“Good.” I said before turning away.
“If you come across anything strange, don’t hesitate to call me.” He said as I walked away.
“I’ll do that,” I tossed the words over my shoulder. “I’ll also call you if I need to have someone feel me up again.”
He didn’t respond but then I hadn’t expected him to.
It wasn’t likely that I’d call on the FBI if I saw something unusual. I was in a Zone, which meant it would be more unusual if I didn’t see something odd.
I slipped into the driver’s seat and inserted the keys into the ignition. Agent Snoopy’s headlights were still in my rearview mirror. Apparently, he wanted to make sure that I was half blind by the time I pulled back onto the highway.
“That was nuts.” Kayla had settled into the passenger seat and was making herself at home, much like she did in my bedroom back at Zeta House.
“What are you doing here?” Now that the shock at seeing her in my trunk had started to wear off, I was a bit perturbed that she’d followed me. “Aren’t you supposed to stay in the house that you haunt?”
Kayla rolled her eyes. “I don’t think it works like that.”
She could be right, but I was fairly sure that it did work like that. Ghosts were attached to someone they’d had a connection to in life, but they could also be attached to a location or an object. As far as I knew, I had no earthly connection to Kayla or her killer so that explanation didn’t work.
Kayla stared out the window as if it was the most natural thing in the world for a ghost to be riding shotgun with a witch who’d long ago sworn off witchery.
In short, this trip was sucking more by the minute.
Chapter 6
Nothing had changed in four years. The red brick, 70s ranch-style house on Old Post Road looked exactly the same as it had the day I’d left.
The house sat back several hundred yards from the road and was surrounded by forest. This was exactly how my stepfather liked it. Not surprising, considering he was a wolf and wolves had a tendency to prefer nature and isolation to cities and crowds.
As I eased the car up the long dirt road to the house, I was greeted with the surreal image of red and blue flashing lights. It was like a nightmare. Those freaky flashing lights seemed to be everywhere.
The police were back, but this time they were outside my childhood home. The fact that there were a number of emergency vehicles in front of the house went beyond a bad omen. This was an in your face disaster.
The scene transported me back to that summer night five years ago when my entire life changed forever. There had been a massive police presence that night too, and a coroner’s van.
The flashback was like living it all over again but this time, it only existed in the darkest recesses of my memories.
It was the summer after my high school graduation – a summer that was supposed to be the best of my life.
I was young, free, and ready for adventure and I had one hell of a bucket list. I’d taken care of at least part of what I’d placed on that list.
Water Skiing.
It was something I’d always wanted to do but since Mom wasn’t thrilled with the idea, I’d put it off until I was old enough to make my own decisions. Needless to say, water skiing was one of the first things I’d set out to do. I’d spent the entire day at Wolf Lake, learning how to water-ski.
What a blast. There was nothing more exhilarating than the wind in my hair and the spray of water in my face, except for Bobby Wilson. His kiss was pretty damned exhilarating; at least it had been until his roaming hands got involved.
Life was great!
That is what I was thinking that summer night when Evie dropped me off at my house.
Evie and I had been best friends since grade school. We did everything together, except get a car. She’d spent the entire school year doing highway cleanup so she could save enough money for her little 70s Bug. I’d spent half the year grounded.
It hadn’t really been my fault. When my great aunt chided me for being too lazy to learn to make use of my natural born talents, I’d shown her how I liked using my natural born talents with a few poison oak leaves in her bed. By the next morning, old Aunt Lilly was covered with angry red welts.
I felt bad after the fact, but by then it was too late. Aunt Lilly spent the entire week covered in salve.
A totally dumb move on my part, but thankfully, Evie had been smart enough to make sure that at least one of us had a car.
I was so preoccupied with the day’s events that it didn’t even register that the house was dark.
It shouldn’t have been dark.
Mom should have been home.
My stepfather was away on business and my younger siblings were at summer camp, but Mom should have been home from work hours ago.
I was halfway to the front door before I actually noticed the dark house.
Mom’s SUV was in the driveway but the house was as dark as the grave.
Hanging out in a dark house wasn’t like Mom. She had never cared for the dark.
Later, I would find my Mom’s fear of the dark a little strange, considering she was a witch, but back then, I hadn’t given it a second thought.
So, why was the house so dark?
Something was wrong.
Every nerve ending in my body was on fire.
This was my built-in, advanced warning system. Whenever there is something wonky going on, my sixth sense would pick it up and warn me of impending danger via burning the hell out of me.
Slowing my pace, I took a few tentative steps toward the door while resisting the urge to call out to my mother. If Mom were curled up in front of the TV, I would come across as paranoid. She’d probably think I was on drugs, which was something she’d already been fretting about.
Her fears were completely unfounded. The closest I’d gotten to drugs was the extra strong coffee at Benny Bean’s Coffee House in downtown Raven Point.
On the other hand, if my instincts were on target, someone other than my mother could be in the house.
The doorknob turned easily, which meant Mom wasn’t in bed. Not that I thought she would be so early. My mother wasn’t the trusting type. She’d never go to bed and leave the door open. Even in a small town like Raven Point, there were plenty of dangers to be wary of.
The living room was dark but I had excellent night vision, an ability that I’d been born with. This wasn’t a natural born talent of most witches, but who the hell cared? It came in handy, even if no one seemed to know where the ability had come from.
Leaving the door open a crack, I made my way through the living room. The ticking of the grandfather clock was amplified by the silence. Our house was usually filled with the sound of bickering siblings and tons of chaos. Under different circumstances, the silence would have been a treat.
Stopping just before entering the hall, I held by breath and listened. Nothing – not even the low hum of the TV in my mother’s room.
“Mom!” I called out, hoping she would stick her head out of the bedroom and tell me everything was fine.
Deep down, I knew everything wasn’t okay. Nothing would ever be okay again.
I made a beeline for my mother’s bedroom and threw the door open. By that point, I was too frantic to care about my own safety.
As soon as I flipped on the light, my throat constricted, cutting off the scream that was fighting to rip loose.
Nothing would ever be okay again.
From that moment on, the image of my mother’s battered and bloody body would be engrained into the very fabric of who I was.
Chapter 7
Parking behind a police vehicle, I jumped out of the driver’s seat and stopped the first person I could find, which happened to be a CSI tech. “What’s going on? Where’s my dad?”
In the distance, I could see that a temporary base of operation had been set up in an open area. Several uniformed officers were gathered around someone in a yellow vest.
They were putting together a search party!
The tech just shook his head. I wasn’t sure if he was just refusing to answer or if he was actually that clueless.
Determined to get some answers, I started in direction of the search party but someone grabbed my arm from behind.
Evie stood behind me. She was wearing the dark blue uniform of the Raven Point Police. The state’s Special Unit Enforcement wore tan uniforms so it was easy to tell them apart.
With her dark hair and striking hazel eyes, Evie looked good in almost anything, well anything but her uniform. That shade of blue looked terrible on her.
I had to be losing my mind.
What the hell did it matter what color my best friend from high school was wearing?
“What’s going on?” I asked as I fought to maintain some sense of calm.
The look in my friend’s eyes said it all. Something really bad had happened.
“Ember is missing,” she said, tears brimming in her eyes.
“I wasn’t sure what shocked me more, that my baby sister was missing or that my best friend was wearing a cop uniform.
“What do you mean Ember is missing?” The words weren’t sinking in. It made no sense. “She can’t be missing. I just talked to my dad yesterday.”
There was no way he would have kept something like this to himself. This had to be a new development.
Evie shook her head. “I’m sorry. This must be a really crappy homecoming.”
“But she’s just missing, right? We can still find her,” I insisted,
My eyes scanned the yard as if my sister might magically appear.
When Evie didn’t answer, I knew it was about to get worse.
“When your dad got home this afternoon, he found Ember’s bedroom ransacked. There was blood. Not much,” Evie added quickly. “But we did run DNA on it. The blood came back as Ember’s.”
All my road trip snacks threatened to come up right there in front of everyone. I refused to sink into a blubbering pile of vomit and tears. “Where’s my dad?”
Evie pointed to the trailer that had been turned into a temporary base.
Without another word, I ran to the crowd gathered outside the old trailer. My dad was in the middle of gearing up for a search. “Dad!”
Turning, he eyed me with something I could only describe as suspicion.
He couldn’t believe I’d had anything to do with this, could he?
“Why didn’t you call?” I asked.
“I did,” he answered as he draped a rope over one shoulder. “About a dozen times. All I got was your voicemail.”
“I must have lost reception.” That was the only explanation I could think of for not getting any of his calls.
The Zones were known for bad reception due to all the electromagnetic interference.
After securing the rope on his shoulder, Dad grabbed a flashlight.
At first, I couldn’t understand what he’d need rope for, but then I remembered all the ravines and cliffs in the area. They were prepared to look for my sister anywhere, including the hard to reach locations – places where someone might hide a body.
I fought back the bile that threatened to flood my throat.
“I want to help,” I said, grabbing one of the flashlights the police were handing out.
Dad snatched it from me. “No way. I already have one daughter missing. I don’t need another.”
I was the black sheep of the family, so of course I didn’t listen.
As soon as Dad and the rest of the search party were gone, I started my own search.
I barely noticed the creep factor of being alone in the dark woods. All I could think about was losing another loved one to this cursed town.
There was always a chance that someone had tried to abduct my sister and she’d escaped. Holding onto that thought was the only thing that kept me sane.
I searched everywhere that I thought thirteen-year old girl might hide. There was the Enchanted Forest at the edge of the property. Years ago, I’d built Ember a tree house there. It wasn’t really an enchanted forest, but I’d let her pretend that it was.
There was no trace of my sister, anywhere.
It was three in the morning by the time I made my way back to the house. The search team was still out, but now Pippa and Joby were standing on the porch, peering into the darkness beyond the tree line.
“Any word yet?” I asked as I practically collapsed into one of the wicker chairs that sat on the front porch.
Pippa shook her head. “Not yet.”
My sister was the mirror image of our mother. She had the same auburn hair and sea green eyes as Mom. but her personality wasn’t nearly as sweet. I also had green eyes, but my hair was dark. Sometimes it appeared to be black and other times it was dark brown.
After graduating high school, Pippa decided to stay in Raven Point. My sister was also of the opinion that continuing her education was a waste of time. She was perfectly content to spend her life giving rides to strangers. She thought the Transpo app was the best thing to hit Raven Point since margaritas and Ladies Night at the Moon Dance Saloon.
Pippa had never been one to deal with authority figures, especially bosses. The more distance she could put between herself and authority, the better she liked it.
Come to think of it, she was a lot like me.
Still, I wasn’t thrilled with her chosen profession. One day, Pippa would end up with a nut in her car and we’d find her body on the side of the road somewhere.
Maybe I really was too paranoid.
Pippa sure thought so and she never let me forget it either. If I’d brought up the very real danger of a young woman giving strangers rides in her car, she’d have laughed while telling me how ridiculous I was.
There wasn’t much that could dent my sister’s tough exterior. While I wasn’t keen on using witchcraft, my sister had no such qualms. Pippa wouldn’t think twice about casting on an attacker. In fact, my sister might even be the one to do the killing if someone was foolish enough to attack her.
It was a good thing she didn’t scare me. If you knew how to deal with her, my sister was mostly bark with very little bite.
Joby was the sensitive one of the family. We might not have shared DNA but he was still my brother – he was still family.
Joby had always been a little shy, but since Mom’s death, he’d turned into a true introvert. Who could blame him? He’d lost his biological mother not long after he was born and now his stepmother was gone too – murdered by a maniac.
Joby kept shifting his weight from one leg to the other. It was obvious he was jittery.
“Don’t worry, Joby. We’ll find her,” I said, putting a lot more confidence into my voice than I actually felt.
At fifteen, Joby was already the image of his father. With his sandy blond hair and golden brown eyes, my little brother was going to be a heartbreaker someday, and so was Ember. There was no way I could forget her. She might be missing but I had to believe it would turn out okay. Fate could not be cruel enough to take two loved ones in such a short period of time.
That way of thinking was folly and I knew it. Fate could absolutely be that cruel.
As if reading my mind, Pippa glanced at me and looked away quickly. I knew what she was thinking.
It was my fault. Mom’s death was my fault, Ember’s disappearance, and everything else that had happened to our family.
It was my fault because of the dead and their affinity for me.
In some ways, Pippa was a lot our mother. Like Mom, she was extremely superstitious and believed the dead should stay dead. Necromancy had no place in the world of the living. Mom had been the kind of witch who’d gladly cook you up a love potion or cure you of the flu, but she wouldn’t touch anything dark, especially the dead.
Pippa had a temper and didn’t care one whit if she destroyed an enemy, but she drew the line when it came to After Death Communication. My sister was convinced that death followed me because I invited.
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br /> I didn’t but there was no arguing with her.
On second thought, after what I’d seen in the rearview mirror, I wasn’t so sure she wasn’t right.
I didn’t actually practice necromancy or anything else along those lines. The dead just seemed drawn to me. My theory was that they liked me because I could actually see and hear them. It wasn’t like that all the time, but every once in a while, I’d encounter a ghost strong enough to manifest itself into something resembling their living form, like Kayla. I had no idea why I saw ghosts. It was kind of like my night vision, a talent I seemed to have that no one else in the family did, at least no one who was willing to admit to it.
Chapter 8
The worry lines etched into my stepfather’s face made him appear much older than he actually was. David maintained a calm façade, but I could tell he was worried.
He’d gathered the family in his study for a meeting. The only outsider was Evie and she wasn’t really an outsider. While we were growing up, Evie had been as much a part of the family as I was, though I wasn’t sure that was saying much since I was the odd one out.
What made Evie’s presence odd was that she came from a family of coyotes. Wolves had a tendency to turn their nose up at coyotes, though Evie had never let it bother her.
Jasper, the eldest and most reckless of the five of us actually decided to grace us with his presence. He’d even dropped his usual glib attitude.
Jasper might have been the oldest but he was also the least responsible. There was no doubt that Jasper was a pig-headed jerk, but he was clearly as frightened for Ember as the rest of us.
“Why aren’t you shifting and used your wolf nose to track down Ember and her abductor?” I asked. “That might be useful.”
My stepfather tossed me a look of disapproval. He hated it when I was too assertive.
“Do you think we haven’t done that already? We tracked your sister’s scent to the tree house, which is where it stops.”
Bad Omens Page 4