by Cindy Stark
He caught up with her as she stepped from the pavement onto the sidewalk. His fingers gripped her elbow, but she refused to be dissuaded. She jerked her head toward Arthur’s room.
“We’ll get caught,” he whispered.
She grinned. “They aren’t the only ones who can come to a motel for a lover’s tryst.”
Apparently, that convinced him because he released her arm.
Together, they slowly approached the room. Hazel crept past the window and casually glanced inside. The curtains were drawn, but a half-inch crack left her a tiny view. She crouched down and peered inside.
Oh, boy.
She gave Peter a wide-eyed look and motioned for him to join her.
Inside, the two lovers were locked in an intimate embrace. The black negligee or any other clothing for that matter were nowhere to be seen.
Peter gripped her arm and pulled her away from the window and back toward the truck.
Indignation rose sharp inside her. “Can you believe that? They disgust me.”
Peter tipped his head in agreement. “Still doesn’t make them murderers.”
“You’re kidding. It’s obvious they’ve been in collusion.”
He drew his fingers down her cheek and tipped her chin upward. “Honestly, I believe you’re right, but we have to do this the right way.”
“So, you’re just going to let them go?”
“No.” He smiled. “I’m going to call for backup before I approach.”
The scorching flames of anger inside her died to a smolder. “Oh.”
She waited while he called in to the station and requested a unit to respond to the Double Pines Motel.
Then he slid his gun from the glove box, tucked it into his waistband and turned to her. “I’m going to knock on the door. I wish you’d wait here.”
She stared at him and remained mute.
“But you won’t.”
She shook her head.
“Dang it, woman. You’ll be the death of me.”
She certainly hoped that wasn’t true.
“Fine. Just stay far out of the way, and if anything goes down, you seek cover. Do you understand?”
She smiled and nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Together, they approached the motel room once again. Peter directed Hazel to stand to the side where she wouldn’t immediately be seen.
Peter pounded sharply on the door. “Police. Open up.”
She met his gaze and held it while they waited.
A few moments later, he pounded and repeated his message.
The sound of the lock clicking surprised Hazel, and she flattened herself against the side of the building.
The door opened, allowing light from the room to shine on the sidewalk. Peter pulled his wallet from his back pocket and flashed his badge. “Stonebridge Police.”
“Is there something I can help you with, Chief?”
“We’ve been looking for you, Arthur. I’d like you to come to the station with me for questioning regarding the death of your wife, Fiona Wainswright.”
“You took my statement that night.”
Peter cleared his throat. “More evidence has come to light that suggests you might have something to do with what happened. I’d like you to accompany me.”
Crazy vibes poured from the man, and Hazel wished she could tell Peter to be careful. On the surface, Arthur sounded reasonable, but his emotions were anything but stable.
“Now?”
“Right now.”
“Let me just…”
Arthur shoved Peter, and he stumbled backward. He rushed past Hazel in a blur of skin and red boxer shorts.
Peter recovered within seconds and sprinted after him.
Hazel’s mouth dropped open as they disappeared into the darkened trees. She couldn’t very well go after them, but that’s exactly what she yearned to do.
Shuffling noises from inside the room drew her attention, and she turned back. Sondra stepped out and then jumped in surprise when she saw Hazel.
They stared at each other for a long moment. Hazel sensed her urge to bolt, which spurted adrenaline through her own veins.
Sondra turned from her and ran in the opposite direction, but Hazel wasn’t far behind. Hazel couldn’t say she thought through the outcomes, but she wasn’t going to let her get away.
Luckily, Sondra’s heels slowed her down, and Hazel was able to kick a foot out and cause her to trip. Sondra went down, face first onto the hard pavement.
The sound of air whooshing from her lungs echoed in the quiet night.
Hazel wasn’t sure what to do, so she did the only thing that came to mind.
She sat on her.
Sondra thrashed, but Hazel wasn’t about to let her prize get away.
“It’s too late, Sondra,” Hazel said between deep breaths. “We know what you did.”
Sondra growled. “We didn’t do anything. It was all Arthur.”
“You can’t blame everything on him. You were in this together.”
It was a total bluff, but Sondra didn’t know that. “We have proof.”
She squirmed and kicked her feet, trying to make contact with Hazel’s back. “You have no proof.”
“Your prints were on the shoes,” she lied.
“They couldn’t be. I wore gloves.”
The second Sondra’s admission left her tongue, she grew very still. Hazel wasn’t sure if Sondra hoped she hadn’t heard her, or what, but the cat was out of the bag.
“You’re going down, Sondra,” she said quietly.
Sondra’s body shook, and Hazel realized she was weeping. “It was Arthur’s idea. He said no one would figure it out. He said Fiona was the one who’d bewitched him, and that’s why he’d slept with her.”
“So, he really did cheat on you?”
“Yes,” she cried. “She was planning our wedding and started hitting on him. When he found her naked at his house, he said he didn’t realize what she’d done to him until it was too late.”
Hazel snorted and rolled her eyes. Fiona was no witch. And Arthur was far from innocent in this matter. “I would suggest you tell the police everything you know, even if it further implicates Arthur. I can guarantee he’s not going to try to protect you.”
She cried harder. “He loves me.”
“Oh, Sondra. If he loved you, he wouldn’t have asked you to help murder a woman, no matter how awful she was.”
Sondra dissolved into tears, but Hazel didn’t relinquish her position until Peter’s backup arrived. Hazel filled in Officers Larsen and Kennington on what happened, and Larsen took off in the direction Peter and Arthur had taken.
A few moments later, Peter, Arthur and Larsen emerged from the trees with Arthur in handcuffs. Scratches covered his arms, legs and torso, but she was certain his bare feet were far worse. She wanted to tell him he deserved that for running, but she kept her thoughts to herself.
The two on-duty officers loaded the suspected criminals into their car while Peter suggested the rest of the motel’s occupants return to their rooms. “Show’s over.”
He took Hazel’s hand and headed toward his truck.
“Everything okay?” she asked. “I was worried about you.”
“All good. I just couldn’t get him to cooperate even holding a gun on him. Every time I’d tell him to get up and walk, he’d run again.”
“No wonder he was covered in scratches.”
Peter opened the passenger door of his truck for her, and she noticed several red marks on his forearms, too. “Looks like you took a bit of a beating.”
He snorted. “It’s nothing.”
She gave him a teasing smile. “I have some salve that will work wonders on those scratches.”
“Another perk for having you as a girlfriend. I say let’s go.”
She glanced toward the police unit as it left the parking lot. “What about them? Don’t you have to go to the station? While I was sitting on Sondra, she more or less confessed to murder.”
He sent her a look of amused disbelief. “You sat on her?”
She shrugged. “You won’t let me have a pair of handcuffs, so how else was I going to keep her there?”
He put the truck into gear and began to drive. “I don’t know, Miss Hardy. I guess I should say good work.”
“Thank you, Chief Parrish. Lucky for you, I have a small jar of salve in my purse, so you won’t have to wait until we get to my house.”
He took her hand and squeezed it. “Lucky, indeed.”
Twenty-One
By the time they’d finished with everything at the station, it was nearly two in the morning, and Hazel was exhausted. She’d nearly fallen asleep on the drive from the police station to her house. Peter walked her to the door looking as tired as she felt.
“Do you want to come in for a minute?”
He gave a soft snort. “If I come in, I’ll end up sleeping here.”
She shrugged. “I don’t mind.”
He tipped her chin up and kissed her lightly on the lips. “Okay, but just for a few minutes.”
She knew it was selfish to ask that of him, but she wasn’t ready to let him go. They’d had a great time together up until the point of the arrest, and she needed a little more of that before they called it a night.
Inside, she kicked off her shoes and curled up next to Peter on the couch. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and held her close.
“I had a lot of fun tonight,” she said in a soft voice.
His chuckle resonated deep inside her. “Leave it to you to have fun on a stakeout.”
She nudged him. “Admit it. You liked it, too.”
“Only because you were there.”
She smiled. “Yeah, being with you was a big part of it for me. Though you did look pretty hot chasing a mostly-naked man into the trees.”
He gave a snort of laughter. “Please don’t phrase it like that in front of anyone else. It sounds disturbing.”
She loved teasing him. “Fine, but you did look good all fierce and duty-bound.”
He squeezed. “I bet you looked fierce sitting on top of Sondra. I’m mad I missed that.”
“Oh, yeah. I was large and in charge.”
“And you made her cry.”
She shifted her gaze over her shoulder to look at him. “I didn’t make her cry. Her choices and blindly following Arthur made her cry. Besides, her fire was back by the time she reached the station.”
“She was belligerent, that one.”
“No doubt. I’m glad Gwen or Carol didn’t end up taking the fall.”
He trailed his fingers up her arm, leaving shivers in their wake. “We always have to hope justice prevails. But some people get away with stuff their whole lives, and no one ever finds out.”
Like Sarah with her witchcraft and love spells?
She tugged a strand of hair across her lips, mulling over what to do with her newfound information. When she reached the end, she grabbed the strand and repeated the action.
“What are you thinking,” he asked quietly.
She gave a soft laugh. “What makes you think I’m thinking anything?”
He caught the strand of hair and wound it around his finger. “Because you always do that when you’re thinking hard.”
She nodded slowly. “I suppose so.”
“So…are you going to tell me?”
She hated feeling torn between being honest and possibly hurting him. Strike that. She was sure her information would hurt.
“I don’t know what to say.”
He shifted until he faced her. “You sound like you have something serious on your mind.”
She lost herself in his gaze, wishing she could find the answers there. “If you knew something important about someone, but also knew that information might bring pain to that person, would you say something?”
He stared at her for a long, hard moment. “Is that someone me?”
She bit her bottom lip and slowly nodded.
“Does this information have to do with Sarah?”
His question was a punch to her gut. She wanted so much to lie, to make up some random thing that wouldn’t hurt him.
She took his hand and squeezed it tight. “Never mind. It’s in the past and doesn’t matter anymore. I might be wrong anyway.”
“You can’t close an opened can of worms, Hazel.”
His phrase struck her as funny, and she wished she could laugh this all away. Unfortunately, she couldn’t.
She sat for a long moment, frozen by her choice to bring it up.
“Tell me, Hazel. Regardless of the outcome, I deserve to know.”
She gave a slow nod. “I guess you do.”
With her stomach in knots, she retrieved Clarabelle’s book and claimed her spot on the couch next to him. She opened to the page with the small notation.
She lifted her gaze and met his. “Does this look like Sarah’s writing?”
He took the book and turned it to read it better. “I’m pretty certain it is. She always did that little curly on the ends of her g’s and y’s.”
He drew a finger down the page as he scanned it. “What does this mean? What’s it for?”
She inhaled. “It’s a…”
Blessed Mother, help me do this.
“It’s a love spell.”
She swore all the oxygen rushed from the room, leaving her lightheaded.
He remained quiet for several long moments. “What are you saying? She cast a spell and made me fall in love with her?”
“I’m not sure,” she whispered.
Anger erupted from him and echoed off the walls. “If that’s true, then our whole life, our marriage was a farce. Is that what you think?”
Distress reared inside her. “I don’t know, Peter. I…I could try to remove it. If that works, then you’d know for sure. It would also remove your heartbreak…if your love wasn’t real.”
The emotion in his eyes hardened, and he clenched his jaw. “Do it.”
She swallowed and took the book from him. She’d already been studying the removal spell, wondering if it might work on the bee issue. But that seemed much larger than this.
A love spell, though potent, tied people together with thin filaments. With Sarah no longer in their sphere, breaking the spell would be much easier.
She gathered a white candle from her stash. With her stomach churning, she returned to the living room, set the candle on the coffee table, and lit it with a wooden match.
Then she turned to Peter. As she’d hoped, moisture had accumulated in the corners of his eyes. She lifted a finger. He flinched as she neared his eye.
“Hold still.”
She captured a tear on the tip of her finger and turned back to the candle.
“A spell once cast, wasn’t meant to be,” she said softly. “Return the heart to its owner. Take this token of sincerity. Erase the lies, so mote it be.”
Her hand shook as she held her finger above the flame. Heat rose and encircled her. Though she yearned to remove her finger, she had to wait until the fire had accepted her offering.
Peter slapped her hand away from the flame, and her gaze flew to his.
“You don’t need to burn yourself,” he said angrily.
She glanced at her reddened fingertip that was now dry. “It’s done.”
Peter clenched his jaw and shook his head repeatedly. He stood so abruptly that she nearly toppled sideways. “She made a damn fool out of me.”
Her heart broke wide open for him. “I’m sure she loved you.”
He pointed a sharp finger at her. “Don’t. Just don’t.”
She stood. “Peter…”
“No. Stay away from me. I’ve had as much witchy deception as I can handle.”
Her heart recoiled. “I haven’t lied to you.”
He snorted and strode toward the front door where he stopped and turned in her direction. “How will I ever know that? How will I ever be able to believe what I feel for you is true?”
&nb
sp; He lifted challenging brows and then opened the door. He stepped into the darkened night and closed the door without a backward glance.
All emotion left her body, and she stood there for a long moment stunned. Then enormous pain rushed in like a rogue wave crashing against the shore, and her heart poured its anguish into a sob that echoed throughout the house.
She curled on the couch and cried.
Hush.
A soft breeze caressed her, and she slowed her tears.
She lifted her gaze to the ceiling. “I’ve gone too far this time. Hurt him too much.”
Not your pain.
“No, but I’m the one who told him about it. I’m the one who ripped open old scars.”
He will survive.
But is that what she wanted for him? To survive? The man deserved all the happiness in the world, and she would never be able to give that to him.
Hush, came the word again.
She shook her head. She wouldn’t hush. Couldn’t. There would be no consoling her heart.
She needed to end this thing between them, shred the fragile tapestry they’d woven, and set the poor man free so he could find a regular woman. One who wouldn’t hurt him.
Her heart galloped in her chest, and she returned to a sitting position. She wiped a slew of tears with her finger and held it over the flame. Sobs broke some of her words as she repeated the spell she’d just used on Peter. She modified the very last line.
“Break the ties, so mote it be.”
Her heart shuddered, and her soul quaked. Intense pain ripped through her chest, and her body began to shake. She struggled to breathe.
She may have just brought about the end of her life.
But the torture continued.
“Help me,” she cried, hoping Clarabelle could hear.
Take it back.
Beads of perspiration broke out on her forehead. “What? How?”
On your knees. Beg for mercy. Take it back.
She rolled from the couch and onto her knees, gasping for air. “Please, Blessed Mother. Please. I take it back.”
Again.
She paused as an intense shudder rolled through her.
“I take it back. I didn’t mean it. Please, Blessed Mother. I love him.”
The pain in her chest eased, and she took an easier breath.