Cursed at First Sight

by Daphne DeWitt

  Getting up, I walked to the car with Sadie, Abigail, and the Blackwater twins trailing behind me. I couldn’t see her, but I knew she was there. I could smell her sandalwood perfume in the wind, and I felt like someone was judging my itchy pencil skirt.

  “How can I follow her if she’s not letting me see her?” I asked, getting frustrated.

  What if she was leading me to a clue to figure out her murder? I couldn't miss out on that. She was the key to unlocking Mason's cell.

  “I’ll go with you,” Cole offered, jumping inside of the passenger seat before I could decline. I didn’t want to admit it, but I needed him. His creepy connection with the dead came in handy when I needed to follow a dead girl that I couldn’t see.

  “Okay, I guess he’s going. Come on Sadie and Abigail, let’s go,” I said, jumping in the driver’s side and starting the car.

  Looking in the rearview mirror, I saw that Cade had decided to join without being invited. I guess that ran in the family.

  “Oh, you’re coming too?” I asked, getting the stink eye from Abigail.

  The girl was heartbroken over Bobby Lyons only an hour before meeting Cade Blackwater, but as soon as she laid her eyes on the handsome warlock she was like "Bobby who?".

  “I’m bored,” he said, rolling down his window and sticking his elbow outside, “We should have taken the brooms. That would have been much quicker.”

  “You guys use brooms? I thought that was only in the movies,” Sadie said, making eye contact with Cole Blackwater through the rearview. Somehow, Sadie even made naïveté look absolutely perfect. It was infuriating.

  “No, Sweetheart. He was only kidding. We drive motorcycles,” he said, signaling for me to turn right.

  After a few more right turns and one left we ended up in front of the small off-white house with a white picket fence and a bright cherry red door.

  “Why would she want to bring you here?” Cade asked, jumping out of the car and helping Abigail out, “Are you sure this is the right place?”

  Cole looked at his brother with a cocky expression, “Have I ever been wrong before?”

  “No, Bro, you haven’t,” Cade answered, scratching the back of his head.

  They knew who lived in that house, and they were shocked that Allison led me there. I wanted to know why. “Is this house of any importance to you guys?”

  They shared a look before exploding with laughter. “No, definitely not. Aaron Golden lives here,” Cole said, sticking his hands in his pockets and rocking back and forth on his feet.

  “And?” I asked, not following what they were saying.

  “He’s the town weirdo, so I have no idea why a popular girl from three towns over would lead you to Aaron’s house. I’m not sure why any girl would lead you to Aaron’s house,” Cade said, mimicking his brother’s movement.

  It didn’t make any sense to me either. Allison was the type of girl who wouldn’t be caught dead in Cold Creek. No pun intended.

  The twins started walking toward Aaron’s front door. “What are you guys doing?” Abigail asked, slowly following behind them. She was scared, but she was following them not because she was brave it was because the twins looked like they had jumped from the pages of a Vogue editorial.

  “Finding out what is going on here. We love a good mystery,” they said in unison, causing me to jump.

  “I don’t like them,” I whispered to Sadie and Abigail. They seemed like the type of "bad news" Grandma Misty was always warning us about. Besides, I had enough crazy in my very own family to deal with. We certainly didn’t need to go out searching for more.

  “I do,” Abigail replied, smiling wildly.

  “Figures,” I muttered.

  The twins knocked, but no one came to the door. They opened the door anyway.

  Those boys were trouble, but trouble was my only hope at that moment. For the first time in my whole life, I was going to walk on the wild side.

  I was scared to death.

  17

  The house had pictures of Allison, and a guy who I assumed was Aaron scattered all over the house. She definitely knew him and judging from the picture of them kissing, I came to the conclusion she knew him well.

  Why was she showing me her side dude's house? More importantly, why did she have a side dude? I thought she was insanely in love with Mason. She constantly hung on his arm.

  “She wants you to go to his desk. It’s in the room before the kitchen. Check the top drawer on the left side,” Cole said, rubbing his temples.

  I knew how he felt his pain. Allison’s voice gave me a headache as well. It was like nails on a chalkboard.

  “Is she annoying you?” I asked, giving him a sympathetic smile.

  “Yes, she is. Go find whatever she wants you to find, so she will leave me alone,” he said, pacing back and forth.

  Nodding, I walked away and followed the directions I was given. The small office-like room held the desk in question. Pulling open the top drawer, I found a letter folded up. Picking it up, I felt guilty for reading someone else’s private property, but I had to do it. Allison wanted me to see whatever was in that letter.

  Taking a deep breath, I unfolded it, and my eyes scanned over it. It was Allison’s handwriting scrawled elegantly across the paper.

  Aaron,

  I spent last night thinking about your offer, and I came to the conclusion that I want to do it. I want to run away with you and marry you, but I just can't. For some odd reason, I can't leave Mason. It's not that I wouldn't leave him, it's like it's physically impossible for me to. Almost as if we are tied together by some unseen force. The feeling of wanting to be around him is completely suffocating me. I know he doesn't love me, I can see it in his eyes. Every time he says those three words, it sounds forced like he doesn't want to say it, but he has to. Like he has no choice in the matter. Believe me; I know how silly this sounds because I feel silly writing it. I want you to move on and find a girl that makes you happy because I can't. I'm forever connected to a man I don't love. I wish this were one of those romantic comedies, and it would all work out in the end, but it's not. It's real life. I wish you could save me from my miserable future.

  I’ll love you forever,

  Allison Talbot.

  Well, I wasn’t expecting that. I still didn’t know exactly what Allison was trying to tell me. She was having an affair, I had gotten that much, but did she just hand me a suspect?

  The jilted ex-lover who decides if he can't have her then no one will? It made sense, but it didn't explain the magic element of it. My heart hurt at the thought. I felt torn about it. Obviously, this was a horrible situation and, if Allison was killed because of romance gone awry, then it was a horrific tragedy. Still, a strange sense of jealousy poured over me. Allison might have been dead. She might have been murdered, but she had love and she was able to enjoy it while she was alive. That was more than I would ever be able to say.

  “Find anything?” Sadie asked, poking her head in the room.

  “I found a letter Allison wrote to Aaron,” I told her, walking to the door and handing the letter over to her. “A love letter?” she asked.

  “Yep, well, kind of,” I said, shrugging.

  Eyeing me strangely, she moved her eyes all over the letter making different facial expression ranging from "Aw" to sadness. “She really had me fooled. I thought she was head over heels for Mason,” Sadie said, folding the letter up and holding the door open for me to walk out.

  “Yeah, me too. She always threw his name around when she was around me,” I said, walking to the living room to rejoin Abigail and the Blackwater twins.

  “How well do you guys know Aaron?” I asked Cade and Cole, hoping they would be able to help me further.

  They shared a look before turning back to me at the same time. “As well as anyone could know the town shut-in. Why do you ask?” they inquired once again at the same time.

  They were like the twins in The Shining. I was pretty sure they were going to be the st
ars of my nightmare that night. I was used to seeing identical twins because I lived with Agnes and Abigail, but I was only used to one twin being able to talk. They couldn’t do that weird talking at the same time thing. Thank goodness.

  “Would you happen to know if Aaron has any connection to magic?” I asked, giving the letter to them to read.

  They were completely silent as they read the letter and when they finally looked back up at me, they were sporting confused expressions. “This is a breakup letter, why would this lead you to believe that Aaron Golden is using magic?”

  “Because whoever murdered Allison Talbot used magic to make it look like Mason Blanchard did it,” I said, stating the obvious, “So, I’m going to ask you again, does Aaron Golden have any connection to magic?”

  “A couple of years ago he got obsessed with our sister, Daisy, and he would always show up at the house wanting to dabble in magic. We thought he had a crush on her and we felt bad for the dude, so one day we invited him in, and for a while, he seemed like a cool kid,” Cole said, looking at Cade to see if he should go any further.

  “I feel like there’s a 'but' in there somewhere,” I said, folding my arms, grimacing as things started to click into place.

  “He wanted to learn black magic. We told him we didn't do that and that he shouldn't either, but he said he would learn it himself and he stormed out. I saw him at the pizza barn about a month after that day, and I shook his hand. I saw everything … he wanted to hurt us for how we treated him in high school and got back at Daisy for never saying yes when he asked her out on dates. She turned him down a lot,” Cade said, biting his lip.

  I didn't want to know what they did to him in high school to make him want to hurt them, but just from being around them in the short period I had, I could make a few guesses. They seemed like the goons who would hang him from the flagpole wearing a pink dress or fill his locker with paint.

  “Where is he? Maybe we could talk to him and feel him out,” Sadie asked, as we walked outside and locked the door behind us.

  “What time is it?” Cade asked, checking his watch, “It's lunch time. He usually eats at the deli every day for lunch before his job at the library.”

  Before I could ask them to take us, they ran to the car and jumped in.

  “I think they are starving for company,” I said, watching laughing through the car windows.

  “Let’s move here, and then they won’t be lonely,” Abigail said, with a dreamy look on her face.

  “Please stop talking. When we leave Cold Creek tonight, Cade Blackwater will forget he ever met you, and you will be back to following Bobby Lyons around like a lost puppy,” I told her, making my way to the car.

  “We've already made plans for him to visit me and I'm over boys like Bobby Lyons. Cade is a man. He said that twins belong with twins. Cole said he wants to meet Agnes,” she said, smiling from ear to ear and getting in the car. She scooted next to Cade.

  I rolled my eyes. I knew there was no way Aggie would be thrilled about that. She didn’t like her men with a side of creepy. Also, I wasn’t sure how Abigail thought they could go on a twin double date with only one of them being able to use their shared voice.

  “Oh, brother,” Sadie said, sliding in the backseat after Abby.

  I wondered if Cade would still want to visit if he knew she had to share a voice with her twin sister, but the more I thought about it, I figured out if she couldn’t talk he might like her more.

  Knowing Abigail like I did, I knew that she was probably planning on locking Agnes up in a closet when Cade came to visit so she could keep the voice. Laughing at that visual, I hopped in the car. Cole gave me the directions to the deli.

  “How long have you been with your boyfriend?” Cade asked, taking me by surprise.

  “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “Sure, you do. I think his name is Daniel,” he said, causing me to snort.

  “He is not my boyfriend,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Could have fooled me. The guy practically has a shrine built in his honor in your head,” he said, causing me to blush.

  “Do I turn here?” I asked Cole, pretending like I didn’t hear Cade.

  “Yep,” he replied, trying to hold back his laughter.

  I was glad someone was amused by it.

  Putting the car in park, I got out, and they soon followed after. I didn’t see a deli anywhere. “Is there really a deli?” I asked, holding my hand over my eyes trying to keep the sun out thinking that maybe it was keeping me from seeing a sign indicating that there was a deli somewhere in the near vicinity.

  I was starting to think they just wanted us to stay a little while longer.

  “Yes, it’s right there,” Cole said, pointing at the small food truck parked on the corner.

  Was their deli a food truck? No wonder I didn't see it. Walking toward it, I saw Aaron sitting at one of the picnic tables that were placed along the sidewalk.

  “Aaron Golden?” I asked, feeling like Olivia Benson from Law and Order.

  He looked up at me with his mouth full of turkey and bread. “Who wants to know?” he asked between chews.

  “Hi, I’m Malady Norwood,” I said, holding my hand out for him to shake it. He didn’t.

  “Is that supposed to mean something to me?” he asked, rudely.

  I could really see why Allison liked him he was like the male version of her. They were like two peas in a pod.

  “Um, no, I guess not, but maybe it will when I tell you why I’m here,” I said, sitting down on the opposite end of the table.

  “What do you want?” he asked, stuffing his face.

  “I’m a friend of Allison’s,” I lied through my teeth.

  His eyes softened at the mention of her name. Not the normal reaction that Allison's name usually got. Most of the time it was followed by either a moment of silence or the infamous backhanded Southern putdown of "bless her heart".

  “Still doesn’t explain why you’re here interrupting my lunch.”

  “I’m here about her unfortunate death,” I told him, hoping that would soften up his hard exterior.

  “What? Her death?” he asked, dropping his sandwich on the plate.

  His face was a white mask of horror and disbelief. The tears forming in his stunned eyes told me he had no idea she had died.

  “You mean you didn’t know?” I asked, suddenly feeling more compassion for him than I imagined I would. “I’m sorry. I just figured you’d know. She was having an affair with you wasn’t she?” I asked.

  “Does it look I knew she died?” he asked, beads of tears forming in the corner of his brown eyes, “It wasn’t an affair, so don’t call our relationship that. We were in love.”

  My heart sunk a little further in my chest. I had my own ideas of marriage vows and what did and did not constitute an affair. Still, this man obviously loved Allison very much, and that earned him at least a little respect in my book. I took stock of my actions. Maybe breaking into this place wasn’t the best idea after all. A lawyer who broke the law? How do you like that? I blamed it on The Shining twins; they were a bad influence.

  “Who did it?” he asked, the menacing tone of his voice startling me.

  “Pardon me?”

  “Who murdered her?” he asked, his fists clenched into balls.

  “They arrested her fiancé, Mason, but I know he didn’t do it,” I said, trying to convince him that Mason was innocent because you know it was my job.

  “How do you know that?” he demanded.

  “Because I know Mason,” I yelled, looking around to see if anyone noticed and they had. Every eye on Main Street was on us.

  “Why are you with the Blackwaters? You know them too?” he asked, nodding his head in their direction.

  “Sort of,” I said, my mouth turning into a confused crooked line.

  “I’d stay away from them if I were you. Their nothing but trouble,” he said, gathering his stuff and getting up to leave.

  �
��That's funny. I heard the same thing about you!” I called after him.

  “Believe what you want, it doesn’t make a difference to me,” he said, tossing his half eaten food in the trash can before pushing up the arms of his shirt. That shouldn’t have caught my attention, but the tattoo he revealed did. It was the same as the symbol on Mrs. Abernathy’s wall minus the weird fire-like light.

  By the time I pulled myself from the daze, he was gone. He knew something that he wasn’t telling, but I felt like I was closer to proving that Mason was innocent. Pulling out my cell phone, I pulled up my notepad, and I typed in Aaron Golden - New Suspect.

  “Thank you, Allison,” I whispered, saying something I never thought I would say.

  For the first time in a while I was something close to happy. Luckily, my happiness had absolutely nothing to do with romance. I was still too fragile from my breakup for anything like that. Otherwise, the people I cared about would have had to go running for cover.

  I steeled myself and kept going. I had work to do.

  18

  “You really think this Aaron character did it? You even said he didn’t know she had been murdered,” Daniel said, parking his sleek car in front of the graveyard where Allison was being laid to rest.

  “I know, but I just don’t believe him. It’s the perfect motive. He murdered her because he wanted her all to himself, but he knew he couldn’t have her. Come on, Daniel, it’s the stuff Lifetime movies are made out of. It’s like an episode of Snapped. I even have a letter that places the motive on a silver platter,” I said, doing my best to convince him, but he wasn’t buying it.

  He got out of the car and waited for me to do the same. He wasn't into being a gentleman and opening the door for a lady. No, he was the type that wanted everyone to fend for themselves. I called it being a jerk.

  Sighing, I got out and straightened my solid black dress. Wearing black in the spring in Tennessee should have been illegal. I knew it was a funeral, but still. I was sweating like a sinner in church.

  “You don’t think it’s a little generic, Suzie Q?” he asked, fanning himself with his hand.