After rattling off the number and disconnecting the call, I moved my car to the other side of the circle drive so I wouldn’t impede anyone trying to get in. Then I put it in park and cast about for something to do. I hadn’t brought my Kindle because I had expected this to be a twenty minute job, so I pulled out my cell phone and sent random text messages to my friends. Every so often, I would get one back, but most of the others had things to do.
My mind began to wander, and I found the wilted plants became the central focus of my daydreams. Somewhere out there, I imagined Belinda hurt or dead. Something wasn’t right, and while I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, conclusions were busily jumping at me.
I checked my watch so often it didn’t seem to move, but at some point it must have, because an hour came and went. No one came by her store, and no one returned to the truck, but I had no idea how much business Belinda usually got. Maybe she had so little business that she didn’t bother opening the shop some days. I had an idea how that felt, and I had only been at it for six months.
I had nearly decided to give up when a car pulled into Belinda’s driveway, but it wasn’t hers. The metallic blue Prius looked familiar, but I didn’t place it until Evan Blackwood stepped out, raked his fingers through thick, nearly black hair that touched his shoulders in waves, and started up the front path. He had spent a moment looking at the pickup truck parked right in front, but he hadn’t seemed to notice me on the far side of the drive.
I hadn’t seen Evan more than a handful of times since high school, which was something of a relief to my father, who has hated Evan’s father for longer than I’ve been alive. We weren’t exactly what you would call friends, at least not since junior high. I’m not quite sure what we were, actually, though we were best friends in grade school. After that, things got complicated. From a shy, uncertain boy, Evan became an outwardly confident teen with a bit of a dark side. More than a bit, depending upon who you asked.
He looked like a man on a mission as he strode up the porch steps and took a long look at the CLOSED sign. I opened my mouth, ready to shout out to him what little I knew for sure–that Belinda wasn’t home–but something held me back. What was Evan doing there? The obvious answer, that he needed some plants or herbs, didn’t fit because I knew for a fact that Henry Wolf, the man to whom Evan was apprenticed, refused to buy from Belinda for the same reasons my parents did. I even thought Evan’s father had issues with the woman, though that might have simply been a rumor I picked up somewhere.
A sick possibility twisted my stomach–perhaps Belinda had him under one of her spells. True, he was about half her age, but it wouldn’t be the first time she had gone after a much younger man, especially one as dangerously attractive as Evan. Plus, he was among the most powerful sorcerers in town, one of those who could get away with anything and knew it, and Belinda would find that compelling.
When Evan rang the bell, I decided to announce my presence. I stuck my head out the car window and called, “She’s not home.”
I must have caught him by surprise, because as he jumped, so did two rocking chairs, a swing, and the wilting plants. With a startled gasp, I drew my head back inside the car. It’s not a good idea to sneak up on a sorcerer, especially one with a strong gift like telekinesis. I didn’t think he would consciously hurt me, but accidents happened. With six powerful brothers and sisters, I knew that better than anyone.
“Hi, Cassie. It’s been a long time.” Evan tucked his hands into his jeans pockets and strode down the driveway to my car. He had given up wearing all black, choosing instead blue jeans and a dark green t-shirt that suited his complexion far better than the black ever had. Not that I had ever told him, but I thought black made him look more washed out than dangerous.
He looked good. And tall. He’d grown in the last three years, so that by the time he reached my car, he practically towered over me, giving him, impossibly, an air of even greater strength than before.
“Hi, Evan,” I said with forced casualness. “You locked yourself away with Mr. Wolf and haven’t come down to see the rest of us mere mortals.”
“He’s a slave driver, but he’s brilliant.” He leaned against the side of my car, the image of practiced nonchalance.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. I wished he would look at me. You can tell if someone is the victim of a love potion if you can get a good look at the whites of their eyes–they’ll look a little pink. He wasn’t avoiding my gaze, precisely, but he did seem preoccupied with the red pickup truck.
“I’m just here for some herbs.” It was such an obvious lie, I couldn’t believe he bothered to tell it.
“Come on, Evan. Mr. Wolf doesn’t buy from Belinda.”
He glared at me, and it occurred to me that not too many people would have called him on the lie. “She’s the only herbalist within three hundred miles to get mandrakes this year.”
Another lie, but this time, I let it go. I didn’t fear him, the way many others did, but if he didn’t want to talk, I couldn’t force an answer from him.
“So, how long have you been waiting here?” Evan asked.
“About an hour. I was just about to give up, actually. This was supposed to be a quick job.”
“Yes.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t think you’d still be here.”
“You knew I’d be here?”
“I told Frank to hire you.”
“You did?” I had no idea whether to feel flattered or embarrassed. On the one hand, I didn’t want to feel like some kind of charity case, but on the other hand, I needed the business, and it was nice of Evan to think of me. I hadn’t even known he knew about my business.
“Of course I did,” Evan said, as if it were obvious. He shifted slightly, and looked down at me, finally holding my gaze long enough for me to see that the whites of his eyes didn’t contain a hint of pink, although by then I had pretty much dismissed the love potion theory.
“I admit,” Evan continued, studying my face, “I was surprised to find out you’d quit the sheriff’s department, but I always knew you’d do well at whatever you tried.”
I turned my face away, so he wouldn’t see the slight flush creep across my cheeks. I wouldn’t admit it to him, but it had been a long time since anyone had paid me a real compliment, and there was something about his matter-of-fact tone that told me he meant it.
“How do you know Frank?” I asked.
“I’m helping him with his lawsuit.”
“Really?” I didn’t know which surprised me more: that he was helping with a lawsuit at all, when doing so might require him to share knowledge, something sorcerers avoided at all costs. Or that he was helping with this lawsuit, involving love potions. Rumor had it, he had cast a few himself once upon a time, and surely this would revive those rumors.
“Master Wolf told me to do some community service as a senior project, so I volunteered as an expert witness.”
“You’re an expert on love potions?” I meant to tease him, but somehow the words sounded all wrong as soon as I said them. My mind flashed back to a day when we were fourteen, and I asked him if the rumors were true. Afterward, he didn’t speak to me for six months.
“I don’t brew them, if that’s what you mean.”
“Of course not. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it.”
For a minute, he didn’t say anything, then he took a deep breath and reached through the driver’s side window to take my hand in his. Though casual and almost unconscious, the touch sparked something in me that reminded me of the silly crush I’d had on him in high school. It had been entirely one-sided, since he had never noticed me as a woman, and ill-advised for even more reasons than that, not the least of which was our families’ mutual enmity. Still, like dozens of other silly girls, I felt the attraction. To the danger? To his looks? To the power? I don’t know. I’d like to think, in my case, it was to the boy he had been before all that, and who, deep down, I
thought was still the real him.
“I’m not an oversensitive fourteen-year-old anymore,” Evan said. “It’s okay.”
“Good.” I pulled my hand away from his, and reminded myself that I didn’t have silly crushes any longer. I had a boyfriend, after all.
Evan tucked his hands back into his pockets, and looked at the red pickup one more time. “You know, if Belinda hasn’t shown up all morning, there’s probably no point waiting around for her. You should go home.”
It wasn’t quite a command, but it came close. He knew who owned the red truck, I decided, and he had business here he didn’t want me to see. Since I didn’t see any hope of carrying out my business in the near future, I agreed to leave without much fuss, even if my curiosity gnawed at me.
“I’ll stop by to see you sometime soon,” Evan said. “We should catch up.”
“Yeah,” I said, barely aware of my rote response. “That would be great.”
As I pulled the car out of the driveway, my cell phone rang. I answered it before turning onto Lakeshore Drive.
“Hi Cassie,” Sheriff Adams said from the other end of the line. “I ran that check you asked for. Car belongs to Nancy Hastings.”
“Really?” Nancy Hastings was Evan’s cousin, and only sixteen or seventeen.
“She’s a minor,” Sheriff Adams said, “but we don’t have any reports about her. Do you think there’s a problem?”
“Maybe, but her car probably just broke down.” I didn’t believe it, not with Evan there, and acting so strangely, but if his family didn’t want the sheriff’s help, I wasn’t going to involve him.
But my own personal curiosity refused to be assuaged, so as soon as I got off the phone, I found a place to turn around and headed back to Belinda’s house. If Evan had been any other sorcerer, I might not have dared, but I thought I could handle him. He wasn’t safe, as my father used to constantly remind me, but I understood him, to a point. He wouldn’t hurt me.
He didn’t hear me approach, which made sense when I saw him sitting on Belinda’s front porch, surrounded by black candles, and lost in some kind of spell. Judging by the wicks, the candles had not been burning for long, but how long he might be there was anybody’s guess. Spells could take anywhere from a few seconds to a few days to cast. Evan’s position, his posture, and the black candles made it look to me as though he was attempting to break through whatever magical protections Belinda had on her house.
A gentle breeze began playing with my hair, tying it into tiny knots. The same breeze blew out the candles surrounding Evan, and very slowly, his posture shifted.
“How long have you been standing there?” he asked, and I couldn’t tell, from his tone, whether or not he was upset.
“A few minutes.”
“I should have known you wouldn’t leave. You’re too curious for your own good, you know that?”
“So my parents keep telling me. Evan, why are you trying to break into Belinda’s house?”
“I don’t want you involved with this,” he said.
“I am involved. I used to work for the sheriff and even if I don’t anymore, there are some things I can’t ignore.” I paused before adding. “Like breaking and entering.”
“Are you threatening to call the sheriff on me?” Evan arched his eyebrows in a manner I can only call arrogant. He had perfected the look years ago, and it reminded me that he, too, was part of the untouchable elite that had helped drive me out of law enforcement.
“Of course not,” I said, knowing I sounded petulant, but not caring. “It wouldn’t do any good. It never does.”
“Is that why you left the sheriff’s department?” He had always been too perceptive, especially where I was concerned.
“Just forget it.”
He narrowed his eyes, looking like he wanted to say something else, but I waved him off.
“I need to clean up here.” Evan gave me an inquisitive look, as if he thought he needed permission to use magic in front of me.
“It’s okay.” I was used to watching the people around me perform magic; that wasn’t the part that bothered me.
With an almost casual wave of his arm, all the candles flew into the air and threw themselves into the backseat of his car.
“I know that’s your cousin’s truck,” I said.
His eyes searched my face. “How do you know that?”
“Does it matter?”
“My aunt and uncle were hoping to handle this quietly, in case someone decided to take advantage of the situation. I don’t know what happened to her, but I don’t want the wrong person to find her before I do.”
“I had the sheriff run a license plate check,” I said. “I asked him when I first got here, because it didn’t look right, but when he told me who it was a few minutes ago, I did try to convince him to let it go.”
“Okay, nothing to be done about it now.” He ran his fingers through his hair again, and looked at the door.
“Can I help, since I’m here? You know I won’t say anything.”
“I trust you, but I don’t want you hurt. I don’t know what’s going on here, but Nancy never went home last night, and when I started looking for her this morning, I couldn’t even find her with a hair sample. Anything but blood can be fooled, but not without... skill.” I had the impression he meant to say something else, more along the lines of power, but I didn’t push.
“I can help,” I said. “If magic isn’t working, you need an investigator.”
“Cassie–”
“I’m going with you or I’m calling the sheriff. Which is it going to be?” I was mostly bluffing, but I also found myself curious to know what he would actually do if I did call in the mundane authorities, as some of the practitioners liked to call them.
Evan closed his eyes tightly, and when he opened them again, he fastened his crystal blue eyes on me in a manner I had seen him use countless times to intimidate, though never with me. “I could stun you and lock you in your car. Is that what you want?”
I knew he’d done something similar to Marshall Burks in the ninth grade, leaving the boy on the school bus all night. Most people agreed that he’d had it coming for stealing a smaller boy’s lunch money, but since Evan hadn’t been speaking to me at the time, I hadn’t felt like cutting him any slack. Besides, I thought the incident, along with many others, had more to do with him wanting to prove his own power. Well, he could pull that act on other people if he had to, but I refused to let him intimidate me.
“If you really think there’s danger here,” I said, “wouldn’t I be in worse shape locked in a car, completely helpless?”
His eyes darkened, but he nodded, stiffly. “Fine, but stay quiet for a while. I’m not quite done with the protections.”
I stepped onto the porch, but did not interrupt his spell casting. The magical world is full of all kinds of dangers. There are magical creatures, negative energies, unfriendly spells, and of course, other magic users. Sorcerers tend to be the worst. There is nothing so evil in the world as what humans can do to one another, or so Dad always said.
The point is, it’s unwise to simply burst into a magic user’s house. There would undoubtedly be wards, spells, traps, and protective plants. I had a feeling his earlier spell had disarmed most of the wards, but there were still the plants. Even wilted, the ivy wouldn’t take kindly to trespassers.
After a minute or so, I felt a spray of dust on my face. It coincided with a small, almost unremarkable popping noise.
“All clear,” Evan said.
I coughed and brushed the dust out of my hair.
He offered me his hand. “Just in case I missed something.”
He made it sound like a request, but it wasn’t. I took his hand, and with Evan slightly ahead, we stepped over the threshold.
Nothing happened.
“Hmm,” Evan said. “That’s not a good sign. Not even a tingle.”
I’d never experienced what he was referring to, but I understood that sorcerers are weake
r when crossing a threshold uninvited. Some magical creatures, such as vampires, can’t cross a threshold at all.
Most of the first floor of Belinda’s house was given over to a shop with shelves, bottles of potions, magical herbs, and a few new-age trinkets, some of which work. We breezed through it on our way in, and made a careful search of the rest of the house.
I would describe Belinda’s decorating style as elegant. She chose rich colors and patterns that commanded attention and proclaimed wealth. She seemed to love knick-knacks. Her collection of crystal and porcelain flooded shelves, curios, and the tops of tables.
An efficient three-year-old could have destroyed the place in five minutes. Ten, with supervision. Belinda didn’t have so much as a niece or nephew to pay her a visit.
We didn’t speak as we looked through the formal living room, dining room, kitchen, and laundry room. There was no sign of Belinda. No sign of a struggle, either, but that didn’t put me at ease. I was still very aware of the fact that I was trespassing in a witch’s home.
Upstairs was more of the same. Belinda had three bedrooms: one for her, one for guests, and one that she had turned into an office. We looked in bathrooms and in closets, but nobody was home.
When we went back downstairs, I noticed a door leading to a screened-in back porch and started to turn the handle when my hand froze on the doorknob. My whole body stiffened, and my mouth went dry, so it took me several tries to alert Evan to what I’d seen.
“I found her,” I finally managed, in barely a whisper.
Nancy Hastings, Evan’s sixteen-year-old cousin, lay in a pool of her own blood, eyes vacant and staring. Her hair had been a rich, luminous brown but was now matted with blood. It looked as if her throat had been torn out.
“No!” The cry tore from his throat and before I had a chance to stop him, Evan was inside the room and leaning over the body, looking for any sign of life, and probably destroying any trace evidence the police might have collected. But I couldn’t blame him. I would have reacted precisely the same way, if it had been my family. As it was, I had to wipe away tears before I could get to my phone and call the sheriff. The need for secrecy had passed.
Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective Page 2
