[Mystic Caravan Mystery 05.0] Freaky Places

by Amanda M. Lee

  Raven shot her an unreadable look. “I know you don’t want to hear it, Poet, because you felt bad for the mother, but it’s not unheard of for teenagers to take off without telling their parents.”

  “The mother described her as a good girl,” Luke argued. “She gets good grades and never misses curfew. She made it seem like taking off was out of the ordinary.”

  “I’m sure there have been plenty of mothers who said that about kids who really run away,” Raven pointed out. “Sometimes it’s the good ones who keep things bottled up for so long that they explode and do the unthinkable.”

  “What’s unthinkable about it?” Melissa challenged. “Maybe she simply got sick of an overbearing mother and wanted to be on her own. I can relate to that.”

  Raven snapped her head back to Melissa. “What is your deal?”

  “Just ignore her.” I waved off Raven’s concern. “She’s hungover and upset because I entered her trailer without waiting for her to invite me in. It’s not a big deal.”

  “It sounds like a big deal.” Raven pinned Melissa with a look. “Is it the hangover making you act as if you’re possessed or is it something else?”

  “Possessed?” Melissa rolled her eyes. “How is this my fault? She’s the one who didn’t knock.”

  “She’s second in command here. She doesn’t have to knock.”

  “That’s not what you said this morning,” Nellie pointed out.

  Raven ignored him. “You’re the new element on our magical periodic table, Melissa. You’re only here because Poet took pity on you and invited you to join us. Just for the record, I would’ve left you behind … but I’m not a people person.”

  Melissa balked. “Why are you telling me that?”

  “Because your attitude leaves a lot to be desired. You shouldn’t talk to her that way.”

  Raven’s matter-of-fact manner caught me off guard. She was the last one I expected to rush to my defense.

  “You talk to her that way,” Melissa snapped. “Isn’t that a little hypocritical?”

  Raven refused to back down. “Not in the least. Do you want to know why?”

  “Not really.”

  “I’ll tell you anyway.” Raven leaned over so Melissa would have nowhere to look but her face. “Poet and I are equals. Technically she’s the boss, but we’ve been working together for a long time. We don’t always get along, but we do respect each other.

  “Your problem is that you want to be an adult, yet you refuse to grow up,” she continued. “You want to drink like an adult? Then suck it up. It’s not our fault you have a hangover. It’s not our fault that you feel like crud.”

  “I didn’t say it was your fault.” Melissa jutted out her lower lip. “I was trying to … have a little fun.”

  “Well, you had fun, didn’t you? Now you have to deal with the consequences. If you choose to deal with the consequences by being the devil, my vote is going to be to leave you behind when we pull up stakes. That’s just me, though.”

  Melissa licked her lips. “I … .”

  Raven rolled her eyes at the girl’s hesitation. “Either grow up or be a child. Straddling both worlds is how you end being like Luke.” Her eyes flicked to me. “I’ll help you after dark if you want to cast a spell to find the girl. We might get lucky.”

  I was surprised. “Thanks. I might take you up on that. Kade mentioned heading over to the food trucks for dinner. I’ll check around when we get back.”

  “Great.” Raven moved to leave, stopping long enough to glare at Melissa one last time. “You cannot be both a child and an adult, no matter what Luke has taught you. Be one or the other. When you decide, make sure you tell us so we can either wave you goodbye or fully accept you into the group. The decision is yours.”

  And just like that, Raven slapped back a child and left a petulant adult in her wake.

  “I don’t have to listen to her crap,” Melissa groused as she got to her feet. “I’m not the one in the wrong here.”

  Nellie made a tsking sound with his tongue as he shook his head. “You didn’t hear a thing she said, did you?”

  “I heard all I needed to hear.”

  I WAS HAPPY TO get away from my new position as circus mommy for the night. Luke threatened to ruin my date with Kade by tagging along, but instead he took off with Dolph and Nellie. I had no idea what they were planning, but ultimately I figured it wasn’t my business. I wasn’t their mommy, after all.

  “You’re quiet tonight,” Kade mused as we wandered the food truck area. There were a lot of choices, so we took our time selecting.

  “I’m sure you heard what happened this afternoon. Mystic Caravan is nothing if not crawling with gossip.”

  “I might have heard something. Nellie likes to talk.”

  “Nellie does like to talk.” I sighed. “I don’t know what to do about Melissa. It seems that her attitude shift came out of the blue and I’m out of my depth.”

  “Why do you think it’s your responsibility to take her on?”

  I shrugged. “I brought her in.”

  “And you did her a favor by doing it. You went out on a limb for her. In fact, you’ve gone out on several limbs for her. It’s not your job to make things easy for her. At a certain point, she needs to stand on her own two feet.”

  Was that what I was trying to do? “She’s powerful.”

  “So are you. That doesn’t mean we can’t do without her. We did without her for a long time.”

  I pursed my lips to keep from laughing. “You joined like five minutes before she did. We did without you for a long time, too. That doesn’t mean I want to do that going forward.”

  “And there we agree.” Kade slipped his arm around my shoulders and pressed a kiss to my temple. “Listen, I know you’re worried about Melissa, but I think you’re looking at this the wrong way.”

  “And how should I look at it?”

  “I told you I was a good boy when I was younger, right? I followed all the rules and joined all the teams. I gave my mother very little trouble.”

  “And I was the exact opposite,” I noted. “I found trouble and caused constant headaches for my parents before they died. They were always worried about me. What’s your point?”

  “My point is that when I joined the military and went overseas I kind of fell off the rails. I drank, went a little crazy, and tried to be as rowdy as I could possibly be. I was the same age as Melissa. Do you know what I learned?”

  “Hangovers suck?”

  Kade snickered. “I definitely learned that. I also learned that fitting in with the crowd wasn’t what I wanted to do. So, I had a few wild months and then I got myself together and became a better man.”

  “And you think that’s what Melissa is doing?”

  “I don’t think the situations are exactly the same,” Kade cautioned. “I do think Melissa is testing her boundaries. You have to wonder how things are for her. She’s the youngest one here. She’s the new face on the block.

  “We do things she doesn’t understand, like drinking around a fire and messing with one another,” he continued. “She wants to fit in, but she’s not quite there yet. Then we land here and she meets someone her own age – someone you claim might be a witch – and maybe they’re bonding.

  “That doesn’t mean Melissa will turn into some monster,” he said. “It means she’s feeling things out. Don’t write her off yet. I’m willing to bet, much like me, she’ll realize she wants to live her life a certain way and that constant hangovers – and that bad attitude she put on display today – won’t be a part of it.”

  I couldn’t help being hopeful he was right. “You have keen insight into the minds of teenagers,” I said, offering up an amused grin. “I had no idea you were so worldly.”

  “Ha, ha.” Kade smacked a kiss against my lips. “Let’s not dwell on it for the rest of tonight, huh? Let’s get dinner instead. I’m thinking we should get small meals at like eight different places. I’m feeling the need for variety.”
<
br />   I smirked. “Just when it comes to food, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Okay. Well, I want to start with the Lebanese place and then I totally want to try that bourbon chicken at the Chinese one before swinging over to the creole offerings at that one over there.”

  “And that right there is exactly how you get in the spirit of food trucks.”

  I WAS STUFFED BY the time we finished, so full that I thought I might bust a button on my cargo pants.

  “Let’s take a stroll and see if we can walk off some of this gluttony,” Kade suggested after tossing our empty food containers.

  I took his extended hand and groaned getting to my feet. “We ate enough for ten people.”

  “Yes, well, it was good. I have zero regrets.”

  Other than the potential stomachache, I didn’t either. “Let’s walk down by the water. We don’t get ocean views very often.”

  We lapsed into companionable silence, both of us simply happy to be together. We walked a good way along the boardwalk before turning in toward the beach, breaking from our reveries when a couple of excited boys – they couldn’t have been older than thirteen – started exchanging information in loud voices.

  “She’s naked, dude!”

  “She’s not naked. She clearly had underwear on.”

  “That wasn’t underwear. That was seaweed. She was naked. I totally saw her tits!”

  I jolted at the crude language, sliding a sidelong look in the direction of the boys. Their faces were flushed with excitement and they kept looking toward the surf.

  “You guys saw a naked woman?” Kade asked. “Where?”

  One of the boys pointed toward the water. “She’s right over there … and she’s freaking hot.”

  Kade exchanged a quick look with me, worry evident. “Naida?”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking.” I picked up my pace and hurried toward the water. “Why couldn’t she wait until after midnight? No one would’ve seen her then.”

  “You know how she gets about water. Maybe she couldn’t stop herself.”

  That wasn’t much of an excuse as far as I was concerned. “Well, she’d better hope we can explain this away. In fact … .” I didn’t finish what I was going to say. I couldn’t even remember what it was. My eyes were drawn to the rolling surf, a body caught in its push and pull, and all previous thoughts simply evaporated.

  “That’s not Naida,” Kade said after a beat.

  I shook my head. It was a woman. That much was obvious. I couldn’t see a face, though. It was obliterated by long hair, brunette waves spilling over what looked to be young features.

  “Katie Dobbins had long brown hair, right?”

  “Yes.”

  I felt sick to my stomach. “We should probably call the police.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  11

  Eleven

  “So, how did this happen?”

  Detective Rick Walker pulled a notebook from his pocket and stood in front of Kade and me. Things became chaotic after the body discovery. It only took the kids a few minutes to realize they hadn’t seen a live naked woman but rather a nude dead one. They reacted with screams, which carried over to onlookers, and before we realized what was happening we were involved in a full-blown panic.

  Kade had to stop onlookers from trying to resuscitate the girl – it was obvious she was dead given the state of the body – and after that we had nothing to do but wait for the police to arrive.

  It didn’t take long.

  Walker took control of the scene, called in the medical examiner. He segregated us to the side and made us wait while he walked the beach and talked to several uniformed officers. It was clear he was trying to exert control, which was normal, but I didn’t like his attitude all the same.

  “How are we supposed to know how it happened?” Kade challenged.

  “You called it in, right?”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t mean we know how it happened,” Kade replied. “We heard a couple of kids talking about a naked woman in the water. We thought perhaps someone got drunk … or something else happened … so we came to take a look. We knew right away that it wasn’t some random drunk.”

  “No, definitely not.” Walker checked his notebook before turning to me. “You’re with the circus, right?”

  Part of me felt as if I should be insulted he looked to me when he asked. “We are. Mystic Caravan. Why? Do we look like circus folk or something??”

  Walker shook his head. “No, but you’re … unique … looking. We’ve made it a point to get to know everyone setting up for the festival. The one place we haven’t stopped is the circus grounds.”

  Unique looking? I was fairly certain that wasn’t a compliment. “Well, you’re welcome to stop by whenever you want. I’m second in command. Tell whoever meets you at the front that Poet said it’s fine for you to explore. Just make sure to ask for a guide when going to the animal tent. We have very expensive liability insurance.”

  “Right.” Walker nodded. “Anyway, what can you tell me about the girl?”

  That had to be a trick question. “Not much. We saw her in the surf. We realized she was dead. We called you.”

  “And that’s all you know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, well … you can be on your way.” Walker was dismissive when he moved to turn from us, but Kade wasn’t keen to let him escape without answering a few of our questions.

  “Is it Katie Dobbins?”

  The question caught Walker off guard. He shuttered his surprise quickly, but it was too late to completely cover. “And how do you know that name?”

  “Her mother stopped by the grounds today with a photograph of her,” Kade replied. “She said her daughter was on the beach with friends last night but didn’t come home. She was distraught. We helped her call her daughter’s friends, but none of them knew where Katie was. Then we called your department and a uniformed officer showed up to ask a few questions. We haven’t seen the mother since.”

  “We don’t know that it’s Katie Dobbins,” Walker cautioned. “The medical examiner needs to make the identification.”

  He was lying. He was good at keeping his emotions in check, but there was a veneer of rage bubbling near the surface. I didn’t need to poke into his head to see he was frustrated. He was also keen to dole out some justice, which I found interesting.

  “You know it’s her,” I argued, playing a hunch. “I saw her face when the medical examiner moved the body. It was pretty obvious.”

  “But you only saw a photograph, right?”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Kade asked, his temper flaring. “What exactly are you accusing us of?”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything.” Walker made a big show of being pragmatic. “I’m simply wondering how you managed to identify a teenage girl from fifty feet away after only seeing one photograph.”

  “We might have only seen one photograph, but Pamela was with us for hours,” Kade supplied. “She was upset … and crying … and falling apart. That isn’t easy to forget.”

  “We also promised to be on the lookout for Katie,” I added. “We thought there might be a chance that she visited the circus grounds if she really did leave voluntarily. It looks like that’s not the case.”

  Walker cocked a challenging eyebrow. “What makes you say that? She could’ve accidentally drowned. We don’t have a cause of death yet.”

  The fact that he insisted on talking down to me, as if I were blind and couldn’t see what was obvious, set my teeth on edge. “Really? You think those marks on her wrists and ankles were made by accident?”

  I felt Kade stiffen next to me, but he wisely remained silent.

  Walker, on the other hand, opted to play dumb. “What marks on her wrists and ankles? I didn’t see any marks.”

  “She had open wounds,” I said. “Those weren’t made by ocean nibblers. They were big, wide and ugly. They were also made bef
ore she died.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “I’ve seen my fair share of wounds.”

  “You see a lot of wounds like that in the circus, do you?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve seen a few in the circus. We have tigers and bears, after all. That’s not where I saw wounds like that before, though.”

  Walker leaned forward, intrigued. “And where did you see wounds like that?”

  “Back in Detroit. I grew up there. I was on the streets when I was a teenager, in the city, and I lived in a park for almost a full year. They had this bridge that went over an abandoned road, and to keep warm during the winter we camped under it during chilly months.

  “We had these barrels we filled with wood for fires and used to warm food on the rare occasions we could find some,” I continued. “It wasn’t just homeless teenagers and rootless adults. There were also quite a few ... I guess the term would be ‘mentally unstable’ individuals as well, the ones the system failed and turned out on the streets.”

  “I’m familiar with how the homeless population works,” Walker said. “I’m sorry you were part of it as a youngster. I guess that’s how you ended up with the circus.”

  “Not like you think.”

  “That doesn’t explain how you recognize those wounds,” Walker pressed. “Have you seen them before? Have you seen them here?”

  I saw another flash from his mind. This one involved another body, a different body. It had the same wound pattern, and it was equally ravaged by time in the water.

  “Not here.” Lying on that front wouldn’t get me anywhere. “It was in Detroit. It was winter, and it was under the bridge, and there was a fight for warmth. I wasn’t very big, so I was hyper-vigilant. It was late in the winter, so I was really thin because I was going days without food. I knew better than getting too close to the barrels, so I kept my distance.

  “There was this guy named Big Joey,” I continued. “He decided who got to stand next to the barrels – generally people who provided him with food. He was big – huge really – and he liked to fight. One day he took on this little guy who showed up out of nowhere. That guy’s name was Aaron.