The Witch On Twisted Oak

by Muller, Susan C.

  He just needed some action. His cell glared up at him from beside the pizza box. When he scrolled to Cheryl’s number, his thumb hesitated, then hit Delete. He deleted five more numbers before he had time to change his mind.

  Now what?

  He’d propped his cast on his old Journal and it fell to the floor when he tossed the phone back to the table. He scooped it off the carpet and sparks shot up his arm. Damn static electricity.

  Should he read the rest of the book? He’d stopped after Yolanda Garza’s Rede or poem or whatever it was. He didn’t need to read it now: he remembered it all.

  There was nothing magical about forgetting that day. He hadn’t thought about it in more than twenty years. If you saw a picture of yourself at that age, you’d say: I remember going to that birthday party. But five minutes earlier, you’d forgotten all about it.

  And that stuff she said, she used logic, not magic to predict what would happen. Like he’d guessed Tessa’s past when he’d held her hand. Those sparks were static electricity combined with mutual attraction, nothing more.

  He flipped the book open. All the part at the first of the poem had already happened. As for the rest, she could see how different they were, and it had to be obvious that he would grow up tall and strong, while Jacinto would take a different road.

  The part about predicting her own death wasn’t that far out. The guy had threatened her. She was definitely afraid of him and if she believed that would happen, then her later dealings with him probably egged him on.

  His finger traced down the poem as he read. Even when she talked about losing parts, she didn’t explicitly say parts of her body. She could have been talking about her crystal ball. Or when Jacinto grabbed her finger and twisted, it had surely broken. Who knew what Jacinto had whispered in her ear? He might have threatened to take it clean off.

  And, of course, she had worried about Tessa’s safety. She’d been injured, hadn’t she? The woman had probably tried to guilt him into watching out for her.

  The parts he couldn’t explain didn’t bother him. That was what those psychic types did, wasn’t it? They threw out all kinds of things and waited to see what stuck. The rest they ignored.

  If she hadn’t died and he didn’t get the case, would anyone ever have known how wrong she was?

  Except she wasn’t. Was there one thing in the poem that hadn’t happened? He started at the first stanza and read it again.

  Fuck, every single prediction. Not only the date, but that Jacinto would send someone else─he looked again─minions, plural, more than one person, to do his dirty work. Triple D and the Lumberjack, minions for sure. Not good for much but to follow someone else’s orders. And here, where it asked if he would wake in time. He’d been milliseconds from passing out. No amount of strength would have saved him, only the length of his arms.

  Forget all that. She’d guessed. She’d made it up. But what about the dog? How in the hell had she known about the dog?

  He threw the book onto the sofa beside him and grabbed for his beer. The page he’d been reading crumpled and showed writing on the back. Had he looked at that before?

  Three more stanzas of the Rede waited.

  “But fool you are and fool you’ll be,

  To let her slip away from thee.

  Act now before more time has passed,

  Else your heart grows hard just like your cast.

  Grovel, beg, she’ll take you back,

  Once you admit some things aren’t facts.”

  Fuck. He threw the book across the room. If he didn’t recognize his own childish scrawl, he’d think Tessa had written that part while he’d gone next door to find the stupid knife.

  The stupid knife he’d honed in on the minute he entered Yolanda’s place. Like he’d honed in on Jacinto’s picture in the gym, and his porno stash in that apartment. And other clues in other cases.

  If it was magic, why hadn’t he realized Jacinto was about to break into the cabin? He’d been a little distracted at the time, but the cat had certainly felt the guy’s presence. And he’d known immediately what that warning meant.

  Those few seconds had saved both their lives.

  Then he wasn’t a good detective? Just lucky? Touched? A warlock?

  A fool for sure. She and Mamacita had called that one right.

  Music drifted from Tessa’s studio. Not jazz this time. Something bluesy, melancholy. Bob watched him from the driveway, disdain evident in his body language.

  Ruben cleared his throat and tapped on the doorframe. “Am I allowed to come in?”

  Tessa didn’t turn around. “Do you think that’s a good idea? Unless something’s changed, I don’t see the point.” She added a dab of paint to her portrait of him, sitting at the picnic table, his head down and his leg stretched out.

  “I don’t know if anything has changed or if it’s always been and I was too big a fool to see it. Either way, I owe you an apology. I was rude and condescending when I said I’d be willing to let you believe whatever you wanted.”

  She swung toward him but didn’t answer.

  “Would it help if I claimed I was still under the influence of the pain meds?”

  A smile touched the corners of her mouth. Good. Maybe he had a chance.

  “It wasn’t the medication. If I’m honest with you, and I want to be, it was disappointment. Plain and simple.”

  Her jaw tightened and he could see the vein in her neck pulsing. “You were disappointed that after everything we went through, I claimed to be a witch?”

  “What? No.” He used to be good with women. Always knew the right thing to say. What had happened to him? “I was disappointed in myself. I promised to protect you and I got flustered at the thought of those Marshalls taking you away for several weeks. Everyone thinks those guys are special because they’re federal. I was worried you’d forget me.”

  “So you were just marking your territory?”

  There wasn’t any good answer to that question. “My selfishness nearly got you killed. I endangered you and let myself down. That’s hard to face and I made things worse by taking it out on you.”

  “I accept your apology, but that was never the problem. It was what you said, not how you said it. Do you feel any differently now?”

  “I don’t know if you’re a witch or I’m a warlock, if it was all magic, or Divine Intervention. Whatever name you give it, something happened. There are things in this world we don’t understand. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist. You have a gift, a power other people don’t have and wouldn’t understand. Maybe I have a touch of it myself. Your mother had it. Do Mamacita and Ramona? If they say they do, I believe them. Just as I believe you.”

  The smile grew wider, and she dropped her brush into a jar of solvent. “Want to go inside and discuss it?”

  More than anything in the world. “If you’ll let me. I love you, Tessa Reyna. You’re the only one I’ll ever want in this life. If you don’t want me, I understand, but I couldn’t go a minute longer without telling you.”

  She cocked her head to one side and studied him. “Do you promise to remember my birthday, to always call if you’re going to be late, to bring me flowers when I’m down?”

  “Probably not. I haven’t had much practice being in a relationship and I’ll likely screw it up. But I do promise to love you unconditionally, for the rest of my life and yours, to never give you reason to doubt me, and to make sure you always know that you are cherished.”

  “That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Maybe you’re not as big a fool as I thought, but you are looking a little tired. You might need to lie down and get some rest. I never bothered to make up my bed this morning, so you won’t have to worry about messing it up.”

  She touched his face as she brushed past him, and his heart swelled to the size of a basketball. He pivoted to follow her into the house, and saw the cat, sitting by the door.

  Did Bob just wink at him?

  Now Available:

  Susan C. Muller�
�s

  THE SECRETS ON FOREST BEND

  Another day. . . another dead body.

  When Detective Adam Campbell learns that a WWII gun is connected to several murders he’s investigating, he hopes that tracking down the killer will be as easy as tracing the gun’s history. When he meets Jillian Whitmeyer, the last known owner of the weapon, the case becomes anything but simple.

  Adam soon learns that people who get close to Jillian have a bad habit of turning up dead. Jillian claims that the spirit of her sister, accidentally killed with that same gun, is responsible for the deaths. She warns Adam that he is likely to become the next victim. Adam’s been a lousy judge of women in the past, and this one’s obviously a nut case. Or is she? How does a just-the-facts detective deal with a ghostly serial killer and the sexy-as-hell sister she won’t set free?

  Available now at Amazon:

  http://www.amazon.com/The-Secrets-Forest-Bend-ebook/dp/B006JP48NU/

  Please turn the page for a preview of:

  Susan C. Muller’s Voodoo on Bayou Lafonte

  Coming this Winter from Soul Mate Publishing!

  Prologue

  Comeaux, Louisiana

  Yvonne Dupre held her breath as the old man shuffled across her threshold. Would her home meet his standards? She glanced around as if seeing it for the first time. The rug was threadbare, the sofa was shabby, and the paint faded. Even her altar table wobbled from one leg she’d mended with thumb tacks and wood glue.

  Having the highest voodoo priest in the parish choose her place for this meeting was supposed to be an honor. Unless he had another reason.

  If only she knew why he had picked today to visit her.

  “This way, this way. You must sit here.” She pointed to the best chair she owned.

  He placed his hand on the back of the chair, but didn’t sit. The young man with him waited.

  Who was he? She’d never seen him before and she knew everyone in town. Had the old man brought him in from another parish for protection? He didn’t need a bodyguard. No one would dare harm Sebastian Guidry. He ruled the parish with an iron fist.

  He closed his pale blue eyes and leaned his head back, as if sniffing the air.

  She had cleaned all day, even infusing the water with consecrated herbs, roots, and oils. She had filled the house with the freshest ingredients for new gris-gris bags, only to discover that her son and his strumpet had spoiled everything.

  They had laughed and mixed herbs and powders the moment her back was turned, as if this was a game instead of her future.

  What was she to do with the bags they made? They had no power, yet to throw them in the trash might be dangerous.

  Asking Sebastian’s advice might be even more dangerous. Since he’d taken up the mantle of high priest thirty years ago, the voodoo community in the parish had changed, become darker. All the values the old priestess had taught were forgotten, replaced with fear, greed, a hunger for power and more power. Only the chosen few were part of his inner circle. And she wasn’t one of them.

  The rest simply tried to avoid his scrutiny. And the High Priest had already expressed his disapproval of Jean-Paul.

  That boy had been a disappointment since the day he was born. She took him to be tested on his first birthday, as the custom Sebastian had introduced dictated, but the priest declared he had no powers whatsoever. She had never been strong, and her powers waned with each passing year. With no family member to take over her position, would she be forced to leave the circle? Was that why he came today?

  She couldn’t survive without help.

  Comeaux was surrounded on three sides and part of the fourth by bayous. The area was totally isolated, almost an island. Where would she go? How would she manage?

  “Who has been here?” The priest’s voice reverberated through the small room.

  “No one. I live here with just my son, but I sent him away for the evening.” It was that damn girl. She must have worn perfume.

  Sebastian lifted his cane and pointed to the kitchen. The young man took his arm and led him in that direction. The old man’s beard was matted and yellowed, and his teeth brown from chewing tobacco. His clothes were less that spotless, and Yvonne doubted he had bathed that day, or the one before. Yet he commanded a presence. An aura of power surrounded him.

  Power she didn’t have.

  He headed straight to the gris-gris bags she had hidden behind the flour canister.

  “Where did these come from?” He rapped his cane on the floor.

  “My son, he made this one.” Her voice shook as she pulled the delicate bag forward. Maybe Jean-Paul had the touch after all. Perhaps he had to reach maturity before it manifested.

  The priest lifted the bag to his nose and inhaled. “Pfft,” he said, and dropped it into the trash.

  “What about this one?” He held out the other bag.

  The girl had always been trouble. Just like her mother before her. With her blond hair and seductive body, boys had been sniffing around her since she was thirteen. Jean-Paul was no exception, but given time, he would grow out of his infatuation. “The Hough girl made that one. But you tested her as a child. She has no power.”

  “No, she doesn’t.” He paused and his smile sent a chill down her spine. “But the child she carries does.”

  Chapter 1

  Houston, Texas

  Remy Steinberg lifted his Stetson off the corner of his desk and bowed to those remaining in the squad room. “I bid you a fond Adieu, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you have a pleasant weekend. As for myself, I have plans that don’t include seeing any of you before Monday morning.”

  The room filled with applause, so Remy took another bow. “I would say ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’ but that leaves almost everything on the table, so I’ll simply impart these words of wisdom. Remember, condoms are only 98% effective. And that’s if you use them correctly. Something I’m not sure all of you are capable of doing.”

  A hailstorm of wadded paper rained down on his head, but nothing could dampen his good mood. Within the hour he’d be knocking on the door of that cute little waitress from Kim Song’s and he didn’t plan to see daylight again until he left for the office on Monday.

  His phone rang and he twisted to stare at it. No good could come from answering this late on a Friday afternoon, but he still had ten minutes left on his shift. It was one thing to slip out when you finished your work, but to turn his back on a ringing phone . . .

  He glanced at his lieutenant’s office. Hard Luck Luchak stared back at him. Damn.

  “Homicide, Steinberg.” Maybe it was one of the guys in the back, playing a joke on him.

  “Remy?”

  Fuck. It was ball breaker number one. What could she want? He’d mailed his child support payment in plenty of time.

  “Gabrielle, what is it? I’m just leaving the office.”

  “It’s Adrienne. She didn’t come home from school today.”

  He sighed. “For God’s sake, Gabby, she’s sixteen. She can’t be more than an hour late. She’s probably gossiping with a girlfriend. Cut the girl some slack.”

  “She’s seventeen, which you’d know if you paid her any attention.”

  He knew how old she was, he just didn’t like to think of her as anything except a gap-toothed kid.

  Gabby didn’t give him time to answer. “Remember what kind of trouble we got into at that age? Besides, she hasn’t been missing for an hour. She’s been missing for over thirty hours.”

  His heart caught in his throat and he couldn’t speak for several seconds. In his job, he’d seen what could befall a young girl in that length of time. He might not be the world’s best dad, but he was her dad just the same.

  “How could you let this happen?” His voice rose and he couldn’t control it. “Why weren’t you keeping track of her? Have you called the police?”

  “I’m calling you, aren’t I? You’re the police.” The tremor in her voice might not have been noticeable to anyone else,
but he recognized it and knew just how scared she was.

  “And I’m three hundred miles away.” It was a good four and a half hours from Houston to Comeaux. More like five on a Friday afternoon when half of Texas headed across the state line to do some gambling in Louisiana.

  His grip on the phone tightened. Would it be faster to fly to Baton Rouge and rent a car?

  Remy gritted his teeth and turned off his light bar as he crossed the state line. His badge might carry some weight in Texas, but not in Louisiana. Those guys had a hard-on against everything from Texas except the money that rolled in.

  Well, too damn bad. He felt the same about their whole fucking state. Had since the day his mother dragged the family there from New Jersey.

  He understood, forgave her even. When his father died, she needed someplace that felt like home. Only it never felt like home to him. In fact, it felt more like purgatory. And he got out of there as fast as he could.

  Unfortunately, that meant dragging Gabrielle and Adrienne to Texas with him. And she’d refused to do that. She’d given him an ultimatum. Come back or get a divorce. Well, he’d never much liked ultimatums. And he sure as hell didn’t plan to ever live in that state again.

  Gabby might not want him, but she was a good mom, and Adrienne deserved to be with her.

  Two of the detectives in his squad, Adam Campbell and Ruben Marquez, had stayed late at the station to work the phones, something he appreciated, knowing that Adam’s wife could pop at any minute. The guys might tease him about his height, his western clothes, or his New Jersey accent, but when the shit hit the fan, they had his back. Even Hard Luck was pulling all the strings he could, but he was on his own. And every minute that passed, the knot in his gut grew.