by K. J. Emrick
Looking carefully and closely at Leah now, Miranda saw the nasty wound on the side of her skull. She had obviously been struck by something very strong and very hard. Natasha was right. Even without checking for a pulse she had no doubt that Leah was dead.
Next to the body, in the grass, was the missing cricket bat. Its flat surface was cracked and streaked with red.
Miranda swallowed and took a step closer to Natasha and Paul and Ashton. The scene was gruesome, but there was definitely something off here. Little things, nagging at her brain. All of them were silent now, the night seeming to press in upon them.
“We need to call the police,” Miranda said with a deep breath.
“Let me take care of it,” Ashton offered. “I think I’m the only one here with a clear head.”
He turned back toward the house.
Which was when Miranda saw something very interesting.
Turning away from Natasha and Paul, she whispered hurriedly to Kyle and Maisie. “Keep your eye on those two. I have to go talk to Ashton.”
“Sure,” Kyle assured her. “What’s up?”
Miranda looked over her shoulder at Natasha holding her son close. Paul was still sobbing. “I don’t know,” Miranda told him. “Something doesn’t feel right. Just watch them. I’ll be right back.”
She caught up to Ashton at the door and followed him inside. “You’re hurt,” she pointed out to him. “What happened?”
Self-consciously he put a hand up to his cheek, where Miranda had seen the fresh red mark on his skin. “I’m fine,” he said, in a tone of voice that made it obvious that he didn’t want to talk about it.
“Ashton, it’s pretty clear that somebody has hit you across the face.” Miranda didn’t really want him to bolt but, at the same time, she wanted to know how he’d gotten that tiny wound. “Leah is lying dead on the lawn and she was obviously struck with that cricket bat. Now if you were fighting with her this would be the time to say so, wouldn’t it? Before the police arrived?”
“You think I killed her?” his voice rose on those last words, and he stopped his march down the hall so that he could round on her with his hands curled into fists. “How dare you suggest that!”
“That’s what the police are going to suggest,” she said, not backing down. “You’re going to want to get your story out there first. So, tell me what happened.”
It took a moment, but her words finally registered with him. “All right, all right,” he grumbled, dropping his fists as he did. “You’re a nosy one, aren’t you? If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were here as more than just a neighbor.”
Miranda noticed his hands, and what she noticed was there was no blood on them.
Could have worn gloves, a voice in her head told her. Just like Natasha was wearing. He would have had plenty of time to throw them in the bushes.
“Just tell me how you got that mark on your cheek,” she pressed him.
“If you must know, I did get into a fight with Leah.” He didn’t sound happy to admit it, but he must have known she was right. He would have to tell the police about it when they got here. Better to have it all out now. “We were at the backside of the house, talking, and she walked away angry. I followed her into the servant’s hallway, where no one would see us, and I tried to apologize but she just got so angry.”
So far, that all fit. If Miranda hadn’t caught him and Leah talking near the back door, and arguing, she might have suspected some deception on his part but so far he seemed to be telling the truth. “All right, so you had an argument, and she hit you?”
“In the end she slapped me, yes.” He pointed to his cheek. “Her wedding band has little diamond studs all the way around.”
Miranda hadn’t noticed Maisie’s ghost following her until she humphed at that. “My ring was just a plain gold band,” she complained, “and Leah’s had diamonds on it. Was it true? Did Paul love Leah more than me?”
Miranda gave her a sympathetic glance, and somehow managed to act like it was for Ashton. “That must have been some fight you two had.”
“Oh, you could say that,” he told her. “I’m afraid I made her mad.”
Miranda knew that already, from what she’d overheard from the back door, but she had to pretend that she didn’t. “So what did you say to her that made her so mad?”
“We were talking about her husband. About Paul.”
Maisie tried to slap Ashton, but her hands went right through him. “You leave my Paul out of this!”
The desire to shoo the woman’s spirit away like an annoying insect was pretty strong at that point but Miranda knew that would only make her look crazy. Instead she had to look straight through the ghostly aura, concentrating on Ashton’s face. “You were talking about Paul. Go on.”
“Yes. Well. I asked Leah to leave him.”
He said it so matter-of-factly that Miranda’s jaw dropped. So did Maisie’s
Recovering herself, Miranda cleared her throat. “You… you asked Leah to leave Paul?”
“Yes, I did.” He wasn’t the least bit embarrassed to admit it. “I know how that sounds, especially under the circumstances, but I can’t change the facts. She was always too good for him. She deserved to be with someone who appreciated her. More than that, Paul deserved to be with someone he loved, too.”
Maisie floated back from them now, back, and back some more, until she was slipping away through the wall. “I think I need to lie down.”
Miranda let her go, and tried to recover from her shock. “So, you wanted Leah to leave Paul… for you?”
“What? Of course not!” he asserted. “I had no interest in Leah whatsoever.”
“Ashton, Leah was married to Paul. From what I understand, she actively pursued him.” Miranda didn’t know if she was arguing with him or just trying to understand what he could possibly have been thinking. “She took him in knowing that Maisie had ruined him financially and that she would never have the life of luxury he should have been able to offer her.”
His eyes turned hard. “I know all that. I also know that she doesn’t care for him any more than Maisie did. She’s caught in a loveless marriage, and she deserves happiness. Paul does, too. He deserves someone who will love him for who he is, with all his faults, and all his little quirks.”
There was a smile on his lips that seemed very out of place.
Until Miranda finally caught on. When she understood the situation, that smile made perfect sense.
“I see. So you told all of this to Leah?”
“Yes, I did. That’s when she slapped me.” Maybe the reality of Leah’s death was finally sinking in for him. He seemed to deflate in front of Miranda’s eyes. “That’s when she ran away from me. I didn’t follow her, and the next thing I knew, Natasha is screaming and Leah’s dead. When Paul learns about this, he’ll never want to speak to me again. He’s my best friend in the world, and I only wanted to be there for him.”
There it was again. There was a certain something in Ashton’s voice, a thrumming quality, that made Miranda sure about her guess. “To you, Ashton, is Paul perhaps more than just a good friend?”
“What are you suggesting?” Ashton snapped.
“I’m not suggesting that there was anything going on between the two of you,” Miranda said gently. “I just think that maybe you had a stronger motive for wanting Leah to leave Paul than what you’ve let on. Something other than having Leah find her happiness. Your care for him goes a little bit beyond plain old friendship. You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
He opened his mouth in a sneer, and Miranda could see the denial coming, but then he closed his lips tightly, and took a breath, and started again. “I don’t suppose it makes any difference. I mean, not now. Paul is never going to feel the same way about me that I do for him. With both his ex-wife and his current wife murdered in this house you’d think he’d want to leave and start over but I know his mother is still controlling him.” He paused for a few moments, staring at nothin
g. “But just because I know it is never going to happen, doesn’t mean that I don’t still care for him. It doesn’t mean I don’t still look out for him, you know?”
“Yes, I know,” Miranda said. What she didn’t add was how that sentiment was precisely what kept him on the suspect list. He obviously despised both of Paul’s wives for being with him, and with them out of the way he could always make his play for the man he’d carried a torch for all these years.
Well, well.
“Now,” he said, “if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go call the police.”
“Why don’t you let me do that,” Miranda offered. “I know just who to call.”
Chapter 13
It seemed to Miranda that there were uniformed police officers swarming everywhere, buzzing about like wasps after someone has kicked their nests. They had all arrived so quickly. The first of them had turned up less than a minute after Miranda had called Jack.
In no time at all, they were shepherding everyone back into the house, away from poor Leah and the crime scene.
Paul Wells certainly seemed devastated, and it took two officers and his mother to take him away from his wife’s body. Natasha Wells had calmed down considerably and had been just quietly watching the police coming and going until it was time to go inside.
They were all led to the sitting room, a space just as tackily decorated as the rest of the house with striped and polka-dotted furniture and gold curtains that hung limply against a green wall. Miranda couldn’t help but think what a kindness it would be if this house burnt down one day and someone who had taste came in to do the decorating when it was rebuilt.
In her mind’s eye, she saw a flash of flames. There was an image of fire. Something was on fire. Something was burning, and the flames danced on water…
She snapped out of it in time to catch herself before she lost her balance. Thankfully there was a chair close by for her to drop into while her head stopped spinning. Visions were a part of her life as a psychic. Sometimes those visions were of the past. Sometimes they were of the present.
Sometimes, they were of the future.
This certainly wasn’t from the past. It didn’t have that feel. Which meant something was either burning, right now, or something was going to be burning in the near future. Something important.
As stealthily as she could, she took a deep breath in through her nose. She didn’t smell smoke. Most likely, she’d just seen a bit of the future.
Oh good, she thought to herself. Because she didn’t have enough to worry about already.
“Here comes Jack now,” Kyle said to her. He was in the room with the rest of them, holding Maisie’s hand to give her moral support. His presence was just as comforting to Miranda as it was to their new ghost friend.
She smiled as Jack walked across the neat lawn towards her. It was the first that Miranda had seen him since the police arrived. The uniformed officers had all taken control of the scene quickly, and although she knew Jack would be along for her to talk to eventually, he hadn’t shown his face until now.
“I guess I should have seen this coming,” he said, shaking his head sadly as he entered the room and knelt down next to Miranda’s chair. “You in the middle of everything again, and of course another murder happens while you wandered around playing junior detective.”
“Well, I don’t have a badge,” she said with a little smile, “but I’m cute.”
“Very funny. Anyway, if you’re interested in the cause of death, it looks like Leah Robinson-Wells was struck on the back of the head.”
“I saw that,” Miranda said, and winced. “Death by cricket bat. What a way to go.”
“I’ll never look at the game the same way again, I know that. It was mercifully quick in any case.” Jack shrugged. “Leah was most likely dead before she hit the ground. So. How about you tell me what you’ve found out in your unofficial capacity as police consultant? Natasha has hardly said two words, is what the other officers have told me, and Paul’s been all but incoherent.”
Aware that everyone was sitting in the same room, even if they were on the other side from her, Miranda lowered her voice. “I’ve got quite a bit to share with you.”
Kyle nodded his head in a serious manner. “That’s because we’ve been doing his job for him. Doing it better, if you ask me.”
“No one asked you, Kyle.” Miranda gave him a glare, needing to get this out quickly before someone came over to ask Jack a question and heard them talking.
Jack looked over each of Miranda’s shoulders, trying to spot Kyle, making her wonder when he would ever get the hint that he couldn’t see ghosts. That was her thing.
Making sure not to miss any details, Miranda told Jack what she had heard and learned so far. Natasha inviting Maisie to dinner last night, even though she had tried to deny it. Paul seeing Maisie out back before she was murdered, possibly with someone, but not seeing who. How Natasha and Paul said Maisie tricked him into giving up most of his personal fortune.
Then, to top it off, she told him how Ashton was in love with Paul, and might have had the strongest motive for killing the two wives out of anyone here.
“You said there wasn’t any blood on his hands though, right?” Jack asked. “Just like there was none on Natasha’s gloves?”
His eyes flicked over to the three suspects, sitting way over on a couch and talking softly, trying to draw Paul out of his melancholy. They weren’t paying any attention to what was happening on this side of the room.
“That’s right,” Miranda told him. “No blood. There’s something about that. I felt it when I first saw Leah’s body, and I’m still feeling it. Something is nagging at me. I just can’t figure what.”
“Hmm,” Jack mused. “I’ve learned to trust your hunches. Well. We don’t want to rule anything out. Have you seen… you know…?”
Miranda knew what he meant. He was asking if she’d seen Leah’s ghost. “No. Not yet. It happens that way sometimes. She might not appear for hours, or she might not appear at all.”
“Yup,” Kyle agreed, “exactly what I was about to say. I’m the spirit guide after all.”
“What about Maisie?” Jack asked.
“She hasn’t been all that helpful. She showed me where she was pushed off the cliff, and it matches up with Paul’s story that he couldn’t see anyone clearly. Other than that she hasn’t remembered much.”
“Hey,” Maisie protested. “I’ve been trying. There’s just some things I’m not sure about still. That’s all.”
Kyle promised her again that everything would be okay, and all of her memory would return in time.
Miranda had to wonder how much time they might have before something else bad happened in this house.
“Okay,” Jack said to her. “Well, keep working your psychic magic on these nice people. Maybe you’ll come up with something before we bring them in for questioning at the station one at a time.”
“It’s not magic,” she protested against his teasing. “I’m not a witch.”
“Ooh,” Kyle crooned. “have you ever tried? Maybe we should try casting spells. Love spells? Good fortune spells! We could be rich!”
“What’s this ‘we’ business, compadre?” she said, glaring in his direction.
Jack stared up at the empty air where she was looking. “Do I even want to know what he said?”
“No,” she assured him. “It’s just Kyle being Kyle.”
Her ghostly pal didn’t seem to like that comparison. “Hey!”
“I figured,” was Jack’s response.
“Hey!” Kyle repeated again, more loudly.
Miranda rolled her eyes at the two men in her life, and her in between them acting like a translator. “Okay, boys. Let’s not forget why we’re here.”
“Right,” Jack said. “I should get back to work. I doubt we’re going to find much in the way of forensics, but we’ll do a full workup.”
His hand held hers briefly, but no more than that. They were stil
l trying to let everyone think she didn’t have anything to do with the police investigation. They needed to think she was just a concerned neighbor.
“Mrs. Wells?” Jack said as he stood up. “Natasha? Is there a place you and I could speak in private? Perhaps the dining room, like earlier.”
“Of course, Detective Travis.” She stood up from her couch, fluttering her dress back into place, and reaching a hand out to her son. “Come along, Paul.”
“Um, actually,” he said to her, “I only want to speak with you this time. We’ll want to speak to each of you alone. It’s just the way we do things.”
She seemed to consider that, but Paul hadn’t budged from where he sat. Ashton was next to him and he urged Natasha to go ahead. “I’ll watch over him.”
Her face frowned so deeply that Miranda was afraid it might crack. It made her wonder if she knew Ashton’s intentions towards her son. The first time that Miranda had come to the Wells house, last night, she’d seen Ashton looking intently across the table with a look of desire in his eyes. At the time she’d thought he might be looking at Natasha, even though she was much older than he was.
Now Miranda knew it was Paul that he’d been making eyes at.
What about Paul, she wondered. Was it possible he felt the same about Ashton and just didn’t know how to express it? This was still the day and age where a lot of men—and women too—were afraid to express their love for someone of the same gender
She needed to talk to Paul. That much was clear.
But how to do it with Ashton sitting right there?
With a sudden resolve she stood up, making her way across the room in a few steps.
“Um,” Kyle said, floating beside her. “What’s the plan here?”
“I’d like to talk,” she answered Kyle, directing her words to Ashton, “to Paul while his mother is occupied with the police. Do you think possibly you could give us some privacy?”
Kyle gaped at her. “This is your plan? You’re going to just ask the big oaf to leave? Oh, great plan.”