Midlife Curses: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Mystery (Witching Hour Book 1)

by Christine Zane Thomas

  He probably wondered why he didn’t recognize me here in Creel Creek, Virginia—the smallest town I’d ever set foot in. Or worse, he thought I was passing through and thus an easy target for his speed trap.

  I wondered if I was supposed to start the conversation. After all, we both knew what he was going to say. Finally, he asked, “So how fast do you think you were going back there?”

  If I knew that, I thought, I probably wouldn’t be in this predicament.

  “I don’t know. You tell me, deputy.”

  He smiled. His teeth gleamed in the gray light. “Ma’am, you may not be aware, but this is a thirty-five mile-per-hour zone. And I’m not a deputy. I’m the sheriff.”

  I was taken aback. Since when does a sheriff write speeding tickets? Since when is a sheriff so young? There was no way this man was a day over forty. Who did he think he was, Andy Griffith?

  This wasn’t the first time in my short stay that Creel Creek had reminded me of the little town of Mayberry. But where Mayberry was quaint and charming, Creel Creek was charmless and dull.

  “Well, Sheriff,” I said, a tad snippy, “if you don’t mind my asking, how fast was I going?”

  “About fifty,” he replied with a shake of his head. “And if you don’t mind me asking, can you produce your license, insurance, and registration?”

  “Of course.” I gathered them up and passed them through the window. This was where I knew things would get worse. He’d seen my California tag, and now my California license. It was a total lie to say I hadn’t had the time to run by the DMV and change them. Since moving to my Gran’s house, I’d had nothing but time. Until last week, when I’d finally gotten off my butt and took her up on that job. Not a very good job, mind you. Easy, though.

  The sheriff shot me another smile, but this time his mustache did most of the work. Then he strode back to his SUV.

  It was eerily quiet. The strobing lights danced, reflecting off every possible surface, the cars, the leaves, and the road signs in the distance.

  If I was counting, and I was counting, this was my third week in this Virginia hamlet. East of Kentucky and just below the border of West Virginia, Creel Creek was almost ghost town quiet.

  When I left California, I’d left with the intention of starting my life over—of hitting the reset button. But the past few weeks hadn’t been easy. They were the icing on the misery cake, the stale yellow cake that had been one of the worst years of my life.

  My mind raced back to that day—the day everything came apart. Then the door of the deputy’s SUV creaked. This time he came to a stop at my window. I could make out just a hint of his Old Spice deodorant. This man wasn’t the type to wear cologne. He was simple, a lot like the town itself.

  “I’m going to let you off with a warning… this time.” He handed the documents back but held on to my license.

  “Thanks, I guess,” I said. The clock on the dashboard told me I was already four minutes late for work.

  “You guess, huh?” He laughed. “I can scoot on back there and write you out that ticket if you want me to.”

  “There’s no need for that,” I said.

  He smiled, then shook his head. “Do I know you from somewhere? We didn’t grow up together, did we?”

  “I don’t think so,” I told him. “Unless you grew up in California.”

  “No,” he said. “But I know you from somewhere.”

  Unlikely, I thought. I could count on one hand the number of people I knew in Creel Creek. And as much as I appreciated not getting a ticket, sitting here while he pictured every blue-eyed blonde girl he’d ever met wasn’t getting either of us anywhere.

  “Sorry,” I said. “It’s just, I’m late for work—”

  “That’s it!” he said triumphantly. “That’s where I know you from.”

  “From work?” I asked skeptically. I had not been, nor ever planned to be, a sheriff.

  “Not my work,” he said. “Your work. You work down at the grocery, right?”

  “I do. I did.” Hint, hint.

  Normally, I’d wonder if something was off with me, not recognizing a customer, especially such a memorable one—the mustache, the dark eyes, the nice smile. But I’d found it was best not to let my eyes linger on any of our shoppers for too long. There wasn’t a Walmart in Creel Creek, but the grocery’s clientele more than made up for it. I was thinking of starting my own website, People of Creel Creek.

  “That explains it,” he said, nodding. “See, I know everyone around here. And I didn’t know you, Constance Campbell.” He read the name from my license before slipping it into my waiting palm. “For a second this morning, I thought you might be passing through. But your face—it was so familiar.”

  “Well, I’m glad we got that figured out,” I said. “It’s just I, uh—”

  “You have to get to work,” he said with a nod.

  I had everything back. And he did say he was giving me a warning. I wondered if I zoomed off right now if I would get into any trouble.

  “I’m Sheriff Marsters, by the way. Sheriff David Marsters. You can call me Dave, if you like.”

  “Sheriff Dave,” I repeated.

  “Just Dave.” His mustache bristled with a different smile. There was something shy about it. It would’ve been kind of cute if he wasn’t ruining my day before it even started.

  “It was nice meeting you, just Dave,” I said.

  Now, would you let me leave…

  “You, too, Constance.” He tipped his ball cap toward me. “You have a great day, now. I’ll be seeing you around.”

  I wasn’t sure if that was a friendly remark or a police warning. While part of me hoped I would see him again, another was uneasy at the thought. There was something about police officers that always made me uncomfortable—like I was going to slip up and break a few laws in their presence, get arrested, and spend the rest of my days in prison. Seeing one on the highway made me practically forget how to drive. Seeing one in a bank made me feel like I’d just robbed it but forgotten about the getaway.

  After he got in his SUV, I eased Crookshanks out onto the road. Not a single car had passed us, and there wasn’t another for the remainder of the drive to the grocery. Like everything else about Creel Creek this time of the morning, it was dead.

  3

  In Witch I’m Late for Work

  I sprinted across the parking lot, now a full fifteen minutes late for my shift. Like the road, the lot was empty except for the few cars parked in the very back. Mr. Caulfield, the grocery’s owner-slash-manager, insisted that the employees park as far away from the store as possible to leave spots available for our customers. While an okay policy in general, those extra seconds I spent crossing from one side to the other made me that much later.

  I heaved a relieved sigh when I saw that the lot was also devoid of his ugly green Mustang. Said policy didn’t account for why Mr. Caulfield’s reserved spot—the one with his picture on it—was the spot adjacent to the two painted for the handicapped.

  Slowing my pace to a jog, I stutter-stepped, waiting for the sluggish automatic doors to jerk open. This morning, the world was against me.

  I should have turned around and gone back to bed before anything else swooped my way.

  The store’s air conditioning sent a shiver down my now sweaty spine. As in most grocery stores, I was greeted by a row of registers just inside the entrance. It being a small store there were five, only two of which were manned at any given time.

  The produce section was around to the right. Behind the registers were the aisles that every diet book tells you to avoid. The far wall was home to the butcher’s counter. It took up a whole side of the store and carried everything—in quantity. As far as I know, it’s the only place to buy meat in a fifty-mile radius.

  Jade the butcher—no, not her serial killer name—was behind the display case portioning out prefilled deli meat bags.

  Working at the grocery, like living with Gran, was another in the long line of que
stionable decisions I’d made recently. With a master’s degree in business from UCLA, I’d been a project manager at three different tech firms, all of which were major players in the software industry, before moving to Swizzled Innovators with Mark.

  So, why was I putting myself through this?

  Well, for one, there weren’t any tech companies in Creel Creek, Virginia. And while I could’ve found a remote position, something to do from home—from Gran’s home—that just wasn’t me.

  I wanted—no, I needed to be around people. Or, so I thought. And for my own sanity, I had to be out of Gran’s house for long stretches of time.

  I didn’t need the money. Not really. Not yet. But I wanted a mindless job to get my mind off of things—things being Mark and the divorce. The grocery fit that bill nicely. Too nicely.

  The job was so mindless I was hearing voices in my head. On several occasions over the last week, I’d asked a customer to repeat themselves only to learn they hadn’t said anything in the first place. Then I was left wondering who had.

  Maybe it was my stank-faced coworker playing a trick on me. From her cash register, Trish tapped her finger on an imaginary watch.

  Yes, I know I’m late. I wanted to shout.

  She’s the closest thing you have to a friend, I reminded myself. I fluttered my fingers in a halfhearted wave. My attempt to be friendly.

  Besides Gran, Trish was the person in Creel Creek I knew the best. Not that that was saying much. But I’d gotten to know her a little, chatting at the registers.

  Trish had a way about her. A confidence—an air like it was her way or the highway. In that regard, she reminded me of Gran.

  Unlike Gran, Trish stood about a head shorter than me. I was used to that, at two inches shy of six feet, I was taller than most men.

  She was around my age, maybe a little older. It was hard to tell. Her makeup reminded me of a teenage goth girl—her green eyes popped, framed in heavy black eyeliner. And not hazel green, these were a vivid emerald. Her lipstick matched the streak of violet in her otherwise black-as-night hair. It was dyed, but her roots were also dark. Maybe she was a brunette.

  Based on the gray hairs I found each time I parted mine, it was time I did the same thing. Thirty-nine might not be technically over the hill, but it felt like the grinding of a roller coaster before it lets go of the track.

  Ninety percent of the time, Trish communicated with gestures. She jerked her chin toward the dairy refrigerators in the back of the store and raised her eyebrows at me.

  I managed to keep from rolling my eyes before she caught me. I knew I had to clock in and count my drawer. She was acting like she wanted me to magic myself there and back again.

  “I know,” I said. “I’ll clock in and be back in a jiff.”

  “JIF’s on aisle two,” Trish quipped. “And do hurry.”

  Honestly, she acts as if we’ll be swamped with customers any minute. The only other people in the store were coworkers in their black vests, buttoned at the middle.

  Hal, one of the stockers, beamed when he saw me. He was unloading cans of soup and arranging them so their labels were proudly on display.

  “Uh, Constance,” he said in his oddly soft voice, “you got a minute?”

  “No, I’ve got to clock in,” I told him.

  “That’s fine.” He nodded to himself. “It can wait. I just, um, wanted to—”

  I left him there to ponder those next words. I knew what he wanted to say, or had a good idea, anyway. He tried to get those same words out every day, ever since I started.

  I pulled my black vest out of a breakroom cubby and pinned on my purple nametag. Constance, it proclaimed in bold block letters. Under it, in tiny print, was the word cashier.

  Oh, how the mighty have fallen. I wondered what Mark would think if he saw me here, doing this.

  I counted my till, then hustled back across the store. This was supposed to be a two-person job—like the second person was going to thwart a thief with a gun. Or a knife.

  In those dire circumstances, I’d gladly hand over the money, all two hundred dollars of it. Mostly George Washingtons.

  I detoured, circling around to the produce section. There were still no customers in sight.

  Nick, the produce manager, was unloading a box of green bananas next to the speckled brown ones. I grabbed one, well past its prime, and called it breakfast.

  I veered toward the register, well away from the soup aisle, but Hal caught up with me anyway.

  “You all clocked in?” he asked nervously.

  The answer was so obvious I didn’t even acknowledge it. I made a face that I hoped would pass for a friendly smile, a smile that also said I don’t have time for this right now. Or ever.

  “It’s just, uh, Constance, I was wondering—”

  “Hal,” I said, probably not as sweetly as I meant to, “we’ve been over this, haven’t we? Do we really need to…?”

  His face told me we were going to have this conversation not only today but probably tomorrow and the next day and the next as well.

  “Hal, I just got out of a relationship. Not just any relationship—a marriage. I’m still married. Technically. And I’m so not ready to date anyone. You’re really sweet, though.”

  Sweet was one way to describe him. Goofy, blithering, and a little pushy were other words. He was also on the dumpy side, a tad overweight with unkempt hair. He had a bald spot and his glasses came straight from the 1980s and didn’t hide the acne scars high on his cheeks. He wasn’t anyone’s idea of the perfect rebound.

  “We wouldn’t have to call it a date,” he bumbled. “I mean, we could call it two friends having dinner at Orange Blossoms. I’d even let you pay for your own dinner. Their steaks are—”

  “Adequate,” I interjected. Like most things Creel Creek had to offer, the town’s one chain restaurant was just decent but bordering on subpar.

  “—fantastic.” His last word came out like the final whimper of air from a balloon.

  “I’m sorry, Hal. It’s still a no.”

  “For now,” he said.

  “Right. For now.” And forever and ever and ever. I felt bad for him but not bad enough to go on a date.

  “Could I have your number then?” he asked. “For later, that is.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Then you take my number. Here, I’ll put it in your phone. You can call me anytime, day or night.”

  “Fine.” It seemed like the only way to get him away from me. I pulled my phone from my vest pocket—a violation of store policy—unlocked it and handed it to him.

  He mumbled while he typed the digits.

  “What was that?”

  “There,” he said with a flourish. “Call me whenever you’re ready.”

  “Thanks.” I took my phone. He’d be seeing my number light up his phone’s screen at a quarter past never.

  Finally, I reached my post at the express lane—fifteen items or less. To some people, that number was only a suggestion. Either that or they needed to wear flip-flops to count that high. I dropped my till in the drawer and slammed it shut. Trish huffed exasperatedly. My tardiness seemed to have put her out something fierce.

  I thought she was going to come down on me. Maybe I’d get a written reprimand. Her name tag read Lead Cashier, after all. Kind of like the express lane item limit, I wasn’t sure the title actually meant anything.

  “What happened to you this morning?” she asked.

  “I got stopped.”

  “Stopped?” Trish’s Southern drawl was more pronounced than usual.

  “For speeding.”

  “You’re kidding,” she said. “I mean, you are kidding, right?”

  “Why would I joke about something like that?”

  “Who stopped you? Man or woman?”

  “Man. Sheriff.”

  This wasn’t the first time I’d heard Trish laugh, but it was the hardest. “Dave probably hadn’t even had his coffee yet. And he stopped you?” Trish s
hook her head. “You must’ve been going mighty fast.”

  “He did,” I said. “And I wasn’t. Not that fast.” I sighed. It was my turn to be exasperated.

  “Dave didn’t give you a ticket, now, did he?”

  “No, he didn’t,” I replied. “I guess he thought I was from out of town when he stopped me. Then he thought he knew me from somewhere—turns out, it was here. If I hadn’t told him I was late for work, he probably would’ve given me one.”

  Or we’d still be talking.

  “Sugar,” Trish started, leaning across her conveyor belt toward me, “Dave Marsters ain’t never gave no woman a ticket in his life.”

  Was that a double or triple negative? I wondered.

  “Never? Really?”

  “Never.”

  “What, is it like a chauvinist thing?” I asked. “Or will he be trying to date me next?” Even though Dave was decent, maybe bordering on cute if he shaved his mustache, all I needed was yet another local yokel pining for me. Hal was plenty.

  “Doubtful.” Trish straightened. “Dave hasn’t dated since his wife died two years ago. He’s got three little girls at home. Talk about being outnumbered. No, ever since she passed he lets them girls get away with murder. And he lets women off with a warning every time we speed through town.”

  “How often do you speed through town?”

  “Often enough.” Trish winked. “Now, Willow, his deputy, will give you a ticket. So be careful.”

  “Good to know.”

  This was probably the first conversation I’d had with Trish that wasn’t about the store or why I’d moved to Creel Creek. We didn’t exactly hit it off my first few days. And Trish, a lifelong resident of Creel Creek, had nothing in common with me.

  I searched for something constructive to do while we waited for shoppers, opting to spray down my belt with cleaner, then review the weekly sales flyer.

  Customers trickled in over the next hour.

  Along with them came Mr. Caulfield. He was tall and thin, very pale, and at least a decade older than me, but his skin was smooth like he used the world’s best moisturizer. His name tag read Eric, but no one dared call him that—something I’d learned on my first day—the last day I assumed we were equal. After all, I’d been a career woman until this point, one with an MBA.