Just Your Average Small Town Cult (Lainswich Witches Book 14)

by Raven Snow

  “I wish,” grumbled Rowen. “No. She was trying to get on Margo’s good side, and I haven’t heard her say anything to me since… Well, since the last time I saw Margo, I guess. Margo had me drop her off like she had plans of her own yesterday. I bet you anything that Natalie made a deal with her, and Margo took her up on it.”

  “Well, I can’t do a whole lot about that,” said Ben.

  ***

  Rose and Rowen both headed back outside to wait for Jasper. The jail and courthouse were adjacent to the police station. There wasn’t a whole lot of traffic around Lainswich this early in the morning either. The biggest obstacle to their little stakeout was trying not to fall asleep. It was awfully difficult when staring out across the dim, mostly empty parking lot and thick, early morning fog. Rowen’s eyes kept drifting shut. It was only because of Rose that she managed to keep awake.

  “There he is,” said Rose, elbowing Rowen for about the tenth time in as many minutes.

  Rowen jerked into alertness. She willed her eyes to focus as she scanned the parking lot. Soon enough, she saw it too. There he was. She would recognize that fancy, red car of his anywhere. “Come on.” Rowen got out and hurried across the parking lot toward Jasper.

  Jasper had a jacket on and his blond hair combed back. Even this early in the morning, he managed to look rather chic. It was probably mostly due to the fact that a single outfit of his cost more than Rowen and Rose’s entire wardrobes put together. He spun and jumped, nearly falling onto the asphalt when the Greensmiths reached him. Rowen was lucky she managed to grab him by the collar as he stumbled. Rose grabbed his arm.

  “Careful,” said Rowen, letting go of him once she knew he wasn’t going to collapse.

  Jasper let a hand flutter to his chest, like he needed to check on the status of his heart before he could say anything. “What are you two doing here?” he asked, which was a pretty stupid question, all things considered.

  “It’s our cousin, Jasper,” Rowen pointed out.

  “Yeah, but she called me.” Jasper looked from Rowen to Rose then back again. He seemed to remember who he was speaking to then. “Ah. Right. Well, um, I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just here to bail her out, so…” He pointed to the double doors he’d been walking toward, like he was waiting for their permission to go through them.

  “You don’t have to bail her out, you know,” said Rose.

  Rowen glanced at her cousin, surprised to hear those words come out of her mouth. It sounded like she was angry at Margo. Rowen couldn’t really blame her, she supposed. She was mad too. It was just that Rose didn’t lose her temper often, and this felt an awful lot like Rose losing her temper.

  “I know,” said Jasper. “Believe me, I know. If my parents find out about this, they’re going to give me an earful.”

  “You mean when they find out about this,” Rowen said, feeling the need to point out how perceptive magic-using parents could be, in case he had forgotten. In Jasper’s case, he still lived with his family. Heck, Rowen was fairly certain they even shared a bank account.

  Jasper sighed. “Yes, well, I’m an adult, and I care about Margo quite a bit. Besides, I can afford to bail her out without having to go through some third party.”

  “We could afford to bail her out,” Rowen said reflexively, to protect her family’s pride. Jasper was right, though. They would have to go through a third party.

  “Yes, well, she called me to do it.” Jasper gave both women an uncertain but earnest smile. He really did care about Margo. Rowen hoped her cousin wasn’t just using this guy like she did most men.

  “We’re waiting at your car for her,” said Rowen.

  “Don’t tell her we’re out here,” added Rose. When she got odd looks from both Rowen and Jasper, she continued. “She’ll find a way to disappear. Neither of you have had to work with her like I have. She has this bizarre way of just up and vanishing when she wants to. Seriously. Just get her outside without saying anything or we won’t see her again until she wants to be seen.”

  “She’ll be mad at me for tricking her,” said Jasper, miserably.

  “But we’ll be thankful,” Rose assured him. “And it’s for the best. You know it is. She can’t run from this. We need to get a handle on everything, figure out what’s going on.”

  Jasper nodded in agreement. He headed for the door. Rowen and Rose moved around behind his car to wait. “This feels a little sketchy,” Rowen admitted.

  “Probably because it is.” Rose rubbed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “We have to see if we can put a lid on this before the rest of the family finds out. Can you imagine my mom? She’ll flip.”

  Rowen could indeed imagine how Aunt Lydia would react to this. That was part of why she was hiding behind the car. Granted, Margo wasn’t known for cooperating. If she didn’t think she had done anything wrong, she would stand by that. Heck, half the time when she knew she had done something wrong, she would stand by her decision anyway. Sometimes it was hard being related to the Greensmiths. Frankly, Rowen felt she deserved more respect than she got for moving back to Lainswich. She could still be enjoying the peaceful solitude of a studio apartment in the city.

  Oh, who was she kidding? For all the drama, Rowen loved it here with her family. Days like these were a small price to pay.

  “How long do you think they’ll be? Should I sit down? I think I’m going to sit down.” Rose probably wouldn’t make it on stakeouts. Rowen had practice helping Eric with his private investigator gig, but Rose was getting unsteady on her feet already. She plopped down onto the asphalt just in time for the creak of doors and click of heels that could only mean one thing.

  Rowen popped her head up to look through the car windows. Margo was trudging along in a black pantsuit and kitten heels. She had her designer shades down and a big paper envelope clenched in one well-manicured fist. “Come on.” Rowen stood and moved around the bumper of the car. She walked straight for Margo, meaning to intercept her.

  Margo stopped walking. She pushed her sunglasses down the length of her nose as if to make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. When she saw who it was she turned and walked quickly toward the sidewalk.

  “Where does she think she’s going?” asked Rowen. Her only aim had been to not let her cousin take off in Jasper’s car or let her disappear out a back exit. “She can’t give us the slip in heels.”

  “She can!” said Rose, breaking into a run. “She’s good at it! Really good!”

  Rowen ran as well, out pacing Rose and leaving Jasper to just kind of stand there idly in the parking lot. Rose hadn’t lied. Margo was booking it. All those long hours at the gym doing nothing but cardio had paid off, it seemed. “Stop it, Margo! Get back here!” The words barely made it out of Rowen’s mouth. She was already winded, her endurance only really good for sudden bursts of energy.

  Margo showed no signs of slowing down. She did, however, make a sharp turn at the curb. That was what Rowen took to her advantage. She tackled her cousin, diving at her. They both tumbled off of the sidewalk and into an exceptionally uncomfortable bush.

  “You idiot!” snapped Rowen, grabbing Margo tight by the shoulders so that she couldn’t easily escape her now. She might not be able to run as far as her cousin, but she was definitely stronger. “We’re right next to a police station!”

  “You’re the one assaulting me!” Margo kicked Rowen.

  “Are you two all right?” asked Rose, standing over the both of them.

  The best route to extracting oneself from a bush wasn’t easy to decide upon. Rowen winced as she rolled over in the limbs and tried to sit up. Margo did the same, trying to shake free from Rowen as she groped around for her sunglasses. Rowen didn’t trust her enough to let her go—at least not until she heard the camera. “You have to be kidding me,” Rowen breathed, looking up to find a Channel 2 news camera emerging from one of their vans. It had only now pulled up on their curb, but who knew how long they might have been filming from
a distance.

  Rose offered Rowen and Margo her hands and leaned back, throwing her weight into helping them up. It was a very ungraceful process, one made worse by the barrage of questions being thrown at them. “Margo Greensmith, you were arrested last night on breaking and entering charges. Care to comment?” Julia Martinez shoved her microphone at their faces.

  Margo’s cheeks were burning red. Rose had her hand, leading her back toward the car at a brisk pace. “Come on, Julia,” said Rowen, trailing behind them to try and get her to back off. Margo and Julia had something not unlike a friendship. “Not like this.”

  “Do you care to comment then? Margo Greensmith is your cousin. Why were you chasing her?”

  “Hey, I’ve got some questions for you.” Rowen looked past Julia and into the camera. “Do you want to talk about the cult some? Still afraid of them, Julia? Still scared you might have been partly responsible for Edward Waite’s death? I mean, he sought you out, right? He was trying to sell you his story.”

  Julia pushed the camera aside before Rowen had finished speaking. She frowned after Rowen. “Hey, I’m just trying to do my job here!”

  “And I’m trying to take care of my family,” Rowen snapped back, though the words felt ever so slightly hollow after tackling her cousin into a bush. “Lainswich isn’t that big, you know. You could at least try and act like we knew and helped each other out before you shoved a camera in my face.”

  Julia spread her hands like she had no control in the matter. “It’s news. I’m a reporter.” She raised her voice as Rowen walked away from her. “I’m Lainswich’s top correspondent, biggest journalist, and might as well be the only news director working at Channel 2! I break news! You can’t blame me if your family is always news, Rowen!”

  Rowen gritted her teeth and kept on walking. Julia’s words were fingers jabbing her in the back, prodding her, probing for a reaction. They carried more weight because she wasn’t technically wrong. The Greensmiths were always news or news adjacent. There was no helping it.

  Jasper had disappeared into his car. Rowen didn’t blame him. He probably didn’t want to be seen by Channel 2, though there was a very good chance he already had been. Rose led Margo past his car, to Rowen’s. It took Rowen a moment to catch up and slide into the driver’s seat. She started the engine wordlessly and started driving.

  “Where are we going?” asked Rose.

  That was a good question. Rowen hadn’t picked a destination, just a direction. Her only aim had been to get away from Channel 2. She took a deep breath now that she could no longer see the Channel 2 news van in the rearview mirror. “I guess we go to the Inquirer.” She couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. At the Inquirer, they’d at least have some privacy at this hour.

  “Drop me off at home,” said Margo.

  Rowen scoffed. Even Rose turned to look back at her cousin, her eye brows raised high. “Are you kidding? We have to talk about this. I mean, what the heck were you thinking?”

  Margo groaned in the backseat but didn’t argue. She fell silent. Rowen looked back only once to find her with her forehead pressed against the window, like she was resigned to whatever came next.

  ***

  Rowen was just thankful when Margo didn’t try to run again. She wasn’t sure she had it in her to chase her cousin down a second time. Her whole body still ached from the first tackle.

  Together, the Greensmiths headed into their office building. Rose turned on all the lights while Margo headed straight for her desk. She sank into her chair with a low sigh. It was rare to see Margo looking so unpolished. Her pantsuit had grass stains. There were sticks in her hair. The fabric of her clothing had the sort of crumpled quality that suggested they’d been that way before Rowen had tackled her. She’d probably slept in that outfit. Rowen made a conscious decision not to point that out. As mad as she was at her cousin, it was clear to anyone looking at her that the last twenty-four hours had been rough. There was no point in giving her a hard time now. All that mattered was that they find out what really happened.

  Rose disappeared into her office and came back with some cold, bottled coffee drinks. “Thanks,” said Rowen, accepting one.

  Margo did the same. She unscrewed the cap and took a long gulp. They all needed the caffeine.

  “So,” began Rose, once they were all seated across from one another. “What happened?”

  Margo shrugged, like that was an acceptable way to respond. “I got arrested.”

  “No kidding.” Rowen sat her drink on her desk. “Give us the details. Why were you out there? Did Natalie have anything to do with this?”

  “No,” Margo said quickly, perhaps a bit too quickly. “I had a feeling that there was more worth learning in there.” She looked at Rowen. “You’re not the only one who gets feelings, you know? I get those gut feelings too.”

  “Then why didn’t you say anything?” asked Rowen. “We could have looked into it together. You didn’t even mention it to me!”

  “Because you’re really bad at investigating stuff like that,” said Margo, waving her hand like she was dismissing the idea of Rowen being of any help to her.

  To Margo’s credit, Rowen had been arrested breaking in somewhere for investigative purposes before. She had also gotten Peony and Willow arrested in the process. “Like you’re so much better? You got caught!”

  “Only after I found some interesting bits of evidence!” Margo snapped back.

  Rowen tried not to look intrigued, but Rose didn’t even try to hide her interest. “What did you find out?”

  “I’m not sure I should say.” Margo looked down at her own nails. She smoothed down one of the edges where the glossy blue was peeling.

  “Margo, don’t be a twit.” Even Rose wasn’t going to put up with Margo being difficult just to soothe her own injured pride.

  “Fine,” Margo relented. “I had a feeling about the kid, so I searched his room. There was a bunch of creepy stuff in there, let me tell ya.”

  “Like what?” asked Rowen.

  Margo shrugged. “Just creepy… boy things. It was a mess. Boys are slobs. There were all these posters of half-naked women and these absolutely ridiculous looking bands. I think he’s going through a phase. It’s going to be so embarrassing when he gets over it.”

  Rowen thought back to when she had seen Lucas. Given the dark clothes, listless attitude, and piercings, Margo wasn’t telling her a whole lot she hadn’t already deduced. “Yeah, okay, but did you actually find anything useful?”

  “That’s what I’m getting to!” Margo took a short break to calmly take another sip of her coffee drink. Rowen tried not to squirm. Margo was punishing her for interrupting the flow of her story. She had to be just about the most frustrating person in the entire world. “I found a journal he had in with some of his school things.”

  “You went through his school things?” asked Rose.

  “How long were you in there?” asked Rowen.

  “Not long. More to the point, in his school things I found a journal that had some familiar symbols drawn inside of it.” Here, Margo sounded pleased with herself, like everything had been worth it.

  “What kind of symbols?” asked Rose. Rowen thought she had an idea what kind of symbols.

  “Well, specifically, I saw the symbol that had been drawn beneath his father.” Margo nodded to Rowen. “You remember that, don’t you?”

  “Of course, I do.”

  “Well, the kid had several copies of it sketched out.”

  “Maybe the police showed it to him,” Rose offered. “Maybe they asked if he recognized it.”

  “It’s a very particular symbol,” said Margo. “I doubt it’s something he would remember just from a glance.”

  Rose shrugged. “I don’t know. Photographic memories exist. I mean, I know I have a pretty good memory when it comes to stuff like that. I don’t know how many sigils I’ve recorded for the family’s magical record keeping, but I could draw dozens of them on command. Maybe it jus
t piqued his interest.”

  “What are you implying?” asked Rowen. “I mean, are you suggesting that this kid murdered his own father?”

  “Weren’t you the one who said the kid seemed weird?” asked Margo. “You said it could have been him and some other misguided teens or something. That’s a thing, like you said. Sometimes teens get all mixed up in fake occult nonsense and do these ritualistic killings that make us law abiding practitioners look bad.”

  “And if I recall correctly, you said that he was probably just a kid being a kid,” Rowen pointed out, paraphrasing. “So, when exactly did you have this gut feeling of yours anyway? Because it sure as heck doesn’t seem like it happened when we were out together yesterday.”

  “So what? Is there a designated time to get gut feelings now? I didn’t realize no one was allowed to do any investigating if you weren’t around.”

  “Ideally, no one gets arrested ever!”

  “Don’t argue, you two,” Rose said, frowning at the both of them. “Okay, so Margo thinks the kid had something to do with the murder or the cult or whatever. Did you tell that to the police?”

  “No,” Margo said, as if that were a perfectly rational thing to do. “I mean, we should look into it ourselves first before we tarnish the poor kids’ name, right?”

  “I thought he was a murderer?” Rowen shot back at her.

  “I actually agree with Margo here.” Rose rocked back in her chair miserably. “I wouldn’t go throwing any accusations at the kid just yet. His mom is probably angry enough right now. If we point the finger at her son for the husband’s murder, I can’t imagine she won’t just be angrier.”

  Margo inclined her head in Rose’s direction, like that was precisely what she had been considering this whole time. “See? She gets it.”

  “Oh, will you stop pretending you--” Rowen fell silent. She caught movement toward the front of the office and turned to face it. Someone pounded on the door.