“You might be inclined to think that, but I’m not so sure it was the storm,” I said.
“Why do you say that?” Thorn asked.
“Because there’s a giant knife sticking out of his back,” I said. “And you might need to issue an Amber Alert. His neighbors say his son was with him, and so far I haven’t seen a kid. Should we go upstairs in the house and look?”
“No,” Thorn said quickly. “I’ll do that when I get there.”
After people got done looking in the window at Stewart’s body, they walked back up to the front of the house. I was waiting up there for Thorn, and they all sort of congregated around me even though no one was saying anything.
“You guys know that the Brew Station is open right now, right? Viv is there giving out soup and coffee for anyone who wants to eat or just wants some company,” I finally said.
“Maybe we should all head over that way,” Olivia said. “I don’t think we’re going to do any good here. Maybe we’d all feel better with some hot food and coffee.”
“What about the boy? They might need us to help look for him,” someone said.
“I’ll call Viv and let her know if there’s going to be a search for the boy,” I said. “Until we know for sure that’s necessary, why not go get something to eat?”
There probably wasn’t going to be anywhere for any of them to sit once they did get food and coffee, but at least the rain had stopped. It was a bit chilly outside, but at least it wasn’t cold. Perhaps Amelda would let people into the library to eat and warm up. I knew she was a stickler for the rules about eating and drinking in the library, but it was an exceptional circumstance.
I sent her a text asking her if she’d consider it.
Already on it. Was her reply. I should have known she would do everything she could to take care of the people in her town.
Reggie, Dorian, and I waited outside on the front sidewalk while Thorn combed the house looking for the man’s son. At first when he came out, I couldn’t read his expression, but then the corners of his mouth pulled into a soft, reassuring smile.
By that time, there were other deputies there. They’d all had to stop what they were doing and come to the scene, so Thorn went to speak with them. The three of us overheard the news, though, as he told it to Jeremy.
“There’s no child in the house,” he said.
“I’m going to call the kid’s mom, and then if she doesn’t know where he is, we’ll issue an Amber Alert,” Jeremy responded.
“We should have had the neighbors stay,” I said. “They’d know who to call.”
“Oh, we know who to call,” Jeremy said softly. “We’ve had to deal with Mr. Randell before. He’s in our system.”
I knew that we should leave, but I couldn’t until after Thorn called the child’s mother. Jeremy’s words about how Mr. Randell was in their system haunted me.
“Dixon is fine,” Thorn said when he hung up the phone. “His stepfather picked him up just before the storm.”
“You said Dixon?” I asked Thorn.
“Yeah, why?” He cocked one eyebrow up when he asked.
That was when it hit me that I recognized the dead man. He was the one that had come into the Brew Station before the tornado. Dixon was the little boy with him who he’d treated so terribly.
“We saw them before the storm at the Brew Station. It was really close to the time the tornado hit. He was just being awful to that boy,” I said.
Jeremy was writing down what I said. “And you can confirm this?” he asked Reggie and Dorian.
“I can,” Reggie said. “I saw it all, and so did Viv.”
“Not me,” Dorian replied. “I wasn’t at the coffee shop until later.”
“Why don’t you guys head over to the Brew Station and let the neighbors know the boy is okay,” Thorn said. “I’ll be along when we’re done with the scene to speak with Viv about her statement.”
“We should keep looking,” I protested. “We need to keep searching for people who need help.”
“No,” Thorn said softly. “Thank you for what you’ve done, but search and rescue is on their way here. The National Guard is coming as well. Red Cross is setting up in the square for now while they find temporary shelter for people who are displaced. You need to stay out of danger, and stay out of their way.”
“Come on,” Reggie said when she sensed me bristling. “Let’s go talk to the neighbors. We can find out why they hated this guy so much.”
“Reggie,” Jeremy warned. “Stay out of this.”
“No harm in having a conversation with some neighbors. It’s just gossip after all. Surely, there is no law against gossip, right?”
“Not in this town,” Dorian said.
It took us a while to walk back to the Brew Station, but at least the rain held out. The sun didn’t come out, but we stayed dry. As much as I hated myself for it, I started to block out the devastation on our way back. My mind and heart were overwhelmed, and my body had begun to follow.
Exhaustion gripped me in a way I hadn’t expected. My body felt heavy, and that was especially true of my legs and belly. I wasn’t in pain, but my stomach felt like a cannon ball. It was as if some sort of shift had taken place. Gravity pulled at me, but intuitively, I knew not to be scared. It was just… heavy.
Upon arriving at the square, we found Stewart’s neighbors sitting at a table set up outside of the Brew Station. I wasn’t sure where the tables had come from, but someone must have donated them to give patrons a place to sit. There were also people heading over to the library with bags and coffee cups in their hands.
We went inside the Brew Station to get some hot coffee, and I needed something to eat. At least I thought I did. I was at that point where I couldn’t figure out if I was starving or sick to my stomach. Since I felt a bit lightheaded too, I decided to eat something.
While we stood in line, I watched out the window. A few minutes after we arrived at Viv’s place, trucks started to roll into town. In addition to the Red Cross and National Guard trucks, there were various search and rescue vehicles too.
“Were we the only ones who got hit?” I asked. “This seems like a lot of help.”
“I think we are,” Reggie said. “I think the twister spared most of the towns around us. Coventry’s luck finally ran out.”
“I think we’re lucky,” Dorian said. “One death so far. It could have been so much worse.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “We are fortunate and even more so that we have this much help coming in. I guess things are worse than I thought, though.” Even as I said it, a few more National Guard trucks rumbled by.
A couple of minutes later, it was our turn at the counter. Viv smiled at us, but you could tell she was frazzled. “How’d it go, guys?” She looked grateful to have a moment to stop running around and chat.
“You’ve heard that we found someone, right?” I asked. I thought for sure someone would have said something by then, but perhaps the neighbors hadn’t.
“I did, but I didn’t want to bring it up if you didn’t want to talk about it,” she said.
“Dorian almost died saving a dog,” I said because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to talk about it or not.
“I was fine,” Dorian interjected. “You worry too much.”
“Is the dog okay?” Viv asked.
“The man and his neighbor took her to the vet, but I’m pretty sure she was going to be okay,” I said. “She was an old girl with dementia who got spooked during the storm, but she managed to escape into a part of the house that didn’t collapse.”
“Oh, that’s good,” Viv said and pressed her palm to her chest.
“The man we found had a son,” I said. “He wasn’t in the house. He was missing. But, it’s okay.”
“He’s with his mother,” Viv said. “Right?
How do you know that?” I was genuinely impressed and curious.
“The man’s neighbors were here. One of them found the man’s ex-wife’s phone number in her purse.
It was on an old scrap of paper, and she’d completely forgotten about it until today. Anyway, she called the ex-wife and the boy was with her. The kid’s stepfather went to pick him up before the worst of the storm.”
“Yeah. That’s the version I heard too,” I said. “Thorn confirmed it before I headed over here.”
“We compared notes, and, Kinsley, I think the dead man and his son were that man and the boy, Dixon, who were here before the tornado hit,” Viv said.
“Well, it makes sense why he called his stepdad to pick him up if that is the case,” I responded.
“I’ve got a line forming,” Viv said after that.
I looked behind me and several dozen more people had showed up at the Brew Station. “I’ll call you soon,” I said. “But call me sooner if you need anything.”
Viv got our orders, and the three of us headed out of the coffee shop. There were too many people waiting for tables or a place to sit for us to stay there. It wouldn’t have felt right.
Instead, Dorian, Reggie, and I headed over to the apartment above the shop. Dorian’s old place made a good resting spot where we could still be close to the action. Tangerine stayed with Viv for the time being. Meri followed us across the street and curled up on Dorian’s old sofa as soon as we were inside.
We sat around him in the living room eating our food quietly. That was until I reached out my hand to grab my coffee and it jumped away from me.
“Whoa,” Dorian said as his hand shot out to catch it before it spilled all over the coffee table and our food.
“Nice reflexes,” Reggie said before taking another bite of her sandwich.
“What just happened there?” Dorian asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
I stared at my hand in shock. A voice in the back of my mind whispered to me that it was a burst of magic, but I ignored it. There was no way that uncontrolled magic just shot out of my hand.
Right?
“You just knocked the cup over,” Reggie said. “What is wrong with you two? You both look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I’ve had it happen before, but it was when I was a teenager. It was before I studied hard enough to control my power,” I said.
“Well, there you go,” Reggie said and put her sandwich down on the table. “If it happened when you were a teenager and it’s happening now, then it’s a hormone thing. It’s because you’re pregnant. Just chill out.”
“I’ve been pregnant for a while,” I said. “This magical weirdness is all new.”
“Then you probably moved into a different part of pregnancy or something. It’s a shift, right?” she said.
“What part of pregnancy is that?” I asked skeptically.
“Dude, I don’t know anything about witch pregnancies,” Reggie said.
She picked up her sandwich and started eating again after that. By that point, Dorian had stood up and walked to the window. He was watching the National Guard set up a base on one side of the square and the Red Cross do the same on the other.
“I should be down there covering this,” he said so softly I nearly didn’t hear him.
“You should go,” I said in response.
“Not if you’re going to go back out there. I’m not leaving you alone and in danger,” Dorian said.
“Well, look at you trying to go all alpha male on us,” Reggie said with a chuckle.
“I’m not,” Dorian said and blushed. “I just…”
“It’s okay,” I interrupted. “You can go do your job, though. Reggie and I aren’t going to go looking for more survivors or anything like that. We’ll stay out of the way of the National Guard.”
“You swear?” Dorian asked.
“Cross my heart,” I said.
Chapter Five
I didn’t lie to him. Reggie and I didn’t go back out into Coventry looking for survivors.
We didn’t go home either.
“There’s going to be no time for them to investigate the murder,” Reggie said as soon as Dorian was gone. “Jeremy and Thorn aren’t going to be able to use any resources to solve it, and we know that the first couple of days of the investigation are the most important part.”
“We shouldn’t,” I said, but there was no conviction behind my words.
“We won’t do anything that will get us in trouble,” she said.
“Yeah, right,” I retorted with a chuckle. “I know you better than that.”
“There’s no law against us going to talk to the ex-wife,” Reggie said.
“I’m pretty sure if it interferes with a homicide investigation, there’s probably a law or two against it,” I said.
“We’re not going to interfere, and since when do you care?” Reggie asked.
“Since I promised both my husband and Jeremy that I wouldn’t put myself in any danger,” I said. “I’m trying to stick to my word.”
“We’re not going to be in any danger,” Reggie said. “We’re just going to have a conversation. There won’t even be any breaking and entering. If anyone knows who might have wanted that man dead, I’m betting on his ex-wife.”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“If she was married to an abusive man, she’s far more likely to talk to us than to Thorn or Jeremy. We’d actually be doing them a favor,” Reggie said.
And just like that, we were in the car headed for the address Reggie found on the internet. Apparently, Dorian had a subscription to some website where you could get people’s addresses and phone numbers, and Reggie had swiped the login. It was supposed to be used by members of the press and private investigators, but that didn’t stop Reggie.
There was water everywhere as we drove to the address outside of Coventry. For a while, I thought we might not make it all the way there. The fields on either side of the road were flooded all the way up to the shoulder. It looked like we were driving across a road right down the middle of a massive lake. It was unnerving, to say the least.
The bridge we had to cross wasn’t washed out, though, and it looked to still be in good shape. The water level in the creek below it had fallen to the point where there was a few feet of clearance, so I decided it was safe and drove across.
“This is so strange,” Reggie said as we turned onto the road where Melanie Parker lived with her son, Dixon, and husband, John. I only knew his name because it was listed in the database where Reggie had gotten the address.
“What we’re doing?” I asked as I slowed down. The GPS had alerted me that we were arriving at our destination.
“No, the water everywhere. I can’t remember ever seeing flooding like this. It’s like some massive ocean decided to swallow us up,” she said.
“It is unnerving,” I said.
We pulled into the driveway of a small, white farmhouse. It looked virtually untouched by the storm, and I couldn’t help but think the tornado really had targeted Coventry. That was a silly thought, though. Nature was a wild thing. It had no intent. We’d just happened to be in the path of its occasional fury.
Reggie and I made our way across the sidewalk and then up the front steps. For a brief second before I knocked, I considered turning around and going back to the car.
I swallowed my apprehension and knocked anyway. I wasn’t going to hurt anyone with my misbehaving magic, but I did need to go back to the basics. I’d have to relearn the techniques I’d used to manage it when I was a teenager. I had to start over again.
A few seconds after I knocked, a woman cracked the door open and peeked out. She had bright blue eyes and long, chestnut hair.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“My name is Kinsley Skeenbauer, and this is my friend Reggie. We wanted to talk to you about your ex-husband,” I said.
“I already told the sheriff when he called that Dixon is here,” she said warily. “But we didn’t kidnap him, if that’s what my good-for-nothing ex is saying. I know that it’s his visitation time, but Dixon was threatening to walk off… into that storm. I had to send Joh
n to pick him up. I’ll be happy to tell the judge all about it.”
“I understand,” I said softly. “I… I’m not with the sheriff’s office or the court. Can we please come in and talk to you for a few minutes?”
She studied me for a second and then opened the door wider to beckon us inside. “I was just making coffee. Would you ladies like a cup?”
“If it’s not too much trouble,” I said.
“Not at all,” Melanie said as we walked into a living room area. “Have a seat, and I’ll be right back.”
Stormy Sky Magic (Familiar Kitten Mysteries Book 9) Page 5