Wicked Sinner

by Stacey Kennedy

  God, where to start? Remy sighed and then resumed her pacing, nibbling on her nail again. Kinsley and Peyton watched her closely. She finally stopped and huffed. “I have no idea how to begin, so I’ll start at the beginning. After Asher left this morning—”

  “Whoa.” Kinsley held up her hand. “Stop right there. Asher stayed the night?”

  Remy’s entire body, right down to her toes, flushed red hot. She waved off the question. “That is not why I called you here.”

  “Um, excuse me,” Kinsley countered, moving closer until she had Remy by the hand and led her to the couch. “That’s the reason you should have called us here. Did you sleep with him?”

  Peyton took the chair across from them as Remy explained quickly, “Yes, we slept together, but there was a curse breaking involved where I might have added too much booze.” She was no fool. She’d complicated an already complicated situation, but there it was, in all its complicated glory. “Please, let’s not make this out to be a bigger deal than it has to be.” Both Kinsley’s and Peyton’s mouths dropped open, and Remy itched to grab her shirt and pull it over her head. Instead, seeing no way out, she forced herself to face the situation. “Yes, that happened with Asher. Yes, we did things that would make my nana roll over in her grave. No, it’s never going to happen again.”

  Kinsley blinked rapidly, her gaze flicking between Remy and Peyton. “Dude. I think this is a pretty big deal.”

  Peyton picked her mouth up off the floor and nodded firmly. “Like, a really, really big deal.”

  “Well, it’s not,” Remy countered, not even wanting to go there. Hell, maybe she wasn’t even prepared to go there. Last night happened. Whatever. “We got drunk and did something stupid. And now we’re forgetting all about it.” Or at least she was. “Let’s not lose focus. There is an even bigger reason I called you here.”

  Kinsley didn’t even miss a beat. “You’ve murdered Asher and need us to help you bury him.”

  Remy rolled her eyes. “No.”

  “You want us to help you burn Damon’s stuff?” Peyton asked.

  “No.” Remy sighed.

  “Just a minute,” Kinsley said, waving her hand in the air like she had the biggest question of the day. “There is a reason bigger than you not calling us here because you slept with your ex-boyfriend who shattered your heart ten years ago, then objected at your wedding and arrested your fiancé.” Her expression got serious, real serious. “What in the hell has happened? It’s got to be bad.”

  “It’s not bad…but not good…or maybe it is.” Seeing she was getting nowhere still, Remy huffed and hurried up the stairs to her bedroom, coming back downstairs carrying the black duffel bag she’d found an hour after Asher left. She dropped it onto the coffee table, and the bag feel open, wads of bills spilling out.

  “Holy shit,” Peyton exclaimed, jumping to her feet.

  Kinsley gasped, wide-eyed. “Oh my God, one of your crazy-ass spells worked!”

  Remy burst out laughing. “Yeah, sure, just call me Harry Potter.” Then she put her hands on her hips. “And what the hell, Kinsley? My spells aren’t crazy.”

  Kinsley gave a blank stare at the money and then slid her gaze to Remy’s, eyes suddenly intense. “Explain how you got this money.” Her dad was a cop, and so was her brother, and being around cops her whole life, Kinsley had the hard cop look and voice nailed down.

  Remy sighed, trying to settle the butterflies in her belly. “Yesterday, Asher took me to see Damon—”

  “Boone told me you punched him in the nose.” Peyton smiled.

  “I did, it felt awesome.” Remy returned the smile, remembering the satisfaction of hearing his nose crunch and seeing the blood.

  “Um, hello.” Kinsley snapped her fingers and said firmly, “You have a giant bag of money here. Focus.”

  “Right.” Remy turned back to the task at hand, gathered her focus, and explained, “When I was there, Damon said that he needed a favor with something here at the loft. Which had me thinking—what could he possibly need me for?” She drew in a quick breath, staring at all the bills. “Asher packed up Damon’s stuff yesterday and got it out of here, and he didn’t find anything then, so this morning after Asher left, I went looking.”

  Kinsley voice rose in pitch as she pointed at the bag. “And you found this?”

  Remy nodded. “In my air duct.”

  Peyton slowly shook her head like she couldn’t quite believe it. “Wait. How did you even find it there?”

  “From a movie I saw once,” Remy said with a dry laugh, trying to cut through the heavy tension in the room. “People always keep stuff in air ducts, so I looked there after I checked everywhere else, and, yup, Damon wasn’t even original.”

  “Wow,” Peyton breathed.

  Kinsley leaned forward, snooping in the bag. “How much is in here?”

  Remy had counted twice. “Two hundred thousand. Give or take.”

  Silence descended into the room. Heavy silence. Until Remy couldn’t take it anymore. “I guess I should call Asher and report this, right?”

  Peyton nodded. “It’s the right thing to do.”

  Kinsley slid off the couch to grab wads of bills. She lifted them to her nose and smelled them. “If we call Asher, he’ll tell you to hand it in.”

  “Which is exactly what I should do,” Remy said.

  “Yes. Definitely,” Peyton agreed with a firm nod.

  Kinsley paused, sat back on her legs, and exhaled deeply, pondering. She eventually said, “I’ve heard something before from my dad. If you turn in Damon’s money, the money goes in for evidence and it might be stored for years, even decades. Then it’ll go to the Treasury to be destroyed.” She picked up a wad of cash in both hands and shook it at Remy. “This will buy you your shop.”

  The thought had crossed Remy’s mind the second she opened the bag. When her fingers first grazed the money, she knew the freedom the cash would buy her. She’d finally have the life she wanted, sharing all the things that Nana had created. Healing people. Bringing them happiness. Remy wanted that too. But…and there was a big but…”Yeah, good and all if I don’t want to go to hell and spend the rest of my life burning in misery for being a terrible person for spending money that doesn’t belong to me.”

  “Who says the money’s not yours? It’s in your house,” Kinsley countered. “You haven’t committed a crime. You’re just not giving Damon his money back. As far as I see it, this is a way to take what’s gone wrong and make everything right again. You deserve this, Remy.”

  Unsure about that, she nibbled her lip and glanced at Peyton.

  Peyton stared at the money for a long few seconds, then shrugged. “I don’t know. What if it’s money that belongs to the other women Damon married?”

  “But what if it’s not?” Kinsley interjected. “What if it’s just Damon’s cash from investments or something like that. He was a smart guy. He’s got nearly four million in his bank account, from what my dad told me.”

  Peyton’s eyes widened, her hand covered her mouth. “That’s how much he took from those women?” she mumbled.

  “Obviously, this was some sort of addiction,” Kinsley said with a nod. “Greedy sonofabitch. His first wife lost the most—two million dollars. Second wife lost a half mil. Third wife lost a few hundred grand before he took off running. The rest of the money he got from making smart business investments.” She turned to Remy and said softly, “Boone and my dad told me that his accounts are currently frozen, because the women he stole from are going to receive all their money back once things settle. Even once that is figured out, Damon will still have a couple million in his account.” She reached for a wad of money again and held it up. “Everyone is getting what they deserve. You deserve that too, Remy.”

  When Remy turned to Peyton again, looking for answers from the sweetest and most honorable one of the bunch, Peyton sighed. “You do deserve this,” she after a beat. “After all you’ve been through, I, out of anyone, know that finding a bit
of happiness in the darkness can change everything.” Peyton did understand—she’d lost her husband in a car accident arranged by his murderous and greedy business partner in Seattle. “I moved here because I needed that new something. I found that here. I found you both. I found Boone.”

  Remy smiled, her heart thundering in her ears.

  “So…?” Kinsley asked, bright eyed.

  Peyton’s lips pursed as she glanced between them. “I was never here. This conversation never happened. I saw nothing.” She moved to Remy and gave her a big hug and then strode out the door.

  “I guess that’s as good of an ‘okay’ as we’re going to get from her,” Remy said, turning back to Kinsley.

  Kinsley nodded. “She’s marrying a cop, goes against the grain not to tell him.”

  “Are we totally horrible people?” Remy asked, moving to zip up the bag.

  “Hell no,” Kinsley snapped in an instant. “Damon is a horrible person who did horrible things to people but was smart to invest his money. You’re simply getting your due for the shit he put you through.”

  Remy took the bag off her coffee table and it landed with a thud on the floor. The confusion and guilt seemed to disappear with Peyton’s approval. If the good one out of all of them didn’t see anything wrong with this, then how bad could it be? “What if Damon comes back for the money?”

  Kinsley considered that and then shook her head. “Not going to happen. My dad told me that they have him on identity theft, fraud, mail fraud, and who knows what else. He can put be away for twenty-four years in prison.” She paused, then shrugged. “But if it’s really worrying you, then we could also drive to Whitby Falls and tell him that you found the money and turned it in.”

  Remy nodded. “Yes, I’m worried. I want to make right decisions, not wrong ones.” The only reason she was even considering this was because Kinsley nudged her toward it. Remy always made bad decisions. Kinsley seemed to always make the right ones.

  “Okay, later today, let’s pay him another visit,” Kinsley said, then wiggled her eyebrows. “So, are you in or are you out?”

  Remy stared at the bag. The bigger part of her thought she did deserve this. The money was in her house. Damon’s past victims were getting what they were owed. She had the chance to change her life for the better, and she wanted desperately to take it. To finally have the shop she’d always dreamed of having. But big decisions like this were not handled rashly. “I’ll tell you tomorrow morning if I’m in or out.”

  Kinsley hopped up from the couch and then slid her arm into Remy’s. “Dude, can’t you just decide for yourself, without doing some voodoo shit?”

  “Take. That. Back.” Remy frowned.

  Kinsley rolled her eyes. “Fine, I take it back, so what ritual happens tonight?”

  “I’ll do a cleansing spell before bed, then ask Nana what I should do,” Remy explained. “By the time I wake up, I’ll know.”

  Kinsley gave her the most exasperated expression Remy had ever seen. “Because she’ll tell you in your dream?”

  “That’s right.” Remy pinched Kinsley’s arm. “And stop looking at me like I’ve lost it completely.”

  “Actually,” Kinsley countered after a moment. “I stress drink and binge eat over huge decisions. Your way sounds healthier.”

  Remy smiled, reached for the bag to bring back upstairs, and then considered what Kinsley had said. “Um…so about the drinking and binge eating, can we do that too?”

  Kinsley was already walking toward the kitchen. “On it!”

  Chapter 8

  Two weeks later, Remy’s life wasn’t only back to normal, her dreams were coming true. Above her, standing on a ladder, Asher hung the new sign for Remy’s shop. The dark wood sign hung from a wrought iron hook and had her new black cat logo with BLACK CAT’S CAULDRON written in calligraphy with vines growing out of the words. With the help of the entire gang, they’d renovated quickly and painted the walls a deep cream color after she’d bought the building that included her loft. Remy loved the worn hardwood floors and left those as is. There was already a counter from the shop that was there before, so they simply sanded the old wood and painted it black. The shop was everything she’d hoped for, and she could hardly believe two weeks had flown by since she woke up from her dream and got the go-ahead from her nana. It hadn’t exactly been a yes, but Nana had been smiling as she walked down Main Street toward Remy. That’s about as good of a thumbs-up as Remy could hope for to use Damon’s money to buy her shop. Which, of course, Damon didn’t know, because she and Kinsley had driven to the larger jail in Whitby Falls. In privacy from the hovering Asher and Boone, Remy had told Damon that she’d turned his money in. The scowl on his face told her he believed her. Free and clear, she was taking the little help fate had given her to turn her life around.

  “How’s that?” Asher asked, glancing down at her. Today he wore jeans and a leather jacket around a gray T-shirt, looking mighty fine this chilly afternoon with a brisk west wind cutting through the town.

  “Perfect.” She smiled, holding on to the ladder. “It’s just perfect.”

  Everything was perfect, really. Considering her life two weeks ago was in complete shambles, things had taken a turn for the better. Except for the Asher part. She’d tried over the last couple weeks to keep things very platonic, not thinking about him too much. But he came around, a lot, obviously worried about her. Only she wasn’t in bad shape. She wanted him… all the time. Asher wasn’t helping matters, considering she was trying to stay out of his bed, and he seemed determined to get her back in it, always getting very close and doing his best to keep the heat burning between them. Which he seemed to do without much effort. He had yet to kiss her again, but all the teasing he’d done lately made her want to grab that T-shirt and drag him close until those lips met hers. For that reason, she had made sure someone was always with them. Being alone was a big no-no, just in case that urge to rip his shirt off took over.

  When he slowly came back down the ladder, she quickly moved away, knowing that if he got near her, all that energy between them would electrify her. Ever since she woke up after their night together, there was this weird back-and-forth thing going on. Her body trusted Asher, but her emotions didn’t. And right now, her emotions were at a high risk, because with every hot spike of desire also came the clench of her heart.

  She couldn’t forget that he’d broken her heart into a million pieces. No matter how much growing up Asher had done these past ten years.

  His feet hit the pavement and he wiped his hands, glancing up at the sign. “Yeah, looks good.” He turned to her with a smile. “Nana would be so proud of you.”

  Warmth rushed through her. All the years she’d hoped and wished for this day, and it was finally here. Nana would be proud, more than proud actually. “I wish she could have seen this,” Remy said, glancing at her storefront. Nana had perfected all her creams and candles over the years. She wanted to help people. And it felt so good that Remy could see that come to life now.

  Finally, Remy’s life was on the right track.

  Movement passed by the window and Remy noticed Kinsley and Peyton putting stuff on the bookcases along the far wall. Boone and Rhett were both coming out of the back room with boxes. For the last week, Remy had been in her kitchen making up batches of Nana’s potions and creams. “I actually can’t believe this is happening,” she said, turning back to Asher.

  His eyes went soft. “It’s a damn good thing your mother came through for you.”

  Remy grimaced, glancing away before she realized he would call her out.

  And of course, he did.

  His finger tucked under her chin, drawing her gaze up to his steady stare. “Don’t feel bad for taking your mom’s money. She hasn’t been there for you your whole life. It’s the least she can do. I’m just happy to see she’s finally thinking of you and not herself. You deserve this.”

  I’m going to hell. Straight to hell! When Remy bought the store, Asher had arche
d that eyebrow of curiosity at her, and she’d told a little white—okay, huge—lie that the money came as a gift from her mother, who had given part of her inheritance to Remy. All lies. Her mother hadn’t gotten a cent from Nana. Her grandmother left everything to Remy, and her mother didn’t have a cent to her name. “I only feel partly bad,” she said, getting off the subject. “I’m mostly excited.”

  “As you should be,” Asher said, dragging his fingers unnecessarily slowly off her chin. Heat flickered in her southern regions, and his eyes darkened in response. He hooked his finger into her pocket and dragged her forward. “I’m really proud of you.”

  Dear Lord, she lost brain cells. They just up and died right there and then. His eyes glinted with heat and promise as he dropped his head enough for some hair to dangle down. She cleared her throat. “Thank you. I’m really proud of me too.”

  The side of his mouth curved sensually. “I’d like to congratulate you.”

  The air stopped moving around her when he dropped his mouth close to hers. “How do you want to do that?” she rasped, her heart pounding in her ears.

  “I can think of a few ideas,” he murmured, dropping his mouth right near hers, waiting her out, giving her the chance to back away.

  She stayed put.

  Then his lips got really close as a young voice said, “Do you have a black cat too?”

  Asher grumbled something under his breath and then he smiled at the girl with big blue eyes and brown curls, who appeared to be around eleven, standing next to her dad.

  Remy cleared her throat, flushed from head to toe, and said to the girl, “Yes, I do. His name is Salem.”

  The girl beamed.

  Her dad wasn’t nearly as impressed. “You’re selling magic here?”

  “Oh, yes, a little bit of magic for sure,” Remy explained, and then winked at the little girl, who giggled in return. “Our grand opening is tomorrow. Stop by and I’ll show you.” Okay, she did have a grip on reality. Magic wasn’t real, but she’d seen Nana’s spells do magical things for people. She also knew it was all about a good mixture of herbal medicine combined with the power of the mind that made magical things happen.