Death at Peony House (The Invisible Entente Book 2)

by Krista Walsh

  Emmett had disappeared shortly after she and Hunter had left for the hospital, and no one had seen him since. His absence added another weight on her mind. Hunter’s prediction of the road Emmett’s life could take wriggled around in her brain, and she hoped he hadn’t gotten himself into trouble by lashing out after his friend’s murder. She found she missed his fidgeting and incessant questions.

  On top of everything, Gerry Franklin had called twice to see how she was doing. In an act of generosity, he’d even extended the deadline of her article to Wednesday morning, on the condition that it was a complete report about what had happened at the hospital, her own injuries included.

  “Readers love hearing about the danger we put ourselves in for a story,” he said. “I, on the other hand, would rather my reporters didn’t wind up out of commission for a piece. Get better soon and get your ass back to work. The place isn’t the same without you.”

  She made up her mind to worry about everything in the morning. For the rest of the night, she relaxed, first on her mother’s couch watching an emotional tearjerker she couldn’t finish, and then upstairs on her own couch, buried under a pile of blankets. Her mother had cleaned her apartment while she’d slept, so for a change there were no dishes in the sink or clothes on the floor. Her joints ached and her stomach churned with nausea when she moved too quickly, but she almost considered the pain a fair trade if it meant getting out of doing housework.

  Around ten o’clock that night, a late summer storm started thundering above her head, the house shaking around her. A fork of lightning flashed by the window and heavy drops of rain pattered against the glass. She went to the window to stare out into the night and watched the trees sway with the force of the wind. The dampness in the air seeped through the walls, and a fresh batch of chills came over her.

  Her magic swirled in her core, and she made to take hold of it, but then changed her mind. Over the last week, she’d grown too used to reaching for her magic, and weaning herself off of the habit again would be difficult.

  But worth it, she told herself. Now that she’d made enough headway with Hunter that he could think of trusting her again, she wasn’t about to jeopardize it by falling back into unhealthy routines.

  She grabbed a blanket instead and wrapped it tight around her shoulders.

  Against the soundtrack of the storm, she prepared for her evening entertainment. Soon a cup of tea sat steaming on the table beside the couch, and a bowl of buttered popcorn awaited her on the coffee table. She’d just hit play on a mindless mystery film when her buzzer rang.

  Groaning, she got to her feet and plodded down the stairs, keeping the blanket around her shoulders. She opened the door and peered out into the night. The porch light was on, but the glare was cut short by the force of the rain. In the shadows beyond, she made out a tall, hunched figure. She squinted to see it better, and it moved forward, stepping into the light.

  “Emmett!” she exclaimed, happiness warming her blood and pushing aside some of her continued fatigue. “What are you doing here?”

  She saw now that the hunch wasn’t his back but a backpack pulled over his shoulders. He wore a tattered overcoat, the collar pulled up against the rain, with his ratty jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt beneath it.

  “Come on in,” she said, and stepped aside.

  The light bulb in the hallway flickered as the electricity wavered. Emmett dripped on the entrance rug, running a hand over his shaved hair, and although he kept his gaze on his shoes, she did her best to get a good look at him. If possible, he’d lost more weight since she’d seen him last, and the circles under his eyes were darker, with traces of a bruise on his left cheek that she guessed would look far more vicious in proper light. A souvenir of his run-in with the demons, maybe — probably when he’d hit the floor.

  She thought about letting him into her mother’s apartment, but changed her mind when she considered how Cheryl would react if Daphne let the soaked young man ooze into the carpet.

  “Come on up,” she said, and led the way upstairs.

  With a quick glance around the open space to make sure her mother hadn’t missed a stray pair of underwear during her tidying up, Daphne spread a blanket over the couch and gestured for Emmett to sit down. He dropped his bag on the floor, draped his wet coat over the back of the couch, and collapsed into the seat.

  “Can I get you anything?” she asked, eying the dripping coat.

  “A shot of vodka,” he said.

  She sank down on the cushion beside him. “I don’t think so. Besides, I don’t keep vodka in the house. That stuff is vile. What’s going on? Where’ve you been? I expected you to be here when I got home, anxiously waiting to hear what happened.”

  He stuffed his hands in his lap and picked at his fingernails, jogging his left leg. Daphne grabbed her cup of tea from the end table before the slight shake in the floor toppled it over the edge.

  “That’s why I stopped by,” he said. “I wanted to hear how you and the cop-man made out at the hospital.”

  She knew that wasn’t the point of his coming, but didn’t push the issue. Drawing her knees to her chest, tucking her toes beneath the blanket Emmett sat on, she said, “I was right about the demon blood running through the family. I sensed the magic on Charles when I talked to him, but it turned out to be Laura.”

  “The lady with the scones?” Emmet asked, and shook his head. “Damn.”

  “Yep,” Daphne said, commiserating with him. Those scones had looked delicious. And probably hadn’t been cursed. She regretted not trying one. “Turns out she was just really good at hiding her magic. I never even got a hint of it until she got angry and lost control.”

  The lines around Emmett’s eyes tightened. “Did you kill her?”

  “No. Thank gods it didn’t go that far. It came close. Hunter shot her, but got her in the shoulder. He gave me just enough time to finish the spell and take most of her energy away. For now.”

  Another reminder of the heaviest burden on her to-do list. She didn’t want to look into those empty eyes again. A chill tugged the skin between her shoulder blades, and she hugged her hoodie tighter around her.

  When she looked again at Emmett, his expression had grown darker.

  “What is it?”

  He gave himself a shake and raised his gaze to hers, shifting on the couch to face her. “I just wish she could have been made to feel the same fear that Jack must have felt. He went to the hospital as a safe place to get away, and she hurt him anyway. It’s not fair. We have so few places to go.”

  He fell quiet again, and Daphne guessed he was close to coming to his point. She gave him time to put his thoughts together, sipping her tea and enjoying the way the warm lemon water sank into her belly. Her magic reached up of its own volition to grab the warmth, and it spread out through her body in soft waves. Her eyelids grew heavy, and she pinched the back of her hand to keep herself awake.

  “I’ve been on my own for six years,” Emmett said at last. His voice was low, and she had to strain to hear him. “It’s not all bad memories, especially when I remember what I left behind, but it’s not great. I get rained on, don’t always get a lot to eat, have to play the game with people who are smarter than me — who know the game better. I get by, and I like what I do, but it’s not where I want to be in another five years, you know?” He looked at her, and his gray eyes appeared dark in the dim light of the apartment. His skin looked sallow, and the purple of his bruised cheek was more pronounced. “I watched my brother go down that path, and he needed drugs to escape it. In the end they helped him escape all of it. I don’t want that to be me.”

  He paused, and Daphne waited. She pressed her lips together and clung to the warmth of her magic, because the heat from the tea had evaporated at the pain in her friend’s voice.

  “I know it’s a lot to ask, ’cause you don’t know me at all or anything. But do you think I could crash here for a while? I can do stuff, fix things and whatnot. I even know how to cook. Jus
t for a few days or maybe a few weeks? Maybe I can, I don’t know, get a job or —”

  He grimaced at the idea, and Daphne chuckled, but still didn’t interrupt.

  Some of Emmett’s tension appeared to melt away at her laugh.

  “I know about your magic, so it’s not like anything can surprise me, and maybe I can help with the investigations for your stories. You’ll need information, and I can get things for you. Give you…what do they call it? Deniability?”

  The word teased the devil on Daphne’s shoulder, and she shrugged it away. When Emmett went quiet again, she set down her tea and leaned forward on her crossed legs.

  “If I let you stay here, I wouldn’t make you pay me back with crimes, all right? That would defeat the whole purpose.” She caught the hint of a hopeful smile on his lips and knew she’d achieved her aim.

  In the moment of silence that followed, she ran through their options. Her apartment was smaller than the one downstairs, and her second bedroom was used as an office because it was too narrow to cramp even a double bed into the space. But her mother had a guest bedroom, as well as the pull-out couch in the den. Maybe she wouldn’t mind housing someone who would show up for dinner more regularly than her daughter did.

  “For tonight, you can crash on my couch,” she said. “In the morning, I’ll talk to my mom and see if you can have her guest room for a while. If she doesn’t see it as a fair deal, we’ll figure something else out. But we’ll find an answer. You don’t need to go back out there if you don’t want to.”

  Emmett nodded, and while the hope didn’t fade completely from his expression, she saw his doubt that her mother would agree.

  “Mom loves helping strays, so I’m sure she’ll say yes,” she said, trying to reassure him. “But this is all on one condition.”

  Emmett sat up at full attention.

  “Anything you steal from this house comes from up here, all right? Mom and Gram might not appreciate you rifling through their things. If you agree to that, we’ve got a deal.”

  Emmett laughed, his handsome, gaunt face relaxing into a genuine smile. “Deal.” He looked around. “Although I don’t think anything up here is worth stealing.”

  “Not that you realize,” Daphne hinted over the lip of her mug with a wink. “Why don’t you go take a shower and warm up. Stop turning into mold on my couch. There are towels in the linen closet, but I don’t have any extra PJs that’d fit you.”

  “That’s fine. I don’t usually —”

  She held up a hand to cut him off. “That is not an image I want to carry around in my head.”

  She went about straightening the heap of blankets she’d laid out on the couch while Emmett disappeared into the bathroom, laughing.

  She heard the water run and stood in the middle of her clean kitchen with her hands on her hips, asking herself how she’d wound up in this situation. She’d never had a sibling before, and yet somehow this kid had stepped into her world and fallen into her family without a hitch.

  “Fate, you wily minx,” she said aloud, and then jumped when the buzzer to her apartment rang again. “Who the hell can it be now?”

  Her apartment had been a popular route over the last week, despite her efforts not to tell anyone where she lived. She pulled her hood up to keep off the draft when she opened the door and once more headed downstairs. The lights in the hallway flickered again, and a particularly loud thunderclap shook the house.

  Daphne’s heart jumped and her nerves buzzed, the symptoms increasing when she opened the door to find Hunter Avery on her porch, a bottle of bourbon in his hand. He’d pulled the collar of his jacket over his head to keep the rain off.

  “Good evening, Miss Heartstone,” he said. “I wondered if you were ready for my questions.”

  Daphne grinned and stepped aside. “Quid pro quo, Detective Avery. I’ve got a few of my own.”

  He came in and handed her the bottle. “I thought we might dip into this while we talk. It’s a good night for it.”

  She read the label — an inexpensive brand, but one of her favorites — and her blood sang at the idea of the stinging warmth.

  “I’d love to, but I have company. Of the non-drinking-age variety. Who I suspect would steal this given half the chance.”

  Hunter’s eyebrow shot up. “Emmett’s here?”

  She nodded. “Showed up on my doorstep like a lost puppy. He’s looking for a place to stay for a while. Wants to get back on his feet.”

  “You trust him enough for that?” he asked.

  “Strangely, I do.” She smiled. “Besides, if he tries anything, there are three very strong women in this house who could turn him into a newt. Temporarily, at least.”

  Hunter eyed her warily and she laughed, holding up her hands. “I’m kidding. We don’t do that kind of magic.”

  At the look of relief on his face, she laughed again, feeling lighter than she had in days.

  He smiled, and then glanced up the stairs. “Should I come back? I don’t want to interrupt anything.”

  Daphne hugged the bottle to her chest and climbed the first three steps. “Don’t be silly. We were just about to eat popcorn and watch something ridiculous, but I’m sure we can do that even with your gloomy face in the room. Besides, I want to know what you found.”

  By the time they reached her apartment, the shower had turned off. Emmett’s voice — surprisingly a baritone — sang a pop tune through the closed door, and he came out in a wild dance, a towel wrapped around his waist.

  “We have company,” Daphne warned, and just as quickly as he came out, he hopped back into the bathroom, closed the door, and emerged a few minutes later in a pair of gray sweatpants and his usual long-sleeved T-shirt.

  “Detective,” he said with a nod. He eyed Hunter with wary suspicion until the detective sergeant returned the gesture and made no other move to speak with him, allowing Emmett to steer the encounter. Then Emmett’s gaze landed on the bottle of bourbon. “Ooh, is that for us?”

  “No.” Daphne tucked the bottle under her arm and kept it with her so he wouldn’t grab it when her back was turned. “I only just escaped a charge of trespassing. I don’t want to pick one up for serving minors.”

  “We’re at home. It’s totally legal.”

  “Don’t push it.”

  Emmett rolled his eyes and dropped on the couch, then propped up his feet and grabbed a handful of popcorn. Daphne took the middle seat beside him.

  Hunter removed his dripping coat, revealing jeans and a dark green T-shirt that hugged his chest over a white long-sleeved shirt. He lay the coat across the kitchen table, then sat on the far end of the couch next to Daphne. His arm pressed against hers, and the warmth she’d lost in going downstairs returned in a wave, creeping up her skin into her cheeks.

  “So, what have I missed the last three days?” she asked, hoping to skip over the awkward phase where they all got comfortable with each other. “Did you get permission to dig up the backyard?”

  Hunter ran his fingers through his hair — more brown than auburn for being wet — and eyed the bottle in her lap. His face had tensed at her question, the lines around his eyes deeper than they’d been a week ago. “We did. It wasn’t pretty. Meg and the rest of the team are still out there digging up bones. We’ve decided to take it in shifts, as it doesn’t look like it’ll be a quick process.”

  Emmett swore under his breath. He crossed his arms, glared into the TV, and nudged the popcorn bowl away with his socked foot. The bowl reached the edge of the table and nearly toppled, but Hunter made a quick grab for it and set it in the middle of the table.

  “That many?” Daphne asked, although she wasn’t surprised. She’d seen the number of ghosts wandering the halls. “Recent?”

  Uncertainty crossed Hunter’s features, and he shifted to face her, drawing one leg up on the couch between them and leaning back against the armrest. “Most of the bodies were buried on top of each other, so the older ones are at the bottom, the newest on top. The test
s haven’t come back yet, but Hugh’s first impression is that there’s a gap. Most of the corpses are from sixty years ago or earlier. Only three are new, and those are within the last two or three years.”

  A dark fog of suspicion crawled through Daphne’s veins, and she gripped the bourbon bottle more tightly. She remembered what Mary Ruth and Allegra had said, about something in the darkness rising from the depths. She thought about how the spirits had been quiet for so long, only to rise up all at once, with an urgency that set her teeth on edge.

  “It doesn’t bode well,” she said, and only when the words were out did she realize she’d spoken aloud. One of the troubles of living alone was the habit of talking to oneself on a regular basis. It didn’t work as well when there were other people around to listen.

  “What’s going on, Daph?” Emmett asked. He’d turned his head to stare at her with the same intensity as Hunter.

  She pushed her hands over her hair, wincing as she brushed what must have been a bruise she hadn’t noticed before on the back of her skull.

  “I don’t know for sure,” she said. “Not yet. But the gap suggests that either Laura never had the opportunity to feed during that stretch of time, or that her demon side had gone dormant until something triggered it. Based on other rumors I’ve heard, I suspect it’s the latter. I have a sneaking suspicion we’re about to see a rise in the strange and unusual.”

  Another silence fell over the couch as each of them thought about what that meant. After a moment, Emmett swung himself to his feet.

  “If that’s the case, I’m going to enjoy the peace and quiet while it lasts. And if I’m going to die young at the hands of some crispy monster, I want my arteries so clogged, I go quick. Anyone want a few more snacks for this movie night? Maybe something cheesy or heaps of chocolate?”

  Hunter and Daphne both replied in the negative, and he grabbed his coat from the back of the couch.

  “Uh,” he said, “I don’t suppose one of you would mind lending me a few bucks?” Daphne eyed him, and he stared back at her. “Hey, at least I’m asking this time.”