“Are you asking for my permission to date my sister?”
“I wouldn’t tell her that. She seems pretty independent. But, yeah, I’m asking if you’d mind if I had dinner with your sister.”
I considered my answer. “As long as you kept it casual, I’d be okay with it. You both are bouncing back from relationships that ended recently. Rebounds don’t usually go well.”
His expression turned from embarrassed to contemplative.
I held up a hand. “I don’t even want to know what you were just thinking. Let’s go get some sleep.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He held the back door for me as I carried Meeka out to the SUV. She squirmed in my arms, eager to run, but I didn’t want her getting snow on her booties and then all over the back of my car. He opened the back hatch for me next. “See you tomorrow, Sheriff. Sleep well.”
I smiled as I tucked Meeka into her cage. My sister could do far worse than Martin Reed. Then I realized, this could put her on a collision course with Flavia.
Chapter 16
The closer we got to Pine Time, the more tired I became. As I figured, since she’d taken a good nap at the station, Meeka wanted to run laps around the house when we got home. While she did that, I ran up to the apartment and changed into leggings, a sweatshirt, and a pair of thick ragg wool socks. By the time I got back downstairs, she was pawing at the patio door.
“When did you get home?” Tripp asked, beating me to the door.
“About three minutes ago.”
“You look exhausted.”
“I feel exhausted. Where are Dad and Rozzie?”
“Last I heard, your dad went out to the garage to poke around in the loft. I think Rosalyn is in her room.” He laughed at me. “You haven’t blinked this whole time. Go take a nap.”
He led me toward the stairs, and I redirected for the couch. “I can’t climb those stairs again.”
I lay down, he covered me up, and the next thing I knew, wonderful smells from the kitchen had permeated the house. The sun, skimming low across the sky, must have recently peeked in through the patio windows. The great room had that sun-warmed feel but was already starting to cool again, and dusk was closing in outside. Still, I was so cozy and content, I didn’t care about anything other than staying right where I was.
A few minutes later, Tripp came out. “You’re awake.”
“Yeah, I have been for a while. Can’t get myself to move. What time is it?”
“A little after four.”
“What are you making? It smells wonderful.”
“Italian meatballs, salad, and garlic bread. Are you hungry?”
“I am. Eating would require moving though.” He offered to bring me a snack since dinner wouldn’t be ready for another hour. I stretched and sighed. “That’s all right. I’ll get up.”
I followed Tripp to the kitchen where he took out a cheeseball and crackers he’d made for last night’s gathering but left home for us.
“Your dad said something about going to the full moon coven gathering tonight.”
I loaded a cracker with cheese. “Looks like he wants to get the full Whispering Pines experience while he’s here. That makes me happy.”
“Me too. Speaking of your family members, what’s going on with your sister and Reed?”
“Why, what did you hear?” I mumbled through a mouthful of cheese and crackers. Then I pointed at my mouth. “This is really good.”
“I didn’t hear anything directly, but I think she was talking to him on the phone earlier. She came into the kitchen to get a can of fizzy water from the fridge and was asking how things were going with Suzette’s case.”
I spread cheese on another cracker. “Right before we left the station he wanted to know if I’d be okay with him taking Roz out for dinner. Not ‘dating,’ just on a date.”
“She and James broke up, what, a month and a half ago?” Tripp went into protective mode. It was cute. “Is she ready for that?”
“I’m not sure I’m ready. There’s also Reed’s breakup with Lupe. I’ve barely recovered from that.” At Tripp’s amused look, I added, “I’m joking. Mostly.”
As Tripp finished getting dinner ready, I went out to the garage to see what Dad was up to. Meeka, of course, wanted to come with me. She both loved and hated the garage loft. On the plus side, there was a lot to explore—old furniture, boxes of Gran’s and Gramps’ old possessions, and Gran’s worship corner. The corner held her altar table, still strewn with the objects she’d last used, and an armoire filled with candles, incense, altar cloths, and other Wiccan items. As for what Meeka didn’t like up there, I wasn’t sure. All I knew was, every now and then, she would either bark at something only she could see or yelp and leave the loft altogether. I mentioned it to Morgan once. She felt there must be some kind of bad energy up there and offered to come over and smudge the area with something called palo santo.
“Okay,” I told Meeka, “you can come, but I’m carrying you. I don’t want to deal with your booties again.”
At the bottom of the stairs to the loft, I heard Dad’s voice. It was too soft to hear specific words, but it sounded like he was having a conversation. I could also smell incense burning. What was he doing up there? Was someone with him? Not wanting to walk in on anything I shouldn’t witness, I set Meeka down and let her announce our presence by going up first.
Within seconds, I heard a startled, “Meeka. What are you doing here?”
That was my cue. “Dad? Are you up there?”
“I am.”
I found him in Gran’s altar corner standing near the open armoire where a black, crushed velvet robe hung on the door.
“It’s been years,” he began, “decades really, since I practiced. I’ll utter a phrase now and then, but I haven’t prayed in a very long time.”
“Is that what you were doing? Praying?”
He shook his head. “More like getting into the mindset. I’m preparing to attend the coven gathering tonight.”
“Tripp mentioned that. How are you preparing?”
Dad paused and smiled before saying, “You barely reacted to finding me up here. Have you been practicing too?”
He made it sound like I’d caught him doing something illicit. I chuckled at that. “Not practicing, no. I’ve been living in a community of Wiccans for seven months. My best friend is the head witch.”
“You mean Morgan? She’s the high priestess?”
“Right. I’ve come to understand the religion, and while some of it does appeal to me, the connection with nature especially, I haven’t considered joining them.”
“Wicca isn’t what society thinks it is, is it?”
I shook my head and waited for him to explain what he’d been doing.
“To attend tonight’s gathering, I’ll need a robe.” He touched the one hanging on the armoire. “This was my mother’s. Before I could feel comfortable wearing it, I wanted to bless it and . . .”
His voice grew so soft I didn’t hear the rest. It sounded something like “and ask for her forgiveness.” Their relationship had effectively fractured when she revealed the truth about Donovan to my mother. Really, Gran was the one who’d needed to ask for Dad’s forgiveness.
“Before I could bless the robe,” he explained, “I needed an altar that was set up for my intent. I asked the Goddess to first allow me to use my mother’s tools. Then I changed the table cover from light blue—a color for peace and protection—to this deeper blue.”
That’s what it was. I knew something was different but couldn’t figure out what. Tripp found the space a few days after I’d gotten to the village. The altar had been set up, looking like Gran was in the middle of a ritual and had run downstairs for something. One purple and one silver taper candle along with a white pillar candle stood at the back of the table. A goblet and a small black cauldron were on the left, a wooden wand and incense burner on the right. A dagger, or athame as Morgan called it, lay parallel to the front edge of the altar. Beneath all of
that was a light-blue table cover with a silver pentagram stitched at the center. Now I saw that Dad had changed the cloth.
He continued, “The darker blue is for truth, removing bad vibrations, and”—he met my eyes—“domestic harmony.”
I smiled. “Good color choice. Did I interrupt? Should I leave and let you finish?”
“No, I finished with that part. You caught me wandering through memories.” He held out a hand to Gran’s nearby rocking chair, indicating I should sit, and pulled up a second chair for himself. He glanced at Meeka, lying with her nose right up to the edge of the circle. “What’s the matter with her?”
Like the metal pipes of a cattle guard that kept cows from leaving their pasture, the circle acted as a sort of barrier she wouldn’t cross. If she wanted to explore the armoire in the far corner, she’d go all the way around the circle instead of through it.
“Something in this corner freaked her out once and now she won’t step over that line.”
“A real something or an imagined something.”
“I didn’t find anything if that’s what you mean. Must’ve been someone from another realm.”
I’d been joking, but Dad said, “I feel her here.”
“Gran?” Maybe that was it. Maybe Meeka sensed her and didn’t know what to do with a non-corporeal being. “I’ve felt her everywhere in this village at one point or another. She created this village, after all. I especially feel her here in the loft, though.”
He nodded. “She never pushed me or Dad to join her in her religion, but she never hid her beliefs either.”
“Gramps wasn’t Wiccan then?”
“He dabbled. Like you, he liked the connection to nature and got a kick out of all the ceremonies.”
“I like that there’s always an opportunity to start over or try again.”
During Samhain, the end of the Wiccan year, Briar had me make a list of unresolved issues in my life. The intent was to finish up old business in order to start the new year fresh. I was still working through my too-long list. Hopefully, I’d have everything checked off by next Halloween.
“Starting over is a good one,” Dad agreed. “Your mistakes don’t define you.”
I hesitated, afraid to enter such a heavy topic, then dove in headfirst. “Gran hurt you pretty badly, didn’t she?”
“She did.” He blew out a slow breath. “And she hurt your mother, which made it far worse. I learned that the big problem with running away from a fight is that resolutions are much harder to achieve. Gran tried to apologize and explain why she did what she did. I was too angry and embarrassed to listen.”
“Embarrassed? Why?”
“Because I let my mother dictate how I ran my life. If I would have told your mother about the baby from the start, everything would have been fine.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “Gran was so obsessed with the power of being the ruler of Whispering Pines. The Original. She seemed to have forgotten that the whole point of people coming to this village was so they could live in a community of acceptance. Everyone knows that teenagers have sex. The people here wouldn’t have thought twice about the baby. Priscilla and I could’ve gone on fine with our lives.” He paused, looking shell-shocked. “Mom had to control all of that, though.”
“Did you want to be a part of Donovan’s life?”
Before he could answer, Rosalyn called up the stairs. “Tripp says dinner is ready.”
Dad blinked and called back, “Okay. Thank you, sweetheart. We’ll be right there.”
The spell had broken. Hopefully, Dad and I would be able to pick this conversation up again. Not only did I want to know about Donovan, I wanted to know why he’d been absent from our family so often and for so long. Was it all connected? Did it all go back to that night forty years ago when Priscilla died? Or that day two decades ago when Gran told his secret? Was it because of Mom’s anger?
The four of us gathered around the dining room table for meatballs, salad, and garlic bread. After everything we’d consumed at the celebration last night, we all agreed this was enough for dinner.
“I like what you’ve done in here,” Dad said.
“The furniture is the same,” Tripp explained. “We had to have it all refurnished. The light fixtures are new.”
“I noticed. I hated those antique brass things.” Dad made a disapproving face and pointed at the more modern chandelier hanging above us and the wall sconces on either side of the china cabinet. “These are better. Weren’t the dishes green, though?”
He meant the Irish bone china that used to fill the cabinet. “Sadly,” I reported, “the vandals broke almost every piece.”
“Well, I think your grandmother would approve of everything you’ve done.” Dad tapped the plate in front of him. “Including the mismatched blue china.”
“I’d hope so.” I laughed. “It’s all hers.”
A shadow of regret crossed his face. “Is it? She must’ve gotten it since the last time I was here.”
After we’d cleaned up the dinner dishes, we moved to the great room to open the gifts we’d received at The Inn.
I got snack foods, bags of coffee beans from the Grinder, and tins of tea from Shoppe Mystique from different families. All really nice, thoughtful little expressions of appreciation for their sheriff. Tripp got an envelope instead of a wrapped package.
“Sweet!” he exclaimed upon opening it. “It’s from Willie. Lessons for making hard cider at his cottage.”
“You must’ve passed the background check,” I teased. “Willie rarely lets people into his home. This is a big deal.”
He looked up from the hand-drawn certificate with a smile. “Maybe the recluse is lonely.”
I turned to my dad. “Okay, open yours. I’m dying of curiosity.”
“As am I. I can’t imagine who here would give me anything.” As always, he picked at the tape with extreme care, as though digging out long-buried artifacts at his excavation site.
“Don’t make me come over there and do it for you,” Rosalyn threatened, ready to leap across the sofa and shred the paper.
“All right, all right.” He’d pulled the paper off the box, opened the cover, and pulled out a harlequin figurine.
Chapter 17
I couldn’t take my eyes off that ceramic doll. Even from across the room, I could tell that thing was supposed to represent my father. It had gray-and-white hair tied back in a tiny ponytail and a neatly trimmed beard. The little hiking boots appeared to be covered in sand, much like the ones Dad wore at his excavation sites.
“What is this?” Dad held it up by a tiny hand pinched between his thumb and forefinger.
“It looks like you, Daddy,” Rosalyn said in an isn’t-it-cute way.
I stepped closer. Rosalyn didn’t notice the more gruesome details. The “skin” not covered by the traditional diamond-pattern harlequin clothing, in green and red for the season, looked bloated and had a slight blue tint. I looked from it to Tripp. The color had drained from his face, as I’m sure it had from mine.
Thoughts slammed through my brain. What did this mean? Had Donovan given my father a death doll? Was Donovan actually in the village or had he sent this from elsewhere?
“Tripp?” I tried to sound as though I’d forgotten something. “Would you come with me for a second?”
He jumped to his feet. To the other two, he probably looked perfectly normal. I, however, saw the way he’d started rubbing his neck and how he’d barely blinked since Dad removed the thing from the box.
Neither of us spoke until we’d shut the door to the den down the hall from the great room.
“Donovan?” Tripp asked.
“Who else could it be?” I snapped, then immediately said, “Sorry. The beard and salt-and-pepper hair in a ponytail. That thing looks like Dad.”
Donovan wore his all-white hair in a ponytail. His was longer than Dad’s but still similar. Had he seen Dad before yesterday? Had he somehow been keeping tabs on him on the other side of the globe? Or was it
simply a coincidence?
“It looks like your grandmother too,” Tripp noted. “Remember how the doll you found in her linen closet looked? Bloated and blue?”
I’d noticed the appearance of this one but hadn’t connected it to Gran. My anger was growing. “He’s got to be somewhere in the village. He must’ve seen Dad when we went to meet the Pack members yesterday.”
“He’s in the village,” Tripp said matter-of-factly. “The real question is, how long has he been here?”
“And where has he been hiding?”
“Flavia was involved with those cards you received last month. Yes, they were from Randy, but Flavia was practically directing his every move.”
“Maybe that’s it. Maybe he’s been staying with her.” Images formed in my mind. “She got to Treat Me Sweetly late yesterday. I can picture her and Donovan hiding around the corner, waiting for us to go inside. Then they’d sneak up and get a good look at him through the windows so Donovan could go home and make that creepy doll look like dear old dad.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little—” Tripp cut himself off. “Never mind. Nothing is out of the question for Flavia.”
“I didn’t see her at the Midwinter Celebration last night. Did you?”
“No, but she doesn’t stick out to me the way she does to you.”
I stared blankly out the den window, arms crossed, fingers tapping on biceps. “We need a plan. We can’t let Dad out of the house.”
“Because that wouldn’t raise any alarms.”
“Donovan could be anywhere, Tripp. You know how good he is at hiding.”
“I do know. Consider this, though,” Tripp turned me to face him. “If Donovan is following the same pattern as last time, the doll matches the victim. Right?”
I winced and then nodded.
“That doll appears to have been drowned. I swear I’m not making light of this, but that tells me he’s playing with us. You know what that appearance means. Your dad doesn’t. I think he’s messing more with you than your dad.”
“True.” A little spark of light flickered inside me. “You might be on to something. Keep talking.”
Whispering Pines Mysteries Box Set 3 Page 38