by Tegan Maher
Matt nodded, his expression thoughtful. He’d done several tours in Iraq when he’d been in the Army and had seen his share of bad things. “That makes sense. It’s part of the grieving process, I suppose. It’s hard to see any future when you think you’ve lost everything.”
I figured I’d better call Hunter and fill him in on the latest development. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d worked with the ghost of the murdered person, but it would be the first one he’d met who hadn’t been bent on vengeance. That was gonna be tricky.
He didn’t answer, but that wasn’t surprising. If he was interviewing witnesses, it wasn’t like he could stop in the middle to answer his cell. I left him a message, then debated looking for her trailer, but I’d learned that Hunter and I got along best when I stayed out of his way for the routine parts of the investigation. I was most productive when I was scouting for clues in places he didn’t have a foothold.
“Oh, crap,” I said, yanking my phone from my back pocket again. “I gotta message Raeann. If she hears about this from anybody but me, I’ll never hear the end of it. Besides, I saw a Brew cup in Mercy’s tent when she was setting up. It’s possible Rae talked to her, maybe learned something.”
I’d found that people were often more likely to talk about themselves to strangers than to people who knew them well. Speaking of, as soon as I’d told Raeann what had happened, I hung up and scrolled through my contacts looking for Serena’s number. Once I found it, I crossed my fingers and hoped she hadn’t changed it. It had, after all, been a long time since we’d talked, and some people tore through phone numbers like I did underwear.
I’d worried for nothing though because she picked up after the first ring.
“Noelle! What an awesome surprise,” she said, her tone sunny. Even under the circumstances, her thick Cajun accent made me smile. “I haven’t heard from you in ages, chère. I thought maybe you done gone and married that hunky guy you were with and settled down to have a passel of kids or somethin’.”
I smiled. “Nope. Not yet, though we did get engaged. I’ve just been slam busy with work.”
I didn’t tell her I’d been doing work for the witches’ council. Not everybody was as gung-ho about the agency as I was. Shoot, I wasn’t as gung-ho about it as I’d once been, and my family had helped get it up and running.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, worry coloring her tone.
I pulled in a steadying breath. I didn’t know how well she’d known Mercy, and I hated to deliver such horrible news over the phone, especially if they’d been close.
“I’m afraid it’s not, sweetie. There was an incident this morning. I’m sorry, but Mercy was killed.”
She was silent for so long that I thought she’d hung up. “Serena?”
“I’m here,” she said, her voice faint. “I felt somethin’ a little bit ago but tried to shake it off. Bad juju. Someone walked on my grave.”
As a Cajun, she put a lot of stock in voodoo magic. I didn’t know whether all that stuff was real, but she believed it was. That’s all that mattered. In the end, we all manage our magic through our own lens. My mind drifted back to that feeling of ick I’d had outside Mercy’s tent a few minutes ago.
“How do you mean?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“Cold chills, child. A shadow passed over my heart. However you wanna describe it, it was somethin’ dark. Not good. I’ve been havin’ lots of bad feelings lately. I don’t like it. The spirits, dey’re restless.”
I had no idea what that even meant. I was a witch, but Flynn magic was all elemental. None of us were psychic and there had never been a medium born into the family. Still, a whisper of what I’d felt earlier tickled across my skin, making me shiver.
“You know I’m not in touch with the spirit side of things, but I felt something, too,” I said. “When I was standing outside her tent.”
“What did you feel?” she asked. “It could be important, chère.”
“Death,” I replied, unable to think of a better way to describe it. “I felt Death.”
Serena fell quiet again, but this time I figured I’d just thrown her for a loop.
“What do you mean, you felt Death? As in, a being or a feeling?”
“I can’t describe it, exactly. It felt sorta sludgy in my mind. Like tar, maybe, and it was cold.” I struggled to come up with a more accurate way, but it was sort of like trying to describe the color blue or how rain smelled to somebody who’d never experienced it.
“That’s okay. That’s good enough. What you felt was the reaper leavin’. At least I know her soul’s at peace.”
“Yeah,” I said, drawing out the word. “About that. She didn’t cross over.”
“What? That can’t be. If you felt the reaper, then she’s gone. He always gets what he comes for.”
“Maybe that’s not what I felt then,” I replied, a little frustrated. “All I know is she didn’t cross over. I just talked to her a few minutes ago.”
“And of course she doesn’t know who did it.”
I shook my head even though I knew she couldn’t see me. “No, and I’m not sure she’d tell me even if she did. She wasn’t exactly an open book.”
Serena sighed. “No, she wasn’t with me, either. But it’s not my place to pry.”
“I sorta wish you would have. Then I wouldn’t be standing at a murder scene with no idea where to go next.”
“Me too, but hindsight’s twenty-twenty. Truth be told, I don’t know much more about her than her name and that she was tryin’ awful hard to put somethin’ in her rearview. You wan’ me to come help you? I might be able to get through to her. Our girl, she had secrets, and if she’s done gypped the reaper, well, ain’t no good gonna come of that, for sure.”
I debated her offer for a minute, then remembered she was on vacation with Billy. I knew how hard she worked, and I didn’t want to take that away from either of them.
“No, sugar,” I said. “You stay put and enjoy your trip. If I need anything, I’ll call.”
“If you’re sure,” she said in a tone that made it clear she thought I was in over my head. “But you call me if you need me, yeah?”
“I promise. Now, go spend your hard-earned cash on over-priced souvenirs and enjoy yourself.”
After we disconnected, I thought about what she’d said. Mercy was an enigma. Lucky for me, I had friends who could start with one or two little pieces of a puzzle and have enough to figure out the whole picture lickety-split. It was time to go to Coralee’s.
Chapter 6
Rather than beeline it to the Clip N Curl, I figured I’d better stop in and talk to Raeann. She’d opted to work that morning so that Angel, one of the girls who worked for her, could have the day off to go to the fair. There wasn’t a line when I pushed through the front door of the little coffee shop, and she pounced on me before I could make it to the counter.
“Tell me everything. Do you know who did it? Who was she? I always miss stuff.” Her hazel eyes were bright as she fired the questions, and I smiled.
“You’re gonna explode. For Pete’s sake, gimme a minute.” I trotted around behind the counter and pulled two Cokes from the cooler. “Let’s go to the office. The last thing I need is for folks to overhear us and go spreadin’ rumors faster than we can pick apart truth from fiction.”
There were only two tables of people in the café, and one of them was Jimi and Roy, two elderly guys who came in to play chess and argue politics just about every afternoon. They were fine, and just about as good as employees when it came to somebody getting into something they shouldn’t. We’d be good for at least a few minutes unless somebody came in, and that’s what the bell above the door was for.
“Okay, spill,” she said as soon as the office door was closed. “You said it was the psychic. Was she the real thing or some faker?”
“She was the real thing,” I replied, handing her one can of Coke and popping the top on the other. “I talked to her a little this mor
ning when I first got there. She seemed nice. About our age. Her name’s Mercy.”
She arched a brow. “You say that in the present tense, not the past.”
“Well,” I replied after a swigged down a quarter of the soda, “there’s a good reason for that. Her ghost popped in about ten minutes after they found her body. Seems she decided to stick around.”
Rae propped a hip on the corner of her desk and opened her own soda. “That’s good though, right? She can help fill in the blanks. Maybe help you find who killed her.”
“I’m not sure. She doesn’t seem too inclined to be helpful. She pretty much threw her hands in the air and told us we were on our own. None of it makes any sense, though.” I explained the whole reaper thing.
“So she skipped out on a reaper, huh?” she asked. “Or is it the reaper? Is there more than one? Surely there is. I wonder if they’re born that way, you know, as a reaper, or if it’s something they’re like drafted into when they die.”
She talked when she was nervous or trying to hash something out in her head, and I suspected she was doing the latter.
“I have no clue,” I said. “Until just a few months ago, I woulda called the idea of even one reaper a fairy tale. The whole thing with Shelby’s been an eye-opener, and now I don’t put anything outside the realm of possibility. For all I know, there’s a whole union of them. Health benefits, guaranteed wages, house and 2.5 little reapers. The whole nine.”
She rolled her eyes. “Now you’re just being ridiculous.”
“Am I, though? Are you sure?” I smiled and she swatted me away.
“Maybe not, but don’t they kill you with just one touch?”
“I have no idea,” I said, following the path to the absurd. “If they do, that must make sexy time a real pain.”
“Be serious,” she said, shaking her head. “Do you have any idea yet who may have wanted her dead?”
“I don’t even know for sure who she really was, so that’s a big fat no. I’m hoping Hunter comes up with something. Mercy said everything we’d need to know about her would be in her trailer, and I relayed that info to him. Other than talking to Serena, I’ve kept my nose out of it up to now, mostly because I have no idea where else to go with it. I figured I’d talk to Coralee. She has a way of shakin’ things loose even when she doesn’t mean to.”
Our friend had a unique perspective on life, and it wasn’t uncommon for her to take the road less traveled when it came to how she viewed people. Knowing what made people tick was sorta her superpower. I’d never asked her to analyze a person she’d never met, but there was no time like the present.
The bell above the front door chimed, letting us know somebody’d just came in.
“I’ll keep my ears open here,” Raeann said as we left the office. “And keep me posted.”
I stopped and grabbed a couple mixed-berry turnovers, a lemon bar, and two blueberry muffins from the pastry case and dropped them into a paper bag. “Looks like I need to do some baking tonight,” I said when I slid the glass door closed on the case. Nearly all the trays inside it were almost empty
She nodded. “Yeah, even with the extra you made, I’m out of almost everything. Cinnamon rolls and the cranberry-orange muffins seem to be the two hottest sellers right now, but the rest of it’s not far behind.”
“Okay, I’ll need something to keep my hands busy tonight, anyway.” Back when Raeann had opened the coffee shop, we’d both been poor as church mice. She hadn’t been able to afford employees, and I’d needed all the extra money I could get, too. So, I’d gone to work with her, working as a barista and providing all the goodies.
Now we were both in a better place financially, but I still loved providing the baked goods, and honestly, I think the customers would protest in front of the farm with torches and pitchforks if I were to ever stop.
As a kitchen witch at heart, baking was my jam. I was darned good at it, and on top of that, everything I made had a little of my magic in it. I’d been told a thousand times that I should make that my living, but I didn’t want to turn something that brought me comfort and joy into work.
I tossed in an extra lemon bar for good measure. Baked goods bought an awful lot of goodwill.
“I’ll talk to you later,” I called to Rae, who was making iced lattes for the couple who had come in.
“C’mere a second, girlie,” Roy called as I was heading for the door.
I smiled and changed course. The two old-timers had been coming to Brew since almost day one to while away their afternoons and had become sorta like uncles to us.
“Hey, fellas. What’s up?” I said, smiling.
He hitched up a strap on his overalls and scratched his grizzled chin. “What’s up is that we heard you got engaged but ain’t nobody said a word to us about when you’re gettin’ hitched. You’re gonna have a big shindig, right? Seein’ as how you’re marryin’ the sheriff and all?”
“Yeah,” Jimi said, nodding his head so that the few wisps of hair on his liver-spotted scalp quivered. “We better be gettin’ an invite to that. You reckon you’re gonna have free booze? If you want, I can talk to Boo Bringham and see if he’ll brew up a special batch of weddin’ hooch.”
I raised a brow at him. I’d been to more than one wedding where Boo Bringham’s home brew had flowed, and not a single one of them had turned out well. The stuff burned blue and would make you take back stuff you didn’t even steal. Naked.
“I think I’m good on that one, I replied, “And anyway, do you reckon Martha’s gonna let you drink even if I do have an open bar?”
He gave me a wide, toothless grin. “I’m askin’ for her. Maybe if I get a nip or two in her ...”
I rolled my eyes. “That is not askin’ for her, you’re still askin’ for you. But I’m sure there will be booze. And we’ll absolutely make at least the reception public. No way could I pick and choose who to invite, and it’d kill me if I forgot somebody.”
Roy huffed a breath out through his nose. “Whoever you forgot would kill ya, more like. We’re happy for you, girl. You deserve some happiness, and the way you light up when the sheriff’s around does my old ticker good.”
“Thanks, guys,” I said, my heart warming. “He does make me happy. We haven’t picked a date yet, but when we do, you’ll be the first to know.”
I left them to their chess game and pushed through the door and back out into the oppressive heat. I’d been getting that question a lot. Hunter and I had only been engaged for a few months, and even though I knew without a doubt that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, I wasn’t in any hurry. I was still adapting to all the changes I’d been through, and even though I knew I’d have fun preparing for the wedding, it was going to be a ton of stress that I wasn’t sure I was ready for yet.
It had gotten so hot that the sidewalk was shimmering. A portly woman was walking a little pocketbook dog down the street, and I cringed a little at how hot the concrete must be on his paws. He kept swerving into the narrow strip of shade next to the building as they walked, but she pulled him back every time he did. I sighed, wishing the woman would use her head for something besides a hat rack. I doubted she was intentionally burning his feet, but that didn’t make it any better for him.
I pulled in a deep breath and reached for my magic, then muttered a few words. “It’s not his fault his mom’s a dummy. Make his poor little tootsies comfy.”
I smiled when the little guy stopped hot-stepping and instead trotted happily by the woman’s side, his tail wagging. I couldn’t do much about the big things most of the time, but I did what I could about the little ones.
I decided to pop into my shop, Reimagined, before heading next door to Coralee’s. I doubted Erol was there, but I wanted to pop in to see if he needed anything just in case he was.
“Hello!” I called when I pushed the door open. “Anybody home?”
To my surprise, my ghostly friend swept through the wall, smiling. His khaki shorts were neatly pressed, and h
is baby-blue polo didn’t have so much as a single wrinkle. I supposed it was easy to look fresh as a daisy when you weren’t affected by temperatures.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “I figured you’d be over at the fair. I know how much you love criticizing the pitmasters.”
Not only had he been an avid barbecuer when he was alive, he’d turned into a full-fledged Food Network junkie since his death. Sure, he was a little pompous about it sometimes, but he’d actually taught me a couple baking hacks, so I wasn’t knocking his credentials. Except, most of the things he’d learned had been after he’d died, so he didn’t have any functional practice.
“First,” he said, hands on hips, “I do not criticize them. I simply note obvious ways they could do things better. And yes, I was over there, but there was a rerun of a movie on Hallmark Mysteries that I wanted to see. It’s over now, though, so I was just heading back.”
I winced. That meant he’d probably missed the murder, then. Not that he would ever wish that on anybody, but he was going to be upset he’d missed the hullabaloo. “So that means you’ve been here for the last hour?”
“Yeah,” he replied, then narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
I pulled in a deep breath. “Because a girl was murdered. The psychic.” I gave him the details.
A shadow of sadness passed over his face. “That really sucks. Do you have any idea who did it? Or does she?”
I shook my head. “Cheri Lynn says she thinks Mercy knows more than she’s telling, but I think she was telling the truth when she said she didn’t know who killed her. I agree that she’s not giving us all the info, though.”
Erol pressed his lips together and pushed them to the side. “There’s not much you can do about that, though. If she doesn’t want to talk, it’s not like you can threaten her with jail or anything. I mean, she’s dead. And even if she weren’t, people don’t like to give up secrets if they think they have a good reason to keep them.”
“So I guess I’ll have to find a better reason for her to spill them, then,” I replied. “Do you have any plans later?”