Her long purple dress was skirting the ground as she walked forward lazily, her eyes trained on me. The dress was made of shiny material, making her look a little bit like a wizard. Perhaps that was what she was going for. She waltzed right up to the door and peered through the window.
“Tegan,” I said, my voice sounding slightly amused at the sight of her. “I’m afraid we aren’t open today.” I was surprised that she even wanted to patronize the store. I knew Tegan well, but not as a customer. She was the kind of person who only ate fruit that had fallen off trees of its own accord. She certainly never ate baked goods. Maybe she had changed. Maybe she was less of a free spirit these days and she was eating flour and sugar like a regular human being. “Though I suppose I could duck in very quickly and see if there are still some cakes from yesterday.” It was all going to end up in the garbage anyway if it didn’t get eaten before then.
Tegan seemed disappointed that the store was closed, but she shook her head at my offer.
“I am just looking for Pippa, actually.”
“Oh.”
At one stage, the two of them had been as thick as thieves, hanging out together all the time, casting spells, doing all the hippie stuff that the two of them loved and I never quite understood. At times, I even felt like maybe Tegan was Pippa’s best friend, edging me out occasionally. Pippa would hang out with Tegan but not tell me about it. I guessed part of the reason was that I was always highly skeptical of Tegan’s so-called “powers.” She claimed to be a psychic and a clairvoyant and to be able to divine the future, and Pippa lapped all that stuff up. Totally believed in it. I never did.
But the two of them hadn’t spoken much after a mystery we’d all been involved with involving a serial killer known as The Pumpkin Killer. I had never found out quite what had happened there, but I believed that Pippa had finally gotten spooked enough to cut off contact with Tegan. And Tegan had been laying low as well.
Tegan glanced up at the sign and read it this time. “An emergency?” she said, suddenly sounding interested. She stood up a little taller. “Oh, that’s too bad. What happened?”
I didn’t intend the sigh of exasperation that escaped my throat. Now she would know that something dramatic had happened and she would only be more interested. Oh well, she was going to find out sooner or later—the entire town was. I could only go on calling it an ‘emergency’ for so long.
“One of our employees was killed last night.” I looked at the ground for a moment, waiting for her reaction.
I expected her to look shocked, but she only looked mildly concerned, tilting her head. Like she had been expecting me to say that. Or was that just the impression she wanted me to have?
Tegan simply looked me up and down in a slow and steady way, then offered me a solution, with the small shrug.
“Do you want me to tell you who did it?”
4
Tegan had always been a little kooky. That was reflected in her choice of furnishings. I’d been in her house before, and the last time, I’d been tripping over cauldrons in the hallway and swords in the living room. This time, however, it had gotten even spookier inside her house. Hanging from the ceiling were multiple…bats. Suspended from an invisible piece of string. And we were months away from Halloween. I yelped as one flew straight into my face. There was another one right behind it. Her hallway was a maze I had to navigate
“Tell me that is not real…” I said as I ducked out of the way of the final one, even though it was almost a foot above my head. I had a bad feeling it could swoop down and get me.
“Who can say,” Tegan said with a small laugh.
She had a little twinkle in her eyes and I could tell she was enjoying toying with me. And she enjoyed the fact that I was creeped out. She never gave me a straight answer. Instead, she led me into the living room and explained how her ‘process’ was going to work.
“I have my own methods of course,” she said, sitting across from me as she dimmed the light. “It’s an ancient art, but I have my own method.” She stood up and switched off the lamp beside the table. It was cloudy outside. Apparently, one of the conditions of this act she was going to perform was darkness.
She looked at me. “I already have a clear vision in my head of who did it.” She paused a moment so that I could take that in. “But don’t worry. I have the ability to let that go, so that I can let the crystal tell me what it needs to.”
Apparently, this crystal was going to give her—and I—the answers.
Tegan’s first instruction was to write all the names down. The names of everyone who was in the bakery that night. I was starting to get a little déjà vu. Tegan gave me separate cards rather than one large sheet, and told me to write one name on each, while keeping a ‘neutral, non-judgmental’ energy whilst writing each one. I tried not to roll my eyes—she would probably count that as negative energy that would interfere with the process.
“Place the seven names down on the table, with the blank side facing up.”
“Five,” I corrected her.
She frowned and seemed to be mentally counting in her head. “There were eight people in the bakery that night, you said? Rogan can’t have murdered himself. That leaves seven.”
“Well, neither Pippa nor I did it,” I said, still having not written down either of our names. I had, however, written Marcello’s name this time.
“All seven names,” Tegan said sternly.
“Fine,” I said, trying to stay neutral as I wrote our names. But when it came time to write ‘Rachael,’ I could feel the tension in my wrist and shoulder. This was all a waste of time, surely?
It was only desperation that made me turn all the cards over so that the blank side was facing up, putting them in a circle like Tegan had commanded, so she could undertake the next step of the process.
She reached forward and took the lid off a silver box. The box was lined with velvet and there was a pendulum inside, with a silver cord and a purple crystal at the end, which she picked up gently. The crystal caught the light of the one candle that Tegan had lit, and glistened.
“What are you doing with that?” I asked, staring at the pendulum as it moved slowly toward the circle of cards.
She stopped and glared at me for a second. Clearly, I had broken her concentration.
She closed her eyes again and sighed. I wasn’t supposed to say anything, or ask any questions. Fine. I leaned back and remained silent.
Tegan closed her eyes and slowly moved her arm so that her hand was dangling in the center of the circle, the seven cards spaced evenly around it. For a moment, the pendulum just hung limp. I started to think it was a waste of time and I was about to cough to get Tegan to open her eyes so I could say, “See? The crystal just hung there and didn’t do anything. See ya, I’m going.” But then, it started to drift to the left like an invisible force was pulling it. I held my breath for a moment. Was Tegan making it move? Suddenly, the crystal stopped moving, directly over one of the white cards. It was still for a moment, then it began to spin. Tegan’s eyes flew open. “There,” she gasped. “I can feel it. The energy.” She stared down. “This is the card.”
She pulled the card away and returned the crystal to the box. I just wanted her to turn the paper over and reveal the name. Come on, come on.
Tegan stared at me. “Are you ready for the truth?” I didn’t answer her, just waited while she slowly reached down and turned the piece of paper over and my heart stopped for a moment, my heart in my throat while I waited to see what name was on the other side.
She held it up, the blank side facing me so that I couldn’t see the name and then hesitated for what felt like hours, peering over the top of the card before she placed it back down, face down again, on the table.
“What?” I asked her. “What name was it?”
“I’m not sure you are ready to face the truth,” she said to me in a flat yet eerie tone.
“Just show me, Tegan.”
She exhaled heavily. “Fine
. You asked.” She slowly turned the card so that the name was facing up toward the heavens.
It read “Rachael,” in thick black letters. My own handwriting staring right back at me.
Now I really was full of negative energy.
“I told you it was a mistake to put mine and Pippa’s name into the pile,” I said, standing up and grabbing my coat, missing the holes as I tried to shove my arm into the sleeve. The whole thing had been a waste of time, just as I’d known it would be.
“Or maybe you are just in denial about your own darkness,” Tegan said, calling out to me as I hurried to leave her house. “We all need to embrace our darkness before we can return to the embrace of the light,” she said, following me.
“Whatever, Tegan.” I was already at the door. “I have better things to do—such as actually finding out who killed Rogan.”
She called out after me one last time. “The cards never lie.”
The cards never lie. Yeah, right. I tried to put the whole stupid thing out of my head and concentrate on the road in front of me. Pippa’s purple farmhouse was at the end of the road and I pulled into the ditch, missing the driveway, still feeling annoyed as I waited for her.
I didn’t want Pippa to find out where I’d just been so I tried to pull myself together as she came down the driveway, waving to Marcello, who was holding Lolly at the front door, helping her to wave her tiny hand at Pippa as well. “Say bye-bye to Mommy!”
“I have found out some very interesting information,” Pippa said as she climbed into the car. I pulled back out onto the street and tried to concentrate. Obviously, Tegan and her crystals were all a load of nonsense. How was it possible for my name to be on that card?
“Did you hear me, Rachael?”
I glanced at her. “Sure, uh, you said you had some interesting information. Did you see Simona at a coffee shop near Blake’s house again?”
She shook her head. “I’m talking about the case. Some new information has come to light,” she said, looking at me with a little hint of suspicion in her eyes. “About who the guilty party might be.”
Uh oh. I slammed on the brakes. “Have you spoken to Tegan?”
It took her a moment to process the question. “Tegan? I…I haven’t spoken to her in months.” She let out a little laugh. “Why are you asking me about Tegan?” she said as she pulled her seatbelt off for a second, unsure of whether I had meant to make the stop or not. “Are we getting out here, or...?”
Oh. “Nothing. I wasn’t asking about Tegan. Sorry. That was random. I was just wondering if the two of you were still in contact.”
Pippa laughed a little unsurely. “Yeah. That was a very random thing to ask me about.”
Clearly, I had been on the wrong track then. She knew nothing about Tegan and the card that had said my name. It was ridiculous. Who cares if Pippa knows anyway?
That was what I told myself, but that was sensible talk. And Pippa wasn’t always sensible. She may have had a falling out with Tegan, but that wouldn’t mean she’d believe in her so-called ‘abilities’ any less.
“So. What is this interesting information you were talking about?” I asked, relaxing a little as I pulled the car back onto the road. “You didn’t happen to find live video footage of who killed Rogan, did you? That would come in real handy right about now.”
“No, but…”
“So?” I asked, still waiting.
“Well.” Pippa raised both her eyebrows. “Just how well do you know Bronson?”
I had to laugh at that. “Pretty well, Pippa.”
She was still looking skeptical. And I had to wonder, as I drove along—just how well did I know Bronson? I mean, you can work with someone every day and not really know them at all, right?
I had hired Bronson as my apprentice baker two years earlier. With his skills as well as his willingness to get up at three in the morning to bake, he had quickly passed his first year and his second year was almost up, meaning that he would soon be a fully qualified baker. That meant paying him more, which I didn’t mind—he was worth the money.
“I heard some rumors that Bronson was not happy about the changes that were being made down at the bakery,” Pippa said as I made my way back into the town center.
“Why was he so unhappy?” I asked. Sure, he had a bit of a friendly rivalry with Rogan, and he’d hazed him a little, but out of all the employees, Bronson was the one who had been the closest to being a friend to Rogan. They had even gone out to Star Bar together on the weekends. “I think he liked having another guy out there in the kitchen with him.”
“Think about it,” Pippa said. “Who ranks higher, Bronson or Rogan?”
She was right. In spite of Rogan being a new employee, and a year younger than Bronson, as a fully qualified baker, Rogan did out rank him. That meant that Rogan would have been able to tell Bronson what to do. I’d never seen Rogan actually do that, of course. But in theory, he could have.
“I don’t think that is a reason to kill though, is it?” I asked.
Pippa read out the directions to Bronson’s house, which was apparently where we were headed, even though I wasn’t sure that would be productive. As we started to head toward the hills, I doubled-checked with Pippa that the directions were right. We were headed toward the part of town known as Belldale Heights. That was where the rich people lived. It was not where apprentice bakers lived. Unless maybe Bronson still lived at home with his parents. I realized Pippa was right—I didn’t actually know much about him at all.
“Whoa,” I said, slowing the car down in front of a white, sparkly-looking, brand new townhouse. “Bronson lives here?”
“Only recently,” Pippa said with a knowing look as she placed her hand ready to open the car door before it had even come to a stop. “He just moved in last week. Signed the lease two weeks ago.”
“Where was he living before?” I asked, before adding, “You really do know too much about everyone’s personal lives.”
“Before this, he was living in a share house with three other people,” Pippa said, following me up the driveway, which was lined with beds of flowers. Either Bronson had a very green thumb or he was hiring someone to do his landscaping for him. “Students and fellow apprentices. I suppose he figured, with his new raise, he could afford to move up in the world.” She raised her eyebrows at me.
Right. Uh-oh. A little bit of guilt tugged in my stomach. I was hoping Pippa wasn’t going to bring up the new schedule.
Too bad. She was.
She didn’t quite look at me as she continued. Clearly, she had built some kind of hypothesis in her head. “But what Bronson may not have realized, when he signed the one-year lease on this pad, was that even though his hourly wage was going to go up, his hours were going to be cut.”
She stopped talking and waited for me to say something.
Was it suddenly really hot outside? I tugged at my collar. “I wasn’t going to cut them that much,” I mumbled. “I just had to think about the budget.”
“I worked out the numbers,” Pippa said, walking slowly. “With the raise, but with the cut in hours, it turned out that Bronson was only going to take home an extra twenty dollars a week.”
I gulped. An extra twenty dollars a week wasn’t going to pay his rent.
“Nothing had been finalized,” I said, reaching up to press the doorbell. “Besides, there was no way that Bronson could have known about his hours getting cut. I’ve got the new—draft only—schedule on my computer. I didn’t print it out or email it to anyone yet. I only showed it to you.”
Pippa shrugged. “Fair point. But maybe he made an educated guess. He saw how many hours Rogan was getting and that you favored him.”
I turned my head a little so that she wouldn’t see me roll my eyes. It wasn’t that I favored Rogan. It was just that I’d seen how horrible everyone else had been to him and so I’d tried to take him under my wing a bit and I’d given him a break.
Pippa reached out and hit the doorbell. We w
aited.
There were footsteps coming toward the door. I ended the conversation and put a friendly smile on my face to show Bronson that we were just there for a casual catch-up. Just to check in with him after the traumatic events of the day before.
“How are you?” I asked sympathetically, frowning a little. “It must be a tough day for you.”
“Still can’t believe it,” Bronson said, scratching his head, where his mop of ginger hair lay ruffled, as though we had just woken him up from an afternoon nap.
He seemed innocent enough to me. The sad, droopy expression on his face seemed genuine as well. Pippa shot me a skeptical look. I could tell she wasn’t being sucked in by his sad act.
Bronson showed us inside and apologized for the unpacked boxes still littering the hallway.
“This is a great place,” I said, trying to pick up any signs of anger or resentment in his reply. Any signs that maybe he was regretting moving into this “great” place.
“Thanks,” he mumbled. He sounded more sleepy than regretful.
“Do you live here on your own?” I sat down on the new-looking sofa after Bronson offered me a seat.
He nodded and managed a little smile. “And I’m loving it so far,” he said. “I think I was getting a little old for roommates.”
He was only twenty-two.
“Well, maybe he can get roommates again to help with the rent and bills,” I whispered to Pippa when Bronson turned his back on us for a minute. Surely it wouldn’t be the end of the world if he couldn’t get his deposit back on this new townhouse. And it certainly wouldn’t be the end of the world if he had to live with a roommate at twenty-two. I was five years older and I still lived with a roommate. And I owned my own business.
Bronson offered us a drink. I agreed to a coffee and noticed that it looked like a very new coffee machine that he was using.
“When do you think we’ll be able to get back to work?” Bronson asked, sounding a little edgy as the espresso dripped into the small glass.
A Fatal Finale Page 3