Roxy Reinhardt Mysteries Box Set

by Alison Golden

  “Meredith, however, she was known for her bragging and her big ideas as well as for taking over anything that she was involved in, no matter who was originally in charge or had the most expertise. She had a posse of mean girls around her. And even then, Meredith would say she could see ghosts and spirits and made out she had special powers.”

  Roxy stayed quiet. Terah was running her mouth, and she didn’t want to stop her.

  “Eventually, Meredith befriended me. I was into art and she would come to visit me during lunch and pretend she had this amazing newfound interest in urban art.” Roxy frowned. “That’s graffiti to most people. At the time, I didn’t realize how dangerous Meredith was, and I welcomed her into our tightly-knit high school artist community. I admit I was a little blinded by the lure of her street cred. She seemed exciting, and I was a little intoxicated by her. I introduced her to our art space and helped her settle in.

  “She wasn’t very talented, but soon she started this huge project. She convinced the teachers to let us do a big mural on the side of the gymnasium. I was elated at first and came up with all kinds of designs. But pretty soon Meredith made it very, very clear that it was her project, and we had to do what she wanted. All my ideas were trounced in favor of hers, which were lame, in my opinion. Then she pursued my boyfriend, and he ended up dumping me to date her.” Terah shook her head. “I think he was her goal all along. So that was that. Art was poisoned for me, and I’d lost my boyfriend as well. All thanks to Meredith.”

  “That must have been horrible,” said Roxy.

  “It was at the time, but it was long ago. The pain of her betrayal faded, we all grew up and moved on, but I never forgot her.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “SO IF YOU’D had no contact with Meredith in years, how did you reconnect?”

  “Meredith contacted me a few weeks ago to say she was coming to the city. I suspect she looked me up on social media. I was surprised to hear from her, but she seemed nice enough and invited me to her reading. I was curious, to say the least. I mean, my memory of Meredith did not fit with the impression I had of a ‘medium and psychic healer,’ as she called herself. I thought those sorts of people were supposed to be earthy and kind. Meredith was not kind or earthy when I knew her. And I suppose I was skeptical of her reason for contacting me and felt I should be on my guard—a kind of ‘keep your enemies closer’ approach, if you will. I couldn’t tell if she was seeking to make up for her high school sins or if her motives were less benign, and there was something more suspect beneath the surface. I wanted to find out. I did not want to be taken for a fool like last time. So I went along to see what was what.”

  Roxy nodded. “So what do you think now? Do you think she was genuine? Like, did she have actual psychic powers? Or was she just a quack making a quick buck?”

  “Well, if she were a fake, it wouldn’t be for the money. At least I don’t think so,” said Terah. “Her husband Charles is rolling in cash. I think if she were cynically fooling people, it would be to bolster her ego, to exercise control. She loved having power over people. Back when we were teens, I would see her say this or that, or give someone a certain look, and then revel in how it made them behave. She was a master of manipulation. And, of course, she would love all the prestige and attention she got. Fame is a powerful drug.”

  “Hmm, there’s also what one might think of mediums to consider,” Roxy said. “Some people say it’s all made up, and they’re fakers. Others really believe in them. They think mediums can contact the dead and have all manner of special gifts. I don’t know what to think about them, to be honest.”

  “Me neither. I have an open mind about that. Irrespective of whether contacting the spirits is truly a thing or not, I really couldn’t say if Meredith was a good actress, or if she truly believed she could speak to the dead. I can say that, based on experience, either could be true.”

  “I see what you mean,” said Roxy.

  “Meredith was very convincing, but she was always a chameleon, you know? She could endear herself to anyone and be whatever someone wanted her to be so that she could wiggle her way under their skin. She certainly endeared herself to my high school boyfriend.” Terah laughed. “It all seems very silly now. I haven’t thought about it much over the years, only in passing, but it was painful at the time.

  “What else made you distrust her?”

  “Well, back in the day, she was always starting something or other, always with her at the center of it, always with her as the queen and the rest of us as her adoring pawns. The mural was one such project, another was a synchronized swimming team. Then there was the tribute band for some girl group that was famous at the time. There was always something. And she acted like she loved you but it was just to suck you in. Then, once you were caught in her trap, she’d control you within an inch of your life—what you did, said, who you could hang out with. If you resisted, she’d tarnish your name throughout the whole school with something private she’d wriggled out of you earlier or some derogatory information she’d found out. As you can imagine, at the time that was a big deal.”

  “Nasty,” said Roxy. “So did she…did she try that with you? Use threats to control you?”

  “She tried,” said Terah. “She really did. But after she stole my boyfriend, I found out something about her that she didn’t want anyone to know about. I told her what I knew, and I also told her that if she tried to blackmail me like I’d seen her do to others, I’d expose her. From then on, we were like a pair of bulls, keeping our wary eyes on one another from a distance.”

  “So what happened? What was this information she didn’t want anyone to know about?”

  “She didn’t move to our high school until her junior year. I had an aunt who worked in the office at her old school, and she told me that Meredith was busted by the school for selling drugs. It was quite some scheme she was running, with passwords and secret drops, and a whole roster of clients only too willing to give her the money they made bussing tables or bagging groceries after school. She was lucky that she didn’t pick up a criminal record. The deal was that she had to switch high schools and she had to keep her nose clean. In exchange, no further action was taken regarding her drug dealing and her past actions were kept under wraps. I’m not proud of it, but I used this information as leverage. Once Meredith knew what I knew, we had an uneasy truce and went through the last year or so of high school at a brooding, respectful distance.”

  “You two really have a history,” said Roxy. And Meredith was a lot more complicated than I have given her credit for.

  “Yeah, but it was a long time ago…” Terah jerked her head. “Wait a minute…You don’t think I killed Meredith do you?” Her face transformed as anger and disbelief took hold of her. The lid of her good eye lowered and her skin went pink except for that around her eye patch which remained resolutely white. “You’ve not met me to question me, have you? I thought you just wanted to talk about Meredith because you were, well, upset.”

  All of a sudden Roxy became keenly aware of the German Shepherds who were still pulling away from Terah and growling at other dogs as they walked by. Terah snapped the dogs’ leashes to bring them under control. Roxy took a big step backward. “I’m just trying to find out all I can about Meredith. You know, as a way to process what happened. I haven’t experienced too many murders,” she lied.

  Terah turned her head to one side and squinted. She was a short, sturdy woman, and her appearance along with the struggling German Shepherds made the trio an unwelcoming proposition. People who passed gave them a wide berth.

  Roxy felt an icy cold grip of fear clutch at her heart. She began to wonder if Terah’s story of the rivalry between two young women was as one-sided as Terah had made out.

  “You’re playing amateur detective,” Terah spat through gritted teeth.

  A confrontation like this would have sent Roxy scurrying away just a few months ago, but now she lifted her chin. “Look, I don’t know you from Adam. You
don’t know me from Adam. Dr. Jack is a good friend of mine, and he’s asked me to find out who really murdered Meredith because it wasn’t him.”

  “How do you know? That’s just what he’s telling you. He’s hardly going to blurt out that he did it and ask the cops to cart him off to federal prison, is he?”

  “Well, no,” said Roxy. “But I believe him. I do.”

  “And do you believe me?” Terah pressed, “When I say I didn’t kill Meredith?”

  “Yes,” said Roxy. “But in the same vein, if you did it, you’re not going to just admit it either.” Roxy thought after she’d said it, that that might have not been the smartest thing to say.

  “This is ridiculous. I don’t even know how to shoot a gun,” Terah said. “Why are you getting yourself involved in all this, anyway? The cops are handling it, surely. They are the professionals. What are you?”

  “Dr. Jack asked me to look into the case to prevent a miscarriage of justice.”

  Terah turned to look at her. She pursed her lips and tipped her head on one side. Her anger seemed to evaporate as she regarded the much younger woman next to her. Her outstretched arms that each held a leash bobbed up and down as they continued to walk along. “You don’t owe him that,” said Terah. “You have a job, and it’s not investigating crime. Why not just let the police do their thing while you do yours?”

  Roxy didn’t reply directly. She didn’t want to say that in her experience the New Orleans Police Department wasn’t always as thorough and impartial as one would hope. “It’s not ideal, but that’s how it is.”

  “I don’t know, Roxy. You’re a young woman with a bright future. I was very impressed when you turned up at the botanica. Meredith mentioned that you were the owner of a very swanky boutique hotel. Charles even showed me some pictures. I was expecting someone much older. You’re doing very well. My advice would be to stay out of all of this and focus on your own success. Don’t get caught up in other people’s troubles.”

  “But—”

  “You were in the wrong place at the wrong time at that spirit reading. We both were. We had to look at Meredith’s dead body, at her dead eyes…” Terah shivered. “That’s enough for either of us to deal with. There’s a reason for cops, you know. They’re trained for that sort of thing.”

  “I know, but…”

  “Trust me on this, Roxy. You can’t save the world. You can’t save anyone. And if you do, you won’t get thanked for it. My advice is to put blinders on and stare straight ahead. Focus on your own life and success.”

  “And what about helping friends?” Roxy said. “Are we just supposed to sit by and watch them suffer?”

  “Friends are overrated,” said Terah. “You put all the effort you can into helping them. Then when you’re down? They turn their backs.”

  “I think you’re being overly cynical,” Roxy said, thinking about Sam and Nat and Sage and Evangeline and Elijah. Many times when she’d been down, they had helped her back up. None of them were perfect, but they were kind, good, and decent people. She trusted them. “Why are you so bitter?”

  “Experience,” Terah said. “You’re still young. You’ll learn as you get older.”

  “I’ll learn no such thing.” One of the dogs snarled at Roxy, and, despite herself, she flinched.

  Terah laughed. “You’re so sweet. You think life is all rainbows and fluffy bunnies. You’ve probably never come across anyone who’s betrayed you yet.”

  “You know nothing about me,” said Roxy. “I’ve had my share of troubles. I just choose to believe that there are good people out there. And guess what? When I made that choice, I began to find good people.”

  Terah sighed. “Ah, the innocence of youth.”

  “No,” said Roxy. “It’s not that.”

  “I don’t mean to be condescending,” said Terah. “You just don’t know yet. You can’t know yet. You haven’t experienced enough of life.”

  This conversation was making Roxy angrier by the second. “Sorry, but I just don’t agree,” she said. “Look, if you want to talk more, call me at the Funky Cat Inn.” Roxy held out her business card. It had on it a line drawing of a cat that looked rather like Nefertiti wearing a trilby hat at a jaunty angle and holding a saxophone.

  “I’m staying as far away from it all as possible,” said Terah. “And you should, too.”

  “Goodbye, Terah,” said Roxy. She was so furious at the older woman’s condescension that she marched at speed to the botanica, over two miles away, and didn’t get the least bit tired.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “MADE ANY PROGRESS, Roxy?” Sage asked, bluntly.

  She hadn’t looked up when the bell above the door announced Roxy’s arrival, choosing to glare instead at her laptop while fumes of incense swam around her. Eastern chime music played through the botanica’s sound system lending the place an even more mystical air than usual. How Sage knew who was standing next to her when she hadn’t even looked up was a mystery that Roxy had faced many times. It was one she had given up trying to solve, instead rating it as one of Sage’s many unfathomable spiritual gifts.

  Her directness told Roxy that Sage was in “all business” mode. It was such a transformation from her more common mystical, mellow persona that it still had the power to take Roxy aback. When Roxy had first met Sage, she was genuinely intimidated by this no-nonsense behavior, and it wasn’t until Elijah had explained that when Sage was in the “real world,” this was how she was, that Roxy learned to be cool with it.

  “Not much,” Roxy replied. She flopped down in a chair next to a shelf full of huge crystalline rocks of deep purple and shimmering green hues. “I went to see Terah Jones, one of the people who was at the reading. She was an old school friend of Meredith’s. She told me all kinds of stories about Meredith’s antics back then, and how they’d had a feud. Then she got mad when she realized I was digging for clues. I didn’t get any sense about whether she was involved in Meredith’s death one way or the other. What about you?”

  “I’ve been doing the spiritual divination as Dr. Jack asked,” Sage said. “I’ve used all sorts of tools: Oracle cards, tarot cards, cowrie shells, tea leaves. I haven’t gotten very far, but I think I have one piece of information. I could be interpreting things wrongly, but it might just be accurate.”

  “And what’s that?” Roxy asked.

  “I think—remember, I think—the killer is a man. The energy I’m intuiting is male.”

  “Okay…” Roxy said, processing, “well, that only eliminates Terah. Apart from Dr. Jack and me, that would leave Charles, George, and that businessman Royston…” Roxy struggled to remember his last name, “Lamontagne.”

  “Remember, though,” said Sage, “it is just an idea at this stage. We all have both male and female energies. Our male energy causes us to be active, it leads us out into the world to achieve things. Our female energies are more nurturing, caring, more introverted. It could simply be that all I’m sensing is the male energy it requires to kill someone. I need to do more work.”

  “What will you be trying next?”

  “I think I’ll try smoke scrying,” said Sage. “It’s kinda difficult though. I might go see a friend of mine who is an expert. She’s been doing it for years, and her family for generations.”

  “What did you call it?”

  “Smoke scrying. You stare at the smoke so intently that you go into a trance,” Sage said, nodding at the incense stick and the smoke that curled upward from the tip in a chaotic dance. “Then you receive messages. Or you see pictures in the smoke.”

  Roxy frowned. “How does it give you messages?”

  “It’s hard to explain,” said Sage. “You might hear them. Not directly, like you would if someone in the room was speaking to you, but you can hear them all the same. That’s called clairaudience. Other times, you might just know something. That’s called claircognizance.”

  “Gee, I have a lot to learn. I’ve never heard of either of those.”

 
Sage gave a big smile. It was like the sun coming out on a cloudy day. “It’s a big deal in my world, honey. There’s a huge body of study and literature behind it.” She nodded at the bookshelf on the other side of the store. “It’s all there waiting for you, whenever you want it.”

  Roxy’s head was already starting to hurt a little. She liked to think she was open-minded, but sometimes mysticism stretched her in ways she wasn’t quite flexible enough for. “Thanks, maybe some other time. I think I should go see Royston Lamontagne now. And I still have to talk to George and Charles. I’m dreading that. What if they accuse me of suspecting them too as Terah did?”

  “They’ll be fine,” Sage looked at her from under her eyelashes. “If they’re innocent.”

  Roxy nodded in acknowledgment of her point, but she bit her lip.

  “Don’t be afraid,” said Sage, kindly. “You’ll do great. I know it.”

  Roxy smiled. “Thanks. I’m certainly going to try. I used to be much more afraid of talking to someone ‘big and important,’” Roxy made air quotes, “like this businessman. Now I push through. He’s human, just like everyone else.”

  Sage smiled. “Imagine him with just his underpants on if you have trouble. I find that usually helps.” She laughed, her white teeth standing out against her dark skin, strong and straight. “Shall I give you a quick blessing? Help you on your way?”

  “Sure!” said Roxy. She appreciated Sage’s offer, even if she doubted it would help.

  Sage came out from behind the counter, and wafted her hands back and forth in the air around Roxy’s body. She hummed a beautiful and haunting tune, and then sang, “Golden light surrounds you still…Can you do it? Yes, you will!” She stood in front of Roxy and made as if she were sprinkling invisible fairy dust all over her.

  Roxy laughed happily. “That’s so weird. I feel warm and calm all of a sudden!” Perhaps her lack of belief didn’t matter all that much. Perhaps it was the love and kind thoughts of her friend that counted and that she responded to.