Witchin' USA

by Amanda M. Lee

  I watched the woman delivering glasses of water, understandably curious. I’d never seen Lilac be anything but friendly when it came to other Moonstone Bay residents. Even for those she didn’t like she put on a brave face. She barely tried with Cordelia.

  “It’s my bar.” Cordelia, her hair tied back in a loose and messy bun, fixed Lilac with a challenging look. “I figured you’d be at your own bar today.”

  “Yeah? I’m showing Hadley around.”

  “Hadley, huh?” Cordelia shifted her eyes to me, causing me to squirm on the vinyl booth seat. “You’re the one who took over the lighthouse, right?”

  “She’s May’s granddaughter,” Lilac supplied. “She’s part of our community now.”

  “I heard she was thinking about leaving,” Cordelia challenged.

  “Where did you hear that?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.

  “Ned Baxter.”

  I stilled, surprised. “Really? He said I was leaving?”

  Lilac absently patted my hand, her eyes never leaving Cordelia’s pretty face. “Don’t listen to her. She’s making it up.”

  Cordelia sneered. “Why would I make it up?”

  “I don’t think she’s making it up,” I supplied. “He showed up at my place the other day to see if I wanted to sell to him. He thought I might want to get off the island.”

  Lilac jerked her gaze from Cordelia. “And what did you say?”

  “I said I wasn’t making any decisions right away.”

  Lilac narrowed her eyes to accusatory slits. “You want to stay, right?”

  That was a dangerous question. “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, you know,” Lilac gritted out. “You want to stay. You’re going to stay.”

  “Ignore her,” Cordelia instructed, clearly enjoying herself as she leaned over the table and handed me a menu. “Lilac can’t take it when she’s not in the know about island gossip. It’s not your fault she’s so needy.”

  “Bite me,” Lilac hissed, accepting the menu with a sneer. “If anyone should leave the island, it’s you.”

  I wasn’t sure what to make of the conversation, so I merely watched for a moment, dumbfounded.

  “I can’t leave while you’re still here,” Cordelia drawled. “I have to make sure someone saves the island men from your slutty powers of persuasion.”

  “Oh, please,” Lilac snorted, her lips curving. “You’re the poster child for gonorrhea, for crying out loud. You’re the name on the bathroom stalls that all of the men warn each other about.”

  Cordelia’s expression darkened. “And you’re the one they say reminds them of a toilet seat when they whisper about things to watch out for.”

  Ah, well, I’d really stepped in it this time. I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d stepped in, but it was obvious that Cordelia and Lilac had a past that would make most warring dictators blush. “Maybe I should head out,” I suggested.

  “You’re staying,” Lilac snapped, gripping the menu so hard her knuckles turned white. “Cordelia is just trying to upset you. Don’t let her.”

  “I don’t even know her,” Cordelia corrected. “Why would I want to upset her?”

  “Because you’re evil.”

  “Says the woman who slept with the entire rowing team in one weekend.”

  Lilac’s eyebrows flew up her forehead. “The rowing team consisted of one person at the time. Ben Gordon.”

  “Did you sleep with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you slept with the entire rowing team.” Cordelia was haughty as she crossed her arms over her chest. I couldn’t help disliking her. I didn’t know Lilac all that well – and there were times she irritated me to no end – but I found her to be friendly and funny most of the time. There was an edge to the way Cordelia approached Lilac that annoyed me.

  “Am I missing something?” I asked, uncomfortably shifting on my seat. “Maybe I should go and let you guys … do whatever it is you’re about to do.”

  Cordelia and Lilac stared each other down for a long moment, something unsaid passing between them. Finally Cordelia dragged her eyes from Lilac’s face and forced what could pass for a smile.

  “Don’t be silly,” Cordelia clucked, her eyes flashing. “This is simply how Lilac and I get along. It’s not personal. It’s … quirky.”

  That was so not the word I would use. “Well … okay.”

  “It’s fine,” Lilac said, catching my gaze and grinning. This time the light behind her eyes was real. “Don’t worry about it. This really is the way we get along.”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t killed each other.”

  “We are, too,” Cordelia agreed. “Are you guys here for lunch or gossip today?”

  “Both,” Lilac answered, catching me off guard with her fortitude. “We’re here because Sarah Santiago is supposed to be working the lunch shift. We want to talk to her.”

  Cordelia’s expression was hard to read, and when she glanced toward the guests at other tables before nudging me over with her hip and forcing me to slide in, I thought things might get ugly. Instead, she merely seemed intrigued as she sat on the booth bench and locked gazes with Lilac. “Does this have something to do with Mark?”

  “No, we came all the way down here for our health,” Lilac said dryly. “This place really is a health hazard, by the way. When was the last time you cleaned this dump?”

  “Last night. I used your toothbrush.”

  “Ha, ha.” Lilac rolled her eyes. “Your wit astounds me.”

  “And your dippy nature astounds me.”

  “You both astound me,” I interrupted, my temper getting the better of me. “This isn’t the Old West. There’s no reason to threaten each other to a duel at high noon. We’re simply here to get some information.”

  Cordelia’s expression was thoughtful as she turned her full attention to me. “I guess that means the rumors are true, huh?”

  My mouth went dry. “What rumors?”

  “They’re true,” Lilac confirmed. “Mark broke into the lighthouse and attacked Hadley with an ax. She protected herself and he ended up dead.”

  My mouth dropped open and dumbfounded mortification washed over me. “Lilac,” I hissed. “Are you supposed to be telling people about that?”

  Cordelia patted my shoulder as she leaned back in the booth seat. It wasn’t a soothing gesture as much as a “there, there, you’re giving me a headache so you need to shut your mouth” gesture. “It’s fine. Everyone already knows.”

  “Define everyone,” I prodded.

  “Everyone,” Lilac and Cordelia said in unison.

  Lilac must have read the look on my face, because she took pity and squeezed out a smile. “Don’t worry about it. No one blames you.”

  “What about Sarah?” I challenged.

  “She may blame you,” Cordelia conceded. “But she’s the only one. She never saw her brother for what he really was. She couldn’t. It’s not personal.”

  That didn’t make me feel better. “What did you see when you looked at her brother?”

  “A man who had already lost the battle but didn’t realize it,” Cordelia replied. “You have to understand that Mark wasn’t always a loser. When we were in school, he was a few years ahead of us and he was easy on the eyes and fun to be around.”

  “She’s right,” Lilac said. “She’s wrong about most things, mind you, but not this.”

  “Stuff it,” Cordelia growled.

  “Both of you stuff it,” I ordered. I couldn’t tolerate another argument. I was finally getting a picture of Mark Santiago, and it wasn’t a pretty one. “When did Mark change?”

  “That’s a good question.” Lilac rubbed the back of her neck as she tilted her head to the side. “He was the big man on campus when we were in high school, but within a few years of graduation he was kind of a nobody.”

  “I’m guessing you guys had a different high school experience than I did,” I mused.

  “I think high school is the
same everywhere,” Cordelia corrected. “Mark was a big athletic star, so he was extremely popular and girls threw themselves at him.”

  Something occurred to me. “What kind of star?” I looked through the tiki window opening to the rolling water off the beach. “You guys went to high school on an island. I’m guessing there weren’t bus rides to neighboring schools for football and basketball games.”

  “No, we didn’t have that,” Cordelia agreed. “I guess high school wasn’t exactly the same for us. I get what you were saying earlier.”

  “We had sporting events,” Lilac explained. “They were simply solo efforts. We had beach volleyball teams, for example, but everyone competed from the same school. We just broke into groups of twos. I was the island champion with my partner senior year.”

  Cordelia made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. “Because you cheated and purposely spiked the ball in my face so I wouldn’t be able to compete during the playoffs.”

  “That was an accident.” Lilac looked anything but innocent as she grinned at me. “I didn’t do that on purpose.”

  “Oh, whatever.” Cordelia rolled her eyes. “Everyone knows you did it on purpose.”

  “I think you’re the only one who thinks it, because you’re crazy,” Lilac corrected.

  I held up my hands to stop the sniping. “So Mark was popular in high school because he played beach volleyball. That’s what you’re saying, right?”

  Lilac and Cordelia shook their heads in unison.

  “Mark was popular because he was great at sailing, kayaking and paddle boarding,” Cordelia corrected. “We have different sports here, which you probably don’t get, but he was a big deal in high school.”

  “He was a couple years ahead of us, which Cordelia already mentioned, but there weren’t a lot of choices in our age group,” Lilac explained. “Everyone had a crush on him.”

  “Including us,” Cordelia interjected. “He was cute and hot, and everyone liked him.”

  I was lost again. “So what happened?”

  “Life happened,” Cordelia replied. “The things you find cool in high school aren’t necessarily the things you respect as an adult. Do you think exactly like you did in high school?”

  “No. I’ve gotten over letting random dudes feel me up under the bleachers,” I muttered.

  “Oh, that never goes out of style.” Lilac winked as I rolled my eyes. “Mark didn’t realize that his high school popularity wouldn’t carry over forever. He thought he’d continue to be a hero to the female masses despite the fact that he refused to hold down a job and often slept on the beach because his mother kicked him out of the house for refusing to work.”

  Things clicked into place. “He developed the drinking problem because he finally realized that he was never going to regain the popularity he lost, didn’t he?”

  Cordelia nodded. “He kept thinking that things would go back to the way they were, but he didn’t want to hold a job and he had a terrible drinking problem.”

  “I thought drinking was a way of life on an island.”

  “It is, but there are degrees of drinking,” Lilac explained. “What we did at your house was social drinking. Sure, you got completely drunk and slept with the island heartthrob, but that’s still normal behavior.”

  My cheeks burned as I lowered my gaze and stared at my glass of water.

  “Mark couldn’t quite come to grips with his drinking. Instead of controlling it, the addiction began to control him,” Lilac said. “It was sad, and people tried to intervene and help – people like Wesley, Booker and even Galen – but Mark was beyond help.”

  “It was really sad, but it became something we simply accepted,” Cordelia said. “Instead of walking to work in the morning and being sad because I saw Mark passed out on the beach I found I was relieved at a certain point because that meant he wasn’t dead.”

  “It may sound callous, but that’s how we all started thinking at some point,” Lilac said. “It wasn’t a question of if the drinking would claim him. It was a question of when.”

  That was unbelievably sad. “So you’re basically saying that he would pick up odd jobs for anyone because he was a slave to the bottle.”

  “Pretty much.” Cordelia agreed. “He couldn’t break free of the cycle, so eventually the cycle broke him. We tried to get him in rehab. Heck, we tried to come up with a schedule where he would always have a sober buddy for accountability purposes, but he fought every effort.”

  “Finally we gave up,” Lilac added. “It’s not nice to say or admit, but we couldn’t help. And beating ourselves up over something we couldn’t handle was eating away at us.”

  “We let Mark coast … and then sink,” Cordelia said. “It’s on all of us.”

  “It’s not on any of you,” I corrected, shaking my head. “He made his own decisions. You couldn’t force him to choose a life he didn’t want to live. It’s not fair to blame yourselves.”

  “He’s still dead,” Cordelia pointed out.

  “You didn’t cause his death.”

  “I want you to repeat that to yourself,” Lilac ordered, drawing my attention to her. “Do you think you can do that?”

  The question caught me off guard. “What do you mean?”

  “Sarah is walking in the door right now, and you tend to have a martyr complex when it comes to Mark’s death,” Lilac replied. “Galen was right about you being a big baby. Hopefully your little tryst last night will have loosened you up a bit.”

  Cordelia narrowed her eyes, an odd expression passing over her face. She opened her mouth to say something, but she didn’t get a chance because Sarah spotted our trio in the corner the moment she walked through the door … and her face twisted into something ugly and grotesque when she recognized me.

  “And here we go,” Lilac muttered under her breath as Sarah stormed in our direction.

  Here we go indeed.

  21

  Twenty-One

  Sarah Santiago was all fire and fury as she stalked toward me. Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides, and when she arrived at our table I was understandably thankful that Cordelia sat between us. I didn’t want to use Cordelia as a human shield, mind you, but I wasn’t above doing it if necessary. Cordelia was her boss, so I was hopeful that Sarah wouldn’t physically attack her.

  “What is she doing here?” Sarah hissed, her eyes lighting with malice.

  “Calm down,” Cordelia ordered, glancing around the bar before focusing her full attention on Sarah. “There’s no reason to get all worked up.”

  “No reason to get all worked up?” Sarah was practically apoplectic. “You have got to be kidding. She murdered my brother!”

  In my head I knew it was an emotional argument from a grieving sister, but the blow struck hard all the same. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize to her,” Lilac ordered, shaking her head. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Didn’t do anything wrong?” Sarah shrieked. “She killed Mark. He’s dead because of her!”

  “After your brother broke into her bedroom with an ax,” Lilac shot back. “What was she supposed to do? Do you think she should’ve laid there and let him kill her?”

  Sarah had the grace to look abashed, but only marginally. “I don’t believe that story,” she sniffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “I think something else happened.”

  “Like what?” Cordelia challenged. “She’s only been on the island for a few days. Apparently she worked fast in those few days – and might have used her magic for more than self-defense – but what motive would she have to kill your brother?”

  What was that supposed to mean? How did I work fast?

  “What motive would Mark have to go after her?” Sarah challenged.

  “Money,” Lilac answered without hesitation. “You know as well as anyone that he would do just about anything for money.”

  “He didn’t need money,” Sarah protested. “He was working for Wesley Durham.”
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  “No, he wasn’t.” Lilac shook her head. “We went out there yesterday. Wesley fired him two months ago.”

  Sarah’s eyes widened. “But … Mark said he was working out there.”

  “Mark said a lot of things,” Cordelia argued. “Very little of which was true. I’m not saying everything Hadley here says is true – and a lot of it is outright nonsense – but she had absolutely no motive to kill your brother. What could she possibly gain from it?”

  I was starting to think that Cordelia wasn’t happy with my presence in her bar. I wasn’t exactly sure when her mood shifted, but it was obvious she and I weren’t going to suddenly become best friends.

  “Maybe she wanted to steal from him,” Sarah suggested.

  “Steal what?” Lilac’s eyebrows flew up her forehead. “Mark didn’t have any money. He broke into her house. He had an ax!”

  “But he had no reason to go after her,” Sarah protested.

  “Someone clearly paid him to do it,” Cordelia supplied. “Do you know who he had been in contact with before his death?”

  “Just Wesley.”

  My stomach twisted at what she was insinuating. “Why would Wesley want to go after me?”

  “Maybe to get the lighthouse,” Sarah suggested, rubbing her hands together as she warmed to the topic. “He lived there with May a long time ago, when they were married. Everyone says she’s the one who wanted the divorce. Maybe he found out that she was going to leave the lighthouse to Hadley and he freaked.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” I shook my head. “He didn’t seem all that interested in the lighthouse when we visited.”

  “Plus, that theory doesn’t free your brother from the specter of any wrongdoing,” Cordelia pointed out. “That only makes him look guiltier. It would mean Wesley lied about Mark working for him and that he paid Mark to attack his own granddaughter.

  “Now, he might’ve realized his granddaughter was a total slut and wanted to make sure she didn’t do any further damage to the family name, but that doesn’t mean Mark wasn’t involved,” she continued. “No matter how you look at it, Mark was in the wrong in this situation.”