by K. J. Emrick
It wasn’t there for him. Not anymore.
His leap ended badly and he fell to the floor again, sliding roughly against the rug, tumbling over himself. He blinked up at them in shock.
“What… what did you do to me?” His voice no longer held that growling edge that Addie remembered from earlier today. The animal had truly been stripped out of him.
“We put a block in you,” Kiera told him. “There is a magic spell working its way through your body that will keep you from changing into a werewolf. Forever.”
His eyes bugged and he gagged from the effort to say whatever was going through his mind. Addie could only imagine. If someone locked her away from her magic, she’d feel just as lost and afraid as Connor looked.
Willow had gone to help Misty up from the floor. The woman was holding her head in pain, blinking to clear her vision. “What happened?” she asked weakly.
“Nothing you have to worry about,” Willow told her. “Connor Raithmore killed his brother. He tried to kill you, too, but it’s over now. He won’t hurt you again.”
Misty stared at her. “B-but the wolf…”
“There was no wolf,” Willow told her, threading some of her Essence through her voice to make her words more believable. “You must have taken a hard knock to your head, right?”
Misty stared at her, and nodded, and a little smile tugged at her lips. “Yes. That must have been it.”
Addie looked down at Connor. He was trembling, curled up on himself, shaking his head in disbelief. “…don’t understand… don’t understand…”
He looked pathetic, naked and huddled over like that. Even so, Addie couldn’t bring herself to feel any kind of sympathy for him. He’d killed two people, and tried to kill another.
Whatever it was he didn’t understand, she thought to herself, he would have a long time to figure it out. In prison.
Footsteps from behind them startled the three sisters. Each of them made a different magical form with their fingers, ready to blast enough magical energy down the corridor to stop an entire horde of werebeasts.
It was Lucian who came around the corner, gun in hand, oblivious to the magic wave of power that had nearly been unleashed on him.
He stood there, taking everything in, and Addie could almost see his gears turning as he tried to process what he was seeing. “What in the world is going on here?”
“This is your killer,” Addie told him, taking great pleasure in pointing to Connor lying naked on the floor. “He was trying to kill Misty when we got here. Sorry to do your work for you.”
She smiled at him. To her surprise, he smiled back.
“What is it with these people,” he asked, “and taking off their clothes?”
Chapter 14
Addie and her sisters managed to slip away from the Norris home while more officers from the Birch Hollow police department were arriving to search the house and process the scene. Connor had been arrested, still mumbling to himself, and brought to a waiting patrol car after a blanket had been thrown around his shoulders. The loss of his werewolf shifting abilities had hit him harder than Addie would have thought. That might end up being a worse punishment than the Typic authorities could give him.
Willow was fairly bouncing in the backseat, glad that the mystery was solved and that she would be able to get back to Gary now, and pick up where they’d left off. Addie rolled her eyes. She was happy that her sister’s current boyfriend hadn’t turned out to be a killer. She just wished Willow wasn’t so… high-spirited about it.
Maybe that was the jealousy talking. She and Lucian had left each other with a handshake, and then he was off talking to the other police officers like she didn’t matter at all. Of course he had a job to do, but she had been hoping that once he didn’t suspect her of being involved in Esmerelda’s murder that they could… maybe…
She didn’t know how to end that sentence.
For now, things were over and settled with the arrest of Connor Raithmore, and that was what mattered. At least as far as the police were concerned, things were over. For Addie, there were still questions.
When she took a right instead of a left at the main intersection in town, Willow leaned up into the front of the car. “Uh, Addie? What are you doing? Our house is back that way.”
“I know where we live, thanks.” She slowed down, putting on her blinker when she got close to the Hot Cauldron Café. “Listen, can you guys go home without me? I want to check on a few things at the restaurant.”
“Sure thing,” Willow said before Addie had even finished talking. “We’ll drop you off and then we’ll head home. You can break the spell on Gary without Addie there, right Kiera?”
Kiera wasn’t listening to her youngest sister. She was watching Addie with an odd look on her face. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“I’m fine. I just want to think about a few things.”
“Whatever,” Willow said. “You know, that’s your problem right there. You think too much. You should learn to just take each day as it comes. Then you’re never disappointed.”
Addie parked the car at the curb in front of the café. A part of her actually wished that she could just take Willow’s advice and stop caring so much. Care less, live more. Think about things less, and just do what came naturally. With a smile, she reached back and gave her sister a hug.
“What’s this for?” Willow asked.
“Because I love you for who you are. You too, Kiera.” She undid her seatbelt, holding her long hair back with one hand as it tried to fall forward. “We’re all very different. We all have our own ways of looking at the world. We all have things in our past that make us unique. I love our family. The three of us. I’m glad that we’re who we are.”
When she said that bit about things in their past, she made sure to look at Kiera specifically. They still hadn’t dealt with the whole issue of her missing son, or the fact that the kid’s father was a fallen angel. That was going to have to be a long conversation, sooner rather than later.
For now, she did have things on her mind and she wasn’t going to be able to stop thinking about them just because Connor had been arrested. There were parts of this mystery that were still bothering her. So, Willow’s advice about just living life was going to have to wait.
Right now she wanted a nice cup of tea and some privacy, to think. She doubted she was going to get that at Stonecrest once Gary was unspelled. He and Willow would be going at each other as soon as Kiera let him out of the Snare. She just knew it.
She watched as Willow drove her and Kiera away, one arm waving out the driver’s side window. When the car was out of sight she turned to the door and, making sure no one was around to see her, she snapped a little magic into the lock. Her keys were still on the ring with the car key, and Willow had them now. That was fine. Addie could walk home later. The fresh night air would do her good.
The lights flicked on in the dining area with a wave of her hand, and she closed the door behind her again. Little uses of her Essence. Just enough to be lazy. Like starting the burner on the stove back in the kitchen so it would be nice and hot when she filled the tea kettle and put it on to boil.
As she waited, she sat at one of the stools at the center island. She let the events of this mystery play out in her mind.
They had done a good thing. On the way here from the Norris house all three of them had a chance to discuss how they had reacted, how they had drawn on each other to cast their spells, that sort of thing. They hadn’t been in time to stop Leo Raithmore from being killed, but they had stopped Connor from killing Misty. That was something to be proud of.
More than that, they had uncovered a paranormal family living in their midst. If Connor and Leo were both werebeasts, their parents had to be as well. That sort of thing ran in the family. Sometimes people were infected by a werebeast’s bite, but if that had been the case then the brothers would have both been the same species. Werewolf bites only produced werewolves, for instance. The fact t
hat one of them changed into a cat and one into a wolf meant they had inherited the gift.
It would be a problem, having a family of shifters in town, except Addie doubted the Raithmores were going to be here for too much longer. Once news of the murders hit the papers the Raithmore family would be finished in Shadow Lake. No one would deal with them anymore. They’d have to leave just to save face.
One problem solved, several more left to go.
The matter of Kiera’s son was troublesome. If Kiera had searched for him from the tower with her magics, and not found him, what could that mean? Where could he have gone that she couldn’t find him? There was one awful possibility that she hadn’t wanted to mention to Kiera. She had trouble even saying it to herself now.
Alan Pierson could be dead.
She heaved a long sigh as the teakettle began to boil. That mystery wasn’t something she could solve tonight. Maybe if she and Kiera got together and focused their energies, a solution would present itself. She supposed, also, that they could call upon Alan’s father to help find him. He hadn’t been involved in Alan’s life at all, but every father had a soft spot for their children. If she called on him, wouldn’t he come running at the chance to see his son, and possibly save his life?
Then again, dealing with fallen angels was… tricky. Addie would prefer to keep him out of this. At least for now.
Unsolved mystery number one.
Even Lucian was turning into a mystery that eluded her. He befuddled her magic, making her exert herself to work even simple spells on him. He’d seen the magic sparks dancing on her fingertips and she just knew that he wasn’t going to forget about that! At the Norris house, when she’d laid a spell on the top of the stairs to turn aside anyone trying to come up to the second floor, Lucian had run right through it. He should have hit that spell and immediately gone back downstairs. His mind should have told him there was nothing up there of interest, just go back the way you came. That’s how it should have worked.
Instead, he’d shown up in the hallway just in time to make an arrest. If he’d been just one minute earlier, he would have seen the Kilorian sisters casting a spell on a werewolf.
So what was she supposed to do about him?
Unsolved mystery number two.
The entity she had felt in Stonecrest, watching her, was an even bigger problem. She didn’t know what that thing had been, or how it had gotten into their house past the magical barriers. Neither did she know where it was now. It was far too coincidental that it had entered their house while all the rest of this was going on in town, but for all she knew it could be unrelated. It was possible.
Although, she was not a very big believer in coincidences. The universe worked against coincidences as a general rule.
That made unsolved mystery number three.
Then, there was Donna. The enigmatic woman who had started all of this. Where was she? Who was she, for that matter? As Addie poured hot water into a mug that she had already prepared with loose black tea and jasmine and dried lemon grass, she pictured Donna in her mind. She had seemed nice. She had seemed genuinely concerned about Esmerelda being dead. Concerned enough to bring Addie out to find the body on Luna Moth Trail, anyway. So why did she disappear so quickly afterward?
And where did she go?
Unsolved mystery number…
Although, she had been wondering about why Esmerelda was left on Luna Moth Trail. Obviously, the answer to that was so she would be found. But was she supposed to be found by someone in particular? Gary, perhaps? He’d seen her lying there and said nothing at all about it. If leaving the poor woman there was supposed to be a message to Gary, then it was a wasted effort because obviously Gary didn’t get it.
Then a new thought occurred to her. Donna had brought her to see Esmerelda’s body, and that had led to the whole investigation and the end result of uncovering the shifters in the Raithmore family. Could it be… was it possible that Esmerelda had been left there for Addie to find?
Well, well. Now why would Connor Raithmore kill Esmerelda, and leave her for Addie to find? Unless he wanted to be discovered. Did that make sense?
Not really she decided, blowing on her tea to cool it a bit. For a mystery that was closed and done, there was still a lot of pieces that didn’t fit.
She sipped her dark brew, letting the tea wash through her and calm her racing thoughts. It needed sugar, she decided, or better yet a drop of honey.
When she turned to go to the pantry, she stopped.
A black cat was sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, just staring up at her.
“Oh, hey,” she said in a friendly way. “I remember you. The cat that was sitting in front of my car, right? The one that Doyle chased away.”
He blinked at her, and his whiskers twitched, and if she didn’t know any better she would have sworn that he could understand her.
“You’re a smart one, aren’t you? Now, how did you get in here?”
The cat made a rumbling noise in his chest.
Addie set her tea aside. She would have to get this guy out of here, somehow. No way could she leave a cat in the café overnight. Plus, if Doyle found out this guy had been on his turf, she’d never hear the end of it.
A voice from out in the dining area surprised her. “Hello? Anybody here?”
Strange, she thought to herself. She was sure she’d locked that front door. Although, with this cat in here as well, maybe she didn’t. “I’m sorry,” she called back, “we’re closed.”
“Oh, I know,” the woman said, her voice getting closer. “I was just wondering if we could talk, maybe?”
Addie knew that voice…
Misty Norris. That’s who it was. “Hold on, I’ll come out there.”
The cat had to be taken care of first. Carefully, aware that he might do anything if she spooked him, Addie scooped the big tomcat up in her arms before walking out of the kitchen. He didn’t argue with her, but it was obvious that he didn’t like being held.
Misty had already sat herself at a table. She’d taken the four chairs down and set them on their feet, giving her space to lay her head on her arms. She looked upset. Considering how she’d been assaulted—and nearly killed—by a man she thought she was in love with, that was understandable.
Addie put the cat down on one of the chairs and sat in another herself, right beside Misty. “I’m sorry,” she said, knowing how inadequate that sounded. “I know you’ve been through a lot today. Is there anything I can do to help?”
Misty’s lip curled sardonically and she pushed back the blonde locks of her hair as she sat up. “You’ve helped me a lot already. You and your sisters saved my life. Connor… he was going to kill me. I still don’t understand it all, but I know that much. He was going to kill me, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so. Listen, Misty… maybe it would be better if you tried to forget the parts you don’t understand.” What else could she say? Misty would never be able to understand the world of magic and the paranormal. There was no way to make a werewolf sighting feel normal. Only those with experience in magic could really understand any of that. Instead, she tried to change topics. “Did the police finish up at your house?”
“No, not yet. They said they were done with me and I could go…”
She looked so… small. Like she wasn’t comfortable in her own skin, somehow. Addie wanted to do something to make everything all right, but she knew that was impossible.
“This is going to be hard for you.” Addie reached out a hand to put on Misty’s arm. “If there’s anything I and my sisters can do for you, I want you to know that you can count on us. Um. Do you mind if I ask you a question, since you’re here?”
“Sure, why not? Everyone else has been asking me questions all day.”
“Well, I was just wondering if you could tell me about this deal that your family had worked out with the Raithmores? It must have been important, right?”
Misty shrugged. “It isn’t like it matters now. T
he deal is off.” She sighed, drumming her fingers on the table. “The Raithmores were going to buy the land we own on the edge of Shadow Lake, and several of our other holdings. They were going to own most of the town, if the deal went through. Although now, I suppose we’ll be able to buy their land. I doubt they’ll be staying in town for long. We’ll probably get it for pennies on the dollar.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.” Addie stared off at nothing as she tried to fit that piece of the puzzle into the picture. The Raithmores were buying out the Norris family? Addie had trouble believing that Esmerelda or her brother—Misty’s husband Lance—or especially their parents would have agreed to that! Maybe Esmerelda had said no, and so Connor had killed her, knowing that he could manipulate Misty into selling to him, since they were intimate.
Maybe. But that still didn’t explain why Esmerelda’s parents had gone along with the sale. Or Lance, either.
“What did your husband think of that deal?” she asked Misty.
“Lance? Oh, he left the decision up to me. He’s been gone on a trip to California for the last two weeks with the children, so he really hasn’t been involved. If you ask me it’s just as well. His family is in financial trouble, Addie. We don’t like to talk about it but there’s been some bad investments and a drop in our stock market assets, and… well, some bad personal decisions on my part, to be frank. We didn’t see any choice except to sell out to the Raithmores.”
“And by we,” Addie clarified, “you mean you and Lance.”
“Sure. And his parents, of course.”
Addie turned that information from every angle she could, but something still didn’t feel right. If Misty wanted to keep her secrets, then she should be allowed to. Really, it was no business of Addie’s if she was lying. It just didn’t make any sense.
