Black Candle

by H. P. Bayne

  Taking a quick, deep breath, he turned the handle, preparing himself to face whatever was waiting for him.

  15

  Eva was upset about something.

  But it wasn’t until they hit the hallway that would take them out of the ER that Dez realized it was about more than the fact his idiocy had nearly gotten him killed.

  It was the iris petals that did it, had him drawing up short and forcing Eva to a halt next to him.

  Dez pointed to the chair beneath which the purple petals rested. “Was Sully sitting there?”

  “Listen, about that—”

  “Was he sitting there?”

  “Yeah, he was. How did you know that?”

  “Shit. Where is he?”

  “Dez, we need to talk for a minute.”

  “Where’s Sully, Eva?”

  “I don’t know, okay? I’ve tried calling, but he isn’t picking up.”

  Dez let that sink in, didn’t like where it took him. “Goddammit, Sully. Hon, I need your phone.”

  Dez’s own phone had bit the biscuit in the water, giving him one more thing he needed to take care of tomorrow. But right now, he had bigger fish to fry, and he pounded Sully’s name in Eva’s contacts as he made the call. He listened to the phone ring through to voicemail before trying it again. And again. He hated texting, his large fingers useless on the keypad, but he fumbled through a quick one anyway, demanding a return message. On the fourth attempt at a phone call, his blood pressure having risen significantly with worry, he left a voicemail.

  “Sully, I’m with Eva. I need you to call me, right now. And I swear to you, man, if you’re doing anything stupid, I’m going to pound your scrawny ass.”

  Eva nodded as she took her phone back. “I’m sure that’ll do it. Who wouldn’t respond to that kind of message of love and concern?”

  “He is doing something stupid, isn’t he?”

  “I don’t know, Dez. I really don’t. Maybe he just went back to the Black Fox to make sure it hasn’t floated away.”

  Dez shook his head. “No, not with those petals sitting there.” He led Eva back into a soft room, closing the door and relaying the explanation where it wasn’t likely to be heard by anyone who would think he should be committed as a result. Eva already had part of the story, but it took a few minutes to provide the rest—by the end of which Sully still hadn’t called back.

  “Dez, sweetie, I need to tell you something.”

  Dez’s focus was on the phone, fingers picking out Sully’s number in the recent call list. “In a sec.”

  “Dez—”

  “Right away. I just need to get ahold of my dumb brother.” But the phone rang through again to voicemail. Dez tried three more times before returning the phone to his wife.

  “Why isn’t he answering?” Dez had asked the question rhetorically, and yet Eva looked like she had an answer she wasn’t excited to provide. Her face was flushed, and Dez found himself wondering whether she’d looked this way a moment ago when she’d been trying to get his attention.

  “Dez, I need to tell you something. Let’s sit down, okay?”

  “God, what?”

  He allowed her to lead him to a vinyl-covered couch and sat next to her as she bit at her lower lip and launched into what sounded to Dez like a confession. “I need to tell you something.”

  “You already said that.”

  “Just let me say it, okay? I was so scared after what happened today that I wasn’t thinking. I said some things to Sully I shouldn’t have. I blamed him, or at least the things around him, for what happened to you. And I asked him to give you space, to stay away from you, when he’s dealing with something like this.”

  “Why would you say that?” Dez didn’t snap the words. How could he when she was sitting there, struggling to meet his eye and swiping at the tears that had escaped down her cheeks? He’d known Eva since police college. They’d fallen in love there, had decided to spend the rest of their lives together at that point. Rarely during the few years they’d known each other had Dez seen Eva cry. The last thing he wanted to do was make it worse, even after what she’d just said.

  “I was so scared for you,” she said. “You don’t see what he sees. You don’t see the threat until it’s too late. And I know you, Dez. You’d do anything for the people you love, even die for them. I’ve always known I can’t lose you, that the idea of it terrifies me so much that I can’t even think about it. Today, I had no choice. I had to face one of my darkest fears. And I don’t like what I became.”

  Dez pulled her gently to him, holding her against his chest. He felt her hand press against the thrum of his heart as if to reassure herself—a move that had the heat building up behind his eyes as his own tears threatened to form and fall.

  “I know what it’s like to deal with fear, Evie. I was only eight when we lost Aiden, and that made death real to me. I’ve lived ever since with the knowledge it could happen to anyone I love at any time. And I vowed I would do everything in my power to make sure I don’t go through that again. So, yeah, I’d do anything for the people I love. But you can’t bench me because of it, okay? This is who I am. You’re not saving me if I’m still alive only because I wasn’t able to be there to help someone close to me. If someone I love died because I somehow failed them … that isn’t something I think I could live with. You need to understand something, babe. I went downhill fast after Aiden, and no one could pull me out of the pit. Not Mom and Dad, not the counsellor they took me to, not my friends. No one. It was Sully who did it. He saved me, Eva. And if I have to, I will spend the rest of my life saving him back.”

  “I’ll help you find him.”

  “I’ll be fine. Head to Mom and Dad’s and stay there with Kayleigh. I’ll—”

  Eva pushed away far enough she could meet his eye. Grief had been replaced by the determination he so much admired and loved about her. “I said I’ll help you find him. Don’t take that as an offer or a suggestion. It’s a promise. To both of you.”

  And there was no arguing with that.

  If there was ever going to be an opportunity to search the house for Sparrow, it was now.

  The power was still out, bathing the interior in darkness as Sully crept along the hallway outside the bathroom door, flashlight in hand but off for now. Somewhere to the left, he could hear the sound of porcelain against granite and a quiet humming Sully assumed was Marc’s. There was little light showing as Sully passed the spot, just a sliver emanating from beneath a closed door.

  Sully was banking on it that the basement steps could be found somewhere toward the back of the house, although it occurred to him in his search for doors that houses of this vintage sometimes had old root cellars or even bomb shelters in the backyard. If Sparrow was there, Sully would have to find another way later on.

  For now, he was here, feeling along the wall for doorknobs, finally finding one around a corner. Marc’s humming sounded louder again and Sully guessed there was a rear access to the kitchen here, given he was likely in or near a mudroom separating the kitchen from the house’s rear exterior door.

  Sully had managed to make it this far, avoiding creaky floorboards by hugging the walls. Now he had potentially squeaky hinges to contend with as he slowly turned the knob in his grip and eased the door open an inch or two. So far, so good. Now it was an inch-by-inch job until he could gain enough space to slip through.

  He’d made it to about inch three when he realized he couldn’t hear anything. Not hinges, not muffled cries for help from a missing girl.

  Not Marc’s quiet humming.

  “Looking for something?”

  Sully spun in place to see a light click on, revealing Marc standing a couple feet in front of him. Sully couldn’t make out much of Marc’s face as the light moved from Sully’s chest to the floor, leaving it unclear whether the professor was angry, suspicious or outright homicidal right now.

  Sully did what he could to erase suspicion in case Marc was edging toward the latter. �
��I got a little turned around in the dark.”

  “That’s why I gave you a flashlight.” Marc’s beam fastened onto Sully’s left hand which continued to hold the object in question.

  “It turned itself off and I couldn’t get it to come back on.”

  Marc reached down and took it from Sully. One click had a second beam partially illuminating the space. “Hmm, looks all right now.” Marc brought the beam of the smaller light up to shine into Sully’s face for a moment, causing him to squint and turn his face away—opening himself up to attack should Marc choose it.

  But no blow came. “Why don’t you come into the kitchen so you can tell me what you’re really doing here.”

  It was more an order than a request, one followed by the extension of Marc’s beam along the floor through what Sully could see was indeed a mudroom to the open door leading into the kitchen. “After you,” Marc said, and Sully did as told.

  He knew the exterior door was to his right as he passed through the mudroom, but he didn’t try to make a break for it. It would no doubt be locked, particularly given Marc’s experience with the break-in, and Sully wouldn’t have time to play with door locks before the older man was on him. He’d have to bide his time, look for an out.

  Now inside the kitchen, Marc ushered Sully toward one of several stools along an island upon which two mugs were waiting. Several candles had been lit in here, providing enough light that Marc was able to switch off the flashlights as the two of them reached the island where Sully took one of the stools.

  Marc slid a mug toward him.

  Sully stared down into the gently steaming liquid and toyed with the string from the teabag in an attempt to disguise his latest anxiety.

  “I didn’t drug your tea,” Marc said. “I don’t swing that way, and I don’t take things that don’t belong to me.”

  Sully felt the need to address what he thought could be a veiled accusation. “Neither do I.”

  Marc hoisted himself onto the stool next to Sully where he began the anticipated interrogation. “What are you doing here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  It was a lousy attempt at a lie and Sully knew immediately Marc didn’t buy it. But the professor appeared to be a patient man, willing to take a more circuitous route to the truth if need be. “If I hadn’t seen you outside, what was the plan? Were you going to try to break in?”

  “No. How did you know I was out there anyway?”

  “You’re forgetting I see auras. Yours is like the beacon of a lighthouse, Sullivan. You trying to conceal yourself from people like me is like trying to hide a mammoth behind a kitten. That’s how they find you, you know. The dead. You’re an incredibly bright light in a dark place and they’re like moths to your flame.” Marc leaned over, speaking quietly as if wanting to avoid being overheard. “Is that why you’re here? Have you seen Mariel?”

  Sully shook his head, no.

  “Gabriella then?”

  That got Marc a nod.

  “Is she okay?”

  “She’s not at peace,” Sully said. He thought through how much to tell Marc now that he’d stumbled upon a pretty good legitimate excuse for being here that didn’t involve murder and the possibility of a young woman locked in his cellar. He decided to provide a few truths, see where that took them. Marc wasn’t easily led down the primrose path, but then neither was Sully. Perhaps the only blessing to having an early childhood like his was the honed ability to read people. When the means to avoid a beating rested in your spotting and accurately assessing the meaning behind the throb of a vein, the twitch of an eye or the turn of a mouth, you learned quickly.

  And so Sully turned and fixed his eyes on Marc as he explained.

  “It isn’t just that I see the dead. I see only those who died because of something bad someone else did to them. Not just murder, I don’t think. Sometimes other stuff. I had a hit and run once, killer turned out to be this random drunk guy who didn’t want to lose his licence. But most of them are murders.”

  “So Gabriella …?”

  There was nothing Sully could make out on Marc’s face but surprise and concern, no discernible sign of knowing.

  “She didn’t jump or fall. She was forced over.”

  Sully watched the shock and distress first overtake and then gradually fade from Marc’s features, replaced by something he could only describe as resignation.

  “You didn’t just come here to tell me about this, did you.” It was a statement, not a question, but it nonetheless demanded an answer.

  “I thought you’d want to know.”

  Marc had turned from Sully at the upsetting words, but now he faced him again, searching for truths just as Sully was. “No, Sullivan. You thought I already knew. Didn’t you?”

  “No. I just—”

  “Didn’t you?” The unanticipated increase in tone and volume in the otherwise-silent house had Sully jumping in his chair.

  There was no answer he could provide save the one that could well send Sully to meet Sparrow. And there was no way Marc would believe anything else, not the way those piercing eyes were searching his now, rooting out answers that Sully had hoped to keep to himself, exposing truth within lies. Very little got past Marc Echoles and Sully feared he wouldn’t either.

  Marc’s hand had wrapped around the handle of his solid steel flashlight and Sully, brain twisting now in the grips of fear, pictured tool becoming weapon. Until he was either dead or close enough to it that Marc no longer saw him as a threat.

  “I can’t do anything about the things I see, and I don’t always understand them,” Sully said. “All I know is what’s right in front of me. Did you have anything to do with Gabriella’s death?”

  “Is that what she told you?”

  “She didn’t tell me anything. For some reason, they can’t. She just showed me.”

  “They can’t speak to you?”

  “They try sometimes. I can’t hear them.”

  For some reason, that caused a change in Marc’s countenance. “That’s interesting. Do you ever wonder why it is you can see but can’t hear?”

  “I asked you about Gabriella.”

  “No, Sullivan. I didn’t kill her. If you must know, I was falling in love with her. All right? She was the first truly good thing in my life since Mariel, and had I known the danger she was in, I would have done everything in my power to help her.”

  “She showed me a tattooed arm like yours. Identical to yours.”

  “Ah, so that’s why you’re here. Well, I hate to burst your investigative bubble, kid, but as I told you previously, everyone in that coven has that tattoo. And a lot of us put it on our forearms. A few have day jobs that absolutely preclude visible tattoos, so they were the exceptions. I promise you, I don’t have a murderous bone in my body, and Gabriella was the last person who would have changed that. Does that answer your question?”

  “Was there anyone else in the group who would have had motive to kill her? Anyone else who was in love with her?”

  “As I said earlier, I’m not at liberty to reveal the names of coven members. But I will give it some thought. I’m not restricted, in my view, from naming a killer. The gentleman you named when you came to see me with your brother. Did you check into him?”

  “Kenton Barwell? The tattoo is different, on the wrong arm.”

  “Just like Ken, always had to be contrary.”

  “So most others went for the right arm?”

  “That’s right. I’ll tell you what. You keep digging, and so will I. If either of us comes across a coven member with a motive or opportunity concerning Gabriella, we’ll let each other know, all right?”

  Sully nodded. He wasn’t completely sold on Marc not being the killer, but he was starting to move in that direction.

  He hadn’t checked his phone in a while and felt safe to turn his attention away from Marc long enough to check the screen. One text and eight missed calls from Eva’s phone and one call from a number he didn’t immediately recog
nize.

  “Mind if I make a call?” he asked. “My brother’s in the ER and I’ve missed a bunch of calls from his wife. I need to check something hasn’t happened.”

  “Of course. I hope everything’s okay.”

  “Me too.” Sully headed to the other side of the kitchen for as much privacy as the space would afford and tapped the call button beside Eva’s name in his contacts list. Meanwhile, Marc slid off his own stool, took his flashlight and left the kitchen, closing the door behind himself.

  Eva’s phone didn’t even get to the second ring before someone picked up. A flood of relief washed over Sully as he heard Dez’s voice.

  “Sully? Where are you?”

  “Are you okay, D?”

  “I’m fine. Where are you?”

  That wasn’t a question Sully was about to answer. He wasn’t sure whether Marc had anything to do with the murders or not, but the last place he wanted Dez at this point was anywhere near this. No way Sully was allowing a repeat of earlier events, particularly when Dez wasn’t at his best.

  Anyway, telling Dez he’d willingly gone to the house of a suspected killer was likely to end with a solid ass-kicking later.

  Then again, he’d never been able to lie to his brother, so he settled on a response that wasn’t likely to do much to ease Dez’s obvious worry.

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Tell me where you are, right now.”

  “No. You already almost died today because of me. It’s not happening again.”

  He didn’t wait for the response, clicking the end-call button just as Dez started up again. As expected, the screen of his muted handset showed a call coming in from Eva’s phone, but he just hit the button to ignore it and went to check on the other number that had called.

  There was a text and several voicemails, most if not all of which were from his brother. He skipped through all of Dez’s without listening, unable to deal with the mounting anxiety he could hear in his brother’s voice at the start of each consecutive message. But then he came to a voicemail left by someone else.