Chapter Nine
We made it back to the car and jumped inside. Annika peeled away from the curb and drove back to Hangman’s House. I stayed in Annika’s car and we talked for a few minutes in my driveway.
“Don’t you need to get back?” I asked.
“I can spare a little time,” she said. “Plus, I need a moment to breathe.”
“That was pretty freaky,” I said.
“Yeah, totally. I had no idea she’d attack me that way. I thought for sure I was safe because I was family.”
“I don’t know that family meant as much to Langoria,” I mused.
“What do you mean?”
I’d been thinking about how she’d given up Remy, but I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone he knew. I didn’t know if Annika knew either.
“Nothing. She just didn’t have a problem trying to hurt you is all,” I said, without looking at her.
“You’re lying,” Annika said. “Why are you lying to me?”
She sounded genuinely hurt, and I’d put myself in a bad position. I’d promised Remy, but I hated lying to Annika too.
“I can’t talk about it. I promised I wouldn’t.”
“You promised someone in my family that you wouldn’t talk about Langoria?” She was really good at putting things together. “Who? Remy?”
“I promised,” was all I could say.
I didn’t have to say anything. Annika figured it out from the look on my face.
“You promised Remy you wouldn’t talk about Langoria…” She trailed off for a moment, but eventually, I could see the gears turning in her brain. “I’d always thought those rumors were complete BS.”
“What rumors?” I hoped it was something else.
“They tried to keep it from us, but you can’t keep a lid on a story like that. The older generation probably used some kind of magic to protect the secret, which is why the younger cousins never really questioned it or talked about it,” she said and turned to me. “Langoria was Remy’s mother. That dreadful witch really did just give him away because she didn’t want to be burdened.”
“He doesn’t want people to know that he knows.”
“I need to go to the funeral and be with him. I’m sure this is weird and hard on him,” she said. “I wish you could go too, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to show up at a Skeenbauer funeral.”
“You’ll tell him I wish I could be there.”
“I will, but I think he already knows that,” she said as I got out of the car.
As I watched Annika pull away from my house, I felt awful. I hadn’t meant to let Remy’s secret out. It’s not like I’d just outright told Annika, and I’d tried to keep my promise. But it was still my carelessness that led to her figuring it out.
I went inside and made myself a cup of tea. Meri had been asleep in my bag when I’d come into the house, so I’d just set it down and let him sleep. Halfway through my cup of tea, he shimmied out of the bag with something in his mouth.
Meri had the protection amulet Langoria had stolen. He’d found it in her house and had kept it to himself.
“Why didn’t you tell me you found that?” I asked. “We could have given it to Thorn. He would have had to believe me.”
“You wanted to wait inside the house where we were trespassing and hand over a piece of evidence that only proves you had motive to kill her?”
“You could have left it there so he could find it. At least then, he’d have believed me that she was the one who broke in and stole it,” I huffed.
“Thus ensuring that he had evidence that you had motive to kill her,” Meri said with a flick of his tail.
“Whatever.”
“Whatever.”
An hour or so later someone rang my doorbell. I’d thought that perhaps it was Annika returning after the funeral to visit or maybe Remy coming over to hang out, but it was Thorn. I thought I was busted. I just knew that he’d seen me fleeing Langoria’s house and he was there to arrest me and probably break up with me too. Could he break up with me? It’s not like we were a real couple. Breaking things off was still possible, though.
“Can I come in?” he asked after I opened the front door.
I stepped back and motioned for him to come in. Thorn stepped past me and took off his hat. He was wearing a ball cap with the sheriff’s office insignia on it instead of what I called his cowboy hat. For a moment, I wondered how he made the decision each day about which one to wear. My mind did not want to focus on the possible negative reasons for his visit.
“Please sit down,” I said. “Do you want a tea or some soda?”
“A beer would be nice, if you have one.”
“Let me check,” I said.
I didn’t have any beer on hand, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be any in the fridge when I opened it. The house had a way of providing things after all, but it wasn’t something I could control.
Sure enough, when I opened the refrigerator, there was a six-pack of pale ale inside. I took two out and went back to the living room to join Thorn.
“Thank you,” he said.
Thorn used one of his keys to open the bottle, and he reached out for mine. I handed it to him, and he did the same for me.
“Thank you,” I said and sat down next to him on the sofa. “I guess this means you’re not here to arrest me,” I said.
“For what?” he asked and narrowed his eyes.
I almost choked on my sip of beer. He wasn’t there to arrest me, and I’d just made myself look guilty of something for no reason.
“Oh, I’m just kidding. I guess it’s too soon for that.”
The side of his mouth curled up and Thorn’s eyes narrowed further as he contemplated what I said. After a minute of silence, he relaxed and took a big swig of his beer.
“I got a call about Langoria’s house tonight. One of her elderly relatives was too sick to attend the funeral. She heard a ruckus in the house and called my office. Said she might have seen a prowler sneaking in too. I still had a key from when we went in after she died, so I checked it out.”
“Oh, did you find anything?” I asked as innocently as possible.
“No.”
“Well, that’s good,” I said and took a gulp of my beer. “So did you come over just to hang out and drink beer after work?”
“No,” he said. “I mean, I hope you don’t mind. I probably should have called first.”
“I don’t mind at all. Do you want me to fix something to eat?”
“Brighton, I can’t just show up at your house and expect beer and a meal,” he said sheepishly.
“Of course you can. Let’s go into the kitchen. I’ll whip us up something.”
We moved into the kitchen, and at Thorn’s request, I made us more grilled cheese sandwiches. Apparently, he’d really liked them.
“I can pay you back for this,” he said as I set his plate down in front of him.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. I actually came over here to ask you out tomorrow night. I thought you might let me take you to dinner. I promise I didn’t come here expecting you to cook for me, but I was hungry after my shift.”
“Really, Thorn, it’s no trouble. I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t mean it, and yes, I’d love to go to dinner with you tomorrow night. Thank you for asking.”
We ate our sandwiches and made small talk for a while. When we were done eating, I cleared our plates from the kitchen table and took them to the sink.
Thorn was standing right behind me when I turned around, and he tipped my chin up and pressed his lips against mine. His arms wrapped around my waist just as his radio went off again.
“This keeps happening.” It almost sounded like a growl.
“You have to go?”
“I should. I had a beer, so I’ll have to call in another deputy, but I need to go.”
“I understand,” I said and offered him a smile. “Tomorrow then?”
“Yes.”
He kissed me
again quickly, and I walked him to the door. For some reason, I stood in the doorway and watched him walk to his cruiser. I even stayed there and waved goodbye to him as he pulled down the street.
No sooner had he rounded the corner in one direction, before Remy’s car turned onto the street from the other. He pulled into my driveway, and I was happy to see him. I didn’t think things were going to work out between us in a romantic sense. My feelings for Thorn were too strong, but it was good to see my friend. I hoped that we could stay friends.
“Hi, Remy.”
He got out of his car and slammed the door hard before rushing across the grass and pushing past me into the house. At first, I thought that perhaps he was more torn up about Langoria’s death than he’d expected and wanted to get into the house before he cried.
I was wrong. He was clearly angry, and it looked like his fury was turned at me. Remy’s face was bright red, and he was shaking.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Don’t pretend like you don’t know,” he said. “You promised me. You promised you wouldn’t say anything.”
He was talking about his secret. He’s already found out that Annika knew. I guess I shouldn’t have expected any less. It was a small town.
“Remy, I didn’t tell her. Not really. I let it slip that you had a secret. She pieced it together herself,” I said. “I’m surprised she said something to you.”
“You think that makes it better? You promised me, and your carelessness… it…”
“Remy, come in and sit down. We can talk about this.”
“I don’t want to come in and sit down,” he said.
“Well, then at least tell me what happened.”
“I don’t owe you anything. You broke your promise to me so fast, but whatever. I guess you’ll hear it around town anyway. It might as well come from me. We were at the funeral. Annika had just slipped back in after stealing my car. I let that go. I figured she must have had good reason. So after a few minutes, a cluster of the aunts came closer. They were gossipingly loudly. One of them said something to another about what a pity it was that I was so indifferent towards Langoria. It was a snide comment by one of Langoria’s flying monkeys, and it set Annika off. She caused a big scene. Now people are talking about Langoria giving me away. It was a mess, and the worst part is that some of them are acting like my mom did something wrong by taking me in.”
“I’m sorry, Remy,” I said. “I really didn’t mean for this to happen, and I promise you that I didn’t tell her. She figured it out on her own.”
He took a deep breath that came out as more of a sigh. “I can’t be around you right now. This is too much, and it was the wrong day for it to happen. I’ll talk to you later,” he said and left.
I wasn’t sure how my evening had gone from being good to so completely bad in such a short period of time, but it had. I slinked over to the sofa and lowered myself down onto it in a puddle of self-pity.
Meri came down the stairs then. He’d been upstairs napping or doing whatever he did in the walls while I hung out with Thorn and had the exchange with Remy.
“Follow me,” he said, so I did.
He led me upstairs and then stood underneath the pull-down stairs to the attic. I reached up and brought them down, and he hurried up the risers as I trailed behind him.
Meri traverse the length of the library until we were at the wall farthest away from the stairs. He jumped up on a small table that sat against the wall. I watched as he pawed at the space above the table, and a small outline appeared. Meri wiggled his nose, and I realized it was a tiny door. It popped open, and inside was a blue glass bottle. Silver stars spotted the sapphire decanter.
I reached in and plucked the bottle from the small hidden cabinet. “What is it?”
“It’s a magic elixir,” Meri said. “You seemed sad, and you shouldn’t have to be. A little bit of that will make you feel much better.”
But as he said the last part, I’d already unscrewed the cap and taken a huge gulp of the potion. At first, the enchanted concoction just tasted like water, but after a moment, the taste of fresh blueberries blossomed on my tongue. It began to tingle, and then that tingle spread down my throat into my belly.
“Oh, Brighton, that was too much,” Meri said. “You’d better put that back.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
I enjoyed the fresh and invigorating tingle that was spreading out from my stomach to my limbs. It was when the sensation began to float upwards to my head that I knew Meri was right.
“Oh, my,” I said.
It felt as if I was floating above the sadness that had threatened to overwhelm me. I began to giggle and pulled out my phone.
“What are you doing?” Meri asked.
I walked over to a red velvet love seat in the reading area of my attic library and plopped down. Somehow it seemed completely reasonable that if I didn’t sit down, I’d float away.
“I’m calling Thorn,” I said. “I want to talk to him.”
“You shouldn’t call Thorn when you’re like this,” Meri said.
He jumped up on the sofa next to me, but I put my finger to my lips and issued a sloppy, “Shhh.”
Thorn’s phone only rang once before he picked up. “Hello, Brighton.”
It was then I realized he’d left my house to go attend to police business. “Oh, I’m sorry, Shhorn. I forgot you’re working.”
“No, it’s okay. I’m just pulling into my driveway now. Are you drunk?” he asked with a chuckle. “Are you okay?”
“I got into my auntie’s magic elixir,” I said and then remembered who I was talking to. “Oh, crap. I mean, it was her secret recipe.”
“You’re drinking your crazy great-aunt’s homemade liquor?”
“She washn’t crazy, and I only had a little. That’s not why I called you,” I said indignantly.
“Okay,” Thorn began with another laugh, “Please tell me why you did call me.”
“Remy came over after you left.”
“Oh,” Thorn said. “So… Are you calling to cancel our date?”
“No!” I said too enthusiastically. “No, I mean nothing like that. I’m upset because he was really mad at me.”
“He was mad at you? Why? Did he do something to you?”
“Nothing like that,” I said and sighed. “I let something slip earlier when I was talking to Annika. I didn’t tell her anything outright. I just mentioned something about Remy and Langoria, but she put it together. I swear I didn’t tell her.”
“I believe you,” Thorn said. “So what’s going on, then?”
“I guess it doesn’t matter now. Annika made a scene at the funeral about it, and it’s going to be all over town. I’m almost surprised you hadn’t heard about it yet.”
“Brighton, just tell me, sweetie,” he said.
My heart thumped when he called me sweetie. Thorn hadn’t done that before, but maybe it was just because I was intoxicated and acting silly. Perhaps he just wanted me to get on with it so he could go to bed.
“Langoria was Remy’s biological mother. The whole family knew. Well, the older generation. I guess all of the younger cousins don’t know, but Remy knew. The thing was, he didn’t tell anyone he knew. He wanted that part to be a secret. He told me about it after Langoria died. I promised I wouldn’t say anything. But… I don’t even remember what I said, but I didn’t tell Annika. The thing is, what I said, she put it together herself. I didn’t mean for that to happen. Anyway, one of the aunts made a nasty comment about Remy not caring enough about Langoria or something at the funeral. It set Annika off, and she made a big scene. Remy is mad at me. He thinks I betrayed him.”
“You didn’t,” Thorn said. “That’s a huge secret, and I believe it’s too big of a secret for him to ask you to keep. Especially when it makes him a suspect in Langoria’s murder. Brighton, it wasn’t fair for him to ask that of you. Besides, I believe you. I trust you didn’t tell Annika, and I know you didn’t say som
ething to intentionally help her figure it out.”
“I shouldn’t be putting this on you. I know you didn’t like my friendship with Remy. I’m being unfair,” I said.
“I don’t mind your friendship with Remy, Brighton. I don’t know that I like him getting mad at you about things that aren’t your fault. I don’t like him burdening you with such heavy secrets, but that’s something different.”
“We really were just friends,” I said. “I had thought that there was a possibility for more, but I just don’t feel about him the way…”
“It’s okay,” Thorn said. “You can say it. I have feelings for you too.”
“I’m glad,” I said. “But I’m sad too that I think I lost a friend. That’s why I took the elixir or drank it, what have you.”
“You didn’t lose a friend, Brighton. Remy will calm down and come around, and if he doesn’t, then he wasn’t a good friend to begin with,” Thorn said. “But you had better sleep off that elixir. Make sure you have a big glass of water before bed.”
“Thank you, Thorn,” I said and bit my lower lip. “Are we okay?”
“Of course, we are, Brighton. You can call me about anything. If I’m at work and I can’t talk, I’ll get ahold of you as soon as I can. I’m sorry I ignored you for so long. That was wrongheaded of me, but I won’t do it again. I’m here for you, and I’ll pick you up for dinner tomorrow night. I promise.”
Chapter Ten
I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed despite having drank too much of the magic feel-good potion. After a good stretch and a long yawn, I got out of bed.
Meri jumped down behind me, and we made our way down to the kitchen for breakfast. He stretched out in a patch of sun streaming through one of the windows while I perused our options in the fridge.
“You want an egg?” I asked. “I think I’m going to have some over-easy eggs and toast.”
“Yeah, I’ll take an egg,” he said and stretched.
Wicked Witches of Coventry- The Collection Page 16
