“Now,” Clove said primly. “What do you want for lunch?”
“Middle-Eastern.”
“We just had that the other day,” Thistle complained.
“I’m hobbled. Don’t you think I should get the food that I want?”
“Oh, nice. You managed to walk down here fine – I don’t think that you deserve special treatment, especially considering how you hurt yourself.”
“If she wants Middle-Eastern we can have Middle-Eastern,” Clove caved.
“You always take her side,” Thistle muttered. “I don’t want Middle-Eastern.”
“What do you want?”
“Mexican.”
“Uh,” I groaned. “I don’t want Mexican today.”
Clove glared at us both. “You’re going to have to decide.”
“You’re the tiebreaker,” Thistle said.
“I don’t want to be the tiebreaker,” she argued.
I stuck my lower lip out and dramatically rubbed my ankle when she glanced over at me. “Fine, Middle-Eastern it is.”
Thistle opened her mouth to protest. “We’ll get Mexican tomorrow,” Clove added.
Thistle didn’t look like she was entirely placated, but she also didn’t look like she wanted to engage in World War III over lunch – and I was prepared to dig my heels in.
While Clove placed the orders, Thistle came over to see what I had in the file. She looked surprised when she’d sifted through a few of the articles. “Are these what I think they are?”
“You tell me,” I answered.
She read through a few more articles and then lifted her eyebrows when she turned back to me. “They sure sound awfully similar. How come we don’t know anything about this? Wouldn’t this have been big news?”
“That’s a very good question.”
Clove joined us, grabbing a few of the articles from Thistle. “What are we talking about? The food will be here in twenty minutes, by the way.”
“It’s two teenagers who were killed and had their hearts ripped out – only it happened thirty years ago, and like forty minutes away,” Thistle supplied.
Clove looked momentarily speechless. We both watched as she scanned the article on the top of the stack she’d taken from Thistle. When she was done, she let loose a long – and pointed – whistle. “Well, this can’t be a coincidence.”
“How can it be the same person, though?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that serial killers are usually white males in their thirties,” I explained. “If that is the case, this would be a killer – or killers – well into his sixties. How is he controlling young teenagers? ”
“How do you know that?” Thistle seemed impressed with my knowledge.
“I watch Criminal Minds,” I admitted.
“Shemar Moore is so hot,” Clove laughed.
“He is. They should make the entire show about him solving cases with his shirt off.”
“Is that true, though?” Thistle didn’t seem to think our television detour was nearly as cute as we did.
“I think it’s pretty close to true,” I said.
“Well, Sophie did say she was sure it was a man and a woman,” Clove suddenly broke in. “Maybe the woman is younger and that’s the reason he had to get a partner?”
“That’s possible,” I agreed. “Like maybe it’s his daughter or something?”
“That’s a pretty twisted family,” Thistle grimaced.
“Ours isn’t much better,” I offered.
“True.”
Thistle and Clove went back to reading the articles and I went back to watching them anxiously. The store was so quiet at this point that we all practically jumped out of our seats when the wind chimes at the front door sounded.
We all looked up expecting to see Clyde, the delivery boy for Hazel’s Chinese Food and Other Stuff (don’t ask). He delivered to us at least once a week.
I think we were all surprised to see Landon standing there instead.
Clove jumped to her feet. “Oh, can I help you?”
Thistle and I exchanged knowing looks. It was always fun when Clove got flustered.
Landon seemed surprised by Clove’s reaction. “I’m looking for Bay Winchester,” he said finally. He hadn’t yet noticed Thistle and I sitting on the couch. “I was told that I might be able to find her here.”
“Who told you that?” I asked from my comfortable position on the couch.
Landon turned and finally noticed that Thistle and I were in the room, too. Clove was still flittering around him like a nervous little butterfly.
“Sit down, Clove,” I ordered.
She automatically did as she was told – although she didn’t look very comfortable perched on the edge of the chair she had been sitting on before either. I couldn’t decide if it was Landon’s good looks – or the fact that she thought he might be a murderer – that was making her more nervous.
Thistle and I were more studied with our agitation. We could at least pretend that his presence didn’t unnerve us.
“So, you’re the biker dude,” Thistle said finally.
“You must be one of the infamous cousins.” Landon was trying to be charming, but I could tell he was thrown off by the current situation.
“I’m Thistle,” she said finally. She didn’t get up to greet him appropriately. Instead, she relaxed back into the couch. I could tell she was trying to retain some control over the situation.
“My name is Landon,” he offered. He did extend his hand to her, but Clove batted it away nervously.
“What? He might have poison on it or something,” she hissed. Clove was always good in a crisis.
“What can I do for you Mr. … Landon?” I realized I didn’t know Landon’s last name. That was a little disconcerting.
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said.
“Oh, well that’s so nice of you,” Clove gushed. Thistle and I shot her sharp glares. She can turn on a dime, I swear.
I could see Landon smirk at her sudden change of attitude. He raised an eyebrow as he turned his head back to me. Thistle was hurriedly shoving the articles we had been looking through back into the envelope they came in. He reached down and picked one up and glanced at it quickly. He seemed surprised when he looked back at us.
“This has happened before?”
“So it would seem,” Thistle said nonchalantly.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Landon asked the question to the room, but it was clearly pointed at me because his eyes never left my face.
“I didn’t realize I was now reporting to you,” I said sarcastically.
Thistle snickered, but Clove was looking at both of us disapprovingly. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“He’s not staying,” I interjected quickly.
Landon must have noticed my discomfort because he sat down in Clove’s vacated chair, fixed me with a hard look and then turned to Clove with a warm smile. “I would love a cup of coffee.”
Clove seemed happy to have something to do with her hands. If she was like me at all, she probably had to constantly remind herself not to run them through his silky black hair. Whoa! Where had that come from?
I turned my steely gaze back to Landon, who was accepting his cup of coffee from Clove in a congenial manner. He even shot her a flirtatious smile – complete with a saucy wink – when she started to walk away from him.
When Clove tried to squeeze herself between Thistle and me, we both balked. “There’s no room,” Thistle complained.
“Be careful of my ankle!”
“Oh, just stop your whining,” Clove countered.
“Hey, I’m injured here,” I reminded them.
Landon sipped from his coffee contemplatively for a few minutes. He seemed comfortable just to watch us interact with one another.
“So you all grew up together?” He asked finally.
“Yes,” I said.
“Up at the Overlook?” He smiled to h
imself when he said the name.
It was one thing for us to make fun of the new name of the inn, it was quite another for a stranger. Thistle looked like she wanted to jump out of her chair and throttle him. “Do you have a problem with that?” She asked icily.
Landon seemed surprised by her sudden vehemence. “Sorry, did I say something wrong? I didn’t mean to offend anyone.”
As much as I loved watching Thistle get under Landon’s skin, he still hadn’t told us what he was doing here. “Did you find out who the bike belonged to?”
Landon feigned ignorance. “What bike?”
“The motorcycle in the ditch,” I said shortly.
“Oh, that bike,” Landon said smoothly. “I have no idea. I had almost forgotten about it until you reminded me.”
Liar.
Landon turned his attention back to the article in his hand. “Where did you find out about this?”
“Edith,” Clove answered before she thought.
“Who is Edith?”
“You’re unbelievable,” Thistle grumbled, kicking Clove viciously.
“Sorry, I forgot,” Clove whined. “You know how I get when I get nervous.”
If Landon wasn’t confused before, he definitely was now. “Who is Edith?”
“She didn’t mean Edith,” I lied smoothly. “She meant Lynn. She just got her confused with the woman who used to work at the paper.” What? That’s not entirely a lie.
“Lynn remembered the case?”
“She remembered something similar, yes. We pulled out the file to get all the details, though.”
“So you found the stories and brought them down here to your cousins instead of taking them to Chief Terry?” Landon seemed flabbergasted – and yet I couldn’t figure out why. He may have just met me, but this was nowhere near out of my realm of usual behavior.
“Why do you care?”
“I would think this is information that would benefit Chief Terry,” Landon said hotly.
“Well, when we’re done reading them, we’ll take them to him,” I lied again. Hey, we’ll at least call him. I promise.
Landon surveyed the three of us suspiciously. Thistle and I reflected the glares right back in his direction while Clove was steadfastly studying her nails. No one was going to break – even Clove. We wouldn’t let her.
Landon got up slowly. “I actually did stop by here for a reason,” he said reluctantly.
“And what reason is that?”
“I just wanted to warn you that running around corn mazes in the middle of the night probably wasn’t a good idea.”
“Thanks. I would never have figured that out without your valuable input,” I seethed.
Landon tensed up when he heard the front door open and I swear I saw his hand hover under his coat – like he had a weapon – for just a second. He visibly relaxed when he saw Clyde wandering in with a big box of food. “Got your food ladies,” he said with a simple smile. He wasn’t exactly slow, but he was pretty far from quick. Still, the whole town loved him.
Thistle got up and paid for the food, including giving Clyde a $10 tip. He smiled when she handed it to him and ran out the door excitedly. He didn’t even say goodbye to us. He never did. We always gave him a big tip, which he proceeded to take right down to Mr. Culverson’s bookstore and buy comic books.
“You gave him a $10 tip for walking food three buildings down?” Landon looked incredulous.
“So?”
“Well, that’s just stupid,” he sputtered. “Why couldn’t you just walk down the street to get the food?”
“We were busy looking through the file,” I said with mock innocence.
“This place ...” Landon started.
“This place what?” I narrowed my eyes at him dangerously. I just dared him to say something about Hemlock Cove.
“This place would make a compelling psych experiment,” he said finally.
“Says the guy I found creeping around the corn maze in the middle of the night,” I shot back.
Landon stared at me hard for a few moments. He seemed unsure of what to say. When he did finally speak, it wasn’t at all what I was expecting. “Are you this unpleasant with everyone? Or do I just bring out the worst in you?”
“Oh, she’s always like this when she likes a guy,” Clove answered indifferently. “At least at first. She’ll calm down in a few days.”
I slid a sideways glance at Clove. If I could have grown an invisible hand to smack her with – I would have.
Clove immediately realized what she’d done. “Not that she likes you,” she amended lamely. She shifted slightly as she tried to take a step away from me. “In fact, if I had to guess, she really hates you.”
Thistle met her gaze with a disappointed look and clucked softly. “Now I think you’re dead to her,” she offered.
Landon looked pretty pleased with himself when he left a few minutes later – despite my attempts to pretend that Clove was on some serious medications that made her mentally unbalanced.
When he was gone, I realized he had managed to squeeze information from us but he hadn’t given us anything in return. Again.
“He really is hot,” Clove said after a few minutes, when we’d doled out all the food.
I pretended I didn’t hear her.
“You’re still dead to her,” Thistle informed Clove. “It’s probably going to take homemade cookies to get her to talk to you again.”
Clove looked genuinely sad.
“If I were you, I’d steal some of my mom’s pot to put in them,” Thistle laughed. “It really couldn’t hurt at this point.”
Twenty-Two
I was stuck at Hypnotic for the rest of the afternoon, so I made a few calls and emailed my story back to the office. Since The Whistler was a weekly, everything would be old news for the readers by the time it printed, but there was no way I could print an edition without at least mentioning the murders. I would never hear the end of it.
By mid-afternoon, though, I was starting to go stir crazy. “I should have driven to work myself.”
“Stop your whining,” Thistle said, not looking up from the handmade candles she was dipping at the table in the corner. She’s the craftiest of the three of us. Her candles were actually really big sellers – especially the ones she infused with herbs for scent and glitter for decoration.
“I’m bored, and I want to go out to the inn and ask if they remember these other cases.” Although why they wouldn’t have mentioned them was beyond me.
“Call them,” Clove offered, tossing the black cordless phone onto the couch next to me.
“No, I’d rather do it in person.”
“Walk out there,” Thistle said evilly.
I shot her a dirty look. “Bite me.”
“I’m a little busy, why don’t you see what Landon is doing,” she shot back. “He looked like he wanted to sample you for lunch.”
Clove giggled from behind the counter. When she caught my dark look, though, she immediately stifled it. She knew she was still in the doghouse from earlier.
I tried to get comfortable on the couch – but without anything to distract me, that was a losing proposition.
“Doesn’t someone want to drive me out to the inn?” I figured if I badgered them long enough, one of them would cave. Probably Clove, if I had to guess.
“Not particularly,” Thistle answered dryly.
Clove tried to look busy for a second and then sighed heavily. “I’ll take you.” I knew it would be her.
“You’re only taking her because you’re hoping she won’t be mad at you anymore,” Thistle scoffed.
“I am not,” Clove said indignantly. “She’s injured. She needs help.”
“She’s fine,” Thistle countered. “She can sit there for another two hours until we close and then we can all go up to the inn together. They’ll be thrilled to see us. Another dinner to torture us over.”
Clove was caught. “Can you wait?”
I sighed dramatically. �
��Not really.”
Thistle gritted out what sounded like a growl. She stalked into the back room and came out with a huge box, which she proceeded to drag over to me and drop at my feet.
“We just got a new shipment of incense,” she announced. “Why don’t you sort it? Make sure that you only put like scents together.”
“You want me to do actual work?”
“Rather than sitting there and bitching? Yeah.”
I grumbled a few choice words under my breath, but I proceeded to tackle the task put before me. If I was stuck here, I might as well do something. Anything was better than sitting here and staring at the walls. They really needed a television in here or something.
Surprisingly, the next two hours went relatively quickly. Even Thistle was impressed with my work ethic. “Good job,” she patted me on the head when she took the last stack of incense from me and placed it on the shelves.
“I’m not a dog,” I mumbled.
“No, a dog is easier to take care of.”
“And friendlier,” Clove said under her breath.
“I heard that.”
“I think she meant for you to.”
When we got out to the inn, Thistle parked in guest parking at the front of the inn so it would be easier for me to be able to maneuver through the main door. When we got inside, Marnie was checking a middle-aged couple in at the front desk. She seemed surprised when she saw us.
“Why are you limping?”
“I fell.” I didn’t think telling her how I sustained the injury would be a good way to start out this visit. Damn. I should have thought of a lie ahead of time. They were bound to sniff out the truth.
“She was trying to make Clove eat dirt again and things got out of hand.” Thistle had obviously done my thinking for me. I shot her a grateful look.
Marnie seemed to accept the explanation without complaint. I had made Clove eat more dirt than was probably healthy. In return, Clove had ripped more chunks of hair out of my head than was necessary to fill a full wig.
We left Marnie to finish checking the couple in and made our way through the formal dining room and into the communal kitchen. My mom and Twila were both chopping vegetables at the center island. They had been engrossed in a conversation that stilled the moment we walked through the door.
Witchy Dreams Page 17