by Sarah Kelly
“Bingo,” India said with a smile, slapping the pen down on the table. “It makes perfect sense.”
“What we need to do is see the will,” said Xavier. “Since we’ve got two murder cases, I doubt any of the money will be released before they’re wrapped up.”
“You know how we can get access to the will?” India asked.
“No idea, babe. I’ll look into it at the station.”
The waiter came and set out the popadoms on the table, with a mint dip, chutney dip, and creamy dip.
“Thank you,” Xavier said.
India snapped off a piece and dipped it in the chutney, then put it in Xavier’s mouth. “You know what I think?” she said. “I think Gianna and Hayden were in it together. They planned both murders, but then Gianna freaked out after the first one. She didn’t want to do the second, but Hayden dragged her into it and she had to help clean up. Now Gianna’s not talking to him, and regrets the whole thing, is my guess.”
“It sounds like a plausible theory,” Xavier said. “But what’s your proof?”
India shrugged. “Haven’t got much yet.”
Xavier laughed, though not unkindly. “If you don’t have proof, how are you going to make it stand up?”
“I didn’t say any,” India said a little defensively. “I said not much.”
“So, what have you got?”
India leant forward. “Remember when you and I went over there to get Answer, and… you know, we found her?”
“Sure.”
“On the line outside were bed sheets, next to Gianna’s dresses on the line. Plus there was a set of man’s clothes there. None of those were on the line when we went there the first time.”
Xavier frowned. “So?”
“So they killed Answer in Onyx’s bedroom, then put all their clothes and the sheets from the crime scene in the wash, in case they had any kind of evidence on them, then put them out to dry.”
Xavier nodded. “Okay. I did notice Onyx’s bed was stripped.”
“Exactly,” India said. “And Gianna’s bed wasn’t. I remember, because it wasn’t made and I thought that was unusual, given how spotless her room was the last time I saw it.”
Xavier nodded, then fed a piece of popadom dipped in mint sauce to India. “I understand what you’re getting at, but… the evidence is circumstantial.”
“I know,” India said. “Oh my gosh, this is delicious.”
His eyes sparkled. “Glad we came here?”
“Absolutely. Anyways, I know it’s not enough to seal up the case. So what I thought was I would try to get Gianna on side. She’s already regretting the whole thing, and if I can just get her to crack, I bet she’ll spill the whole thing. Maybe you guys can offer her a plea bargain or something, if she testifies against Hayden.”
“Makes sense,” Xavier said. “It’s worth a shot.”
“There’s only one problem.”
He looked up, his dark eyes penetrating. “What’s that?”
“Gianna said she never wanted to speak with me again.”
CHAPTER 9
It hadn’t seemed such a big deal when India had told Xavier in the Indian restaurant, but by the time she’d woken up the next morning, the fact that Gianna never wanted to speak to her again rattled her. Plus, she was already second guessing the theory that had formed itself in her mind with such ease at the beach the previous afternoon. Where confidence, buoyed by a delicious meal and great time with Xavier, had reigned supreme the night before, now she was consumed by doubt.
She threw the sheet off and stared at the ceiling, wondering what on earth she’d gotten herself into. While doing all the digging, asking questions and gathering clues, she’d felt so alive. Even though her brain always whirred in overtime, trying to piece all the information together and find out the truth, she truly enjoyed it.
This? – the putting together of all that information and having to form a conclusion – that was terrifying.
India’s whole body felt heavy as she sat up. She leaned over to pull back her shimmering beige window and stared out at the palm that stood outside the French door. There, in her tiny little Key West home, she felt safe and secure. For a moment, she wished she had never allowed herself to get mixed up in this case. All she’d be doing that morning was pulling on her lifeguard uniform, grabbing a smoothie and a croissant, and heading out to the beach. She had her routine down pat, and although it wasn’t always the most exciting, it was familiar. But now, she felt totally out of her depth. She put in another quick call to Brett, forcing her voice into cheeriness, then flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling again, feeling her chest flutter.
Luis, I need you.
As soon as she reached out, she thought bitterly that he wouldn’t be of any use. He’d come back with You’ve got this, mami, you can do it, or something equally encouraging and dismissive. She waited for a reply, but none came.
Fine, she thought, don’t even come help me at all.
A tear slipped down the side of her cheek and she wiped it away furiously, telling herself she shouldn’t be in such a state.
“You called?” Luis said, so startlingly close that it made her sit bolt upright.
“Luis?” She looked over to her doorway, where his voice had come from, and sure enough, he was there, standing just between her bedroom and the kitchen-living area.
He leant against the doorframe, a toothpick in his mouth. His salt and pepper gray hair was cut shorter than she remembered it, almost disappearing under his pale gray flat cap, but his sparkling brown eyes, wonky smile and sparse silver moustache were just the same as ever. He looked like a fashionista in some big city, wearing tailored tan slacks, a gray collarless shirt and suede brogues somewhere between blue and gray, which put her in mind of the winter sky in Wisconsin. “Hey, girl.”
“Love your shoes,” she said, instantly feeling in a better mood.
He turned his foot this way and that, looking down admiringly. “Special, aren’t they? Anyhow, no time for chit chat. Got the impression you’re in a bind so decided to pay you a quick visit. Figured you wouldn’t mind.”
“I’m really glad to see you,” India said. “But you gave me a real shock when you came in like that. I didn’t even know it was possible.”
Luis walked into the kitchen, and India slipped on her flip flops to follow in her pajamas.
“You got any coffee?” he asked.
“Only instant.”
Luis laughed. “Good, ‘cause I want it now.”
“Let me make it for you,” India said, taking the kettle to the sink.
“Now, I don’t want to seem like a jerk,” he said, “but there’s plenty of things you don’t know.” He sat down on her sofa and started unlacing his shoes. “These pinch something terrible. I guess you have to suffer to be beautiful.” He laughed again.
India poured herself a glass of pineapple juice. “Last month when we met was like… one of the craziest experiences of my life. And of course I want to tell Xavier and Amy and everyone, but I know I can’t. It’s just… so much to hold in. How can I possibly be a witch?”
Luis shrugged, and rubbed his feet through his gray socks. “Don’t ask me. You think it’s weird for you? I’m a guy. Some man Kwame came out of the blue at my law firm and told me I was a witch back twenty years ago, and I thought he’d lost his damn mind.”
India giggled. “Don’t hate me, but that’s what I thought about you at first.”
He made a flourishing bow. “I’ll take that as a compliment. How can we stay sane in a world where murder and violence and evil go on day after day after day?”
That brought India down to Earth with a crash. The dead bodies of Onyx and Answer flashed through her mind.
“Let’s get to this murder business,” Luis said, probably reading her mind. “You want to go talk to Gianna, ‘cause you think she’s involved in the murder.”
India took a sip of pineapple. It was too cold as it slipped down her throat, and made her shiver. “I
don’t know. I’m not sure about anything anymore.”
“Well, that’s good,” Luis said. “We’re usually the most wrong when we’re sure. Better to leave things open in your mind. But you should still go talk to her. That’s my feeling, if it matters.”
India felt empty and sick. She reached in the cupboard for a box of raisins. “Want one?” she asked Luis.
He wrinkled his nose. “Never liked dried fruit. Got any chocolate?”
“Sorry.”
“Never mind.” He leant over to pick up a long prism stick of Toblerone chocolate from the coffee table, then unwrapped the packaging and broke off a piece.
“How did…?” India said. There really was so much she didn’t know. “Where…?”
“That’s the basics of the basics,” Luis said. “Kids who are raised knowing they’re witches can do that by four years old. Some even by three and a half.”
That brought up more questions than it did answers, but India didn’t even know where to start.
“So you gonna go talk to her?” Luis asked.
“I think so.” India’s mind was so full of doubt now, she didn’t have the energy to come up with any other plan. She didn’t want to give up on the case either, so guessed sticking with her idea of talking to Gianna made sense. “But what if she won’t talk to me?”
“Aha,” Luis said. “I was waiting for you to ask that.” He took a glance out the window outside. Cars zoomed past, and kids with backpacks made their way to school. “But not here. We have to go.”
“What about your coffee?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I just wanted to taste the difference between instant and conjured. I’ll make my own. Turn the kettle off, mami. We need to get going.”
India switched off the kettle. “But I’m in my pajamas.”
“Design any outfit in your imagination, and make it a good one,” Luis said, then grabbed her hand.
India felt like she’d been knocked in the back of the head, and everything went black.
The next thing she knew, she was lying down, feeling the rough unevenness of rickety floorboards against her back. She heard Luis snickering and opened her eyes. “Oh my gosh,” she said, sitting up. They were in a tiny treehouse shack, strung up with a couple hammocks, the shutters wide open. But it was the view outside the windows that took her breath away. They were just below the canopy, so close that with only a little climbing, you could reach out and pick a coconut. The whole place was an emerald green, so vivid it made India smile. “Wow.”
“Nice, huh?” Luis said, staring out the window. He had bare feet, and wore a loose tank top and long shorts. “You never know exactly what you’re gonna get.”
India looked down to see she was wearing a beautiful sundress in an Aztec-inspired style, with stripes of purple and turquoise, with cyan zigzag patterns, black detailing, and baby pink outlines. She hadn’t had time to even process Luis’ order to imagine a dress, but guessed her unconscious had done it for her. It was the best dress she’d ever seen.
“Now, I ain’t got all that much time,” Luis said. “So we’re gonna be quick quick quick. Stand up, please.”
“Right,” India said, getting to her feet.
“Now,” he said, staring into her eyes. “Listen very carefully. Concentrate.” Then he began to speak so quickly, India barely thought she could keep up. “This is from the discipline of psychosorcery, an interdisciplinary practice that melds psychology with magic. Understood?”
“Got it.”
“Anyone who is against you will become for you with this technique. First, you send them I accept you and your hostility with open arms. Just how you’ve been talking to me, sending stuff so I can sense it, that’s what you do to them. So just send them that, got it?”
“I accept you and your hostility with open arms,” India said.
“It sounds easy now,” Luis said, “but when you’ve got some 200lb muscular beast of a man threatening to break your face in and kill your whole family, it takes some strength. But just say it over and over in your head until they calm down. Eventually they’ll run out of steam.”
“Right.”
“Then you’ve got them neutral,” he said, “but still sceptical. So then, you have to compliment them. If you’ve done the first step correctly, the natural flow of energy will immediately show you the area most important to them. This is the area of the compliment. So, with said big hulking brute, the energy told me to say, ‘You can make a mean bacon sandwich.’”
India burst out laughing. “Really?”
“Yep,” Luis said with a grin. “And you know what happened next? He froze to the spot, and said ‘How do you know?’ in this amazed voice. I told him I could just tell. By the afternoon I was up in his apartment watching Oprah with my feet up on the couch, a sweet tea in one hand and a bacon sandwich in the other. We still do Christmas cards.”
“You’re lying.”
“Nuh uh,” he said. “Anyhow, I’ve got to go sort out some business with the intergalactic committee. You wouldn’t believe the drama, but yeah… so you send them the acceptance stuff, then compliment, got it?”
India nodded. “Got it. But what if they reject the compliment?”
“Sometimes it happens,” Luis said, looking at his watch. “It means you’re not quite aligned with the energy and have to tweak a little.”
India began to feel panicked. She knew he was about to leave and she didn’t have a shred of confidence to carry out his crazy technique. “What does that even mean? How the heck do you tweak energy?”
Luis winked. “You’ll get used to it.” He turned to look out the window at the jutting palms and flourishing bushes. “Nice out here. Think I’ll come again.”
“But Luis, I don’t understand how—”
Luis grabbed her hand, and everything went black.
It was like waking up from a dream, that fading into wakefulness, but India found she was walking, her steps crunching on the gravel beneath her. When her eyes fully opened, she realized she was back at the mansion. She was wearing the same new Aztec dress. Her phone buzzed in her pocket – a pocket she was sure had not been there when she was up in the jungle shack – and she looked at the screen, bewildered. Xavier.
“Hey, Zave,” she said shakily.
“You okay?”
“Sure,” she said, wishing she was allowed to tell him about her fledgling powers. “I’m just coming up to the mansion.”
“You know the craziest thing happened this morning,” Xavier said. “When I came into work, Kimble told me he’d come up with the exact same theory you told me about – that Gianna and Hayden killed Onyx together, then Hayden killed Answer on his own. I suggested your plea bargain idea, and he snapped at me that he wasn’t an idiot and had already thought of it. So we’re coming down today to do some interviews.”
“Why not at the station?”
“I asked that myself,” said Xavier. “He said he likes to see people in their natural environment. I told him it’s only a vacation villa, but he didn’t listen. I think he just wants to large it up in a mansion for a day. He’s always complaining how the station is too small, and how his last station was like a palace compared to this dump.”
India barely managed to process what he was saying. “Right, right. So you’re coming down now?”
“Yep, leaving right now.”
“Okay, I’m going to talk to Gianna,” she said. “Before you guys get here.”
“Be careful, Indie.”
“I will.”
“I…”
A long silence stretched out.
“What is it?” India asked gently.
“I love you,” Xavier blurted out.
India grinned from ear to ear. “And I love you, Zave.”
Xavier let out a huge breath in relief. “Whooh. I was scared you were going to say I was getting the totally wrong idea.”
“Not at all.”
“See you, In.”
“See you
.”
Now that gave her the dose of confidence she needed to march right up to the front door and knock.
As she waited for someone to come to the door, she ran through the calculations she’d made about how much money would go to each person in her mind. Something suddenly struck her, like a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky. She tapped into her smartphone and hit Google. There was one more thing to find out.
Hayden answered the door eventually, looking like he’d been dragged through a bush backwards. His eyes had the dullness of someone who’d lost all hope, or totally numbed out. India had always thought it would be easy to see if someone was innocent or guilty, but in that moment she couldn’t have been less sure. Was he a murderer whose guilt had caught up with him, or a grieving boyfriend caught up in a huge mess? It was impossible to tell.
But she had the distinct feeling that by the time she’d stepped back out of that house, she would know.
CHAPTER 10
As India went up the stairs, she kept telling herself, ‘I accept you and your hostility with open arms’, then let the energy tell you what compliment they need. However ridiculous it sounded, she tried to believe it. Luis was somewhat of a loose cannon sometimes, but if he could disappear, reappear, transport her, and conjure clothes and chocolate and coffee at will, she had to concede he was onto something.
India’s heart was in her mouth as she reached out to knock on Gianna’s door. Her whole body tensed in anticipation of the earful of abuse she expected. She must have knocked a hundred times before Gianna answered.
“Who is it?” Gianna called out from inside.
“Um… me… India.”
Within seconds the door was wrenched open. Gianna’s eyes burned with fury, and her red lipsticked mouth was drawn into an angry pucker. “What the hell do you want? Didn’t I tell you to leave me alone?”
Her rage was at such a contrast with her clean look. She wore a sky blue tea dress with a cinch belt and covered in white polka dots, and white patent high heels. Her hair was rolled in the front and curled in the back, with a blue and white polka dot bow holding it in place. She was completely immaculate.