A Grave Mistake
Page 10
Luke burst out laughing. Well, I guess chivalry was your downfall.” He gave Swain a friendly punch and Morgan’s heart lifted at the show of camaraderie. Luke had been understandably aloof when they’d brought Swain home and she was glad to see his frozen demeanor was thawing.
Luke’s job was to be suspicious of strangers and to protect the girls from them, but Morgan knew in her gut that Swain was not a threat. Not only that, but Belladonna curled up and purring in Swains lap was the only reference he needed. The cat was an extraordinary judge of character.
“About your Mom …” Johanna turned her concerned, amber eyes on Swain. “I think we should bring her here. It can’t be good for her to be on that boat. We have plenty of room.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Swain looked around at them.
“It might be smart,” Luke said. “Bly is going to find out that you guys are partnered up now and he might retaliate. In fact, I’m a bit surprised he hasn’t done something already. Your boat is out in the cove unprotected, like a sitting duck.”
A look of alarm passed over Swain’s face. “I hadn’t thought about that.” He turned to Johanna. “But I don’t want to intrude.”
“Nonsense.” Johanna waved her hand dismissively. “It will give me something to do.”
“Okay.” Swain glanced around tentatively. “But she is very sick and has a private nurse.”
“We know all about sick,” Johanna assured him. “And there’s plenty of room for the nurse, too. Plus, you won’t have to worry about her being safe if she’s here. We have lots of protection. You can focus on finding the relic.”
“Well, that settles it then.” Swain brushed his hands together. “Sounds like this is going to be a great partnership.”
“Don’t get too excited,” Luke said. “Now that Bly and Overton know you guys are working together, they’re sure to want to knock you all out of commission. We need to find that relic fast before someone else ends up dead.”
Chapter Fifteen
Fiona stood in the doorway of Sticks and Stones and basked in the familiar sights, smells and sounds. The cottage, which had been in her family for centuries, had been one of her favorite places since childhood. When she’d grown up, she and Morgan had turned it into a shop with Morgan’s herbal remedies on one side and Fiona’s healing crystal jewelry on the other.
The cottage was off the beaten path. It was the off-season now with no tourists about, so the cottage was blanketed in silence. A single bird tweeted in the barren trees outside as Fiona breathed in the earthy smell of herbs and old wood.
The morning light filtered in through the window, illuminating the hand-hewn pine counter that doubled as Morgan’s work area and the place where they rang up purchases.
Fiona started toward her workbench on the far end of the room, eliciting a creak from the dry wood floor as she crossed.
Morgan rushed in behind her, slamming the door shut against a gust of cold air and snow. “Gosh, it’s cold out.”
“And in here.” Fiona’s words came out in a cloud of condensation. “We should turn the thermostat up.”
Morgan did as she was told. Noquitt was a summer tourist destination. That’s when the girls did most of their shop business. In the winter, they came to the shop infrequently to fill the few orders they got from their regulars. They kept the heat on low when they weren’t there, a habit ingrained in their thrifty, Maine Yankee blood.
The heat whooshed on. Fiona pulled off her gloves and rubbed her hands together as she surveyed her workbench. She’d been there just last week, working on the amulets and another project for herself—a sterling silver dragonfly necklace with iridescent golden-yellow citrine wings.
She didn’t know what had prompted her to make the necklace—the idea had just come to her. Once it was stuck in her head, she had to get the piece designed. She pushed the piece aside and sat down at that table. There was no time for that now. She had to focus on the amulets.
“I feel like we should be out looking for the relic, but I do have some customer orders and the amulets are important.” Morgan, who was now standing in front of her tall apothecary chest looking at the glass jars of herbs, echoed Fiona’s thoughts.
“I know. I’ll try to hurry … I just have a few adjustments to make.” Fiona plugged in her soldering iron and rummaged in the desk for the tools she would need.
“I hope the others get Swain’s mother settled at home okay.” Morgan pulled a glass jar filled with brown twigs off the shelf.
“I left some carnelians with instructions at home so they can start applying them right away,” Fiona said. “It will be strange to have guests, but I think Mom was glad to have someone to ‘mother’ in the house. Since she’s been home, we’ve been the ones mothering her and I don’t think she likes it very much.”
Johanna’s seven-year imprisonment under Dr. Bly’s hand had left her almost lifeless. Since she’d been home, she had made enormous improvements, but it was true that girls had been a bit overprotective and Fiona had noticed her mother getting more and more aggravated with them as her health improved.
“Another reason I wanted to come here this morning is that I felt like Jolene could use a morning to sleep in,” Morgan said.
“That accident took a lot out of her and she hasn’t rested. It must be emotionally draining for her to not have her paranormal gifts working.” Fiona pressed her lips together. “Of course, it would be a lot less stressful on her if my shotgun rocks actually worked.”
“You just need to believe and they will,” Morgan said.
Fiona glanced at the dragonfly necklace. That’s just what her father had always told her when she was a little girl. She just had to believe. The memory of her father, who had died years ago, brought a smile to her lips. He had been good with rocks, too. That’s what had gotten Fiona interested in them. She could remember many afternoons spent with him going over the different types of crystals and their special properties.
And the dragonflies … her gaze stole over to the necklace again. There always seemed to be dragonflies around when she’d been with her father. It was almost as if he’d had a way of attracting them. A few times, he’d joked that a dragonfly should have been his family crest.
Maybe that was what had prompted her to make the necklace. Old memories surfacing.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the door opening, which surprised her. She didn’t think any shoppers would have been coming out this way.
A young woman with wavy, strawberry blonde hair that hung to her waist came through the door. A gust of wind swirled in with her, curling around her ankles and depositing a pile of snow on the floor as she turned to shut the door behind her.
“Meow!” Belladonna slipped through the crack of the door just before the woman closed it. The cat looked up at the woman, her ice-blue eyes narrowing to luminescent slits. “Hiss!”
Belladonna hopped sideways, away from the surprised woman, then ran under a chair on the far side of the room where she crouched and stared out at the room.
“Sorry.” Fiona exchanged a look with Morgan and she knew her sister was wondering the same thing. How the heck did the cat get here?
“I don’t know what is wrong with that cat.” Morgan apologized. “Can we help you?”
“I hope so.” The woman looked warily over at Belladonna as she walked forward, giving the cat a wide berth.
Something niggled Fiona’s memory—the woman looked familiar. “Do we know each other?”
The woman smiled. “Yes, I’m Wendy North. Thaddeus Finch’s health aide. We met at the nursing home.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Fiona said. “I didn’t recognize you with your hair down like that. You look different. What can we do for you?”
“Thaddeus told me about your shop and I thought I’d come in and see what you had. I’m looking for a necklace.”
“Oh. Well, I use a variety of crystals. I can make pretty much anything you want.” Fiona waved her hand over at the jewelry c
ase where various items were on display.
Wendy narrowed storm-cloud gray eyes at the case. Her lips pressed together as she scanned the rows of jewelry. She shook her head. “No, I don’t see anything that appeals to me here.”
“Oh, is there something in particular you are looking for?” Fiona asked.
Wendy’s hair swirled about her upper body as she swung around to look at Fiona’s workspace. She pointed at the amulets that Fiona was working on. “Something like that would be perfect.”
“That’s obsidian,” Fiona said.
“They’re lovely. Are they for sale?” Wendy asked.
“These particular ones are spoken for, but I might have something in stock. If not, I can certainly make you one.” Fiona walked over the old, oak map chest where she kept her stock and rummaged in the chest, opening drawer after drawer to look for an obsidian necklace.
“So, how is Thaddeus today?” Morgan asked from the other side of the shop.
“Oh, he’s okay. He has his good and bad days.” Wendy waved her hand and a pile of papers on the table near the chair Belladonna was crouching under fluttered off and floated to the floor. Belladonna let out a low guttural growl and a hiss. “I’m afraid you can’t put much stock in what he says, though, so the answers he gave you the other day might not be true.”
“Oh, we know about that. We’re just old friends of the family trying to engage him to get him to talk about things he’s interested in,” Morgan said. Fiona knew this wasn’t quite true, but she figured her sister didn’t want Wendy knowing the real reason they were visiting Finch.
Fiona opened the last drawer. A beautiful obsidian necklace with a large stone lay right on top. “How about this one?” She turned toward Wendy, the black stone sparking off the light as it twirled from a silver chain.
“Very nice. I’ll take it.” Wendy reached out and snatched the necklace from Fiona, then swirled her way over to the cash register. She paid Morgan, who put the necklace in a gift bag.
At the door, Wendy turned back to face them. “Your shop is lovely. Thanks for taking the time to dig out the necklace for me.”
“Thank you,” Fiona said. “Say ‘hi’ to Thaddeus for us.”
“I will.” Wendy reached for the doorknob and Belladonna hissed, causing the woman’s brows to mash together. “I guess your cat doesn’t like me.”
“She’s persnickety,” Morgan apologized.
Wendy narrowed her eyes in the direction of the chair and cracked the door open. The wind blew the door wide, gusting into the shop and setting papers and herbs flying in the air.
“Meow!” Belladonna flew out from under the chair and raced around the shop. Chasing the papers and herbs, she leapt into the air, twisting and turning, then plopped onto the ground and raced around the edge of the shop again.
“Hey, cut that out,” Morgan said as the door slammed shut. She tried to intercept the cat, but failed. Belladonna made one more loop around the shop, hopping up into the jewelry drawer Fiona had left open and swatting out an earring that she proceeded to bat around the floor.
“Give that back.” Fiona chased the cat to the back of the room, through the bathroom and then back out front where Belladonna finally batted the earring so hard it sailed into a crack between the old floorboards and wall.
Fiona crouched at the wall, stuck the nail of her finger in and tried to pry the earring out.
“Nice going, Belladonna.” Fiona glared at the cat, who was all wide eyes and innocence perched on a chair, grooming her right paw. “It’s stuck and I can’t get it out.”
“I don’t know what’s gotten into her lately.” Morgan stood looking at the cat, her hands fisted on her hips. “But we really don’t have time for this. We need to get back home and pick up Jolene and Celeste and get to the nursing home.”
“I know.” Fiona stood, brushing the dust off her knees. “I’ll just finish up the last repair. The necklaces need to sit for a while to let the metal harden up, but we can swing back and get them after we visit Finch.”
“Sounds like a plan, but please hurry.” Morgan glanced at her watch. “We don’t want to give Bly too much time to work on his plan to find the relic … or to stop us from finding it.”
Chapter Sixteen
Celeste had spent a restless night, filled with dreams of wrestling energy-infused mortars and pestles away from paranormals with bad intent. When she finally woke up, the sun had already risen and a quick glance into the driveway showed her that Morgan and Fiona were gone.
Luke and Swain, however, were not. She could hear the low sounds of their voices downstairs. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but assumed they must have been making plans to transfer Swain’s mother. She could hear her mother bossing Jolene around as they prepared the rooms down at the end of the hall. A smile flitted across her lips as she pictured how exasperated Jolene must be getting—her little sister didn’t like being told what to do.
Celeste was glad they were helping Swain. He seemed like a good guy. His motive to help his mother was selfless and if Morgan’s instincts said they should work with him, then that was good enough for her.
Hopefully, they could find the relic, help Swain’s Mom and then hand it over to Dorian, who would keep it safe in some secret government hiding place.
If only they could figure out where the relic was.
Celeste sat on her bed with a sigh. She felt like she could help out more. She knew Ezra left a clue because he’d told her himself, but things would be a lot easier if he would just come out and tell her where it was. Her fists clenched in frustration. What good was her special gift if she couldn’t contact these ghosts whenever she wanted?
“Why so glum?”
The voice startled Celeste and she whirled around to see her grandmother—or rather her grandmother’s ghost—standing on the other side of the room.
“Gram!” Celeste’s breath rushed out. Her grandmother’s ghost had a habit of popping up when Celeste was deep in thought. You’d think she’d be used to it by now. “You scared me.”
Her grandmother laughed. “They teach us that over here, you know. Ghosts are supposed to scare people.”
Celeste frowned. “Really?”
“Nah, I just do it because it’s fun.” Grandma’s ghost cocked her head to the side as if listening. “What the heck is going on here? Are you guys opening a bed and breakfast?”
Celeste laughed. “No. We’re just having some guests.”
Grandma nodded. “I heard you guys had some goings on. In fact, that’s why I’m here.”
Celeste’s brows shot up. “Really. You mean you can help us?”
“Maybe. I had a visit from Ezra Finch. You know, I knew him back in the day. Of course, he was quite old back in my day, but we used to all go to him for his remedies.”
Celeste nodded. “Oh.”
“Well, anyway, the guy always did think he was the cat’s meow. But he said he had an important message for you so here I am.”
Celeste leaned forward. “What’s the message?”
Grandma’s ghost swirled over to the window. She lifted her semi-translucent arm and pushed the curtain aside. “Lovely day today.”
Celeste gritted her teeth. One thing she’d learned about Grandma’s ghost was that she loved to play up the big moment. She was stretching it out, making Celeste wait.
“The message?” Celeste prompted.
“Oh. Right.” The ghost turned from the window, her forehead creasing. “He was very cryptic. Of course, he was that way in life, too. Anyway, he said you made a grave mistake.”
Celeste frowned. “No kidding. We misinterpreted the clues. That’s not a very helpful message. Are you sure that’s what he said?”
“Yes, but I felt like he meant it in a literal way. Not that you just made a mistake. If you get my drift.” Gram’s ghost drifted up and down to stress the last word.
Celeste chewed her bottom lip. More literal? What did that mean? And then it clicked in.
She brushed water vapor off her arms and rushed from the room.
***
Celeste took the front stairs two at a time, arriving in the foyer just as Morgan and Fiona were coming in the front door.
“I know what we did wrong!” Celeste said, then frowned at Fiona when she noticed Belladonna curled up in her arms. “What were you doing with the cat?”
“She must have hidden in the car again.” Fiona dumped the cat unceremoniously on the floor. “She was at Sticks and Stones.”
“What did you mean when you said you knew what we did wrong?” Morgan ignored the cat, who flipped her tail up at them as she slunk away.
“I had a visit from Gram and she gave me a message from Ezra.” Celeste continued down the stairs to the oak floor of the foyer. “He said we made a grave mistake.”
Morgan made a face. “He said that before, didn’t he?”
Fiona shrugged out of her jacket. “And I think Thaddeus said something like that, too.”
“Yes, but didn’t you think he was using the word ‘grave’ as an adjective? I know I did. But I think he was really using it as a noun. We made a mistake interpreting the gravestone.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Jolene said from the top of the stairs where she was carefully helping Johanna down.
Celeste ignored her sister’s sarcastic remark and grabbed her cell phone from the foyer table. “The meaning of the epitaph isn’t what we thought. We need to look at that again.” Her fingers tapped on the screen. “I’ll get Cal over here. He’s good at this stuff.”
“Maybe I can help” Swain appeared at the top of the stairs behind Johanna and Jolene.
“Sure, we can use all the help we can get.” Morgan hung her coat on the hall tree. “Let’s go to the kitchen.”