Strings of Fate (Mistresses of Fate)

by Dore, Deirdre

  A triple mailbox marked the entrance to the property, which was a gravel road with a Mohawk of grass that grew between where car tires passed to and from the houses. The road curved past a copse of trees and the land began to rise. Along the left side, up on the hill, the first house came into view.

  “Damn,” Helmer muttered, and Chris silently concurred. That was her normal reaction as well.

  The first house looked like it had been designed by several different architects, all with different predilections when it came to style, color, and general maintenance. Parts of the house looked Georgian, others seaside cottage, and others recalled a scary Victorian gingerbread. Half of it was yellow, the other half green, with spots of purple and pink. She had never been inside, though one of the older sons who’d lived there, Keenan, had been two years ahead of her in high school. He’d been strange and awkward, especially since he hadn’t attended elementary or middle school with any of the other town children.

  The next house was a simple rectangle with wood paneling and river rock on the outside. If it weren’t for the land cleared around it and the red clay bleeding out of the hillside, Chris thought that it would have blended neatly with the rocks and the dark wood of the trees that rose behind it.

  The third and final home on this part of the property belonged to Jane—Chris hated calling her Circe, even in her own head—but the Triplets and their mother also lived in it. Jane’s husband, Mark Arrowdale, had left several years back, and the Triplets’ father, Jane and Summer’s brother, had been killed in a training accident in Fort Benning. It was a simple farmhouse, one-story, with a wraparound white porch and an herb garden surrounded by a white picket fence.

  When they pulled into the gravel drive beneath the shade of a big oak tree, the Triplets were tending the garden in the late-afternoon light, probably planting fall crops like turnips, kale, and collards. Sometimes the girls sold the veggies in the farmers’ market on the weekends; that was actually how Chris had met them, the three identical girls and their crops, which always seemed to taste better than everyone else’s.

  “Hey, girls,” Chris called, walking around the SUV. The girls had stopped what they were doing at the approach of the unfamiliar car, but they didn’t appear wary, or even surprised. They looked . . . resigned, almost.

  “Miss Pascal,” Yarrow greeted her. All three girls were wearing jeans and long-sleeve plaid shirts, their blond hair in ponytails, gardening gloves covering their hands.

  “This is Agent Helmer with the FBI.”

  “Nice to meet you, Agent Helmer,” Yarrow said politely, but then she looked at Chris and gave her a small wink.

  Helmer had followed Chris to the fence that surrounded the garden, his expression friendly. He ignored the wink, or seemed to, but Chris had a feeling he’d ask her about it later.

  “Nice to meet you as well . . .”

  “Ro,” she supplied, “and that’s Tira and Sandra.”

  The two other sisters smiled and waved, but didn’t speak, which was normal, but Chris had never seen Yarrow so animated. It was charming, actually, but also a bit frightening.

  “Well, Ro . . .” Helmer looked to Chris for assistance.

  “We’re here to talk to your aunt Jane.” Chris tried not to grimace.

  Ro gave Chris a doubtful look, which Chris accepted with a nod. Yeah, she knew better, but what the hell.

  “She’s not here, but you don’t want to talk to her anyway,” Ro explained to Helmer, walking forward to the fence, both her sisters a couple steps behind her.

  “I’m afraid I do, ladies. There’s something I need to speak to her about.”

  “The phone call to the FBI?”

  “Yes.” Helmer sounded surprised. “What do you know about it?”

  “Everything.” Ro grinned cheekily. “We made it.”

  19

  CHRIS DIDN’T THINK a great deal shocked her anymore, but this little confession on the part of the sisters had thrown her for a loop just a little bit. And they were acting weird. They seemed prettier, more confident, less awkward.

  “You made the call?” Helmer repeated, trying his best not to sound doubtful.

  “Yes,” Yarrow said simply. “Won’t you come inside? We have pecan pie and coffee.”

  Pecan pie sounded great; Chris looked hopefully up into Helmer’s face. “Sounds good,” she answered before he could politely decline, and followed the three girls, who held hands as they walked up their drive.

  They rinsed their hands from a spigot on the outside of the deck before leading the way into the house, opening first a screen door that squeaked on its hinges and then a wooden front door with a stained-glass window showing a woman at a loom.

  Chris remembered the kitchen from when she would visit Summer, and had missed it ever since. The view from the window showed a small birdbath and then nothing but forest and trees as the land sloped down and away from the house. The land started rising again not far away, showing more trees and the mountains beyond.

  A huge stone fireplace with a cast-iron cauldron dominated the center of the room, and matching stone covered the floor, only it had been smoothed to make it easier to walk. The dining room table was a picnic bench, but it looked ancient and lovingly sanded. Summer had told her one of her great-grandfathers had made it, but that hadn’t stopped the four friends back then from carving their names on the underside of it when no one else was around. Antics like that certainly didn’t help Chris’s relationship with Summer’s mother, who disapproved of Summer’s friends. Disapproved of any friends, actually; she’d been overprotective, worried that her daughter’s handicap made her vulnerable to negative influences, like Chris.

  The rest of the kitchen had modern updates. Jane ran the witch store in town and did pretty well; well enough to keep the houses and the land with a few luxuries here and there. The kitchen boasted a top-of-the-line Viking range, stainless-steel sinks, and granite countertops. The witches knew how to live.

  The three girls busied themselves pouring coffee in small china cups with a border of red roses and cutting what smelled like the most heavenly pie on planet earth.

  “I don’t need any—” Helmer began, but Chris elbowed him. He should know better. When someone offered you food in the South, you ate it, even if you weren’t hungry. Besides, Chris had tasted the girls’ pie; it won the pie contest at the local high school’s annual fund-raiser every year and would undoubtedly win at this Saturday’s contest as well.

  “Have a seat,” Yarrow instructed, and Chris and Helmer took a place at the table and waited while the girls arranged the table and set out thick slices of gooey chocolate pecan pie. Chris took a bite and whimpered a little bit in her throat. Hot, holy damn, it was good. She’d even go so far as to say it was better than sex, but she really didn’t feel qualified to make that judgment, especially when the hard length of Helmer’s thigh was resting alongside hers.

  Realizing that she was sitting a little too close and that there was plenty of room on the bench, Chris warily slanted her eyes up to Ryan’s, checking to see if he wanted her to scoot over. He didn’t seem irritated, though his cheekbones were flushed; she thought that might have been from the fire the girls had burning in the fireplace.

  “So . . .” He looked away from Chris at the girls, who’d cut themselves small slices of pie and seemed to feel guilty about putting even that much on their plates. Chris knew the other kids teased them about their weight, but most of the time the Triplets seemed to ignore it, trying to stay positive, for the most part.

  “Why did you call the FBI about Ms. Pascal?” he asked them, though he still didn’t sound as though he believed they’d been the ones to make the call to the hotline.

  Yarrow took a small bite of her pie and closed her eyes briefly. She swallowed before she spoke, seeming to savor the flavor. “We realized the man on the blog was talking about her.”
/>   “The man on the blog?”

  “The Mysteries of Fate blog. We like reading it.”

  The two other girls nodded in sync; Chris could tell it was unnerving Helmer a little and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. His head jerked in her direction. Okay, maybe not so comforting. She removed it, but not before she’d gotten a good feel of the hard muscle beneath her hand. He must lift weights, she thought, feeling a little dreamy.

  “But how did you connect the writing on that blog to Ms. Pascal?”

  The girls looked at him like he was stupid. “Of course she’s the Creator. She’s been making up people since she was little; our aunt told us.” She paused. “Well, she wasn’t very nice about it, but she says Chris would make up stories about people in the woods. And then in high school she made up a boyfriend, even fooled her best friends, at least until prom.”

  “Why would you have to make up a boyfriend?” He sounded genuinely confounded, which she couldn’t help but appreciate. Chris blinked and tried to look demure. In high school she’d been a tall, gangly girl with no bosom to speak of, while Raquel had been reed-slender and delicate, like a fairy, and Tavey had been stylish and confident. Chris had felt a little left behind when her two best friends had dates to the prom and she didn’t, so she’d made up a boyfriend on the wrestling team of another high school. It would have worked, actually; she’d been asked out by the wrestling champ of Calhoun High School after meeting him at a track meet two days before prom, but she’d decided to stop lying to her friends instead.

  “I was a late bloomer.” She shrugged, though she’d been pretty embarrassed at the time.

  “So everyone in town knows you as the Creator?”

  Chris snorted. “Are you kidding? The Baptists would have my head if I went around calling myself the Creator. I had no idea anyone called me that. No one does call me that, except I guess these three. Mostly people just remind me of what an idiot I was in high school. Less charitable folks call me a liar.”

  For some reason that seemed to bother him. He looked away from her, turning back to the girls. “Well, thank you for sending us the tip. We appreciate it.”

  The three of them nodded.

  Ryan stood, though he’d only taken a few bites of his pie. Chris looked down and realized that she’d eaten her entire slice. When did that happen?

  “You should stay with Ms. Pascal,” Yarrow declared suddenly. “He’s going after her next.”

  The agent paused; his voice, when he spoke, was very careful. “Why do you say that?”

  For the first time since Chris and Ryan had arrived, the girls seemed uncomfortable, their eyes sliding away, and Chris knew they weren’t going to tell him anything else.

  “Just a feeling,” Yarrow said truculently, and sealed her mouth shut.

  Ryan must have recognized a lost cause when he saw one, because he held a hand out for Chris. “Come on, I need to check in with my team.”

  “Sorry,” Yarrow added. She seemed sensitive to disappointing the federal agent. Chris was rather inured to it at this point, but the girls had a pretty thin skin.

  “You can’t tell me anything more?”

  She shook her head. “You wouldn’t believe me even if I could, but trust me, we don’t know him, and we don’t have any connection to him.”

  “Fine.” He seemed to shake off his irritation or frustration or whatever it was that had been bothering him. Chris doubted he was letting it go; he would probably just have them investigated. “I appreciate the help, ladies, and the pie. It was delicious.”

  The girls giggled and blushed. Yarrow nodded. “You’re welcome.”

  He led the way out of the house, scanning the area as he left, his body alert for any threat.

  Chris did much the same thing, only she knew who she was looking out for—Jane. The last time Chris had run into the nutty woman, she’d thrown a chicken at Chris’s face. A taxidermied chicken, but nevertheless.

  Ryan opened the door of the SUV for her, but didn’t wait for her to get in before walking around the car to the driver’s seat.

  “Are they always so strange?” he asked once they were off the Havens’ property and back on the road to Fate. Clouds had rolled in while they’d been talking to the girls, and now the late-afternoon light was shadowed by the deep bank of gray.

  “Yep,” Chris confirmed. “But they were extra strange today, if that’s any consolation.”

  He slid a sideways glance in her direction. She wasn’t sure what the glance meant, but she really wished the girls hadn’t told him that she’d invented a boyfriend in high school; he’d seemed to be warming up to her after she’d helped with the victim identification earlier today. Or at least he’d seemed to let go of some of his resistance to her help—probably because she had helped; she knew she had.

  “You were a little strange as well.”

  “Was I?” Chris’s voice cracked a little, so she repeated in a much calmer tone, “Was I?”

  “Yeah.”

  Chris looked at his profile, admiring it in the greenish gray light of the storm.

  “Where are you from?” she tossed out.

  He looked at her skeptically, and Chris was amused; she could almost imagine his internal debate: Do I talk to her about personal things or not? She’s connected to a case—she’s a head case—she lives her life through invented people online.

  But then, miracle of miracles, he answered. Grudgingly, but he did answer, his voice taking on a bit of a drawl when he said, “Houston. Texas.”

  “Really?” Chris tried to act surprised.

  “And no, I’m not a cowboy.”

  Chris pursed her lips. “Have you ever ridden a horse?”

  He didn’t want to answer that one; she could tell by the way his body stiffened. “Yes.”

  “Have you ever worked with cows?”

  He didn’t even bother to respond to that.

  “I know you shoot a gun, so . . . do you hunt?”

  “Sometimes,” he bit off.

  Christina smiled with satisfaction. He was a cowboy. Or at least cowboy enough for her to call him one. She moved the seat back and put her feet up on his dash.

  “Put your feet down,” he ordered.

  She did, but only because she wanted him to keep answering her questions.

  “So how’d you end up in the Rome resident office?”

  His jaw clenched and Chris could tell she’d hit a nerve.

  “I asked to be transferred. My grandmother lives in Atlanta.”

  He was close to his grandmother. Damn. She liked that about him. Honestly, she liked a lot about him. He was a challenge for sure. Too bad he was so uptight. Still, she didn’t think his grandmother was the whole story, or even most of the story.

  “You get in a fight with someone?”

  “I already told you why.”

  “Hmm.” Chris turned a little in her seat so she was facing him more fully. “You told me part of the truth. Trust me, I’m an expert at it.”

  “Really?” He looked almost triumphant. “Then what aren’t you telling me about the girls?”

  Chris sighed. She really should have known better. “Not much. Just that they warned me about this guy the day you showed up at my door. They’re in my Tuesday yoga class.”

  “Warned you how?”

  Chris snorted. “How else? Cryptically. I think they’re crazy most of the time.”

  “So, they make predictions. Am I supposed to believe they’re psychics?” He sounded more than a little scornful, but hey, he was an FBI agent. She was pretty sure scorn and disbelief were job requirements.

  “I don’t know what to call them, or to tell you, beyond what I know, which is that the girls told me someone was trying to kill me and that I should avoid my boyfriend.” She paused, it hitting her suddenly. “Which . . . which must have me
ant ‘the Boyfriend’ because . . . well, I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “What about exes?”

  Chris nodded reluctantly. “I have one of those, Chad Barber, but I haven’t talked to him in a year. I heard he has a girlfriend in another town.”

  “I’ll need his name and number.”

  “Fine.” Chris sighed, wincing at the idea of Ryan—he was officially Ryan now, at least in her head—meeting Chad. Chad was . . . well, part of the habitually unemployed and perennially lazy. Chad liked to smoke weed, lots of it, which Chris didn’t have a moral problem with, but she didn’t think it had done much in the way of helping Chad set any productive life goals, though she supposed she wasn’t really one to talk.

  “So what was the other reason you ended up in Rome?” she persisted. Stubbornness was one of her more charming qualities.

  Just when she thought he was going to answer, his phone rang. “Helmer. . . . When? . . . All right. I’ll be right there. Be advised, I have a civilian with me. Have one of the county deputies ready to escort her home. . . . Yes, it’s Ms. Pascal. . . . I don’t think that’s a good idea, sir.”

  He finished with, “Yes, sir,” and hung up, looking mightily pissed off.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “They’ve found another body.” He didn’t turn the SUV around, but he did turn on his lights, which, under any other circumstances, Chris would have thought was pretty cool.

  “Where?”

  “In the Zoe River, downstream from the bridge we crossed earlier.”

  “Man or woman?”

  “Man.”

  “Killed the same—?”

  “Yes,” he bit off.

  “Ryan, we’re going to catch him.”

  He shook his head and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “We are not going to do anything. You are going to get a ride home with a deputy and stay put in your apartment.”