by Natasha Deen
“I wouldn’t know,” he said.
“But maybe there would be evidence somewhere?”
“Probably the lawyer’s office.” He frowned. “Why? What are you thinking?”
“Principal Larry gave money to Mrs. Sinclair, but we don’t know where he got the money from.”
“You thought it was his family,” he said.
I waved away his words. “I was just doing that to see Mrs. Sinclair’s reaction. Can you imagine his family giving him money to do anything? He worked as a principal and look at his clothes and car. If he had money, he would’ve lived better.”
“You think the money came from the reverend?”
“Maybe. But if their families didn’t have money, then where did all the cash for Mrs. Sinclair come from?”
“You’re talking about the reverend stealing from the church.”
“You’re the one who told me that, months ago.”
“Except no one’s said anything.”
“Because he’s dead. His entire family’s been wiped out. Plus, there’s fallout for the church. If the reverend had been stealing from them for years, then they’d be liable.”
Serge’s eyes widened. “Mrs. Sinclair’s suing the church.”
I nodded. “If she went ahead with the suit, then they’d have to open the books.”
“Which means a whole bunch of people could be in trouble,” said Serge.
“Right. They may not have stolen with the reverend, but they covered it up.”
“And the principal uses the stolen funds to…buy off Amber and Mrs. Sinclair?” asked Serge.
“Maybe, or maybe he was doing something else, just him and Amber. Either way, someone from the church found out he had access to the money.”
“And that someone went to the school to kill Larry, but why kill Amber?”
“Maybe for the same reason the soul-eater took my dad’s soul. If Mrs. Sinclair’s incapacitated with grief, then maybe she doesn’t go ahead with the lawsuit.”
“We should tell Nancy all of this,” he said. “It might get us out of the dog house.”
“Text her. I’m going to get us home. Ten bucks says she’s timing my commute.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Tammy’s minivan was in the driveway when I got home. She and Bruce were in the kitchen with Craig and Nell.
“I got to thinking,” said Tammy.
“Always a dangerous thing,” murmured Nell.
I elbowed her into silence.
“I thought if we could access the other side directly, through a psychic, maybe we could get some answers.”
“There’s a bunch of them in town,” said Bruce. “And one of them found us at the market. She said she knew we’d be there, and that we’d be the key to helping with the supernatural stuff going on.”
“Isn’t that amazing?” asked Tammy. “She knew we’d be there—”
“Talk about a genuine psychic, right?” said Bruce.
“Were you there handing out the flyers for your club?” Nell asked.
“Yeah,” said Bruce. “And she—her name’s Cora—said she knew we’d be there, doing that.”
“Amazing,” said Nell. “Talk about psychic power.”
I leaned into her and whispered, “Could you try not to enjoy this so much?”
She didn’t stop grinning. “These two are better than cable and streaming combined.”
“Plus, Cora’s a palm reader,” said Tammy. “Things are so crazy for you, Mags. She can read the lines on your hand. Maybe she can tell you when it’ll all end and then you’ll know.” She squeezed my hand. “You’ll have an end date.”
“Uh—”
Nell whispered, “What’s more astonishing? Tammy having all those thoughts in rapid succession, or being ambushed by a plan for you to talk to a so-called psychic?”
I elbowed her in the ribs. “That’s really nice of you, Tammy, but I’m not sure—”
“Great!” Tammy dragged me to the table. “Let’s start. She gave us her email and cell number, and said to text as soon as we were ready.”
Tammy and Bruce looked so happy, and I had no idea how to shut them down. I’d been dealing with enough hateful people, I wasn’t prepared to lose two friends.
“Maybe we should do a quick check of her,” said Craig. “Just in case.”
“Already done,” said Bruce. “We went to her website and checked out her bio and testimonials, and we checked the consumer sites too. There’s nothing but positive comments about her.”
“Nothing but positive comments?” I asked. “No one hits a hundred percent. Show me her website.”
Bruce took out his phone.
“Wait,” I said. “Not her site. Pull up her name in the search engine.”
He did, and handed his cell to me. I went to the images section and scrolled through her photos.
“Why are you suspicious?” asked Tammy.
“Because it’s too convenient. She finds you handing out flyers on the supernatural, so she targets you for her con, butters you up by saying you’re key to the investigation—” I glanced up at them. “—And of course you are, but still…did you tell her you knew me?”
They glanced at each other.
“I should have known it was too good to be true,” said Bruce. “We just wanted to help.”
I stopped on an image and turned the phone to face them. “You did. Look at this. See the guy next to her?”
“Who is it?” asked Tammy.
“A very bad guy,” I said. “We need to get this to Nancy.”
“Cora chick was psychic after all,” said Nell. “Tammy and Bruce just helped with the investigation.”
“Yeah,” I said as I opened the web page and texted the link to Nancy. “Too bad she’s not psychic enough to see they were going to land her in jail.”
Chapter Thirty
“Cora, aka, Michelle Sandu,” said Nancy. “Con artist.”
I was at the police station, Cora was in the interrogation room. Serge was with me in the main office. Craig and Nell were back at the house with Tammy and Bruce.
“She’s talking, which is a good thing. Savour hired her to make contact with you. Her job was to make you believe you had supernatural abilities, then use your belief to manipulate you.”
“Little did she know…” muttered Serge.
“She was supposed to get you to the old mill,” said Nancy.
“Why?”
She made a face. “To meet up with Savour.”
A chill rippled along my skin. “Get me alone to do the deed.”
“You’re never alone,” said Serge. “I wouldn’t have let anything happen to you.”
“It wouldn’t have happened, anyway,” Nancy said, reading Serge’s text. She looked at me. “You’re too smart to have fallen for her BS. The fact she’s in custody proves it.”
“Are you working late tonight?” asked Nell. “Maybe Maggie should stay with me.”
“I’m signing off now and coming home,” she said. “I think we all need some quiet time. The guys will bring in Savour, and I’ve got Frank watching our place, just in case.” She pulled on her jacket and put in a phone call. “Craig, do your folks need you home?”
She listened to his response.
“Then how about you take a break and I’ll make dinner tonight?”
Another pause, then she grinned at me. “He wants to know if you’re helping with the meal.”
“What’s with the smirk?”
“To quote him, ‘I love Mags and I’ll go to the mat for her, fight demons and lost souls, I just don’t want to eat anything she’s made.’”
“Everyone’s a master chef,” I muttered.
“You’re a lot of things.” Nancy patted my arm. “But you’re not meant to be in the kitchen. Tha
t’s one thing I doubt you can change.”
“Don’t say it like that. I can practise and change my dismal—” Change. I grabbed her hand. “The night I saw Mrs. Sinclair, the night Amber was killed, she was wearing a pink sweater. I remember it, but when I saw her later, her sweater was blue.”
“So?”
“We were at the funeral home, talking to May. Then she left to find Amber. Serge and I drove around, looking for Amber too. We found her and Larry at the school, then we called the police right away,” said Serge. “By the time Mrs. Sinclair showed up, maybe half an hour had passed.”
“I’m going to ask again,” said Nancy. “So?”
“What if she found her daughter and the principal before we did,” I said. “What if she killed them, got blood on her shirt, and had to change.”
“She cleans a funeral home. Maybe she spilled something on her sweater and had to change,” said Nancy.
“Everyone says she looked at the reverend as a surrogate parent for Amber,” I said.
“Maybe it was more than just the reverend as a co-parent,” said Serge. “Maybe she saw him as a partner for herself.”
“Debbie-Anne said May fell in love with every guy she saw. Maybe she created a fantasy around all of it. She was in love with the reverend.”
“She would have felt betrayed and disgusted when she found out what he was really doing with Amber,” said Serge.
“Maybe she was even a little jealous of her daughter?” I added.
“Playing along with this. Now the townspeople are talking, gossiping about her,” said Nancy. “She’s lost her fantasy man, her job. She’s got a pregnant daughter, times are tough—”
“And Amber’s making it worse by that online group,” I said. “And by her turning to the principal, getting money from him. The deputies were talking about Mrs. Sinclair the night of Amber’s murder. They called her a good-time girl… What if Mrs. Sinclair was out of her depth with Amber? What if she couldn’t stand the gossip and the judgement from the townspeople anymore?”
“And there’s the money that was embezzled from the church,” said Serge. “Principal Larry wasn’t a smart guy. It would only have been a matter of time before he screwed up and the secrets the board was hiding came out. They can’t afford more scandal, but there would have been more gossip and whispers. Everyone would’ve been tainted by the town’s judgement.”
“And we all know how that hurts.”
“May has issues,” said Nancy. “But murdering her daughter?”
“Maybe there was an accident,” I said. There’s only one way to find out.”
“It’s a nice theory,” said Nancy. “But there’s no evidence.”
“There could be,” said Serge. “I know Amber stored her phone information in the cloud.”
“We’ve been through this before,” said Nancy. “The guys know the phone’s been cleared. I can’t suddenly make a move based on evidence no one has but me. May says she doesn’t have the password. It’s going to look suspicious if I can suddenly access Amber’s account. Let the tech guys handle it.”
“She may have killed her child and Principal Larry,” I said. “What else do you think she’s capable of?”
Nancy sighed. “A midnight move, that’s for certain. But my hands are tied, kid. Do I want to find the killer of Amber and Larry? Yes. Do I want to protect you more? Yes. If I start pushing and crossing lines—I’m not part of the investigation. I can get into a lot of trouble if I play this wrong.”
“There must be a way,” I said. “Serge, what are your skills like? Can you find out the password, without touching the files?”
“I guess.”
“So, maybe, if it’s a common-sense password, you can make up a story for it,” I said to Nancy. “Like, if it’s the reverend’s name, you say you just wondered if maybe that was the way Amber was trying to remember him.”
“And I saunter in, start a conversation with the tech guys and casually drop it into conversation?” she said.
“Any woman that can make pear and chocolate frangipane tart can rock the art of subtle.”
“Are you complimenting me or asking me to bake?”
“Both.”
Frank came in. “You want to take a look at this.” He held out a sheet of paper.
Nancy took it, read. Her face tightened. “Get May Sinclair in here. Now.”
He nodded and left.
“What is it?” Serge asked.
“The money transfer to her account. It didn’t happen automatically. Someone manually moved the money. Amber was under eighteen, which means her mom had to sign for her account, which means May was lying when she said she never touched the account or knew what was going on.”
“Sure you don’t want me to hack the cloud?” asked Serge.
“No,” said Nancy. “I don’t care what the procedures are, it’s my turn, now.”
Chapter Thirty-One
We waited in the outer office while Frank questioned Mrs. Sinclair. Nancy watched from the other side of the mirror and fed the deputy questions.
“Nancy and Frank will get the truth,” said Deputy Andrews. “They’re a good team.”
I nodded.
He began to speak, hesitated, then said, “On the one hand, I hope if May killed the principal and Amber, she was also behind your dad’s death. I’d like you and Nancy to have answers. On the other hand, I can hardly believe May would do any of it.”
Forty-five minutes later, Nancy came out. “Andrews, get Amber’s phone and bring it to Frank.”
“Did Mrs. Sinclair give up the password?” I asked.
“No,” said Nancy. “But I know what it was.”
Twenty minutes later, Frank led Mrs. Sinclair out in handcuffs.
I stood as Nancy came my way.
“The cloud had it all, and more,” she said. “Amber was planning to run away, to go to Edmonton and start a new life. Principal Larry was helping. He used money the reverend stole from the church to fund their great escape. I read the texts and it’s like a junior-high fairy tale. They were going to be together, he was going to help raise the reverend’s baby, and she was going to go back to school.”
Craig had said the green liquid in the blood had been a sign of possessiveness, jealousy. The more Nancy spoke, the more it felt like those emotions had been Principal Larry’s, wanting what he couldn’t have, and Amber playing him to get the life she wanted.
Nancy sat down. “May installed spyware on Amber’s phone. She’d been monitoring all of it.” Lowering her voice, she continued, “It wasn’t Serge who reset the phone, it was May. She didn’t want us finding the apps.”
“But she never said anything to Amber? Never confronted her?” Serge asked.
“It’s like sneaking into your kid’s room to read their diary. She just wanted to know what was going on. When it looked like she was going to lose Amber, that’s when the confrontation happened.”
“Was it an accident?” I asked.
“According to her. May showed up, they argued. Amber wanted out of the town, but didn’t want May coming with her. The plan was for her to run that night. Larry was to join her later, help set her up in Edmonton. May and Amber fought, and when it looked like Larry was going to side with May, her daughter pulled the weapon.”
“Amber had a gun?” Serge asked.
Nancy read the text. “After their house was vandalized and the harassment started, May bought the gun for protection. She didn’t realize Amber had taken it. There was a struggle, the gun went off.” She rubbed her eyes. “She didn’t mean to kill her daughter, and once it was done, she snapped. She was mad at the town, the church, furious with Larry. Blamed him for Amber’s death, and decided to act as judge, jury, and executioner.”
It was all so sad. May wanting to protect her daughter from the mistakes she’d made and driving
Amber farther away with every attempt. Amber, wanting a sense of autonomy and finding it in all the wrong places. And all of it mixing into a toxic stew that boiled over and burned everyone. “What happens to her, now?”
“Jail. Trial. God knows what a judge will say to any of this.”
“There are no happy endings in this town, are there?” I asked.
She gave me a tired smile. “In this life, sometimes there are just endings. Come on, let me grab my coat, then let’s get home.”
“Hey, what was the password?” asked Serge.
“The one thing Amber wanted and the thing her mother and this town could never give her,” said Nancy. “Freedom.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Nancy went to get her coat, and I started for the truck.
“Hold up,” said Serge. “Something she said’s got me thinking.”
Does it hurt?
“Ha ha.”
I rubbed my eyes. How about if I wait in the car for you guys? I’ve had about as much as I can take of all of this. I want some quiet and a place where no one’s watching me.
“Fair enough. See you in a couple.”
Deputy Andrews kept watch as I stepped into the black cold of the night and pulled my scarf tighter. The headlights of the SUV glowed in the snowfall, a warming beacon I needed. Amber, Mrs. Sinclair, Principal Larry, the reverend, it all left me feeling sick. All these people trying for their happiness and consuming everything good in their path. I hit the unlock button and heard the vehicle chirp in reply. I waved to the deputy as I opened the door. He waved back and went back into the station.
“Did the mom do it?”
I jerked back. “Carl!” I fumbled for the panic button on the fob, but he was faster. He grabbed and, twisting my wrist, wrenched it away.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’ll only hurt for a second.” He pulled his hand back, into a fist, and smashed it into my jaw. I slammed into the SUV’s door. There was a dull thunk of my head hitting metal and I pitched into blackness.
Chapter Thirty-Two
I was, hands down, the stupidest psychic in the history of supernaturals. This was the second time a bad guy had knocked me out. I kept my eyes closed and listened. Judging by the hum of tires on the road and the smell around me, he’d taken Nancy’s vehicle. Point for me—at least this time, I hadn’t ended up next to a decaying corpse. And based on my position, the feel of the cold window pane against my head, I was in the front passenger seat.
