Vendetta (Deadly Curiosities Book 2)

by Gail Z. Martin

  I reined in my temper, knowing she was probably trying to get a rise out of me. “Detective, I’m betting that you looked into my store’s history, and our rating with the business bureaus. If you have something specific to get off your chest, then let’s hear it. But I don’t appreciate your innuendo and if there’s nothing more to discuss, I need to open my shop for the day.”

  Monroe didn’t say anything for a moment. I was betting it was something she learned in cop school, a way to rattle your opponent’s nerves. She had no idea that it took a lot more than that to rattle me, after what we dealt with on a regular basis.

  “I’ve found that seemingly ‘random’ bombings and attacks usually aren’t,” she replied. “There’s usually a tie of some sort, somewhere. And I’m wondering what it is.”

  “Well, you’ll have to let me know when you find out.”

  “Oh, I will.” A little smile touched her lips. “Don’t worry about that.” Detective Monroe turned and left just as Teag opened the door to come in. She paused, gave him an appraising glance tinged with disapproval, and walked out.

  Teag closed the door behind her and waited until she was out of sight. “Who was that?” he asked. I could tell from his tone the Detective hadn’t made a good first impression.

  “Someone I’ve decided I don’t like,” I replied. I made a pot of coffee and heated up water for tea while I told him about my run-in with Monroe.

  “If she’s got a stick up her ass about anything haunted, she’s not going to do too well in Charleston,” Teag said, stirring extra sugar into his tea. “I’m guessing she’s not from here.”

  “She didn’t say, and I couldn’t tell from her voice. Maybe she’s just a show-me type.” I sighed. “With everything that’s been going on, it would have been nice to have a little sympathy.”

  Teag grimaced. “I live with a lawyer, remember? Cops only give sympathy when they’re trying to get a confession out of you. She’s got a point about attacks usually having some kind of link, even if it’s only in the mind of the attacker. And her instincts are dead on. There is a link, just not something we could tell her about.”

  “I know. But the whole thing just has me worried, and now Sorren’s gone off to chase down ‘resources’, whatever that means.” I recounted the conversation with Sorren the night before.

  “Speaking of which, I need to go over to the nursing home, and I’d rather do it in daylight. Can you cover for me?”

  Teag nodded. “Sure. And expect to see Maggie later today, even if she is on crutches. I think she’s bored recuperating.”

  I grinned. “That’s good. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d have lit out like a rocket after what she saw.”

  Teag raised an eyebrow. “I think Maggie’s made of sterner stuff than that.”

  It took me an hour to calm down after Detective Monroe’s visit. I tried to tell myself that she was just doing her job, and that it was probably some kind of standard police protocol to insult the victim in order to make sure he or she hadn’t staged the incident, but I was still annoyed as hell. There wasn’t a whole lot mundane authorities could do in this situation, but if Monroe’s attitude didn’t change, we weren’t likely to get any help, period.

  Maggie came in around lunch. I hated to see her on crutches, but she got around like a pro. “I’ve learned something about myself,” she said, and hobbled over to the chair Teag had pulled behind the main counter. “I do not convalesce well.” She looked at me intently. “Did you know that there is absolutely nothing worth watching on daytime television?”

  Teag and I fussed over her, letting her know how glad we were that she was feeling better. Teag brought her a cup of coffee, and I made sure she had a stool to prop up her sore ankle. She had brought two ice pack wraps, one to use now and one to have in the break room freezer. Once Maggie was set up, Teag gave me a nod and I slipped out to fulfill my promise to Sorren by visiting Palmetto Meadows.

  First, I swung by the house to pick up Baxter. He met me at the door hopping around like a crazed fluff-bunny, since he is always up for a car trip. Even though it was broad daylight, I was cautious. I parked as close as I could to the door to the Alzheimer’s unit, and scanned the parking lot before I got out of the car. My athame was up the sleeve of my sweater, and Bo’s collar was around my other wrist. To my relief, no strange shadows or restless ghosts menaced me as I headed into the nursing home.

  “Hi Cassidy! Hi Baxter!” Judy was at the nurses’ station when I arrived.

  I grinned. “Hey there. I just wanted to stop by and make sure everyone was okay. I saw the news yesterday. Thought people might like a little Baxter time to relax.”

  “That would be fantastic,” Judy replied. She sobered. “Can you believe someone would do something like that? Fortunately, nothing actually happened. But still.”

  Baxter tugged on his leash to come around the side of the nurses’ station, and Judy bent down to pet him and ruffle his ears. “Yep. I think a dose of Baxter is just what the doctor ordered today,” she said, smiling at him fondly. “Go on into the activity room. It looked like most of our folks were up and about the last time I checked.”

  We got a pretty energetic ovation when the residents spotted us, although I knew they were really clapping for Baxter. And despite my ulterior motives of checking up on Mrs. Butler and Mr. Thompson, it made me really happy to see all those faces light up. Baxter toddled into the room like a superstar, knowing he was the center of attention. I could feel the tension in the room ease as we made our rounds.

  “Is it that time already?” Mrs. Talheimer reached down to pet Baxter. “Oh, my. I don’t have my pretzels with me!”

  “That’s all right,” I replied. “We’re not here on our regular day. And the vet says Baxter put on a few ounces. It won’t hurt him to miss a few treats.”

  Mrs. Talheimer gave me a conspiratorial smile. “A couple of pretzels won’t make a difference,” she said. “And it does make him wag, doesn’t it?”

  Baxter looked up at me, the poster-dog for innocence, as if he didn’t know treats were part of the routine. We moved on. Even though Mrs. Peterson was playing cards with Miss Henderson, they waved us closer so they could fuss over him. I glanced at their cards. I’m not sure whether they were playing any game in particular or both even playing the same game, but they were having a good time. Judy had told me that sometimes they remembered the rules, and sometimes they didn’t. Usually, it takes us about an hour to circle the room, but today took longer. It was worth it to watch the residents relax as they petted Baxter and let him nuzzle against their hands.

  The great thing about bringing a therapy dog onto an Alzheimer’s unit is that even if people have forgotten who they are, lost the memories of their own children, and misplaced their personal history, they remember that they like dogs. And dogs don’t care if you remember their names or not, as long as you love them.

  “Ho there, Tilly!” I heard Mr. Thompson’s voice behind me.

  Baxter waggled and headed his direction. Wheelchairs are a danger to little dogs like Maltese, so I lifted him up so Mr. Thompson could pet him. “Good girl, Tilly,” he said.

  “He likes you,” I said as Baxter let the man stroke his fur with his large, gnarled hand.

  “Humph,” Mr. Thompson replied.

  This time, I made sure my hand touched his. Again, I felt the electric charge, and he looked up at me, “You have power,” he hissed.

  I took a chance. “So do you,” I replied quietly.

  His eyes widened. “Don’t say that! They’ll hear you!”

  “Who?”

  He glanced around and leaned in. “The Judge. He was here, you know. But he didn’t get us.”

  “Is that why you use the salt? For a warding?”

  Suspicion glinted in his eyes. “How did you know about that?”

  “Like you said – I have some magic, too.”

  “Then you’d better be careful,” Mr. Thompson said, meeting my gaze with a clear-eyed look.
“Because they’ll come looking for you, too.” And with that, he maneuvered his chair around me and headed down the hallway.

  What if he’s not as befuddled as he wanted to seem? I wondered. It wouldn’t be difficult for someone clever to fake dementia. Get to a certain age, and even some medical people see what they expect to see. I wondered if Thompson had been wily enough to hide in plain sight, somewhere that might prompt his enemies to write him off as no longer important. And once again, as I watched him wheel away, I wondered whether old Mr. Thompson was friend or foe.

  “Who said you could bring a dog in here?”

  I looked up as a dark-haired young nurse I had never seen before made a bee-line over to us. “Baxter’s a certified therapy dog,” I said, taken-aback. I pointed to the little vest Bax wears that lets people know he’s a working dog. “We come here at least once a week.”

  She scowled at me. “Nobody told me about it.”

  “It’s all right, Becky,” Nurse Judy must have seen the confrontation from her desk. “Cassidy and Baxter have cleared all their paperwork.” Judy was smiling, but it was strained. I wondered if she had run into other problems with Becky. That was likely, given Becky’s attitude.

  “If he bites anyone, I’m going on record that I objected,” Becky said sullenly.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Judy replied. Her smile had slipped into a tight-lipped look that meant business. I felt a subtle shift in the energy around her, a reminder that Judy had some magic of her own. I didn’t pick up any sense of power from Becky, but there was a darkness to her I didn’t like. It surprised me the nursing home would hire someone who seemed like such a grouch.

  Judy sighed as Becky walked away. “I’m sorry about that,” she said. “She’s new, and I think she’s letting some personal issues affect her work.” She raised an eyebrow. “Boyfriend problems.”

  I nodded sympathetically. “Well, maybe she’ll cheer up,” I said.

  Judy rolled her eyes. “Maybe. Anyhow, she won’t bother you and Baxter anymore. I’ll make sure of it.”

  I thanked Judy, and then looked around for Mrs. Butler. She hadn’t been in the activities room. I thought she might be napping in her room when I spotted her out in the walled garden. I watched her through the window for a moment. She moved haltingly with the use of a walker. Even though she was closing in on being a century old, it was easy to see the high cheekbones and regular features that must have been striking in her youth.

  I led Baxter out into the garden. It was a beautiful place, circled by a high brick wall so residents couldn’t wander away. The garden enclosure also provided a lovely view for two of the big floor-to-ceiling windows in the activity room. Mrs. Butler turned at the sound. There was a momentary expression of expectation on her face, followed by confusion, and then resignation. “Hi Mrs. Butler!” I said cheerily. “I brought Baxter for an extra visit this week, and I wanted to make sure you got a chance to see him. You had company the last time we came.”

  Mrs. Butler sat down shakily on the bench where I had seen her talking with Sorren. “Did I?” she asked, looking at me intently as she tried to place where she had seen me before. “Oh well. What a cute dog. What do you call him?”

  “Baxter. He’s very friendly, if you want to pet him.” My heart broke a little. We go through this every week. She loves petting Baxter, but she just can’t remember his name. I sighed. On the bright side, that makes his visit a new discovery each time.

  “Have you met my young man?” she asked, and looked around as if for someone who had just stepped away. “He was just here.”

  “I don’t believe I’ve seen him. Does he visit often?”

  “Often?” she said, frowning. “Oh, I don’t know. But he promised to take me dancing. Only, I can’t find my good shoes. Do you know where they went?”

  I shook my head. “No. But someone will help you look for them,” I replied. I nodded toward Baxter, who was out-doing himself on cuteness. “I think Baxter really likes you.”

  “Baxter? No, his name isn’t Baxter. It’s…” She frowned as memory eluded her. “Something else. I’ll think of it.” She looked down at Baxter. “This little fellow’s cute. What do you call him?”

  I was used to conversations like this with the residents at Palmetto Meadows. Like an old vinyl record with a scratch in it, words or whole phrases looped over and over again. The same few questions could be asked and answered a dozen times in ten minutes, and only one of us knew about the repetition. It had never bothered me before. Maybe that was because I didn’t know any of these folks before the dementia set in, so I didn’t expect them to be someone they weren’t anymore. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like for Sorren.

  In almost six hundred years, how many friends has he buried?

  I was just in my mid-twenties, and I knew the pain of losing a few people to car accidents and suicide, boating mishaps and unexpected illness. Multiply that by hundreds, thousands. Maybe more, in a dangerous business like the Alliance. I didn’t want to think it through, so I pushed the thoughts from my mind and forced a smile to my face.

  “I’ve got to get back to my store,” I said. “But I’ll bring Baxter another day.”

  “I need to run my errands,” Mrs. Butler replied. “If I don’t get groceries, there won’t be dinner tonight.” I wondered which decade of her life her memory had skipped tracks to land on. It made me think of all the time travel movies I’d watched, where people hop from one era to another in the blink of an eye. On TV, it looks exciting and adventurous. Here at the Meadows, there was a glitch in the switch, so that you never knew where your personal time-addling machine was taking you, how long you’d stay, or where you’d go next. And for most of the residents, that time machine went mostly to the past, with brief, sporadic stops in the here and now.

  I’d learned after my first couple of visits that it was better to just disappear than to say good-bye, so Baxter and I sidled to the door by the nurses’ station and motioned for Judy to buzz us through. Memory Support units have alarmed doors and restricted access so residents don’t go wandering. But now, knowing that Mr. Thompson – and possibly other residents – had magic that might put them at risk, I felt better knowing they had another layer of security protecting them.

  Something made me glance back as Baxter and I started toward the car. Mr. Thompson sat framed in one of the big glass windows. He was watching us, and his gaze was lucid and sharp. Across his lap was a wooden cane. Mr. Thompson saw me, and nodded. A shiver went down my spine. I knew what my magic could do with a spoon and a walking stick. I wondered whether anyone at Palmetto Meadows realized that Mr. Thompson could likely do a lot more than walk with that cane of his. I just hoped that, if I ever found out exactly what he could do, we were on the same side.

  I took Baxter home and gave him a treat, then headed back to the shop. The afternoon was busy with a busload of tourists from Canada. Even though we were into what passes for cooler Fall weather, every person who came in remarked on how warm it was. The tour seemed to have a lot of retired schoolteachers, and they loved our estate jewelry.

  “Nine rings, seven pairs of earrings, four bracelets, two old watches, and a necklace!” I tallied up triumphantly when we finally closed for the day. “I think that’s the best jewelry day we’ve had in a long time.”

  “That should pay the rent,” Teag said with a grin. He knew as well as I did that my family had owned the building for centuries, and that because of our work for the Alliance, Sorren would underwrite the shop, even if it didn’t pay its own way. Since we spent so much of our time being ‘supernatural vigilantes’, Sorren paid us very well for the risks we took. But I was happiest when Trifles and Folly actually turned a profit, because aside from all our ghost-busting and demon ass-kicking, I really did love all the marvelous old treasures that came into the store – at least, the ones that didn’t try to kill us.

  “Well, you can add one more ring and a bracelet to the tally,” Maggie said, pulling out her wa
llet. “One of the reasons I was keen on coming in today – aside from seeing the two of you and getting back to my job, of course – was that I wanted to buy that onyx ring and matching necklace that came in last week.”

  I knew just the set she was talking about, an art deco onyx and silver combination that looked just as stylish now as it would have done years ago. Since Maggie had commented before on liking it, I had made sure to handle it, assuring myself there were no hidden surprises. The onyx and silver had protective qualities and whoever had owned the pieces before must have been pretty happy, because the impressions I received were positive and energetic.

  Teag rang Maggie up. With her employee discount, she got a good deal, and it was worth it to see the smile on her face as she tried the pieces on. “I feel so pretty in these I could just twirl!” Maggie declared, then sighed as she glanced down at her crutches. “But not today,” she added ruefully.

  “Save the twirling for when you’re all patched up,” I said.

  Maggie gathered her things, then preened at her reflection in the window for a moment as she left the store. I flipped the sign to closed and let out a long breath.

  “Wow. What a week.”

  “No kidding,” Teag said. “Oh, and there was one other transaction today while you were out, but I didn’t want to bring it up while Maggie was here.”

  “Sell something?”

  “No, but we bought something,” he said walking over to the counter. “A sweet pair of dueling pistols.”

  “Please tell me that the owner wasn’t suddenly having bad dreams.”

  “Not that he mentioned,” Teag answered. He pulled out a box from below the counter and opened the top. Inside was a pair of expertly-crafted pistols that would have been beautiful if it weren’t for the fact they were made to kill. Charleston had a big problem with dueling back in the 1800s, and a lot of young men died. These pistols looked like they had seen plenty of use.

  “What made him sell the pistols?” I asked.