I sighed, blowing a messy lock of hair out of my face. Great.
Giving up on ever finding the little black thong in Jason’s madness, I tugged on the dress and zipped it up the side before slipping my feet in my shoes. I grabbed my purse from the desktop by the front door, and got the hell out of his tiny apartment.
It certainly wasn’t the first time I’d made the walk of shame home from Jason’s house. He lived in the self-sustaining apartment above his parent’s garage; what would be a nice place if he wasn’t a complete slob. In the harsh light of day, I’d been reminded of that.
A car pulled up alongside me, and I groaned, fighting the urge to cover my face with both hands. “What fresh hell is this?”
“Oh shut your mouth and get in the car,” my sister laughed, popping the locks. She looked as bad as I felt, her perfect hair tossed up in a messy bun at the crown of her head, and all of her makeup scrubbed off.
We pulled away from the curb, Macy shifting the cars gears with an ease I’d never been able to pick up, despite Dane’s relentless attempts at teaching me. I was passable with the Coop. “Where’d you stay last night?”
“Amy’s,” she replied, flashing me a wry smile. “It’s like I can’t get enough of her.”
“You guys are really cute together,” I said grumpily, remembering the skinny girl’s use of my nickname for my baby sister.
“What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“Was that jealousy, or something?” She gawked at me, both hands resting lightly on the wheel.
“Keep your eyes on the road!” I barked as we veered towards the curb in front of the bakery owned by Theresa’s aunt. Macy swung the wheel back straight and cleared her throat. “It’s not jealousy. She called you Mace.”
“Oh my god. You think she’s going to replace you.” My bratty sister burst out laughing, throwing on the brakes as a stray retriever loped across the road, his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth. He reminded me of Hunter and I fought a wave of homesickness for England.
“I don’t think she’s going to replace me,” I grumbled, irritated that I’d always been transparent to her. And Mom. And Dad.
Macy reached one hand over and put it on my knee, shaking it gently. “Vale, you’re always going to be my older sister and my best friend. No amount of falling in love will change that.”
My heart skipped a beat and I felt one of those weird mother moments I normally get for her. “Oh! You think you’re falling in love?”
She smiled shyly, taking a deep breath and blowing it out at a strand of hair in her eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe. She’s just so perfect, sis. We fit. It’s like she completes me, Jerry Maguire style.”
“Soulmates,” I mused thoughtfully, lacing my fingers with hers and twisting the simple pentacle ring on her middle finger.
“Soulmates,” Macy repeated, nodding reverently. “Besides, she started calling me ‘Mace’ all on her own. She didn’t know it was patented to you.” I stuck my tongue out at her saucy grin as we whipped in the driveway.
Theresa was sweeping the front steps. I sighed in consternation, jerking open the door and looping my purse over my shoulder. “Mother,” I called, blowing out a breath. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
The woman ignored me. She looked normal, if a petite, curvy blonde who worked the fashionable witch angle could be normal. Her deep green skirt brushed the tops of her barefeet, toe rings twinkling in the early morning sunlight. A lacy, empire waist tank top the color of ripe roses emphasized her thin waist and overly generous bosom, and her crowning glory, ass-length honey colored waves draped her like a cloak.
Macy dropped a hand to my arm, drawing me back. “Leave her be, Vale. Let her do her thing.”
I watched my Mother on our wide, covered front porch, bare feet stepping lightly across the peeling, blue planks, her broom sweeping left, right, left, right, left…and I realized a few things.
I’d made my own home, in England, and the act of sweeping my floors at home was normal, mundane, but it was mine. My responsibility. I got my strength from Theresa. She may not have been the woman who actually gave birth to me, but she’d shaped the woman I had become, and I knew she didn’t like being waited on. She liked being in charge, responsible, the mother. That was all inside me, too.
What I couldn’t let happen was for that stubborn side of me to push away everything I was afraid to let near. Relationships never lasted in my life because I moved on. I decided I didn’t want them anymore, just like I decided I didn’t want Mississippi. When I moved away, I didn’t leave behind a single friend with which I cared enough about to keep in touch.
But now there was Melissa. Bella was really a character, too, and I wanted more time to get to know her. I was an idiot. Watching the woman I loved most in the world whipping a broom around with dangerous efficiency, I knew that I was in love with Brett.
*********
“I did a stupid thing,” I told the voice on the other end of the line. He’d finally called back after dinner, eight hours after I’d left him a voicemail. Try not to be angry about that, I reminded myself.
“Yeah?” he asked, amusement laced in his tone.
“I spent last night with a guy I used to date.” Oh, dreadful, dreadful part of me that wanted complete honesty with this man who was everything I’d never wanted.
After a beat of silence, I trudged on. “Look, I know we aren’t in a committed situation, and I was within the realm of reason when it happened—well, a drunken realm of reason, anyway, and I’m always scared to death to let anyone close because of who I am and what I can do.”
He cut me off. “Vale! Hey. Calm down.”
I waited.
Brett took a deep breath and let it out before speaking. “Look. I dig you. In a bad way. I’ve got some things going on in my life right now that don’t make a lot of sense and are taking a lot out of me.”
“Like secret trips to far ends of the earth?” I teased, praying to the gods of dating that he wasn’t about to blow me off.
He chuckled. “Just like. One thing I do know is that I like you, and I want this thing between us to be going somewhere. It makes sense to me.” He sighed. “When this started? I’d been seeing someone. It’s over now. I’m catching a flight back to York in a couple hours. Hunter’s spent the day with Melissa because I had to run out. I’ll be waiting for you when you get back. We’ll talk. We’ll sort it out.”
“Are you mad?”
He paused. “I’m hurt. It’s different from mad. But, let’s not talk about it now. I’ll see you when you get back.”
My heart resumed its normal beating and I felt all lit up and warm, like a home at the holidays. “Okay.”
*********
The phone woke me up in the middle of the night, and I cursed into the darkness, fumbling for it on the nightstand. Macy was staying over at Amy’s again and Theresa and Dane were at some ritual for Samhain, the Wiccan version of Halloween, which had started about—glancing at my watch—three hours ago. I picked up the receiver. “Yeah?”
“Vale! Oh my god, Vale, thank goddess it’s you.”
I bolted up in bed, knocking a very angry Molly to the ground. She slunk out the open bedroom door. “Melissa?”
“I found something,” she said excitedly, her voice bordering on hysteria. “About Jordan. Vale, he was arrested for murder!”
“What?” Still rubbing sleep from my eyes, the synapses in my brain weren’t firing well.
“It wasn’t proven. His ex-wife was run over by a lawnmower. Some chick he’d been seeing on the side gave him an alibi, and it was ruled an accident, so he was released.”
“Mel, he had an alibi.”
“Come on, kid. The guy’s a bully. Think about what you know of battered women. They usually don’t get out of relationships alive. If he was screwing this gal, who by the way is his current wife, don’t you think she was probably half in love with him and half scared to shit of him?”
I rolled the idea around in my head a minute. The guy did have an explosive temper, and it was no secret I didn’t feel particularly comfortable around him; my radar was usually pretty spot on. Woman’s intuition, if you will. It wouldn’t be the first time a woman had provided an alibi for a man suspected of a crime, and Megan Brinkman hadn’t seemed very strong, anyway. “Why would he kill his first wife?”
She snickered. “Get this—the woman was a cop. Fifteen years his senior, she spent twelve years on the police force in New York City before she moved to England and married him. She was a tough bitch. And guess how good her life insurance policy was?”
“Huh.”
“That’s all you got?”
“Sorry, you caught me sleeping like a log,” I apologized, leaning back on my pillows. “I guess it could just be that simple. Crazy Jordan, quelling his urges for violence with superhuman girls.”
“When will you be home? I think we should take this info to Edward. I bet you anything he has no idea.”
My call waiting beeped. Another late night phone call? Glancing at the caller ID, it showed the long line of numbers indicating an overseas call. “Hey, Melissa? Hang on a minute, I’ve gotta click over.”
“I’ll be here.”
At my greeting, a female cleared her throat. “May I please speak with Vale Avari?”
“That’s me.” Pleasant sounding English woman. I racked my brain for any explanation why a strange woman from home may be calling me.
“Vale, I’m Detective Jessica Shannon with the Quicksilver Police. I’m calling in regards to your accident earlier this week.”
“Yes?”
“We obtained this number from your employer, Mr. Edward Nice, upon learning you were out of the country. Miss Avari, it appears that the brake fluid lines on your Mini Cooper had been severed. Cleanly.”
Roaring in my ears drowned out anything else she might have said. I blindly reached for the lamp at my bedside and clicked it on, needing the comfort to chase away the dark. Soft, warm light spread through my room. Molly sat on her enormous haunches just inside the door staring at me in consternation.
Someone cut my brake lines.
“If you would, could you come to the station when you return home?”
“Hmm? Oh, yeah, yes, I can do that.” We said our goodbyes and I clicked back over to Melissa. “My brake lines were cut.”
Her gasp cut through the phone. “Ohmygod, no. Could it have been squirrels or other wildlife nasties chewing on them?”
I screwed up my face trying to remember what words had cut through the shock. “I think she said it was a clean cut, like with cutters.”
Melissa was silent, but for a nervous tapping in the background. She was probably sitting at her desk, a pen in hand, various papers spread before her. “Why?”
“We know too much, I think.” We both pondered that for a moment before I went on. “But, how would they know?”
“Who is they? Do we really think that it’s Jordan?”
“It makes sense,” I replied, trying to fit the pieces together. “But if it is, how does he know that we’ve figured it out?”
“No idea. I’m worried, though.”
Molly, finally over her temper tantrum, curled up on the bed beside me. I heard the front door open and close downstairs, and the relief that came from knowing my parents were home. “Worried about what?”
She took a shaky breath, and when she answered, her voice was low and wobbly. “I’ll be alone with him tonight. At shift change.”
A calm cold settled over me. “It’s Halloween.”
“I know.”
Closing my eyes, I wished I could stay home, away from whatever was happening in Quicksilver, away from goddesses and jasmine incense and ghosts who speak in riddles. “Go into your shift like nothing’s wrong. We’re going to catch the son of a bitch. I’m coming home.”
Chapter 20
Macy helped me throw together my duffel bag. “I’ll have Dane put your boxes in the mail,” she told me, folding a T-shirt and throwing it in. It was a weird parallel, Brett helping me pack back home, Macy helping me pack in another home. She paused in the act of folding a long skirt. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with?”
I shook my head. “Melissa and I know what we’re doing. Both of us have our powers to help us.”
“You said Melissa wasn’t strong or fast. She just talks to ghosts?”
"Which means she’ll have the previous guards on her side,” I answered, less sure than I sounded.
“But, this Jordan, he’s powerful too?” She was clutching one of my old school sweatshirts to her chest. For just a moment, she was my kid sister again. The short, chubby girl with pigtails who would follow me around and say my name until I got sick of hearing it.
Before I could answer, trying to convince myself more than my sister, we both looked up to see Dane swagger into the room, reeking of mulled wine. The henna tattoos he and my mother had drawn all over each other before ritual curled up the sides of his unshaven cheeks. He held out a printed sheet of computer paper. “You leave in two hours. I suggest we get a move on.”
Not for the first time I realized how blessed I was to have my family.
The drive to the airport was silent and uncomfortable. My parents, while always supportive, were worried about me running into a situation I knew nothing about. In the backseat of Dane’s Element, Macy held my hand and draped her other arm around my shoulders, tugging me into her as if I were the little sister and she the big.
It seemed like I’d only just left the airport. The drop off lane was just as full as it always was, people coming and going from points far away seemingly without a care in the world. I hugged my mom gently, mindful of her sore chest, before squeezing the life from my sister and Dane. We didn’t make the goodbyes long—I’d be back.
Sitting in the waiting area, nervously tapping my foot as the plane emptied in preparation for my flight, it occurred to me that I needed to call Brett. The need was so strong, I threw my bag over my shoulder and ripped down the hall to a pay phone. A teary eyed flamboyantly gay man was murmuring into the only phone within sight, his slight, bony body propped against the wall. I rocked from foot to foot impatiently, my eyes boring holes into his perfectly cropped black hair. He flashed irritated looks at me over his shoulder until I couldn’t take it anymore and politely asked him to get the hell off the phone. With a huff, he hung up and stuck his tongue out at me before swaggering off. Sliding my credit card into the reader, I went through the motions of making the call, only to get voicemail.
Fuck.
“Brett, it’s me. Look, I need you to trust me a minute. Melissa and I uncovered some information on Jordan, and we think he’s behind the murders at the Temple. Those female guards? Today’s the day, and Melissa is going to be alone with him. Please, can you just be at the Temple at ten?”
Boarding was announced over the loudspeaker. Replacing the receiver, I hurried back to the queue, praying he’d get my message.
*********
When I walked out of the crowded airport, felt the chilled air on my face, and smelled the unique smell that wasn’t anything like Mississippi, I closed my eyes and basked in it. I would always love my home, but this was where I belonged. Some deep seated part of me knew that.
The urgency I felt to get to Melissa was an ache in my abdomen. I picked the first cab I came to and gave him my address, settling back in for the drive home. It was going to cost me a fortune, but I couldn’t afford the time it would take to make the ride in a bus. Crossing my fingers, I hoped we’d get there in time.
Dark hills and happily lit farmhouses lined the road to Quicksilver. Chances were, none of the people residing in them had received a cryptic call from their best friend and were now worried they wouldn’t make it in time to be there for her. “Could you go any faster? I have an emergency to attend to,” I told the cabbie pleasantly. Maybe it was the low cut sweater and push up bra Theresa had forced me into, maybe
it was my kind smile, but he nodded agreeably and kicked it up a notch.
It was almost ten when he whipped into the parking lot of my apartment. I threw two hundred pounds at him before scrambling out. Not bothering to do anything with my duffel bag but toss it in the trunk, I hopped behind the wheel of my new Cooper and tore down the road. The insurance company, bless them, had delivered the car while I was gone. I turned a ten minute drive to five, dragging deep ruts into the mud next to Melissa’s car. My heart was pounding in my ears and my head felt light. I hadn’t slept in over a day. Barely allowing a minute to compose myself, I left the keys in the ignition and took off through the woods.
The dirt path would have muffled my steps had it not been covered in a bed of crinkly leaves. Coupled with the fact the forest was eerily silent of all normal background noise, I sounded like an elephant on a hardwood floor. Not only would my ripping up to the temple hell-raiser style give me away, but I had the cameras to worry about. Stopping just behind the tree line, I peeked around a large trunk, digging my nails into the bark to keep myself from running in, trumpets blaring. Scanning the opposite side of the clearing for the camera I knew had to be there, my night-sight eyes saw it and I took a deep breath as I realized the little red dot was black.
He’d cut the cameras.
I stole around the trees until I drew alongside the Temple. Sticking to the darkest shadows I could, I made my way through the clearing and under the protection of the open columns. When I drew up to the heavy entry door, I realized I hadn’t thought too far ahead—I had no way of getting in.
Panic set in swiftly. I wanted to pound the door down, and as I clenched my hands into fists at my sides, I almost believed that I could do it. I was super strong, after all. Raising my hands, I braced myself, and then stifled a shriek as Anya popped into existence beside me.
“Holy fuck on a stick, Anya! You scared me.” I pressed a hand to my fluttering heart, trying to not asphyxiate. The girl’s pretty face crumpled and she pouted at me.
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