by Dawn Eastman
I shook my head. “He didn’t see who the driver was, but they ran into him on purpose . . . and then backed over him.”
Mom gasped and reached for her amulet. Seth grimaced and shook his head.
“Is this related to Rafe?”
“I don’t know. It might be.” I didn’t know how much I could tell them without revealing Neila’s secret and the fact that I had been visiting her.
“Well, we know Dylan didn’t do it,” Dad said. “If it is connected, that should get Dylan out of jail.”
“Who would do something like that? It’s horrible,” Mom said.
I caught Vi’s eye and we both said, “Morgan Lavelle.”
Seth shook his head. “I don’t know.”
We all turned to look at him.
“It seems like you’re all just picking on her because she looks different. She might be a very nice person.”
“Are you accusing me of . . . of prejudice?” Vi sputtered.
“I don’t think so.” Seth tilted his head. “Maybe. You said she looks creepy—like Lady Gaga—but she’s just trying to make a living and express herself. There’s nothing wrong with that.” Seth shrugged.
“It’s not just how she looks, Seth,” I said. “She sells evil spell kits, and I found her mucking around in Rafe’s house, and . . . she’s creepy.”
“Well, you were at Rafe’s house, too,” he said. “And you’re psychic. Some people think that’s creepy.”
I wondered where all of this protection of Morgan came from. I didn’t think he’d ever even met the woman.
“We need more evidence,” Vi said.
“Yes, that would be helpful.” Mom nodded.
Dad put his head in his hands.
“We aren’t going to follow Morgan now, are we?” Seth said. “That hasn’t worked out so great in the past.”
I decided I needed to talk to Seth alone. He seemed very invested in his life in Crystal Haven and I knew it was time to confront him on his decision to leave New York.
“I have some things to take care of at home,” I said.
I thanked Mom for the breakfast and Seth got his things.
“We’ll work on a plan,” Vi said as we herded the dogs out to the car. “Let’s talk this afternoon.”
Amazed that I had escaped without talking about Mac, I turned the Jeep toward home. But, about a block away from my parents’ house, I pulled over and shut off the engine. The dogs looked at me curiously.
“What are we doing here?” Seth peeked out the window.
“Seth, we need to talk.” I knew this was the wrong way to approach a teenager, but I didn’t have time for subtle.
“Sure, okay.”
“Why did you come back to Crystal Haven?”
His phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket with relief. I put my hand over it and waited until he looked at me.
His shoulders slumped.
“I can’t live there anymore,” he said.
“Where? In New York?”
He nodded. “Ever since this summer when I . . . heard Baxter. I’ve felt like I should be here. For one thing, there are a lot of animals in New York City and most of them aren’t very happy. It drags me down.”
I nodded. I hadn’t thought of this, but if he really could sense what the animals were thinking it was probably similar to the way I felt about my own premonitions—assaulted with no way to fight back.
“I thought that there must be other people dealing with this and it’s more likely I’ll find them here than in New York. Plus, my parents are always gone. There’s something going on at work and they’re stressed out.”
“But, don’t you miss them? Don’t you miss your sister?” Sophie was seven years younger than Seth, and my own status as a little sibling had me worried about her reaction to his vanishing act.
He nodded. “I do, but I miss them whether I’m here or there. I’ve heard from them more this past week than the whole time I was home. I guess they want to check in with me because I’m out of town. I do miss Sophie. . . .”
“I’m sorry, Seth. I didn’t know things were so stressful for your parents. Your mom doesn’t tell me very much about her work.”
He nodded. “She doesn’t talk about it much at all. But it’s been worse these past few months.”
I got an uncomfortable tingling feeling in my scalp and I rubbed my head to get rid of it. Grace was in trouble and I didn’t know how to help her.
“So, what’s your plan?”
He shrugged. “Dunno. I like it here. I’m keeping up with my schoolwork and I don’t have to deal with . . . actually going to school.”
There was no way Grace and Paul would agree to this. But, Seth clearly wanted to stay here. It would be an uncomfortable conversation—Hi, sis, your kid wants to come live in the place you’ve been running from all your life. I got a queasy feeling just thinking about it.
Seth looked at me with the same sad expression Baxter used when he wanted more dinner.
“Okay, I’m going to have to think about this. It’s really going to be up to your parents.”
He nodded, and I caught a fleeting smile as he turned his head away.
* * *
My chest is bursting as I run up the steps. They are twisting around each other and go on and on. I can barely take a breath because the panic fills my lungs.
I have one thought: Seth.
Light bursts through ahead of me and I realize I am almost at the top. Wind nearly knocks me back down the stairs and rain lashes at my face when I force myself out onto the open tower. My head spins and I have to grip the rough stone wall to keep my balance. I hear the laughing again.
A dark, hooded figure steps out of the shadows and approaches me, slowly. I don’t want to see what is under the hood, but its hands pull back the fabric. Morgan.
Someone pounded on the door. I awoke on the couch with afternoon sun streaming in the windows. After we’d arrived home, Seth had taken the dogs for a walk. I’d stretched out on the couch and must have fallen asleep. My scratchy eyes didn’t want to open all the way and I felt disoriented after the dream.
I glanced at my watch. Seth had been gone about an hour. The pounding continued and was now punctuated by Diana’s urgent voice. “Clyde! Are you there?”
My heart sped up and I felt a jolt as I woke up fully and realized Seth wasn’t home yet and Diana was attacking my front entrance.
I jumped up and raced to the door. I wrenched it open such that Diana almost fell on me in her quest to break it down.
“Oh, you are here. Good.” She straightened up and smoothed her wild hair.
“Where’s Seth? Did something happen?”
Diana tilted her head and jerked her thumb over her shoulder. Seth was there in the yard, with Dylan and the dogs. Baxter and Tuffy were welcoming Dylan in their doggy way and Seth laughed at something Dylan said. I felt my body relax. After the dream and the urgent pounding, it took a moment to calm down.
“Why were you pounding on the door like that?”
Diana blushed. “I just . . . got worried when you didn’t answer. Seth said you were home and I got a bad feeling. . . .”
I grimaced and swung the door wide so she could enter.
“I take it Mac came to his senses about Dylan?”
Diana nodded. “Charla dropped him off just a little while ago. It seems they have new evidence.”
“What new evidence?”
Diana shook her head and shrugged. “She wouldn’t say. Just that Dylan wasn’t a suspect anymore. Rupert seemed relieved, and maybe a little disappointed that he wouldn’t need to go to court.”
I sat on the couch and rubbed my forehead.
“Are you okay?” Diana asked.
I nodded and offered her a weak smile. I knew I should be thrilled for Diana that
Dylan was out of jail, but the dream lingered with a sense of menace and I was worried about this case. None of it made sense to me and I felt no closer to figuring it out than I had that first day in Mac’s office. “I’m so glad Dylan is in the clear, Diana. I just wish they had caught the killer by now.”
Diana dropped into the seat next to me. “I know. I was at the hospital earlier visiting Lucan and they have a police officer stationed outside. I had to show my driver’s license and get clearance from Mac just to go in the room.”
“Mac must think he’s still in danger.”
“What’s going to happen when they let him out of the hospital? Luke will never put up with a babysitter cop hanging around. . . .”
“You seem to know him pretty well,” I said.
Diana blushed and dropped her head so her face was hidden behind her hair. “He’s . . . not like anyone I’ve ever met.”
I vacillated about whether to tell her he was a private investigator, but decided to wait on that for now. It was his story to tell and she had enough to deal with.
“How long do you think you can keep Mac a secret from your family?” she said.
I had the same worry she did. It wouldn’t take long for them to put everything together and figure out that I had been with Mac when Lucan was found on the side of the road.
“Maybe another hour or so?” I sighed.
35
Diana and I were making tea in the kitchen when the front door opened. Expecting to hear Seth’s voice, I froze when Vi’s “I knew it!” floated into the room. Diana and I exchanged a glance, and I took a deep breath. We heard the dogs jumping and the stomping of multiple feet in the front room.
“Clyde? Where are you?” Seth called.
“I’m here,” I said and walked into the living room clutching my tea for support.
“We came over as soon as we heard!” Mom said.
Dad had his arm slung over Dylan’s shoulder and a big grin plastered on his face.
“Jillian called your mother to tell her that Dylan was out of jail,” Vi said. Jillian, Tom’s mother and my mother’s best friend, was the main source of gossip in town. Vi turned her frown in my direction. “We had to hear it from the grapevine, like everyone else. Why didn’t you call us?”
I held up a hand. “I just found out myself. Diana came by to tell me.”
Mom looked me over and tsked. “You look awful, Clyde. Did you get any sleep?”
I nodded. “About an hour,” I said.
“There’s no time for sleeping,” Vi said. “We need to celebrate. Call Alex and tell him we’re on our way.”
I took a moment to welcome Dylan home with a quick hug while Vi pushed everyone out the door.
If it hadn’t been cold and misty, we could have walked. As it was, we piled into various cars and caravanned downtown. Alex met us at the door of the restaurant. We were lucky that it was in between lunch and dinner, so the place was deserted.
Alex clapped Dylan on the shoulder and waved us toward the back, where he had pulled two tables together.
“Dylan, it’s great to see you,” Alex said.
“We’ve been so worried about you, dear,” Mom said.
Dylan ducked his head and smiled. “It wasn’t so bad. The Crystal Haven jail is pretty nice.”
“Weren’t you worried?” Seth asked.
“Nah. I knew they’d figure out sooner or later that I didn’t do it.”
Vi clapped her hands imperiously and gestured at us to sit. “We need to put our heads together and figure this out. Lucan has been attacked—any one of us could be next!”
I was surprised at Lucan’s rise from number one murder suspect to “one of us.”
“I really don’t think we’re in danger, Vi,” I said.
“How do you know? Lucan probably thought he was safe, too, until someone drove over him—twice!”
“I just mean that we don’t know anything, and we aren’t involved with Rafe or his death.”
“I have a very bad feeling about this,” Vi said. “We need to figure it out before someone else gets hurt.”
“What do you suggest?” I said.
“We should look at all the clues again, and maybe make a case map like they do on TV. Do you have one of those whiteboards?”
“No, I didn’t bring my whiteboard.”
“That’s okay. We can use this paper.” Vi pointed to the paper covering the table. She tossed a new pack of markers and some sticky notes on the table.
“Been shopping, Vi?” I said. She ignored me.
“Okay, everyone pick a color and a topic.”
The table erupted in sound, as Seth and my mother fought for the blue marker. Dylan told Diana he knew more about the evidence, and that she was clearly not equipped to write about Lucan. Alex picked up on that and began quizzing Diana and acting huffy that she hadn’t told him about Lucan.
“There’s nothing to tell,” Diana said. “We worked together on the festival and then for Rafe’s memorial. . . .” She trailed off and blushed as the table fell silent.
Dylan came to the rescue. “Let’s list our suspects and clues,” he said.
Just then the door swung open and Tom walked in. I had texted him on the way to the restaurant.
He came over and gave Dylan one of those rough guy-hugs, but his eyes were red and he scrubbed them with his sleeve.
“What’s all this?” Tom asked, looking over Diana’s shoulder at the markers and notes.
“We’re doing a case map like they do on TV,” Vi said. “It’s good you’re here. You can fill in the blanks for us.”
Tom squeezed between Vi and Dylan and grabbed a marker. “I’ll do what I can, but I’ve been out of the loop.”
After a few minutes of noise, Vi tapped her water glass with her spoon. “We need to be more organized than this. Let’s start with clues. We can do those in blue. Seth, you write them down.”
Everyone shouted things at the same time, as if it were a game show.
Seth glowered at the table. “Slow down. I’m not a computer.”
Our list was longer than I had thought. I wasn’t sure we’d make any sense of it. Seth wrote:
broken EpiPen
peanut oil
Morgan lying about being at the ceremony
Morgan rummaging in Rafe’s trash
lost charm
Rafe fighting with Morgan, Lucan, and Dylan
Lucan’s SUV accident
Baxter’s orange
Seth chuckled at the last one. I started to cross it out with my purple pen.
“I think people use oranges to practice giving an EpiPen injection,” Dad said. Seth and I both stared at Dad.
“What’s that, dear?” Mom said.
“It was part of a training course I attended a long time ago,” Dad said. He seemed surprised to have everyone’s attention. “They gave us EpiPens and oranges and we practiced giving an injection just in case we ever had to do it. It also drains the medicine out into the orange.” Dad’s life as a dentist always took me by surprise. He never talked about it. He was always so focused on his police scanner and staying away from Vi, that I often forgot he had some medical training.
“So, if the killer was at the ceremony, they could have drained the pen right there,” Seth said and made a note on the list.
“The killer drained the medicine into the orange, threw it into the bushes where Baxter later found it, and then snapped off the needle?” Diana said.
“It seems like a lot to do with no one seeing them,” Alex said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It was dark away from the fire. People milled about all over the clearing. It wouldn’t take more than a few seconds to drain the medicine and snap off the needle. Then he or she could just slip it back in its case and return it to Rafe’s robe pocket.�
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“Yeah, we didn’t put those robes on until after we ate,” Vi said. “Rafe’s had a fancy gold edge around the hood. I was looking at it and he came and took it from me.”
“You messed around with the robes?” I asked.
“I didn’t ‘mess’ with them,” she said. “I was just looking. His was right on top and I saw the gold edging.”
“Did you see anyone else near them?” Tom asked.
Vi stared into the distance and then shook her head. “I can’t remember. There was so much going on, I didn’t pay attention.” Her shoulders slumped.
I debated with myself about whether to reveal what Neila had told me about Rafe being her son and decided to keep it to myself. I didn’t want to distract the crowd and my mother with the story of visiting Neila.
We continued to discuss the clues and suspects. Morgan Lavelle was at the top of the list and just as Vi began a discussion of Morgan’s clothing choices, the woman herself walked in the door. She wasn’t dressed for work today, but had her black leather and scary makeup back on. Two women who had to be mother and daughter followed in her wake. I remembered seeing Morgan with them at the closing ceremony.
Diana leaned toward me and said, “That’s Bronwyn and Ember. I thought they went back to Traverse City.”
Morgan cast a dark look in our direction and led her minions to a table across the room. The presence of our number one suspect had cast an uncomfortable silence over the table. Fortunately, the waitress returned with our order and we covered the notes with plates and focused on our food and celebrating Dylan’s release.
“How’s Lucan?” Mom asked Diana while passing the bread basket down the table.
“He’s much better but will need to stay in the hospital for another couple of days,” she said.
“I heard he was pretty beat-up from the accident,” Tom said. He continued to fork noodles into his mouth.
The table had gone silent in the vicinity of Mom and Vi.
Vi cleared her throat. “Didn’t you see Lucan at the accident, Tom?”
Tom looked up and noticed for the first time that all eyes were on him. He scanned the table, searching for the source of trouble.