by Dawn Eastman
She rushed forward. “Luke, are you in much pain? Is there anything I can do?”
The blanket moved and he fought to pull his hand out from underneath. “Diana, it’s good to see you.” His voice was so quiet, we all leaned toward him.
She took his hand, and Mac pulled up a chair for her to sit in.
“Lucan, is there anything you can tell me about the car that hit you?” Mac asked. “The sooner I start looking, the better chance I have of finding out who did this.”
“It was a big SUV. Dark. I don’t know if it was blue or black. I didn’t get a good look.” Lucan stopped and his breathing became shallow. He was clearly in pain. “I heard it come up behind me, and I realized it was going too fast.”
One of the machines started beeping.
“It came right off the road and slammed into me,” Lucan said. “Then it stopped and backed up right over my legs.” He stopped again.
A nurse came in and glowered at us. She turned off the beeping and turned, taking a deep breath.
“That’s enough visiting for now. He needs to rest.” The nurse tried to push us out of the room, but Mac pulled out his badge. She hmphed and reminded me of Vi. “Three more minutes,” she said and jerked the curtain closed.
“Another car must have come by because the SUV took off. I don’t know how long I was there before you found me, but I don’t think it was more than a few minutes.”
“I don’t suppose you have a helpful license plate number?” Mac asked.
Lucan shook his head. “It happened so fast.”
“Okay, I’ll see what I can do,” Mac said. He tilted his head at me to meet him out in the hallway. I followed him out into the busy corridor.
“I need to get back to the station and get started on this.” Mac kept his voice low. “Do you want to get a ride home with Diana, or come with me?”
I stole a peek through the slightly open curtain. Diana clutched Lucan’s hand and spoke quietly. The nurse had entered and was putting something into his IV.
“I doubt she’s going home anytime soon. I better stay with her.”
Mac nodded once, and leaned forward to give me a quick kiss on the cheek.
I pulled the curtain aside far enough to enter and snapped it back into place. The nurse said he would be sleepy soon as she had just given him more pain medicine.
“Clyde. . . .” Lucan opened his eyes and searched the room.
“I’m here.”
“Talk to Neila. Tell her . . .”
“Tell her what? Lucan?”
“About me . . . tell her I’m sorry.”
Diana’s eyes grew wide and she shook his shoulder. “Luke?”
The monitors all beeped and hummed contentedly. Lucan had passed out.
A few minutes later the nurse came to tell us they would take him to the OR soon and we would have to wait in the recovery waiting room or we could leave a phone number to be called when he was out of surgery.
“It could be a while,” she said quietly. “They’re prepping the room now, and the surgery will be a long one.”
Diana refused to leave the hospital and we spent the next several hours dozing and worrying in the family waiting room.
“When were you going to tell me about Mac?” she asked.
“When were you going to tell me about Lucan?” I replied.
“You go first.” Diana’s stubborn jaw told me not to push it.
“We haven’t told anyone because I didn’t want my mom and Vi to get wind of it. You remember how they were the last time. Between the tarot and the pendulum, they were planning our wedding before we even went out on our third date, and I was barely twenty-one.”
She nodded and grimaced. “Okay, I see your point about them. But, you could have told me.”
“I know. I should have told you. And I would have. I just . . . I wanted us to have a chance without anyone’s expectations getting in the way.”
“Well, I’ll forgive you. Good luck with Alex.”
I nodded and felt my stomach clench. I’d been away from Crystal Haven so long I had forgotten what it was like to have friends who expected sharing. I didn’t want to hurt their feelings; I just wanted to figure things out on my own.
“What about you? I didn’t even suspect that you were together until Lucan asked me to call you.” I fixed her with the same narrowed eyes she had shown me moments before.
“I didn’t have anything to tell until recently.” She looked away and her cheeks blazed red. “I met him through Rafe and then we worked together on the festival. This past week things changed. He’s a really good guy.”
I decided not to tell her my whole family had pegged him as a murderer. Anxious to get out of the hospital and talk to Neila, I rethought my stance that Lucan had killed Rafe. If someone had tried to kill Lucan, and it sounded like that had been the case, it had to be connected to Rafe’s death. As far as I was concerned, this attack on Lucan was proof that Dylan was not the killer. Mac had provided him with the perfect alibi. At least one good thing would come from Dylan’s time in jail.
33
Sore, stiff, and tired, Diana and I had both seen better mornings. However, we were happy to hear that Lucan’s surgery had been a success. The nurse took one look at us and ordered us home to rest.
“He doesn’t need to be worrying about you two,” she told us with a scowl. “He’ll be asleep for at least a few hours.”
Diana dropped me off at home and I went straight into the shower. I hadn’t even told my family about what had happened to Lucan. Part of me didn’t want to wake them, and part didn’t want Vi showing up in the waiting room. I’d have to tell them soon, but hoped to get one more thing over with before facing them.
After a very fast shower and a longing look at my bed, I hopped in my Jeep and turned it toward Neila’s house. I wasn’t sure what her connection was to Lucan, but I was determined to find out.
“How nice to see you again, Clyde,” she said as she swung the door wide.
“Ms. Whittle. I have some news.”
“Oh. Come in.”
We walked back toward her kitchen. This was our usual path and I wasn’t sure what the other rooms contained.
After I refused Neila’s offers of coffee and tea and cookies, she sat down across from me. “This must be serious,” she said.
I nodded. “Lucan Reed was a hit-and-run victim last evening.”
Neila didn’t react. It was almost as if she hadn’t heard me. Then a single tear fell down her cheek. “Is he all right?” she asked with a shaky voice.
I nodded. “He needed surgery for a broken leg. . . .” I hesitated, not wanting to upset her but needing to question her anyway. “The car that hit him . . . backed over him on purpose.”
This time she did react with a quick intake of breath. Her fingers turned white on the tabletop. It was as if she gripped the table to keep her balance.
“I had no idea this would be so dangerous,” she said quietly and mostly to herself. “What have I done?”
I reached across the table to put a hand on hers. “Ms. Whittle, what do you know about Lucan’s accident?”
She met my eyes, but didn’t seem to focus. Her mind was far away. And then just as quickly she was back. “Why can’t I see this sort of thing happening? Why is it always . . . other things?”
I understood her completely and began to wonder how much she would be able to help me if she had the same concerns I did about her own visions.
“Lucan told me to talk to you. He said to tell you he’s sorry.”
Several tears were released this time and I glanced around the kitchen, looking for tissues. Neila pulled a handkerchief out of the folds of her apron and scrubbed at her eyes.
“He’s right. I can’t keep this a secret anymore.”
“What is it?”
&nb
sp; “We didn’t want anyone to know we knew each other,” she said. “He was here once when you stopped by. He’s been helping me with repairs around the house. But also, Lucan is a private detective.”
I sat back in my chair, trying to fit this information into the rest of what I knew about him.
“I hired him a year ago to help me find my son.”
“Your . . . son?”
She nodded. “I had a baby boy many years ago. I wasn’t married, not that that bothered me at all.” She stopped. “Have you ever wondered why I live up here all alone and almost never go into town?”
I thought she was trying to distract me from Lucan’s story.
“I guess I never gave it much thought. . . .”
“No one ever does, I suspect. Crystal Haven has all sorts of people who can do amazing things and the idea that there might be a scary witch really isn’t so surprising.”
I smiled at her. “I don’t think you’re a scary witch.”
“No, but you did. Until you came up here a week ago, if you gave any thought to me at all it would be to wonder if I was still alive, first, and whether I was really a witch, second.”
I started to argue, but she held my gaze and I nodded.
“I’m to blame, in part, for the rumors. I never did anything to stop them. In fact, I welcomed them when I decided to retreat from the world. It made it easier that everyone in town was a little afraid of me. No one ever got too curious.”
“Why did you decide to retreat?”
“Your grandmother was the only one who stood by me, but it wasn’t enough. My kind of talent is one that is guaranteed to keep people at a distance.”
I waited.
“I do see some bits of the future, and of course I can read the cards and tea leaves,” she said and waved her hand to encompass all of Crystal Haven’s offerings. “But my main talent, if you can call it that, is that I can see a woman’s children.”
“What do you mean?” I leaned toward her.
“I can see how many children she will have, whether there will be boys or girls, or both.”
“I don’t see how that’s such a scary talent.” I smiled and wondered where this was going. “I would think people would pay a lot of money to find out that sort of information.”
Neila nodded and clasped her hands tightly together on the tabletop. “In some cases, I can also see if the woman will outlive her child.”
“Oh.” I felt my smile fade, but forced myself not to look horrified.
Neila took in a deep breath and seemed to steady herself. “I can tell if a person is going to lose a child.”
I realized that this was why she had sequestered herself. The fewer people she met, the fewer tragedies she would see.
“Who knows about this . . . gift?”
Neila shrugged. “Most of the older members of the city council are aware, I think. They may not have firsthand knowledge, but they’ve probably heard the rumors.”
I grimaced at the word “rumor.” It seemed most of what passed for certainty in this town was based on chitchat and hearsay. Unfortunately, there was always a piece of truth buried in the gossip. I thought back to the story about Neila. The kids told the tale of how she was a witch who would take children from their parents and they were never seen again. Much like the “Hansel and Gretel” fable, the witch killed children. In Neila’s case, she knew which children would die.
Neila watched me while I struggled with this new information. No wonder she hid herself away. Not only did town legend have her pegged as a child killer, but her visions would show her which kids would die before their parents. I couldn’t imagine living with that kind of knowledge. Either as Neila, who had the knowledge, or as the parent, who didn’t want it.
“I tried for a long time to keep the information to myself, but that got to be just as bad. If someone’s child was in a car accident, they would blame me for not telling them and if I warned them ahead of time, they said I had ruined their last months with the child.”
I nodded, thinking about the burden she had carried all these years.
“What would you do?” she asked.
I already knew the answer to that one. I would run, just as I had been doing for the past fifteen years.
We sat quietly for a few minutes and then Neila seemed to gather her strength. She sat up, dried her tears, and took a deep breath.
“Rafe Godwin was my son,” she said.
My mouth dropped open and my brain froze. I didn’t know what to say.
“What?”
“I gave him up for adoption when he was born.” Her voice shook as she spoke. “The minute they placed him in my arms, I knew that I would outlive him. It’s amazing to discover what you will do for your child.” Her eyes filled again with tears.
“Oh, Neila,” I said and laid my hand over hers.
“I thought I’d figured out how to beat the prediction. Maybe if I sent him away, and didn’t try to find him, let him disappear into someone else’s life, I might be able to protect him.” She shook her head.
“What made you look for him now?”
“I guess I just got curious.” She lifted a shoulder. “I’m getting old. I wanted to know that he was okay. It never occurred to me that hiring Lucan would lead to anyone’s death.”
I squeezed her hand to get her to meet my eyes.
“There is nothing to indicate that your investigation of Rafe was related to his death in any way. You can’t take the blame for this.”
“Maybe not, but I can take the blame for not knowing my son.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that.
“If it makes you feel any better,” I said, “I think he was really proud of who he was. It sounds like he had a very supportive family.”
She smiled at me in a pitying way.
“He tried to hide the fact that he was adopted all of his life. Maybe he didn’t even know he was adopted until adulthood. I’ll never know how he felt about it all except that he didn’t want to admit to it.”
I nodded. She was right. He didn’t want to admit that he was adopted. If Dylan was correct, he’d even killed to keep it a secret. I shuddered to think of how he would have reacted if Neila had tried to contact him after she located him.
“So, all these years that he was living in Grand Rapids—you had no idea?”
She shook her head. “None. I assumed he’d been sent farther away. I don’t know why I thought that, but I always imagined him somewhere warm and sunny. I tried not to think about him very much at all.”
“How did Lucan find him?”
“He’s very good.” She shrugged. “I never quizzed him on his methods.”
“And he’s sure about Rafe?”
She nodded again. “He got close to Rafe through the coven and we sent off a DNA test. It’s been confirmed.”
“Were you planning to tell Rafe?”
“I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.” She traced the flowers in her tablecloth with a finger. “I just found out recently that Rafe had been looking into genealogy. He’d been working with that young girl. She apparently knows how to trace things with the computer.” She sipped her tea. “If I’d known he was looking for me as well, I would have gone to him immediately.”
Neila’s lost opportunities and regrets weighed on me. Skye was working on Neila’s family tree. Rafe must have known Neila was his mother. I wondered why, after all this time, he’d been trying to locate his birth parents.
“I just hope that Lucan and I didn’t trigger all of these events.”
“I don’t know how you could have. No one even knew what you were doing,” I said.
“No, but something got Rafe interested in his birth family.”
I wondered whether he would have been pleased in the end to find out that Neila was his mother. She was fam
ous in her own way in Crystal Haven. Would he have found a way to turn that to his advantage? I hated to admit it, but my protectiveness toward Neila had me feeling relieved they’d never met.
34
I left Neila’s house feeling unsettled and anxious. My list of suspects was rapidly diminishing. My mother always told me to pay attention to my dreams and visions. I’d been dreaming about a woman. It had to be Morgan.
I drove to my parents’ to pick up Seth. I knew I’d also have to tell them the story of Lucan’s accident. Dad can only learn so much from his police scanner. I prepared myself for the interrogation that would ensue when they heard I had been out with Mac.
The noise from the dogs and the people enveloped me when I opened the front door.
“Where have you been?”
“I knew it!”
“We were worried.”
I barely heard these statements over the barking of the dogs. After everyone calmed down, we reconvened in the dining room. Mom had one highly polished extra sense—she always knew when I was starving. She brought some coffee and the leftover bagels and cream cheese the rest of them had eaten for breakfast. I hadn’t eaten more than a candy bar since dinner and I gave my food the focus it deserved. For about two bites. Then Vi slapped the table and startled everyone in the room.
“Tell us!”
“Give her a minute, Vi,” Mom said. “She needs to eat.”
Vi narrowed her eyes at both of us, and crossed her arms.
I swallowed and took a sip of coffee. Then, looking at Vi, I started to take another bite but her steely gaze stopped me. I put the bagel down.
“Lucan was hit by a car last night while he was out running,” I said. “He’s already had surgery and the doctors say he’ll recover nicely.”
Vi’s shoulders slumped. “You’re sure he’s okay? Too bad we weren’t following him last night—we might have been able to help.”
I nodded. “I think so. He’s got a broken leg, but he should be all right.”
“What happened?” Dad asked. “I heard about a 10-57 on the scanner. The driver didn’t stop to help him?”