Sekhet

  “What?”

  “Please keep your sister away from the station while this is going on.”

  “You mean Aileen, right? Why?” Jason chuckled.

  “Because I don’t need her going weak at the knees over these detectives, that’s why.”

  Snorting now, Jason nodded his head in agreement. “I’ll try, but I can’t promise anything.”

  “Take her fishing or something.”

  “Fishing? Aileen? You’re kidding, Dad, right? You are talking about your daughter here. You recall the day she broke a nail and whined for the whole afternoon?”

  “Well, take her… I don’t know… somewhere.”

  With that, Budrow was gone, leaving Jason to ponder how he could follow his father’s advice. The one thing Jason knew about his sister Aileen was that a man in uniform was all it took for her to lose what little sense she had. After three soldiers, all of whom got deployed at some stage or another, and a State Trooper, who it seemed loved to chase his own tail, Jason felt his father’s pain when it came to Aileen’s choice in men.

  Sitting in his car outside the station, Budrow flicked through the papers in front of him. There it was, right under his nose! He should have known. Was he losing his mind? He cursed to himself. In one of the statements taken from all those who were around the area yesterday morning, he now saw that the dead-now-alive girl had spent time in the Liberty Lake Coffee Shop with no one other than Molly Patterson.

  I didn’t even know she was back in town, he thought as he read over the statement one more time. Molly had ordered the girl apple pie with chocolate ice cream, and coffee for herself. They sat conversing for some time, until Molly reportedly threw money on the table, hissed something at the girl, and left in a rush, leaving the child sitting there alone. The girl left the coffee shop unaccompanied, and that was the last anyone saw of her until her body was found.

  “Time for some answers,” Budrow said out loud as he screeched away from the curb in the pre-dawn darkness toward Dot Patterson’s. Her home stood alone off Sunnyside Drive.

  The house was in total and complete darkness, save for one light that shone brightly at the side entrance. Budrow had only ever been to the house once before, many years ago, when someone reported seeing cloaked women standing in the garden with torches. By the time he had arrived, he had found a few local women having tea in the backyard, relaxing in the patio area on the newly painted white chairs decorated with red and purple flowers.

  All had laughed at the “ridiculous story.” The women had offered him tea and a scone, which he had graciously turned down. Wishing them a good day, he had left, but the chief was no fool – he, of all people, had known what was going on. He would keep a much closer eye on Dot and Lucy Patterson.

  Now, walking as softly as possible, Budrow peeked into windows, trying to see anything of interest. ‘By any means possible’ came to mind, as a sense of betrayal entered his inner thoughts. He should really have waited for the sun to rise, but dammit, he wanted answers! He didn’t want these shenanigans going on in his town, didn’t want them stepping on his toes, messing up his perfect life.

  A loud commotion came from within, snapping him out of his theories and perceptions of what Molly Patterson had to do with the still unidentified child. Jumping out of sight, pressing himself against the back wall to the right of the door leading into what he knew to be the kitchen, Budrow waited, steadied his breathing, and listened.

  There were voices, worried voices shouting back and forth. He couldn’t quite make out the words from where he was; all he knew was that a woman’s high pitch was being overshadowed by a man who seemed to have moved closer to the door than before. If the man came out, Police Chief Budrow would be ready.

  “Chief Budrow?”

  Someone had come up behind him in the dark. Budrow recognized Victor’s voice, but at that moment, the door opened to a crazed red-eyed Lucy, hands outspread, screaming words he couldn’t decipher. The uproar continued as Dot burst from within, yelling for Victor, behind Budrow, to help her.

  Budrow had to remember his place in the community and resist this desire for violence. Getting arrested for assaulting a Seattle detective was not on his to-do list. Suddenly his feet flew out from underneath him! He braced his body as he face-planted in the garden.

  “Oh, Jack, I am so very sorry,” Dot apologized as she tried to scrape the dirt from Budrow’s shirt, all the while throwing dangerous glances at her daughter.

  “What are you doing snooping around at this hour?” Lucy hissed, not caring who found her tone inappropriate.

  “What the hell was that? You just threw me twenty feet.”

  “Don’t exaggerate; it was merely fifteen,” Lucy replied tartly, much to Dot’s horror that her daughter would be so blatantly combative at a time like this.

  “Lucy,” Victor warned her as he stepped out from behind Dot.

  “I take it you are looking for Molly, Chief Budrow,” Dot said.

  “Yes I am, as it happens.”

  “Well, then, I think it best you step inside,” Dot said as she gave a quick glance around, down along the side of the house and back up toward the street. “We don’t need to be out in the open right now.”

  “What are you doing?” Lucy asked, open-eyed in shock that her mother would do something so absurd.

  “Be quiet!” Dot snapped under her breath, and just as Budrow stepped into the kitchen, taking everything in, he slumped heavily to the floor, unable to stop his fall.

  “Have you lost all sense, Mother?” Lucy was flabbergasted by Dot’s actions. Not only had they the chief of police on their doorstep, but now had him unconscious on their kitchen floor.

  “When he wakes up, he will remember nothing. Get organized, everyone!” Dot shouted over Lucy’s protests. “Victor, move your car around to the front. I am trusting you to bring the good chief back to the station with no knocks or bruises. Joe, follow them in his vehicle; we don’t need it parked outside this house.”

  “Hold on, Dot! Are you forgetting who we are? We can’t get involved in moving him anywhere.” Victor was stern, drawing raised eyebrows from Joe.

  “I’ll do it. Bastard’s going to hate me anyway,” said Joe, as he rose to the occasion with a jump in his step.

  “Joe!” Victor was flabbergasted.

  “Ah, come on, Partner. Like Dot said, he won’t remember a thing. If it makes you feel better, I promise I won’t leave him with his trousers down around his ankles.” Laughing at his own wittiness, Joe took hold of Jack Budrow’s shoulders, pulling him toward the door, where Lucy stood with her arms crossed, now looking amused.

  “Before you go anywhere…” Dot began. Turning her sights on her daughter once again, she suggested Lucy check him for anything that could suggest he was involved in any type of altercation; criminal charges were not what anyone was looking for right now. At first Lucy hadn’t a clue what her mother was talking about, until she remembered how she had cast, flinging the police chief through the air. There were bound to be some scratches from his fall, or at the least, bruising.

  “It isn’t my fault he is so damn clumsy,” Lucy laughed.

  “Enough! This is not a game!” Motioning to both men, Dot said, “Get him cleaned up, move him, get back as fast as you can, and for the love of God, do not draw attention to yourselves.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Victor felt like a child being reprimanded for sneaking in through Molly’s window, which he had done on numerous occasions while growing up. “I want a word with Molly before we leave, though.”

  “She’s sleeping,” Joe cut in as he passed Victor to grab a handful of mixed nuts from the bag lying open on the table, not disconcerted by the unconscious man by his feet.

  “Well, she’s about to be awakened.” Not caring about his partner’s response, Victor stomped up the stairs to Molly’s bedroom door. Pausing to knock, he frowned. To hell with it, he thought to himself as he pushed the door wide open and marched straight in. If she got mad at
his lack of respect for her privacy, then she did. After all, it wasn’t as if she still lived in the house, so technically, he wasn’t breaking anyone’s rules.

  His moving to Seattle with his family hadn’t changed their friendship, nothing would stop him traveling to Twisp whenever the opportunity arose to spend time with the one kid who knew him…the real him. He had missed her more than he had ever thought possible.

  In Seattle, Victor had found it difficult to settle into his new school, the kids were different, the teachers were different, making it evident that he was the new kid on the block, not to mention that, like his other school, things were never what they seemed.

  Having chosen to opt out of his own prom night, Victor thought it important that Molly enjoy hers, so arriving in Twisp to the smiles of Dot and scowl of Lucy, being the nineteen-year-old who now had more than one university opportunity, Victor kept his promise.

  Molly had what he deemed a satisfactory evening of watching those who had spent six years making both their lives hell when they felt like it. Watching as drinks dripped down the fronts of the gowns of the now screaming damsels in distresses, while the jocks tripped during photo opportunities, ruining those all-important poses, made Molly and Victor smile. It felt as though they had never left the high school cafeteria.

  And then there was that one time that he would never forget. Her room had always reeked of basil, which to him, at the time, had seemed extremely odd. Now, however, things all made perfect sense; only now it smelled of perfume. The first time he had smelled that now-familiar scent, it left him confused. Her clear-skinned face had been covered with makeup, displaying rosy lip gloss and eye liner, not to mention a top that showed the shape of the perky breasts of a seventeen-year-old girl.

  Two months after that, he had found him lying flat on his back in her bed, her hair covering his face and that aroma filling his senses. The dark scarlet blanket, soft and welcoming, had wrapped around his left leg, making him mutter a curse, only it wasn’t the first thing on his mind. Her mouth had tasted of watermelon, tender while on occasion turning forceful as her movements increased in speed. There was a moment he could have sworn he tasted blood in an effort to hold on that little bit longer. It had felt like nothing he had ever experienced before. Almost hard to explain as his brain flooded with the sensation of gratifying pleasure. It had only happened that once. Besides, from that day forward, they had never discussed what had happened and to this day, had never told Joe, as that was a conversation that he couldn’t see ending well.

  “Come in,” Molly remarked quickly as she sat up and threw her legs over the side of the bed. The same one he had lain on discussing problems he had with his father for so many years. He remembered, when they had both lived in Twisp, outcasts within a world of quarterbacks and quirky girls, of musicians, and the poetry society, they only had time for one another. The paranormal world had no place for boyfriends and girlfriends.

  Blocking out the past, he glared at her with no concern for her feelings. The tension in his shoulders could be seen immediately, making her stand to face him.

  “Get your coat on; you’re coming with us.” Victor barked, not in the mood for her games.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Well, considering we have the chief of police on your grandmother’s kitchen floor, I guess your question doesn’t need an answer.”

  “Chief Budrow? Wait a minute, what do you mean he is on the kitchen floor? Why is he here?”

  “To see you, Molly! Did you really think people wouldn’t talk as soon as that girl rambled down the main street? The same girl who died, the same girl you had coffee and pie with in the diner.” His anger was growing at an alarming rate, making the vein in the middle of his forehead throb.

  “She kept her word! Oh my gosh! I can’t believe it!” As if hit by a truck, Molly slumped back onto the spongy mattress at the back of her knees.

  Victor waited for her to continue, and twisting just enough to grab hold of the door, he gave it a slight push, waiting for the click as it closed.

  “Sekhet,” Molly continued, chancing a glance in his direction. “She told me when she was finished with the girl, as a favor to me, she would not take her life.”

  “I don’t understand. What is she after?”

  A loud commotion came from below, making Molly start and Victor jump for the door knob, but as he did, it flung open, showing a disgruntled Lucy and an out-of-breath Joe.

  “We couldn’t stop her,” Joe gasped.

  “Of course you couldn’t,” replied Molly, standing to face the now-sneering Lucy. “Hello, Sekhet.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Voices in My Head

  Waking up from what seemed a much needed sleep, Budrow stretched, feeling every muscle ache as his shoulders cracked under the pressure.

  His head hurt, his eyes stung from the light coming in the window, and no matter how hard he tried to recall how he ended up asleep under his desk, he drew a complete blank. He knew what that meant – Lucy had cast a spell on him. Or maybe Dot had been the one.

  Standing up cautiously, he swayed precariously, placing a hand on the back of his chair. His neck hurt as he rubbed it hard in a bid to ease what was obviously a crick from the angle he had been in. Digging his fingers into the flesh behind his ear, he frowned when he felt what he could only describe as dried dirt.

  He was parched, his tongue felt like sandpaper. A light brown clay covered both knees and ran up along his left trouser leg, stopping just below his belt. Twisting as much as his neck would allow, he noticed how most of his back was also covered with dirt.

  “What the …?” he said aloud, rubbing the back of his head in total bewilderment, noticing the files he had taken from home lying open on his desk.

  The yellow folder was obvious, displaying the investigative work of all involved in the young girl’s case, who was still in the hospital, waiting for her parents to show up and take her home. Not to mention the ongoing tests he was sure she was still suffering at the hands of the doctors, who were on a mission of their own to figure out just what happened to her. He was sure they would have some kind of word for it, but he also grasped there was something going on here he had not been told about – after all, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that when someone is dead in this world, they stayed that way.

  Rummaging through his belongings, Budrow couldn’t help but see that he hadn’t eaten any of his wife’s homemade tomato soup that he had brought with him the night before. He could remember being hungry, speaking with his son, being kicked out of bed by his youngest daughter, burrowing in the kitchen amidst the cheese, jam, and numerous snacks in a bid to find something to keep him going during the early morning hours. What he couldn’t recall was what happened following his arrival at Dot Patterson’s house.

  “No, that can’t be right,” he said to himself, laughing shakily as he focused all of his attention on regaining his memory about the hours between three a.m. and six-thirty, when he had found himself under his desk. “Why would I be at Dot’s house? Why would somebody cast a spell on me? To erase my memory?” Again, he laughed, shivering like one would when a chill latched on, traveling from head to toe.

  The phone rang, high-pitched, catching him off guard. The voice on the other line was sleep-filled but cheerful, bringing him back to reality with a thump. “Yeah, I know, I must have…” He was going to say passed out. Instead, he said, “Fallen asleep.”

  Listening to his wife replay her morning so far, he had to admit that as much as he was aching from sleeping on the hard floor, by six-fifty, not only had she had to deal with a screaming kid who had decided to have a tantrum, a gallon of milk had fallen off the kitchen counter. And to top it all off, when she went to grab the mop and bucket she left the iron face down burning a hole in one of his work shirts.

  “I just have a few loose ends to catch up on and I’ll be home. I’ll pick some up milk on the way. And what else? Diapers, right? The ones that look like underwear?
” Laughing at whatever came in response down the line, he agreed that yes, he was to pick up pull-ups. At that, he signed off. This was the life he loved, the minutia of every day family living.

  Grabbing his keys, which were not in their usual place between his computer and the spot he put his coffee cup every morning, he rubbed the back of his head yet again. “I need a vacation,” he said as he stumbled painfully out of the station and over to his cruiser.

  ***

  Driving, Frankie Davis was already hot. Soon the sun would blaze down, blinding every person driving on the narrow roads, forcing sunglasses to be worn. Frankie loved autumn, when the nights turned chilly, heralding the oncoming winter, accompanied by snow and ice.

  Frankie could smell fall in the air and would take his time enjoying the coldness when it came. That crispness that left his nose running, the determining that the best solution was a pack of tissues in each pocket.

  But as soon as he thought of winter, Frankie frowned. That had been in the past, when the winter months brought with it a newfound longing to be huddled under a blanket with Lily. Suddenly his frown changed to a spiteful grin. The fact of the matter was that as far as he was concerned, this year could not get any better. He was still a free man. He had beaten the great Victor Wright at his own game.

  It seemed as though the celebrated detective working the case had disappeared off the face of the earth. At first, Frankie had stayed indoors, living on delivered pizza until it all but made him gag, but this morning had found him waking up at five a.m. and declaring himself a free man, certain that they had resigned themselves to the fact that they would never find the answers to their questions

  Now all he needed was his money, the revenge he felt entitled to.

  But, perhaps because of the rumors coming out of Twisp, Frankie Davis had just made what would end up being the worst decision of his life. He had changed direction concerning lying low in Wenatchee; keeping his head down. Frankie had beaten the system; he knew it. The feeling of superiority over Wright was effectively making him giddy in his own skin. Arrogant. Careless.