatever diner he used to go to all the time. The other two were friends of Eugene’s, somehow, although I still haven’t figured out how. They were strangers to us. So, yes, it would be better for me to think that a stranger killed my husband, rather than someone we both knew and loved as a dear friend. In the end though, you know what? It doesn’t even matter. None of it matters, because no matter how it happened, my husband is still dead. I’ve still lost Danny.”

  She didn’t know the part about Eugene’s “friends” actually being frauds of their own. Addie wasn’t going to try explaining all that. The threads of this mystery had slowly started to unravel and now she was hoping that with one good tug, the rest of it would come apart too, revealing everything.

  Bethany had spent her whole life running, and along the way she had run straight into the arms of a gentle and loving man. Danny had been her soulmate, and now he was gone. Addie felt her heart twist
ing in her chest. There were some things that not even magic could fix.

  None of that, however, was helping them solve this mystery.

  “Bethany,” she tried, “let’s go back to the original question. Do you know why anyone would want to kill Danny?”

  “No, I don’t. I’ve been trying to figure that out ever since this happened.” She got up now, and started walking from the bars to the further end of the cell and back again, four steps each way. “All he ever did was help people. Especially Eugene. Those two were as tight as two people could possibly be. Danny even helped Eugene with his finances after Eugene’s wife died. Danny’s a financial advisor. It’s what he does. Eugene asked for his help and Danny didn’t even hesitate. He just did it.”

  She stopped, and dropped back down onto her bench, looking down at her hands.

  “That’s the kind of man he was,” she added, tears rolling down her cheeks.

  After a few moments it became obvious that Bethany wasn’t going to be able to tell them anything else. Not with the weight of her emotions settling over her like this. They had come here looking for answers, but now it looked like they were going to be leaving with nothing but more questions.

  With nothing more to be gained here, the sisters turned and left Eileen—no, Bethany—in her cell. Lucian met them halfway down the hall.

  “Are you finished already?” He asked, eyebrows raised in surprise..

  “Yeah,” Willow answered him. “We’re done. By the way, thanks so much for leaving us to be the ones to tell her Danny was killed by his best friend. That was great. Really.”

  He sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck. “Sorry about that. I was going to mention that before I left you guys there to talk with her. See, we don’t usually tell people things like that until we can prove it.”

  “What’s to prove?” Willow asked him, a thin layer of irritation cutting through her words. “Rosemary says Eugene did it. According to Christine, Eugene has killed before. Sounds like an easy enough case to make from where I’m standing.”

  “Mine too, it’s just…” He chewed at the inside of his lip for a moment while he made some kind of decision. “Come with me for a second.”

  He led them down the hall to a side room and closed the door behind them. “Look. As a police officer I can’t just close a case because it sounds right. I need evidence.”

  “That’s what you brought us in here to say?” Willow asked. She shook her head and leaned up against the wall, mumbling under her breath. The only word Addie caught was “Typics.”

  “Look,” he said again. “I’m still not a hundred percent sure what I can tell you. This is new territory for me. I’ve never worked with witches before. I could be breaking a dozen laws by even letting you in the building. I want to help, and I want your help, but you have to cut me some slack. This is new territory for me.”

  “For us as well,” Kiera assured him. “We’ve always worked by ourselves in the past. I have to admit, however, that this arrangement seems to be helping all of us.”

  “Thank you, Kiera. I agree.”

  That time, he got her name right.

  This room was crammed with three desks and a whole wall of filing cabinets, a bookshelf holding more office supplies than real books, and a tall fern in the corner that was doing its best not to die. This must be the detectives’ office, Addie reasoned. Lucian sat at one of the desks, where a nameplate with his name on it sat precariously close to the edge. The rest of the surface was covered with folders and stray pens and a computer screen and keyboard.

  On top of all the paperwork on his desk was a big plastic bag with a red tape seal. Addie recognized it as an evidence bag from watching crime shows on TV.

  Lucian picked it up and bounced it against his palm. “This is everything that was in Eugene’s pockets. Not much to go on, and now you’re telling me that I’ve got even less than that, since you didn’t get anything useful from not-Eileen.”

  “Bethany,” Addie said.

  He looked at her. “What?”

  “Her name is Bethany.” She shrugged. “At least we got that.”

  Lucian tossed the bag aside and sat back in his swivel chair. “Well, at least that’s something, I guess. Can’t you three just… I don’t know. Cast a spell on our three remaining suspects and find out which one is the killer?”

  Willow snorted. Addie glanced at her sharply.

  Kiera cleared her throat loudly. “I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way. We can influence them to tell the truth, certainly. That only works with simple lies, and simple truths. When someone is keeping a secret that may send them to prison for the rest of their life, they won’t give it up that easily. Prying it out could do permanent damage.”

  He thought about it, tapping a finger against the armrest. “How much damage are we talking about?”

  “The amount of power needed to pull out a secret like that,” she told him, “could fry a person’s brain. Before they could answer the question they might suffer a stroke. Or they might lapse into a coma.”

  “Or,” Willow added, “their brain might explode.”

  Lucian stared at her, his mouth hanging open.

  “What? It’s true.”

  “Okay,” he said after another moment. “Let’s call that plan Z.”

  “It can drain us as well,” Addie told him, wanting him to understand what her life was like as a witch. She’d never felt that way about any man in her life before. She did now, with Lucian. “I was spent after that spell to find Eugene’s body. I’m still not a hundred percent.”

  “So, wait. You three can do magic, but not all the time? It tires you out, or something?”

  “It’s like running,” Willow said to him. “You can run what, four miles at a stretch? Now, imagine running for two hours straight and ask yourself how you’d feel after that. The body can only take so much of anything. Spellcasting included.”

  “Okay, I think I can understand that.”

  “See? I knew you were more than just a pretty face.”

  The compliment was laced with sarcasm, but if Lucian caught the insult he didn’t say anything about it.

  Addie dropped her eyes to his desk, wondering why they were arguing about any of this at all. Two men were dead, and it was like Willow couldn’t care less. Or maybe she did care, and just didn’t know how to show it.

  She frowned. Not because of the image that suddenly came to her of her sister as a kid, playing and laughing and having fun together. What had caught her attention away from the conversation was that bag of personal effects on his desk. There was a watch, and a chain with a St. Christopher’s medal attached at one end, and two sticks of gum.

  That was all.

  “Addie?” Lucian asked her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Don’t you guys see it?” she asked. “Look at the bag. Look at what’s in it.”

  Willow looked where Addie was pointing. “It’s a bag full of things. That’s all. So what?”

  “It’s not what is there,” Addie explained. “It’s what isn’t there. The one thing I’ve never seen a man leave home without.”

  “Protection?” Willow asked with a smirk.

  “No. I’m serious. You don’t see it?”

  “I think I do,” Kiera said. “Yes. I think we need to go back to Pendulum Lodge. This raises more questions, doesn’t it?”

  Willow put her fists on her hips. “I know I’ve got a few. Like, what are you guys talking about?”

  “I’m curious myself,” Lucian said. “Did my guys miss something? I made sure everything got bagged up properly before Eugene’s body went off to the morgue.”

  “Already?” Addie asked him. “Eugene’s body is at the morgue already?”

  “Of course. It’s not like we can just leave the body anywhere. It has to go to the morgue.”

  Of course they would. Why didn’t she think of that before. “Do they have a cause of death yet?”

  “Um… I’m not sure. I’ve been
expecting it… just give me a minute.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and quickly dialed. Only able to hear Lucien’s side of the conversation Addie studied his face for clues as he spoke. His face soured as he listened to the person on the other end. A few moments later he ended the call and turned to face the sisters.

  “Well?” Addie prompted.

  He took a breath. “Knife attack, same as Danny. In fact, the shape and size of the wound indicates it was the same knife that killed Danny, too. Almost had to be. That knife was the only one of that size in the set.”

  “The same knife that was on the ground where Danny was murdered?”

  “Yes,” he said, “that’s right.”

  The sisters exchanged looks with each other. That new bit of information turned the whole mystery upside down.

  They definitely needed to get back to the lodge, before their three suspects could leave or someone else ended up dead. There was a murderer to catch.

  Chapter 13

  Pendulum Lodge was busier than when the sisters had left it just a few hours ago. After Lucian called ahead to make sure his officers didn’t let anyone leave, he had the dispatcher at the front desk of the police station send two more cars there. Those other cars arrived just before they did, Lucian in his plain blue sedan, and the sisters in Addie’s Jeep.

  Lucian took a few moments to explain the situation to the officers at the lodge, while their three suspects waited over in the common area. Addie had explained everything she had figured out before they left Birch Hollow, and when she was done even Willow agreed. Now it was just a matter of proving it.

  The last thing Lucian told the other officers was that the Kilorian sisters had the floor. One of them started to argue about that, until Lucian told him if he had any objections to the way the investigation was being run he could take it up with the Chief. That seemed to silence everyone very nicely.

  He turned to Addie, and gave her an encouraging smile. She felt that same tingling along her spine that she seemed to get whenever he flashed those blue eyes of his. It was like a shot of pure adrenaline. No, she thought. It was like magic. It made her want to be better.