"Most likely," I mumbled. "Yes."
Detective Crawford stood up and opened the door for me. She had a small smile on her face that seemed genuine. "You're free to go, Rachael."
"I am?" I asked, surprised, as I stood up after her. I buttoned up my coat. "I take it this means I am no longer a person of interest."
She cast me a long steely gaze. "Just make sure you come to us if you see anything else interesting or suspicious. You do run the bakery next door to the crime scene, after all."
I stopped buttoning. "Does this mean that you'd like me to be your eyes and ears out there?"
"We don't need your help with solving the case, if that's what you're getting at, Miss Robinson. And don't try to solve it yourself. Just tell us if you see anything."
I did try to tell you what I saw. But you weren't interested, I thought as she showed me the door. You practically laughed at what I'd seen.
But I knew that what I'd seen—Gus tampering with that painting—meant something. I just didn't know what that was yet.
But I couldn't quell that nagging feeling in my stomach that it was important and that Gus needed to be brought in off the streets before anyone else ended up dead.
But if Detective Crawford wasn't going to listen to me, what more could I do?
I should have been relieved at being set free and taken off the suspect list, but I only felt stupid as I stumbled out of the interview room, like I was a little kid playing at being a detective and a grownup had told me off and told me to stop pretending.
That's why I almost stumbled into the figure heading towards me. He was super familiar, but it took me a moment to place the dark-haired man staggering into the interview room after me.
"Romeo?" I whispered out loud. "What the heck is he doing here?"
I spun around only to see him being led into the room.
Maybe he saw something.
But if he was at the bakery, why? Was he snooping around again? I thought about the night I'd bumped into him out back when I was closing up. He'd claimed he was there to get his paycheck, but he could have been doing anything and just used that as a cover when he was caught.
I shivered at the idea that I'd ever let him work in my bakery as I stared at the closed door of the interview room.
"Can I help you, miss?" a weary-looking uniformed police officer asked, grabbing my attention. "You look a little lost there."
I straightened up. "I'm just looking for Detective Whitaker. To say goodbye to him before I leave." Sort of true. I was thinking that, if one detective wouldn't listen to me, maybe another one would. I'd already slightly tested the waters with Jackson regarding the curse, and I figured that if I explained the entire thing to him, he might be a little more open-minded to listen to the curse as a theory.
Boy, I was starting to sound like Pippa.
"Can't help you, sorry. I think he's busy at the moment." The uniformed officer returned to the magazine he was reading.
Really busy or just 'doesn't want to see me' busy? I wondered.
"Thank you."
"Exit's that way."
Right.
I bumped into him as I was exiting the station.
"Jackson!" He looked a little pleased to see me, I was sure of it, but he looked around uneasily to check if anyone was watching us. "I have to tell you something. Detective Crawford wouldn't listen to me about something I saw."
He looked at me blankly. "She should have listened to you, if you had some kind of witness evidence to put forth."
I didn't want to get her into trouble. "No! It's not like that. I suppose I don't really blame her for not listening. Do you have five minutes?"
I wished Pippa was with me as I unraveled the entire story to him, ending with the way I'd seen Gus jiggling around the 'haunted' painting the following morning. "I'm not going to be arrested for trespassing, am I?"
"Trespassing?" he asked. "No. What you did was breaking and entering."
My face turned white. "I was only trying to help. The door was open when Pippa and I went in, anyway, so it wasn't breaking in." A quick lie to try and save us from getting booked.
Jackson shook his head. "That's beside the point right now. Obviously, we had Gus Sampson as a suspect."
My ears pricked. "Did you say 'had'? Why the past tense?"
Jackson glanced into the station. Boy, he really did not want anyone to see us together, did he?
Jackson sighed. "I shouldn't really be telling you this, but given everything." He placed his hands in his pockets. "Gus is out of town right now, meeting up with an antique dealer in Pottsville. We have confirmation of his alibi already. He's been out of town all weekend." Jackson stared down at my face draining of more and more color by the second. "Gus wasn't there, Rachael. He couldn't have done it."
My head started spinning.
"Okay," I said unsteadily. "I need to go then. Sorry." I hurried away, pushing my way through the glass doors, but I didn't think the apology was really necessary. I doubted he was very sorry to see me go at that point.
I gulped for air when I finally got outside.
If Gus Sampson hadn't killed those two people, then who? Or what?
Detective Crawford might have said I was free to go, and I doubted I'd be called in for questioning again, but I couldn't help the feeling of guilt that twisted in my stomach.
Was I responsible for those people getting killed?
What if...what if the curse was real? What if my decision to purchase the antiques shop had set in motion a chain of events that had lead to the deaths of two innocent people?
I glanced back at the police station right as thunder cracked overhead. I wanted to run back in there, turn myself in, present my wrists, and say 'Lock me up, I'm a hazard to the community.'
But that would be insane. I backed away.
Perhaps there was somewhere else I really needed to go. A place I had been avoiding.
And dreading.
But I needed answers.
Chapter 9
I wasn't sure I'd ever even BEEN in this area of Belldale before. The town had a population of only about fourteen thousand, but it was divided by a small highway that split the two into two distinct halves and this half was one I was unfamiliar with. There were coffee shops I didn't recognize, and the streets seemed wider with the shops more spread out. It was at least a ten-minute drive from our apartment, but Pippa seemed to know exactly where she was going.
She'd been there many times before.
'Downtown', I suppose the area would be called.
We finally pulled up behind an innocuous-looking building.
"This is it?" I wasn't sure if I was disappointed or relieved.
The meeting place didn't look anywhere near as spooky as I was expecting it to. I had imagined the club met in a cave surrounded by cobwebs or something.
But this was just a spare room in the back of a regular-looking church on a Monday night. There were a few cobwebs, sure, and there was a musty smell like the place hadn't been aired out in months or years, but there was nothing gothic or scary about it.
"I know. I was a little disappointed at first as well. But it does the job we need it to."
I took in a deep breath. I wondered if it would do the job I needed it to. Or whether I was finally losing my mind, going down the rabbit hole that Pippa had already been dragged into by Tegan and her ilk.
"We have to pay fifty dollars to use the space every week," Pippa explained as she began to unfold chairs. "We take donations of people when they come through the door." She set me up at a little folding table with instruction to take people's money and put it in an old pickle jar. Around here, Pippa was my boss.
"Why don't you just meet at the house of one of the members?" I asked.
"You'll see," Pippa said, raising her eyebrow.
I did see. I was expecting a handful of people at the meeting, five or six at the most. But as soon as the clock hit 4:30, people began streaming into the small room and within twe
nty minutes, the entire place was full wall to wall of members of the clearly very popular Belldale Paranormal Society.
I gulped.
I get claustrophobic around large groups of people and suddenly wasn't sure this was such a good idea.
"Rachael," an eerie voice called out. Tegan had finally sauntered into the room right at five. She still had her cape on, but some of the purple had faded from her hair, revealing blonde roots.
Pippa raised an eyebrow at me. "You two have met before?"
"I'm so glad you finally decided to join us at one of our meetings. I think you will find it very enlightening. I've been hoping to see you here for quite some time." Tegan closed and locked the door behind her and everyone went quiet as she swished her way to a small podium in the middle of the back wall. "
Pippa quietly took the jar from me and quickly counted it. When she was done, she nodded to Tegan.
I shivered. Now that the sun had gone down, a kind of spooky quality had taken over the room. It was freezing and Pippa had to set up a tiny space heater in the corner, which barely did anything but did add an interesting smell to the room, sort of like burning plastic but slightly more sinister.
Or maybe it was just Tegan's presence that had changed the make-up of the room. She had a knack for doing that.
There were all sorts of people in the club. Some were relatively normal-looking, still wearing suits and ties from work, but the majority of them wore items that would immediately get them labeled as 'alternative' to onlookers. Necklaces with pentagons and other symbols that I didn't quite recognize, hair dyed in various bright, unearthly shades.
I suddenly saw how well Pippa fit in here. And she seemed very 'at home,' milling amongst everyone, talking and chatting and catching up with gossip that I wasn't privy to. I couldn't help but feel a little jealous that Pippa had friends she was just as close with, or even closer to, than me.
I settled into an empty seat beside her. The others were being friendly enough, saying hello, introducing themselves, but I still felt distinctly ill at ease. I was so far out of my element it wasn't funny.
"You don't need to look so nervous, Rach. These people don't bite. They are just interested in discussing and learning about all the unexplained paranormal happenings in Belldale." She gave me a grin. "Just a bunch of amateur detectives, kind of like you!"
She patted my hand and I nodded. Maybe that was true. Everyone in the club was here because they had a thirst to solve the unsolvable, an interest in puzzles and the unknowable. But I still felt uneasy as I waited for Tegan to begin.
Before she'd started talking, I had no idea there were so many unexplained mysteries in Belldale. We were just one little town, but apparently we had a very storied history. This week, there was a lot of discussion focused on this so called 'mystical big cat' that many members of the town—and specifically the club—claimed to have seen, but no one had ever actually caught or taken a proper photo of. Belldale's very own Bigfoot. Apparently, this creature was black with bright red eyes and was capable of disappearing right in front of a person's eyes. There had been fresh sightings this week.
"I saw it dissolve into thin air," a young man named Aaron, with long dark hair and a sleeve of tattoos, piped up. "While I was trying to take a photo of it." A little too convenient for my tastes.
But others had similar stories.
"All of this can't possibly be true, can it?" I whispered to Pippa. She returned an eager nod.
"Of course. You see why I like it here now?"
I had to admit there was a certain appeal to it all. The human mind is drawn to mysteries and, by extension, the paranormal. All the stories were fascinating, but I had to remind myself to keep a skeptical mind. But as I listened to the club discuss everything from large cats to haunted houses and even alleged UFO sightings, I felt my nerves dissolve a little. In fact, I totally forgot myself for a while and just sat there and listened.
"See, Rach?" Pippa whispered to me. "You'll never have to worry about being bored and not having a mystery to solve ever again—if you just keep coming to these meetings!"
She was probably right. Maybe I would have to keep coming along.
But I wasn't sure this was entirely where I belonged. I felt like a tourist in that room, listening to everyone's strange stories but feeling two steps removed from them all.
Tegan eventually drifted the topic onto the next part of the meeting, and I was still so distracted thinking about all the mysterious 'cases' that had been brought up that I jumped when I heard my name mentioned.
"Now, Rachael is going to tell us all a very interesting story!" Tegan placed her hands together and nodded at me while everyone clapped.
I am? I thought. "Pippa, you never told me I had to stand up in front of people and talk to them."
"Then stay seated while you talk," she answered, rather unhelpfully. "Come on. This is what you came for, right? For help? How are you going to get any if you won't tell your story?"
I sighed a little and stood up. I took a deep breath. Public speaking isn't that bad...is it?
Yes, it is. It's basically the worst thing imaginable.
I headed up to the podium. Tegan's eyes were still boring into me. I tried to relax and ignore her—and everyone else in the room—and just focus on Pippa in the audience. She was grinning at me and nodding her support.
Here goes nothing.
Everyone looked enraptured as I unleashed my story. I told them all about the day I'd decided to buy Gus's antiques store, and how the—I paused before I said the word 'curse'—seemed to have started right after then.
"And, Rachael, have you been feeling sick all the time?" Tegan's voice called out.
I paused for a second. "Yes," I had to admit. "Almost constantly, actually."
Tegan nodded and I could hear her murmuring, "A clear sign of a curse."
Was it? I took a moment before I got to the really juicy detail of the story; the salacious events that I knew everyone was really there to hear about.
I gulped right before I spoke. "Then, of course, there are the murders."
There were a few gasps and murmurs in the crowd.
Tegan's eyes drilled into me as I told them about the two bodies that had been found in Gus's antique store. First the man Jason, then the second, a woman named Bridgett. "They were both found in the antique shop next to her bakery. It looks as though the killer was the same person."
I could have sworn that Tegan was shooting me a judgmental look. The severity of it took me off guard and I stammered for a moment as I tried to remember what I was talking about. I felt as though I should clear something up for the crowd. "Even though I was taken in for questioning, I was quickly released. Er, thank you." There was some thin applause as I scampered back to my seat.
Tegan looked grim as she retook to the podium. "As you can see, something rather terrible has befallen Rachael. A curse!"
Everyone nodded and half the crowd turned to look at me. I could feel my face growing red. "And we can help her," Tegan added. "Don't worry, Rachael." She turned her full attention to me now. "You're in the right place now, a safe place. We can remove this curse that has taken over your life. If you will accept our help."
She seemed to be waiting for an answer or confirmation from me. The room was silent as everyone stared at me.
I sat very still. Eventually I nodded, and a sly smile spread over Tegan's face. I was willing to try anything.
At this stage, I was willing to believe just about anything. After all, anything could be possible. And I was running out of rational explanations for all the weird stuff that had been happening to me.
Pippa reached over and squeezed my hand. "You'll be fine now. Everything will go back to normal if you just follow their instructions."
But little did I know, I was NOT about to like the advice that Tegan was going to give me.
"First of all," she announced. "You are going to have to go back and undo any of the actions you made that caused the cu
rse to be placed on you."
"Well, I don't have a time machine," I half-joked, though no one seemed to find this amusing. So I sat still and silent again.
"Do you still have that contract you signed?" Tegan looked at me pointedly.
Did she mean the sales contract? I nodded uneasily.
"Good. Burn it."
Burn it? That seemed a little extreme and melodramatic.
I turned towards Pippa, who was nodding enthusiastically. I bet she was loving this advice. Her eyes did seem to be lighting up.
Tegan continued, "Next you have to go into the shop and apologize to the twins' spirits."
"You mean the painting?" I asked, slightly incredulous.
"I mean the spirits that placed the curse on you." She meant the painting, though. I sat back in my seat.
"Take back all the intentions you made to buy the property and try to offer them something in order to remove the bad karma. A gift or a sacrifice."
But I was still caught up on the first point. "Take back all my intentions? Burn the contract? You're telling me…" I shot a look at Pippa. "That I can't buy the store?" I started to get this little nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that Pippa had put Tegan up to this. It all seemed to align exactly with what she had been nagging me to do.
Tegan looked outraged. "Why on Earth would you still wish to purchase the store after there have been two murders in there? You need to cancel all your plans immediately."
She had a fair point. I'd been considering that myself. Who wants to eat in a bakery where there have been two murders?
I'd been trying to tell myself that if I could just prove that the killer was human, that there is no curse, no ghosts, it isn't so bad.
I hung my head and whispered to Pippa. "Maybe she has a point. Maybe you have a point. Maybe I really have to rethink my business plan."
I glanced up to see Pippa exchanging a wink with Tegan, and mouthing the word "thanks."
I stood up. "So you did put Tegan up to this then? You told her to say that to me?"
Pippa looked aghast. "Rach, what are you getting so upset for? You know this is the right thing to do. What, where are you going?"
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