Adam ignored him and looked at me. “Are you all right?”
I glanced around the room looking for the apparition, but it was gone. I took a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m fine.”
Matt burst through the doorway. He had his gun drawn, but quickly holstered it when he saw that Adam had the situation under control. “What happened here?”
“She did this!” Martin cried out.
Adam jerked Martin’s handcuffed wrists. “He wasn’t asking you.”
“But—”
Adam looked down at Martin. He shut up.
Grant spoke up. “He killed my brother. He confessed it; we all heard him.”
Matt and Adam looked around the room at us, and we nodded.
“And then he attacked her.” He nodded at Raine. “Threatened to kill her.”
Raine came out from behind the counter and stood next to me. I could feel her hand grip the belt loop on the back of my pants and I felt a tug at my heart. She used to do that when she was little and we were crossing a road. I put my arm around her.
Adam looked at her. “Raine, are you okay?”
She nodded but didn’t say anything.
“You did this!” Martin shouted at me, a wild look in his eyes. He looked over at Grant and Lydia, still seated on the sofa. “You saw it, she made that thing appear. She’s the one who killed Seth.” He turned back to face me. “You put a spell on him, didn’t you? She’s a witch. They’re all witches!”
Matt shot me a questioning look and raised an eyebrow. I shook my head.
“I’ll take him to the station and book him,” Adam said. “And then I think he may need a psych evaluation.”
“Right, I’ll wrap this up and meet you there. And you might want to put a call in to the state boys and request a crime scene crew. We’re going to need to take a closer look at the original scene as well as this one.”
“You got it,” Adam replied. We watched as he led Martin outside.
“You girls okay?” Matt asked.
“We’re fine,” I said. “Just a little shook up.” I turned to Raine, who nodded.
Matt walked over to Grant and Lydia. “How about you folks, are you all right?”
Lydia looked like she was in shock, and Grant was struggling to get to his feet but with his hands still taped behind his back, he was unable to.
Matt putt his arm under Grant’s and pulled him to his feet.
“Get this damn tape off me!”
Raine moved to pick up the scissors.
“Don’t!” I moved between her and the scissors. Everyone looked at me in surprise.
I looked at Matt. “We shouldn’t touch them, right?”
Matt looked at me blankly for a moment, then realized what I was getting at. They were the murder weapon. The medical examiner’s report had said that Seth suffered two stab wounds. If Martin had used these scissors to kill Seth, there was a chance Seth’s blood was still on them. Even though we had all heard Martin confess to killing Seth, nothing would be more damning than having the actual weapon.
“Bree’s right, don’t touch them. Hang on, Mr. Bateman.” Matt pulled a small utility knife from his belt and cut the tape. He then helped Lydia to her feet and freed her hands as well. She walked over to me.
“It was Seth, wasn’t it?” Lydia whispered.
“What? What are you talking about?” Grant heard her and frowned.
“That thing. You saw it.” She looked at him, and then turned to me. “You saw it, didn’t you?”
I nodded.
“You’re both crazy,” Grant snorted. “The wind blew the paintings off the wall, and Martin flipped out. It wasn’t Seth.”
“It was him, I know it.” Her voice became stronger and the glazed look in her eyes was gone. “He was trying to tell us who killed him.”
“For God’s sake, Lydia, do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?”
“I don’t care what it sounds like.” She stepped closer to him and poked a finger in his chest. “Seth was here. And you know what? He’s going to stay here.” She punctuated each word with a jab to Grant’s chest.
“What does that mean?” He brushed her hand away and stepped back.
“I’m not selling.”
“What? They hell you’re not!” He dropped his arms and clenched his fists. “We made a deal.”
Matt stepped between them and put a hand on Grant’s chest. “Folks, let’s just calm down.”
Lydia tilted her head so she could see past Matt’s shoulder. “You’re trespassing, Grant, and you need to leave.”
“What are you talking about? Trespassing?” He snorted. “I own half of this land now. That’s what the will stipulated—if one of us dies and the land hasn’t been sold it’s divided between the remaining siblings, or had you forgotten?”
“No, I haven’t forgotten. But it seems you’ve forgotten something.” Lydia walked past him to the kitchen counter and lifted the stack of papers. Underneath was a large manila envelope. She handed it to Grant. “When I found all those overdue bills, I started looking for bank statements to figure out was going on, and I found this.”
He snatched it from her and pulled out the papers it contained.
While Grant read, Lydia turned to us to explain. “It seems that the day Seth moved here from New York, he went to a lawyer and had a will made up. No doubt motivated by Grant’s refusal to help him financially.” She looked at him as he frantically pawed through the pages, and shook her head slowly, as if pitying a small child who’d eaten too much candy. “It’s true that in the terms of my father’s will, the land we were bequeathed can’t be sold without unanimous agreement. However, there is a caveat—if we choose to, we can donate our land to a non-profit organization.” She paused for a moment. “Seth left his parcel of land to the Emerald Island Birding Association.”
My mouth dropped open. I looked at Raine, who was smiling.
“He can’t do this.” Grant looked up from the papers at Lydia.
“Of course he can,” Lydia said. “It just never occurred to you that he would. The act of giving someone something for nothing is foreign to you.”
“This is bullshit! I’m getting my lawyers on this.” He threw the papers on the counter, where they slid off and wafted to the floor.
“Go right ahead, but for now, you’re trespassing. Leave.”
Grant gave her a withering look. “This isn’t the end, little sister, not by a long shot.” He pushed past Matt and stormed out, with Lydia following close behind him. A moment later we heard the roar of his car’s engine and the sound of gravel hitting the side of the cottage.
Lydia stood on the porch and watched him drive away. Matt seized the opportunity to ask us what she had meant about Seth being there.
“We saw something,” I said. “It wasn’t Seth, but it was. I know that doesn’t make sense, but I felt his presence.” I looked to Raine for help.
“That’s what I felt too.”
“What? Like a ghost?” Matt asked.
“Not quite. I don’t know how to explain because I’m not sure what it was. It was like only part of Seth was there.”
“The really pissed-off part,” Raine added.
“Exactly,” I said.
“And you had nothing to do with it?”
“God no,” I said. “Why would you think that?”
“Ember said something about a roast, and now I’m thinking she said ghost. Did she?”
“Um… well, yeah, she did, but it has nothing to do with what happened here.”
Matt had a dubious look on his face.
“Talk to Ember,” I said. “She can explain it to you.”
Matt let out a big sigh and pointed to his temple. “You girls are aging me before my time. See these gray hairs?”
“Yes,” Raine replied. “And they’re very distinguished, don’t you agree, Bree?”
Chapter 25
“Yes, please.” I held out my coffee cup to Ember as she refilled hers. I’d already
had two cups this morning and I hoped a third would banish the cobwebs in my head. It had been a long night of explaining to Gigi and Ember what had happened at Seth’s cottage.
“Got a piano tied to your butt?”
“Ha ha, very funny. Just give me some damn coffee.”
“Be nice to her, Ember. Bree’s my hero,” Raine said, winking at me as she sipped her coffee.
“Ah yes,” Ember said as she plucked the cup out of my hand and went back the coffee machine. “Breeze Middleton, the—”
“Don’t say it!” I put my hand up.
“—Great Intervener!” Ember and Raine said in unison.
I closed my eyes and shook my head.
“What, pray, is a ‘Great Intervener’?” Edward asked as he floated into the kitchen.
“It’s Bree’s superhero name,” Raine giggled.
“Ah, like Batman or Superman?” His English accent sounded just like Hugh Grant.
“No,” I answered firmly. “And how would you know about superheroes anyway? You’ve been dead for a hundred years.”
“Ninety-six years,” Ember corrected me as she handed me my coffee.
After the others had gone to bed last night, Ember had filled me in on the details of Edward’s death. It wasn’t much—all he remembered was that he’d been killed in a car accident in 1920. He thought he might have been on his way to or from some formal event, given what he was wearing—what I’d thought was a tuxedo was actually a morning coat. My guess—that he looked like he had stepped out of a wedding from the early 1900s—hadn’t been far off. Ember said she’d asked him about the ring, but all he could remember was an older woman handing it to him with the warning not to lose it.
“Sorry, ninety-six,” I said.
“Thank you,” he said. “In my last, shall I say, residence—” He looked at me before continuing.
“Sure, residence, whatever.” If you want to call an antique store a residence.
“Very good. In my last residence, where the young Miss Middleton found me—” He paused again and nodded at Raine.
She smiled back. “Call me Raine.”
“Of course. Raine. Well, the owner of the shop had a young son who was rather enamored of picture magazines.”
“You mean comic books, right?” Raine asked.
“Yes, that’s right—that’s what he called them. The young boy spent many hours perusing these ‘comic books,’ both on his own and with friends he would bring by. I was privy to the conversations discussing the merits of these superheroes. Batman was apparently a favorite.”
He leaned against the fridge, his hands in his pockets, legs crossed at the ankles. It would have seemed perfectly ordinary, except for the fact that I could see the faint outline of the fridge through his body. It was a little unnerving.
The door to the mudroom opened and Gigi came in. “Good morning, girls, Edward.”
“Morning,” we all said in unison.
“Gigi.” Edward nodded. “And how are you this fine morning?”
“Couldn’t be better,” she answered, heading to the coffee maker. “We’ve got all the fire pits cleaned out and ready to go. Ray’s putting the finishing touches on the welcome hut, so all in all, a good start to the day.”
“Marvelous!” Edward said and clapped his hands.
Gigi curtsied.
I tipped my head back and sighed again. It was like living in a house full of love-struck teenagers.
“You’ll get used to him,” Ember said. “Just think of him as the brother you never had.”
“Sure, my long-lost English brother—who just happens to be a ghost. No offense, Edward.”
“None taken,” he said with a smile.
“I think Edward is great,” Raine said from across the table. She leaned in closer and looked at me. “It could be worse, you know; he could’ve been like Seth.”
I shuddered at the thought. Witnessing Seth’s ghost with all his pent-up rage was something I wanted to forget.
“No need to worry about that,” Edward said, and spread his arms wide. “I’m quite harmless.” I had to admit, he did look harmless—just a little shabby in his rumpled clothing.
“We know that now, but you had us freaked out for a while,” Raine said.
“That wasn’t his fault,” Ember defended him. “You can blame Violet for that.”
It turned out I was right about that, too. Violet had known full well that Edward posed no threat, but telling us would have been no fun for her.
After we’d gotten home last night and explained to Ember and Gigi about everything that had happened at Seth’s (and repeatedly reassured Gigi that yes, we were fine), we were formally introduced to Edward. I quickly learned that shaking hands with a ghost is a lesson in embarrassment.
Then Edward had explained that, prior to our little circle fiasco in Raine’s bedroom, he could see all of us but couldn’t communicate. All he could do was move some of Raine’s things around. After a heated discussion with Gigi, Violet finally admitted she had known about Edward since the day Raine had come home from England. She defended herself by saying Raine needed to be taught a lesson for breaking her ‘no witchcraft’ promise. Gigi said Violet was the one that needed to be taught a lesson, and threatened to put a collar and bell on her if she didn’t stop meddling.
“Again, I must apologize for frightening you ladies. It was never my intention.”
“That’s okay,” Raine reassured him with a smile. “It all worked out, and now we’re friends.”
With a ghost, I wanted to remind her, you’re friends with a ghost. But what was the point? Clearly, everyone was infatuated with him. I had to get on board the crazy train or be left in the dust.
“What about Matt—did you tell him about Edward?” I asked Ember. I had heard her on the phone with him just before we’d all gone to bed. If I was still grappling with the fact that we had a ghost as a houseguest, I couldn’t imagine how Matt would deal with it. He was used to our family’s weirdness, but this was weirdness on a whole new level. I could see a lot more gray hairs in his future.
“I did,” Ember replied. “And his exact words were ‘I’m going to need a bottle of hair dye.’ I have no idea what he meant.”
I laughed. Poor Matt.
“Edward,” I said, and swiveled around in my chair. “I have a question for you.”
“Yes, Bree, anything at all. I’m at your service.” He executed a snappy little bow.
“You heard us talking about Seth last night and how we all saw him, or whatever that was.”
“Yes.” He nodded in encouragement.
“Why is it that we couldn’t actually see him? Was he stuck like you were?”
“Ah, a very good question,” he said. He put one hand behind his back, and rubbed his chin with the other. We all waited for the answer.
“I’m afraid I have no idea,” he finally said.
“But you're a ghost. Shouldn't you know how it works?” Raine asked.
“Seriously, Raine, it’s not like he has a user manual or a list of FAQs,” Ember said.
“FAQs?” Edward looked at Ember quizzically.
“Frequently Asked Questions.”
“Ah.” Edward still looked confused.
“It’s an internet thing—computers, you know?” Ember waited for a response but got none. “It’s not important,” she said, and waved her hand dismissively.
“What you all saw wasn't exactly Seth's ghost,” Gigi spoke up.
“What do you mean?” Raine asked.
“From what you described last night, I believe what you saw and felt was a manifestation of his rage. Seth must have been very angry at the time of his death. It’s unusual for a manifestation of that sort to exert so much power so soon after death—it usually takes years or decades to build—but it’s not unheard of,” Gigi said. She seemed lost in thought for a moment, and I got the feeling she’d dealt with this before.
“After you stepped on Martin’s wrist, did you see or feel a
nything?” she asked.
Aside from crunching bone? I shivered at the memory. “No, actually, when that happened and Martin screamed, the room warmed up and things felt normal again. Relatively speaking.”
Raine nodded in agreement. “She’s right, as soon as that happened it felt like someone had flipped a switch.”
“That’s good.”
“Good?” I said. Not a word I would use to describe last night’s events.
“It means Seth got what he wanted,” Violet said as she eased herself out from behind Gigi’s potted herbs in the window above the sink. I hadn’t even seen her there. “If he hadn’t, you’d know about it.”
“Martin would know about it,” Gigi corrected. “It was him Seth was after.”
“I’m just glad it’s over,” Ember said. She got up from the table and put her cup in the sink. “Maybe life can get back to normal now.”
“If this is what you call ‘normal,’” Violet said, cocking her head in Edward’s direction.
With his ring now safely ensconced in a small box on the living room mantle and a formal invitation from Gigi to stay as long as he liked, Edward seemed quite content to do just that.
“Violet,” Gigi said slowly. “Edward’s our guest; show some manners.”
“What do you mean ‘guest?’ He’s a ghost.”
“Need I remind you that you are a guest in this house as well?”
“I’ve been here longer than any of you,” Violet argued.
“Yes, you have, but by invitation, not ownership. I’ve invited Edward to stay and he may remain for as long as he likes.”
“I really don’t want to put anyone out,” Edward told Gigi. “You’ve been very kind and generous, and I don’t want to be the cause of any discord in your lovely home.”
“You’re not putting anyone out,” Gigi assured him. She looked at each of us for confirmation. Raine and Ember smiled.
“Bree?” Gigi said.
I sighed. “Not put out at all.”
“Good. Now, why don’t you come with me, Edward, and I’ll show you what we’ve been doing outside. I’m sure the girls need to be getting themselves off to work.” She looked pointedly at me.
“Excellent,” Edward said. “I find this notion of camping rather intriguing. Ladies.” He nodded at Ember and me, and smiled at Raine as he floated past her and through the door to the mudroom. Gigi followed. After she’d opened the door.
Stuck in the Middle Witch You (A Middle Witch Mystery Book 1) Page 15