Mind Games

by Christine Amsden

  “Thank you, but I think we all know who did it.” The pastor’s gaze slid in my direction.

  The mayor shot me a look that clearly said, Let me handle this, then he turned back to Roberts. “The sheriff’s department will follow every possible lead.”

  “Oh yeah?” Roberts said. “Even if that lead takes you to one of the older and more powerful families of witches? The Scots have funded your family’s political campaign for years, haven’t they, Mr. Blair?”

  James’s face darkened. “If you have a specific reason for accusing the Scots, a clear motive, perhaps, then we’ll hear it. Otherwise, you might want to be careful who you accuse.”

  Pastor Roberts turned to face me. “You came asking questions on Monday and now she’s dead.”

  I didn’t see the connection, but knew better than to say so. I hadn’t forgotten James Blair’s earlier warning to let him handle this.

  “I understand that Ms. Scot was following a lead on another case,” James said. “I don’t see what it had to do with your wife.”

  But it did. Somehow, the look in the pastor’s eyes told me it did, or at least, that he thought so. Roberts scowled, turned away from the reception counter, and headed out the door. A silence hung in the air for a moment. Apparently, everyone had stopped what they were doing to watch the confrontation. As soon as the door closed, the station resumed its normal business.

  “See you later, David,” James said to the sheriff.

  “Later,” Sheriff Adams replied.

  I stepped between James and the door, daring a whispered question, “Was he telling the truth?”

  James, whose gift was to detect lies, glanced around quickly before answering. “I have no idea.”

  I covered my momentary shock with a cough. “Um, I’d like to know that trick.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. I don’t know if he’s telling the truth because he’s lost sight of what truth is. He’s too utterly convinced of his own twisted reality.” With that, James pushed his way out the door.

  I stared after him for a minute before shaking it off and heading for the sheriff’s office. To my surprise, he shook his head firmly before I even reached the threshold. “You’re not on this case.”

  “But I was there.”

  “So was Wesley,” Sheriff Adams said. “And he doesn’t have the same kind of history with this church that you do. In fact, when I talked to Pastor Roberts, he seemed quite enthusiastic about having Wesley on the case. Something about the newest young man to join the flock.” He rubbed his eyes warily with his fingers. “You sure do a number on your partners, don’t you?”

  The unfairness of the accusation made me clench my teeth, but I kept my voice steady as I made my reply. “Wait, so Wesley’s on the case but I’m not? What am I supposed to do?”

  “I need you to track down a new lead on the McClellan case.”

  “A new lead? When did that happen?” My anger ebbed, fractionally, but only because of that nagging sense I had that the two cases were connected.

  “Late last night a couple of hikers found McClellan’s Buick upside down in a ditch. No one can figure out how it got there.”

  “All right. Who’s out there now?”

  “Only Jim, and he’s been out there most of the night so I told him he could go home as soon as you relieve him. Unfortunately, thanks to these crazies, I need everyone I’ve got here.”

  I nodded my understanding. Eagle Rock, the seat of Barry county, didn’t maintain a tiny police department, but neither did it possess the resources of a major metropolitan force. Ten deputies usually took the day shift, all of us rotating through patrols unless we needed to handle an active investigation. A couple others ran the jail, working in two man shifts around the clock. At night, one deputy usually worked the desk while two to four others rotated out on patrol, although anyone could be called in for an emergency.

  “When I’m done, should I have the car towed to the impound?” I asked.

  “Yes, and I’ve called in a forensics team to look it over, but they won’t be here until this afternoon.”

  * * *

  It took me half an hour to drive to the remote place in the woods where the hikers had discovered McClellan’s brick red Buick. This area of woods was a pretty good haul from town, and close to a few of the magical families, though I didn’t know which ones. The road itself and the area immediately around it was a public easement. Henry Wolf’s properly line ended a good five miles away, but the Eagles, the Lees, the Mallorens, and the Reynolds all had land somewhere out this direction. Hopefully, the area wasn’t close to the Mallorens. They had a seventeen-year-old who liked to cut school and get himself into all kinds of trouble, including grand theft auto – not that I could prove it. It occurred to me that he might have stolen the car. Although if he had, why would he have tried to bury it in the woods?

  “Where’s the car?” I asked when I pulled up alongside Jim.

  He gestured into the woods and I saw it then, a flash of metal behind a thick row of trees. There wasn’t a gap large enough for a car to pass, and as I looked both left and right, I couldn’t see how it had gotten behind those trees.

  I stepped out of my car and examined the scene, looking down the road first one way and then the other. I found no tread marks, nothing to indicate that a car had lost control and gone off the road here. Not that the lack of tread marks was the strangest thing about the scene. With the trees so thick, the only way the car could have gotten into that ditch in the first place would have been to veer off the road a quarter of a mile away, skirt the trees on the other side, and then drive into the ditch. That still didn’t explain how it had landed upside down. The ditch wasn’t all that deep or steep. It might hide the car from a casual observer driving along the road, but not from a couple of hikers winding their way through the forest.

  Jim led me through the trees on foot to show me the car. It wasn’t a large ditch at all; not much bigger than the car it held. It had the appearance of a recently dug car-sized grave that had never been filled in.

  “The only thing I can figure is that the car went off the road back there,” Jim said, “then drove along this way, off road, until it found this hole.”

  Though his theory had merit, I dismissed it immediately. Beyond the car-sized open grave, the trees once again grew so thick that no car could have passed through. No one who knew these woods, and that included anyone from Eagle Rock, would have tried driving a Buick through these trees. Not even if someone had been on their tail.

  I walked the path that the car might have taken, noting dry, cracked earth that showed no sign of a car having passed this way. August had been a dry month, allowing a large vehicle to pass with little evidence, but July hadn’t been. If McClellan’s car had passed this way, it should have left some kind of mark.

  Unless it had flown along the path.

  Turning back to the ditch, I made a careful study of the earth around the overturned car. Here, leaves and debris littered the ground along with the first signs of fresh growth. It didn’t take a skilled tracker to see that the forest had only just reclaimed this patch of land. The pattern of new growth told me that someone had dug a grave for this car and then, without disturbing the surrounding forest, flown it in.

  I had a sudden flash of Evan turning a large oak tree into toothpicks, but I tried not to jump to conclusions. Yes, Evan could have done this, but so could many other practitioners in town. He could do it with less effort than any of them, but with the right spells and the right focus, about a quarter of the magical population of Eagle Rock could have flown a car into a ditch. In covens, many of the rest could have managed it as well.

  Then again, Evan held little love for David McClellan. Back in July, he had told me his suspicions about David stealing souls to trap inside his dark artifacts. I had little doubt that Evan would be capable of murder under the right circumstances. Still, supposition was not the same as evidence, and as much as I resented Evan, I had no intention of throwing
suspicion his way. It wasn’t for lack of evidence either. If I went down that road, I might find evidence, but I wouldn’t use it.

  For now what interested me most was any possible connection between McClellan and Sarah Roberts, other than that pamphlet.

  “I’m going to take a walk in the woods,” I said to Jim. “You can go on home.”

  Jim snatched off his hat and rubbed his forehead. “You sure you don’t want help?”

  “I’ll be okay, thanks.”

  “You’re thinking it’s something weird, aren’t you?”

  “Hey, it’s me.” I gave him my best coy smile. Jim was a good guy, and he liked me, but like many of the others he was afraid of me. He’d been my longest-lived partner, sticking with me for two months late in the previous year. In the end, I’d been the one to leave him, along with the rest of the force.

  “Just be careful out here. Check in every thirty minutes or the old man will get jumpy and send someone after you.”

  “No problem.”

  Jim walked back to his car. A minute later, the engine roared to life and he headed back into town.

  I had no idea what to look for, but I figured I would know it when I saw it. I began searching the area, expanding out from the site of the wrecked car in ever-widening circles.

  It was a hot day, with temperatures climbing near one hundred degrees, and my tan deputy’s uniform didn’t do a great job of keeping me cool. I removed the hat and used it to fan my face, but the still, stale air pressed in on me until I realized that this search was getting me nowhere. Not only did I not know what to look for, but I didn’t even have the right equipment – like a canteen of water.

  Sweat beaded on my forehead by the time I returned to my squad car. I was so eager to get into the air conditioning that I missed the shadowy presence leaning up against a nearby tree until he spoke.

  “Hi, Cassie.” It was Cormack McClellan.

  “Cormack.” I did my best to keep my heart still, unwilling to show fear.

  “This is near Malloren land.” Cormack pushed himself away from the tree and took a few steps closer. “Their oldest boy is a car thief.”

  “I see. So you think he stole your brother’s car?”

  “I don’t know.” Cormack continued to move closer, until he stood mere feet away. “I know the car is lying here in a ditch near the Malloren’s land.”

  “It seems strange to steal a car then run it into a ditch with all its expensive stereo equipment intact.”

  Cormack smiled. On him, it looked a little frightening. “Good point, but the car was warded at the time. They’ve probably faded by now, but…”

  “But not being able to get into the car, he rolled it into a ditch alongside his own property and left it there, even after the wards faded away?”

  Cormack shrugged, a little sheepishly. “All right, then who do you think did it?”

  “Who were his enemies? Who had he ticked off lately? What kind of black magic was he into?” I shot the questions back rapid fire, not giving him a chance to answer because I knew he wouldn’t. I’d asked them all before. Then I asked one I hadn’t asked before. “Why do you care so much anyway? I don’t get the impression that you two were close.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t stand him. Plus, now I own his shop, but that’s just the problem. If he was killed because of something related to the shop, I could be in danger too.”

  “Well, I’m doing my best, but it’s not easy when I have so little to go on.”

  “And when you hated the victim?” Cormack asked. “I heard that he tried to put some pressure on you just before he died.”

  I shuddered, remembering the incident. “Your brother was a creep, but he underestimated me.”

  Cormack arched an eyebrow and took another step forward. “Oh yeah? He claims you were warded, probably by Evan. Is that still true?”

  I held my ground. “I got free of Evan in the end, didn’t I?”

  He paused, clearly nonplussed. “I thought he dumped you.”

  “Why would he have done that?” Why indeed?

  Cormack’s forehead wrinkled in concentration, but he didn’t have any better luck coming up with an explanation than I had. “I think you’re all talk,” he said.

  “Good-bye, Cormack.” I opened the car door and stepped inside, but not before I felt the tiniest trickle of awareness on my skin. He had tried something, I had no idea what, but whatever it was, one of the many protections I normally carried on me seemed to have stopped it. “You’re going to have to do much better than that.”

  Cormack rummaged in his pocket, drew out a ring, and placed it on his third finger. “Come here.” Only, it didn’t sound like his voice any longer. It seemed to reverberate through the forest, echoing off the trees and clouds. Before I was even aware of it, I had stepped away from the car.

  “That’s better,” Cormack said, his voice still echoing. He held out his hand. “Take my hand.” I reached out to take it and he drew me close. “Kiss me.”

  As my head leaned back, a small voice in the back of my mind recognized the danger and shouted at the rest of me to stop. “No!”

  Shaking myself, I drew back, afraid for a minute that he would keep me pinned. But he let go. “What the hell was that?” I asked.

  He frowned at the ring. “That was not as effective as I’d hoped.”

  “You stay the hell away from me.”

  Cormack gave me a boyish grin. “Oh, I wouldn’t have done anything. I was just curious how good this thing was. Got it cheap from one of the men coming in with Alexander DuPris’s crew. Guess I know why.”

  I didn’t buy his act for a second. “If you want to help your brother, come up with a list of enemies and stay the hell away from me. Don’t mistake me for easy prey again.”

  9

  THE CROWD AROUND THE SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT hadn’t moved an inch since I left, although three figures sitting in the park across the street gave me hope that they might do so soon. Matthew, James, and Robert Blair looked, to the casual observer, as though they were eating lunch in the shade of an elm tree. But they certainly weren’t engaged in casual conversation. Chanting, more like it. And I bet that their picnic basket didn’t contain sandwiches.

  I thought someone in the witchcraft-crazed mob would look their way and throw out an accusation, but none of them seemed as energetic as they had earlier in the day. The signs hung limply rather than being thrust up high, and a few people had odd, dazed expressions on their faces. If any of them spotted me, they didn’t make a sound of protest.

  Back in the park, beads of sweat trickled down the faces of the three men who tried to keep the crowd under control. Suddenly, Robert shot to his feet, wiping the sweat from his face with one hand even as he exclaimed, “I can’t do it!”

  The abrupt end to the spell casting had a dramatic and instantaneous effect on the mob. It was a little like watching a tug of war competition when one side suddenly lets go of the rope. The once limp signs were thrust back into the air amidst cries of anger that reached a fierce, feverish level. With no outlet for their rage, they looked ready to turn on one another.

  Except that I stood there, on the fringes of the crowd, between them and the park. I hadn’t pushed my way through to the station yet and I suddenly didn’t think that would be a good idea. Before I had a chance to scurry the other way, someone grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked – hard.

  I cried out in alarm, but only for an instant. Training took over and I stomped down, hard, on my attacker’s foot. This didn’t do much except cause him to loosen his hold on my hair, but that allowed me to slip away and reach for my gun.

  I never made it to the gun. Someone pushed me, then someone else knocked my hand away from the weapon. At least four large men took notice of me, their hair ranging from brown to gray, their expressions somewhere between anger and disgust.

  One of them grabbed me from behind, holding both of my arms in his. I turned my palms down and twisted away, simultaneously throwi
ng my hips backward, but before I could escape, another man flipped open a pocket knife and held it under my chin. For the space of several heartbeats, I knew he would use it. I could see murder in his eyes, which may have been brown, though in my dreams I see them as red.

  Then a familiar voice said, “You don’t really want to do that.” Matthew. There was an odd, strained note to his voice that wasn’t usually present, but he exuded confidence nonetheless.

  The arm holding the knife faltered, dropping the weapon. The man who had an iron grip on my arms released them, while the other two men backed off ever so slightly.

  “Run,” Matthew said.

  He didn’t have to tell me twice. Spinning on my heels, I dashed into the park, Matthew only a pace behind me, until we reached the shade of the elm tree and the relative safety of his family.

  “Is she all right?” Robert asked, talking to his brother as if I weren’t there. I might have gotten angry with him for that, but Matthew beat me to it.

  “Never drop a spell like that,” Matthew hissed. “Someone could have been killed – might still get killed. Haven’t you ever heard of recoil?”

  Robert stood his ground, balling his hands into fists. “I told you ten minutes ago it wasn’t working, and again five minutes ago. You weren’t listening. I couldn’t hold it anymore.”

  “Boys,” James said, looking between them and then flicking his gaze over to me. “Not now. Too public.”

  They glared at one another, but I found myself wishing they would continue arguing. I’d always thought of the Blairs as amazingly powerful – the way they’d made most of the town forget that I’d been wanted for murder back in June and the way… the way… I frowned. There was something else they’d done recently, but it eluded me.

  Oh well, it probably wasn’t important anyway. The point was, they couldn’t handle this mob. Why not?

  Matthew placed an arm around me, protectively. “I’ll explain later,” he promised. “Right now, do you think you can make yourself scarce for an hour or two while we calm them down?”