“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“What happened to you?” Evan gestured at my hair and blotchy skin.
I groaned. Apparently, this was going to be an issue all day, but at least Evan might understand. “It was an accident. Mom’s pregnant again.”
“Oh.” Something flickered across his face, so quickly anyone else would have missed it, but it reminded me of his reaction every time I told him my mother was pregnant again. He didn’t like being an only child.
“What got her so worked up?” Evan asked.
“Oh.” My face went red, and I found myself wishing I had a drink, so I could cover the awkward moment.
As if on cue, Kaitlin swung by with a couple of cokes, setting one down in front of each of us, though she only had eyes for Evan. She gave him her flirtiest smile, leaned in close, and said, “On the house.”
I glared at her, but she didn’t see. Evan, on the other hand, didn’t seem to know what to do with her, which struck me as odd, since he had never had any trouble with girls in the past. Not that he had ever shown any interest in Kaitlin. I think she was too needy.
“Thanks,” Evan said. “I can pay.”
“I bet you can,” Kaitlin said, still smiling. “Can I recommend the fried chicken sandwich?”
“Sure,” he said.
“Coming right up.”
Evan stared after her.
“It’s your own fault, you know,” I said. “She thinks you rescued her and made that guy fall on his face.”
“I didn’t,” he said. I had assumed as much, but it was nice to have confirmation.
“They were about to call the police; you didn’t have to get involved.”
“The place is full. I didn’t want to wait for a table.”
I shook my head. “You haven’t changed, have you?”
“In some ways, no, in some ways, quite a bit. But in case you were wondering, you haven’t succeeded in distracting me. Why was your mom so upset? It’s not because you’re working for me, is it?”
I sighed, resigned to telling him the truth, or at least, part of it. “Juliana was spying on me last night when I dropped the love potion on my foot. She told my parents about it, with some embellishments, just for spite.”
He nodded his understanding, but he didn’t ask further questions.
“So listen,” I said, “I assume you heard about Belinda?”
“That’s why I’m here.” Evan took a sip of the coke, closed his eyes, and added. “And for the food. I haven’t had anything remotely sugary or greasy in three years. Master Wolf thinks that stuff interferes with the harmonious balance of natural energies.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“No idea. Now, tell me about Belinda.”
I took a deep breath. “She turned.”
Surprise flickered across Evan’s face, but before he had a chance to follow up on my statement, Kaitlin arrived with our sandwiches. Very intentionally, she brushed Evan’s arm as she set his plate in front of him. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
“How about some ketchup?” I said, loudly, from the other side of the booth.
Her smile faltered when she looked at me. “All right.”
“She turned?” Evan prompted, when Kaitlin had disappeared.
“Yes.” Quickly, I gave him a run-down of what I had seen that morning, and what I suspected. He didn’t contradict anything I said, not even my confusion over the blood at the scene, which I had hoped he could shed some light on.
“Did she kill Nancy?” Evan asked.
“I don’t know. I realize that when Belinda died, the threshold around her house disappeared, but the attack still probably happened in daylight. So I’m not sure what to think, and I don’t want to start drawing conclusions until I have a few more facts.”
“What’s next, then?” Evan asked.
“Something needs to be done about the sheriff, we should probably talk to Jasmine Hewitt to ask her about the anti-venom vaccine, and it might be time to talk to some of Belinda’s alleged boyfriends, to find out which one she spent the weekend with. I have a feeling Belinda was turned over the weekend, while she was at the cabin, because of the blood, and because the resort’s log indicated she checked in Friday evening, before sunset.”
“I’ve got an idea for the sheriff,” Evan said. “I can take care of it this afternoon, after lunch.”
I glanced at Madison, who was pretending not to watch Evan and me. A week or two ago, she had mentioned her suspicion that her hairdresser was one of Belinda’s latest paramours, which gave me an idea. “And I think I’m going to find out if Madison’s hairdresser takes walk-ins. If he doesn’t have any good information for me, maybe he’ll at least keep people from looking in horror at my hair.”
11
IT WOULD BE PRETTY DAUNTING to compile a list of girls Evan dated in high school. So instead, I’ll talk about some of the girls he did not date.
There was Laura Brown, who started dating Mark Price in the eighth grade and married him just after graduation. There was Heidi Jenkins, who didn’t seem to understand the finer points of personal hygiene. Cindy Connor, the most beautiful and popular girl in school, was also among the meanest, so Evan avoided her.
Then, of course, there was me, and while I realize I was exaggerating his dating prowess, it didn’t feel that way when, during our senior year of high school, he took Madison Carter to homecoming. Call me uncharitable if you like, but until I had befriended her late in our junior year, Madison’s greatest social accomplishment had been invisibility.
I didn’t have a date, though I went to the dance with a large group of my cheerleading friends, trying to pretend it didn’t bother me. I suppose I was a little jealous, although the feeling didn’t last long. I didn’t know why Madison had agreed to go with him, but when I watched them together, I had to wonder if she had been too afraid to refuse. Odd, since Evan usually avoided those kinds of girls.
Sometime during the evening, Evan asked me to dance, and I asked him why he had invited her.
“It’s nothing serious,” he said. It was his standard line. “I just had a feeling I’d like her, if I could get to know her.”
“That doesn’t seem likely,” I said.
He gave me a rueful smile. “No, it doesn’t. You’ve spent some time with her lately, what do you think?”
“I think she’s lonely, and she has a hard time trusting people, but I have no idea why.”
“Well, if anyone can help bring her out of her shell, you can.”
* * *
Evan and I agreed to meet back at the diner when we finished our errands, so we could tackle an interview–or, more likely, a confrontation–with Jasmine Hewitt together.
To my surprise, Madison decided to walk with me.
“Don’t you have to work today?” I asked.
Madison shook her head. “Tuesday is my day off. Do you mind if I keep you company for a while?”
“Not at all.”
We walked in silence for a minute or two before Madison spoke again. “Is it just me, or is Evan taller?”
“It’s not just you.” I smiled at her in what I hoped was an encouraging way. “He won’t bite, you know.”
“That’s not exactly what I’m afraid of.”
“What, then?”
She drew in a deep breath. “I know you don’t believe the rumors, but I swear he did cast love spells.”
“Madison, seriously?” It was all I could think to say, and I didn’t try to hide my exasperation.
She shrugged, and walked in silence for a long time. It took me a while to realize that she hadn’t changed her mind, she simply didn’t want the confrontation. I had been trying for years to draw her out of her shell, with some success, but we still had a lot of work to do.
“Why do you think he casts love spells?” I asked. “You only went on one date with him, didn’t you? To a dance? Do you think he coerced you into going with him?”
“No, he
didn’t coerce me. It was actually... never mind. He didn’t coerce me. And it wasn’t a touch or a smile, like some of the silly girls said. It was the kiss.”
“He kissed you?” For some reason, I found that hard to picture.
“Just the once. It was enough.”
“All right.” We were nearing our destination, but I waned to finish this before we arrived. “Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you’re right. I still don’t get why you’re so afraid of him. Do you expect him to kiss you again?”
“No,” she said, her eyes wide. “I’m not afraid for me. I’m afraid for you.”
We reached Robert’s shop, built into an old brick strip mall with a sign over the door reading, “Robert’s Beauty Salon.” I stopped, my hands on the door, and stared at Madison.
“We’re just friends,” I said. “Maybe not even that. I’m working a case for him, trying to figure out what happened to his cousin.”
“Did you miss the way he looked at you and kept touching you?”
“I must have.” I had noticed the touches, actually, though not the looks. The trouble was, it didn’t make sense. Evan and I hadn’t seen one another for three years, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, he develops an interest in me, when he never noticed me that way before? Not that I had ever tried to encourage him, but he had noticed practically everyone else.
“Just don’t let him kiss you,” Madison said.
On that note, I pushed open the door, which swung outward with a little tingle of bells. I wasn’t prepared for the sight that greeted me inside. Robert, a tall, thin man in his early thirties, stood with his back to me, his scissors flying in seemingly random directions over a customer’s head. But that wasn’t the part that startled me. It was his bubble-gum pink hair.
Apparently, Madison wasn’t prepared for it either, because she gasped.
Robert turned slightly, “I’’ll be with you in a minute.” Then he continued what he was doing.
I gave Madison an, “Are you sure about this?” look.
She shrugged and pointed to her own hair as if to say, “He did okay by me.”
Half a dozen chairs at the front of the shop constituted a waiting area. Madison and I took the two nearest the door.
“Finished!” Robert announced with a flourish. He spun the chair around, and I saw, to my surprise, the mayor of Eagle Rock, James Blair.
James Blair is a sorcerer, though very few people are aware of it. He keeps a low profile, magically speaking, because his entire family is neck deep in politics. His sister is a judge, and his oldest son is a state senator. I don’t know how powerful he is, but I do know what his gift is–human lie detector. I suppose that helps him in politics. Or, let’s face it, that would help him just about anywhere.
“Cassandra,” Mr. Blair said in a deep, carrying voice. “It’s been a while.”
It had been a while, though I was glad for it. The last time I’d seen him, he had been trying to set me up with one of his sons. He kind of gave me the creeps, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the distinguished older gentleman good looks, or even the fact that he’d wanted to see me get together with one of his boys. No, I’m pretty sure it was the way he knew whether or not I was telling the truth at any given moment. It’s not that I go around lying all the time, but everybody has something to hide.
“Cassie,” I corrected, almost automatically.
He shook his head. “That’s not true.”
Like I said, he gave me the creeps.
“Nice haircut,” I said.
“Thank you. Perhaps I ought to leave a nice tip.”
While Mayor Blair paid Robert, Madison whispered to me, “See? The mayor comes here. He does a nice job.”
“Yeah,” I whispered back, “but what did he do to his hair?”
Madison shrugged.
The mayor gave me a smile and a wink as he walked out of the shop. Then Robert turned to us. “Can I help you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “What did you do to your hair?”
“Cassie!” Madison looked away.
“What?” I know there are rules out there for what you should and shouldn’t say to people, and I usually stick to them, but I like my hair, and thought it at least deserved an interview.
Robert shook his head and frowned deeply. It was the kind of frown that touched his eyes, which didn’t look at all pink.
“It was the shampoo Belinda gave me. For a while, it was the best I’d ever used, and then suddenly this morning.” He gestured helplessly at his hair.
That opened up a new range of questions, none of which I thought he could help me answer. One of those questions was whether or not to let him anywhere near my hair.
“What did you do to your hair?” Robert asked. He inflated a bit, and before I was even aware of it, he was leading me by the arm to one of his chairs. “Come on, sit down. I can fix it. It will be much shorter, of course, but I can work with this. You have such lovely, thick hair.”
“Um-”
“Sit,” he ordered.
I sat.
“I did Madison’s hair last week,” Robert said, gesturing to the waiting area where Madison sat, watching us. “Doesn’t she look nice? I tried to talk her into highlights but she wouldn’t listen.”
“It’s nice,” I said. It didn’t really need highlights, although if he didn’t go over the top, I could see how a subtle infusion of color would be an improvement. That’s not really what I wanted to talk about, though. “I’ve been hired to look into Belinda Hewitt’s murder.”
Robert started spraying my hair down with a squirt bottle. “And?”
“Were you seeing her?” I asked.
“I guess.” Robert didn’t sound enthusiastic. He may have been under the influence of a love potion at one time, but he definitely wasn’t anymore. “I was actually going to break up with her after this.” He stopped squirting and gestured at his hair. “But there wasn’t much point, was there?”
“No,” I agreed.
Robert picked up a comb and a pair of scissors. I closed my eyes.
“So, how long had you been seeing her?”
“About a month.”
I heard the snip of the scissors very close to my ear, and imagined I could hear the long tendrils of hair clunk to the floor.
“When was the last time you saw her?” I asked.
Snip. Snip. “Friday morning. She said she was going out of town with some friends over the weekend. What does it matter, anyway? Didn’t a vampire kill her?”
“Do you believe in vampires?” I asked.
“Belinda has a way of making a believer out of you.” He brushed his finger over the gold cross at my neck. “Can’t be me, though, can it? If I can touch your cross?”
“No, I suppose not.”
We passed the next few minutes in silence. Then, with the same flourish he’d used to conclude the mayor’s session, he spun me around to face the mirror.
I opened my eyes. It looked–different. I reached up to touch the wavy auburn tendrils that spilled around my ears. I’d lost a good ten inches of hair, but that wasn’t Robert’s fault. In fact, he had done a very nice job with what he had. It wasn’t what I would have chosen, but it was a look I could live with until it grew out.
“You look great, Cassie,” Madison said. Of course she would say that whether I did or not, but I chose to believe her. At least I didn’t have the mayor’s gift of detecting lies. Sometimes, it’s better not to know for sure.
Just then, the bell chimed, and Evan strode through the door. I was surprised, since I thought we had agreed to meet at the diner. He looked at Robert and his bubble-gum pink hair without the slightest hint of alarm, though a small smile touched his lips.
“Come on, Cassie, we need to talk to Jasmine Hewitt.”
“All right.” I quickly paid for the haircut, then headed for the door.
“Bye, Madison,” Evan said, “it was nice to see you again.”
“Nice to see you, too,” she
mumbled.
“Bye, Madison,” I said. “See you tomorrow?”
“Yes, see you.”
I turned to go, but Madison still had one last thing to say. “Evan, you’d better not hurt her.”
Turning back around, I saw that Madison was surprised by her own daring, but not more surprised than me. There are moments, in a relationship, that separate true friendship from the fair weather variety. This was one of those moments, even if it was driven by her misguided notions.
“I knew I liked you,” Evan said. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her.”
12
I GOT INTO MY FIRST CAR accident the day after I earned my driver’s license. It wasn’t a big deal, really, just a fender bender, but it had definitely been my fault. I was talking on my cell phone, and listening to the stereo at full blast, while backing out of a parking space at the Food Mart. By the time I realized the honking noise was directed at me, it was too late to stop.
I turned off the stereo, ended the phone call, and stepped out of the car. Most unfortunately, Jasmine Hewitt glared angrily at me from the other car.
She stepped out of her car, her eyes tinted nearly black, deep lines in her sour face. She was at least sixty years old and looked every bit of it, from her wiry gray hair to her gnarled fingers.
She pointed one of those fingers, tipped in red nail polish, at me. “Can’t you see?” Her voice carried more than anger in it, and the next instant, the answer to the question became a resounding no.
“Hey!” I started rubbing furiously at my eyes with my hands, but it did no good. The world was completely black. I couldn’t even detect the faintest trace of light, as you sometimes can even with your eyes closed tightly shut.
“At least you won’t be a threat to anyone anymore,” Mrs. Hewitt said with a laugh that sounded a lot like a cackle. All she needed was a broomstick and a pointy hat.
“Accidents happen,” I said. “That’s what insurance is for.”
“Insurance doesn’t bring people back from the dead, sweetie. What if you’d killed someone?”
Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective Page 9
