Sanctuary

by V. V. James

  He gulps and transfers me immediately.

  But the minute the counsel comes on the line, I sense the Moot isn’t going to be the solution I’m hoping and praying to the goddess for.

  “Yes, the Moot is aware of the case and is monitoring the situation,” the lawyer says flatly to my initial introduction. And it gets worse from there, as I relate the madness happening in Sanctuary.

  “Let me stop you, Ms. Fenn,” the counsel says eventually. “I can tell that you’re upset, but there are two key things. One, your daughter is not a witch, and as such falls outside the scope of Moot assistance. Imagine if we were asked to intervene in the case of every nonmagical person accused of witchcrime to prove their innocence.

  “And two, the intervention you are proposing—that a prominent member of the Moot conduct a determination of your daughter to prove that she does not have magic? Well, that’s exactly the sort of mindset that first led to the rules about magical evidence not being admissible in law. Witches covering up for each other.

  “We have fought tirelessly from our inception against those sorts of preconceptions. You know the Moot’s origin, campaigning for witches’ rights when our craft was still illegal, and being the public voice of our kind since decriminalization. We were created by and exist for witches. You know our mission: Positive Advocacy for Witches.”

  I do know the Moot’s PAW slogan, and its stupid badge: a cat familiar’s paw print. We bend over backward to make ourselves unthreatening, and still, deep down, people fear us anyway.

  “So I’m sorry, Ms. Fenn. Your daughter’s case isn’t something the Moot can support.”

  And the call ends.

  I stare at the phone in my hand before slamming it down. I want to keep on slamming till it breaks.

  Will no one help us?

  I had Abigail and Bolt so close to giving way. Why did Harper have to ruin everything?

  Sudden self-disgust breaks over me, and I sink to the floor, hugging my knees. After all my poor girl went through, I’m blaming her for something she did? What’s wrong with me? No wonder she keeps things from me.

  No, Harper understood that the course I was taking would hush everything up. That Daniel’s crime would die with him, because the investigation into his death would make it too risky for her to tell the truth about the sort of boy he had been.

  And she was braver than me. Stronger than me. She stood up and told her truth anyway.

  And I know what I need to do. I need to fight alongside her, to back her up no matter what. Because I can see what this will turn into—a witch hunt, of the kind Sanctuary used to relish. It’ll be the word of Jake, Tad, and Abigail against my seventeen-year-old daughter, who is not only not guilty, but the victim in all this.

  I won’t let them win.

  I wash my face and change my clothes. I pick my outfit carefully, which is to say conservatively, apply minimal makeup, and leave the house. I moved my car out back, but leave by the front door anyway, because I have to give the reporters something. I want to give Harper something, too—a public declaration of my belief in her. Then maybe she’ll come home.

  The journalists are on me immediately.

  “Ms. Fenn, how is Harper?”

  “Where is your daughter, Ms. Fenn?”

  “Harper is staying with a friend,” I tell them. “Meaning no disrespect, but you can understand why she wouldn’t want to come back to a house with all of you camped outside.”

  “Ms. Fenn, did your daughter kill Daniel Whitman?”

  “You should be asking: ‘Did Daniel rape Harper?’ And the answer is, ‘Yes, he did.’ My innocent, seventeen-year-old daughter suffered at that young man’s hands and is now suffering again because of these false allegations made against her. Think about your part in all this. That’s all I have to say.”

  I don’t linger to see what sort of reaction that gets. I need to get to my booth. Only work can fix this.

  Magic performed on anyone without their knowledge or consent is always a Bad Idea—but I’ve done it, of course. For Abigail. For Julia. The end justifies the means.

  Never more so than now.

  Sixty

  Maggie

  No one answers at the Fenn house—the reporters are on me, and I have to bellow “off the record” and make them lower their cameras before I exchange a few words. They’re disappointed—they think they’re getting something from me, while in fact I get from them all I need to know: Harper Fenn hasn’t been seen, and her mother says she’s staying with a friend.

  In exchange, I give them a little lecture about harassment of a minor who has just stated that she’s the victim of a sex crime.

  “So you believe her?” one of the reporters asks.

  “It’s not my job to ‘believe’ anything,” I tell them. “It’s my job to gather evidence around a suspected crime. And for the record, what I’m investigating is the death of Daniel Whitman, nothing else.”

  “So you’re saying Whitman’s death was a crime?”

  “My words were suspected crime.”

  “You’ve been here well over a week. Seems to me you don’t think it’s not a crime.”

  I narrow my eyes at the reporter. I don’t know him, but I recognize his face. He’s from the regional bureau of one of the national networks. Shit. The nationals.

  “I’m not making any comment.”

  “Is your ‘no comment’ on the record, or off the record, Detective?”

  Screw him.

  It’s not Harper’s mom I need, it’s Harper herself. Her absence is like a closed door, behind which I have a hunch all the answers in this case are shut.

  How do I find her? Her mom either doesn’t know or isn’t saying. Could Rowan help me? Witches find stuff, don’t they? And I should make sure my investigator is doing okay after what went down at the villa.

  * * *

  I turn my car onto the coastal road and am a few miles outside Green Point when I see her, running.

  Cops have a second sense for people running. We register them automatically. It’s almost always a jogger, and our attention simply slides over—which is what mine does, until it snaps back when I register that this jogger is Harper Fenn. It feels like my first lucky break in a long time.

  I perform what would be an illegal road maneuver if I wasn’t police—hey, perk of the job—and pull ahead of her. She speeds up.

  “Need a ride back to Sanctuary?” I call out the window.

  Harper stops when she hears a woman’s voice. She maintains a wary distance, though, as she says “no thanks” and turns away.

  “Wait, it’s Detective Knight,” I say, sticking my head out. “I’m glad to see you. Are you okay? That was a big thing you did yesterday. Harper, I really do need to talk to you.”

  “Do I really need to talk to you?”

  She doesn’t sound hostile, exactly. She’s certainly not afraid. I don’t know what to make of her tone.

  “It might be helpful for both of us. At any rate, stopped by the road here like this, we’re going to draw attention, and I’m guessing that’s not what you want.”

  “I can run on.”

  “And I can keep trailing you, because that’ll be really discreet.”

  “And I can run off that way, where you can’t follow.” She points into the scrubby woodland, which must lead to the dunes and down to the shore.

  But she doesn’t run.

  “Touché,” I say with a smile. “But, Harper, you know we have to talk sometime. Isn’t it better to do it here, away from Sanctuary? There are news crews outside your house.” That brings a scowl to her face. “Wouldn’t you like to see them gone? To see this over with?”

  She considers my words, then nods, opening the passenger door and unshouldering her small backpack. She directs me back the way I was going, then down a small rutted track to
a makeshift parking lot behind a grassy dune. It looks like the sort of place kids would come for a barbecue, or simply to hang out and smoke and do all the things young people do away from their parents’ eyes.

  “You know this area?” I ask. “You stayed around here last night?”

  “I know it. I have friends out this way.”

  I remember what Bea Garcia said, her eyes red-rimmed and her voice poisonous. It’s pretty obvious she has another guy out of town.

  “You run to go visit with them?”

  “I like running. Sometimes I get a lift partway back. I needed to get away, Detective. I knew Mom would make a fuss after what I did yesterday.”

  “Is it true? What you told the reporters?”

  Harper’s eyes flash with anger. “Of course it is. I’d be pretty dumb to give myself a motive for murder if it wasn’t.”

  “You know nothing can be done now Daniel’s dead. Dead people can’t be prosecuted. Police can’t even say if they would have been charged.”

  “Why do you think I did it? I knew I’d never get heard, otherwise.”

  I cast a look at her, this frank, clear-eyed girl, and think back to the first time I met her at the hospital. There’s something not quite right about her response to everything that’s happened, and yet I can’t put my finger on anything wrong.

  “When we met at the hospital, I asked if you thought Daniel’s death was an accident. You said that it certainly wouldn’t have been suicide over a…a girl like you. Did you not think of murder as a possibility—or that you might be the accused?”

  “Of course I didn’t think of murder. And no, I couldn’t imagine anyone accusing me, seeing as I was nowhere near him at the time.”

  “You didn’t kill Daniel Whitman that night, by witchcraft or any other means?”

  “No, I didn’t.” A smile ghosts her lips. “By witchcraft or any other means.”

  “So what’s your explanation for what happened?”

  “He was drunk and he stumbled and fell.”

  “But Dan was an athlete. Would he have been drinking?” Forensics have told me there was hardly any alcohol in the boy’s bloodstream, but I can’t tell Harper that.

  She tips her head, considering. “You’re right. Maybe not. I mean, he certainly drank sometimes, but not as much as the others. And a lot less after getting his scholarship.

  “So the tape, then. Pretty distracting, right, having a film of yourself raping someone projected onto a wall at a party.”

  “But you can’t tell it’s rape. There was no sound. None of the kids who saw that projection described it as anything other than a sex tape or implied there was anything wrong with it.”

  Harper bristles, her anger almost tangible. But there’s something more in her eyes as she asks her question. Is it shame?

  “You’ve seen it?”

  “I have.”

  No, it’s sorrow. And it pierces me. You see often, in victims of sexual assault, a whole range of emotions. Guilt and shame. Incomprehension and disbelief. And, yes, sorrow.

  “He knew it was rape, Detective. I knew. And whoever filmed it knew. It doesn’t matter what it looked like to anyone else.”

  “Did you see who it was, filming it?”

  “No, it was dark, I was semiconscious, I couldn’t even control my muscles enough to lift my head.”

  “On the television yesterday, after you made your accusation. You were saying something when the reporter talked over you. Could you tell me what it was?”

  Harper’s mouth twitches. “Sure. I was trying to tell the whole state. I said, It wasn’t just me.”

  “What did you mean by that?”

  “There are other girls Dan’s attacked. But he was clever about it. They’re not ones who’d speak out—or be believed if they did.”

  “Will you tell me who they are?”

  “Will you believe them?”

  “I… For a cop, it can’t work like that, Harper. But it’s in your interest. A parent whose daughter was assaulted by Dan could conceivably have a motive for hurting him.”

  “By pushing him off a balcony in the middle of a party full of teenagers? No offense, Detective, but that’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard in a long time.”

  This conversation is going nowhere I expected. Harper is more composed than I could imagine any girl being under these circumstances. Which could be suspicious—or could simply be because she’s telling me truth after truth.

  She has engaged with all my questions and has revised her own ideas. People who are lying tend not to do that. They have their script and stick to it. Every instinct I have is telling me she’s innocent.

  “What if it wasn’t that. If it was some other way?”

  “Some other way?”

  “Witchcraft.”

  “Witchcraft?” She looks at me blankly. “My mom is the only witch in Sanctuary.”

  “Well, what if it was your mom? She’d have a motive, after all.”

  And despite the bluntness of my question, Harper relaxes. I see the tension go out of her.

  “It wasn’t her. I only told her what Dan did to me a couple days ago. The day before I did the interview. She was horrified. So upset. She wasn’t faking that. There’s no way she’d known about it before.”

  “And no one else in Sanctuary possesses magic? None of your mom’s coven? No one she’s ever said she feels might have it?”

  Harper shakes her head. “Coven members don’t have magic. That’s the whole point. No, the Fenns are the only witches there’ve been in Sanctuary, for generations back.”

  I nod. My brain is frantically trying to process everything she’s said so I can jot it down once she’s gone. If there’s any more, I won’t be able to keep hold of it all. So I thank her for her time. Solemnly, Harper thanks me back and climbs out of the car.

  “Watch out for the news crews at your house,” I tell her.

  “I’ll drop by Izzy’s for a bit. Lie low till they’ve gone.”

  “If you feel unsafe at all, contact me immediately.”

  I jot down my number and tear it off. She tucks the paper into a waistband pocket on her leggings—I get a flash of tattooed midriff as she lifts her top—then she’s off, feet kicking up the parking lot’s dirty sand, braid bouncing over her shoulder. And I’m scribbling in my notebook like my life depends on it.

  When I’m done transcribing our conversation as best I can, I read it back.

  Harper’s story is simple. And one thing life as a cop teaches you is that ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the simple explanation is the correct one. The husband killed his wife. The junkie robbed the store. The secretary embezzled the accounts.

  Dan was startled by the sex tape, because he knew that what it really showed was rape.

  He fell.

  It was an accident.

  But then—what about the magic?

  I call Chester with my good news—I’ve finally spoken to Harper Fenn. But he’s got news for me. Everything’s bustling at the station because an event has been organized for tonight and they’ve requested police presence.

  The Whitmans are staging a vigil for their son at the Sports on the Shore club.

  “It’s even got a hashtag,” Chester says, as though that’s the worst thing about this. “#JusticeforDaniel.”

  Sixty-One

  Abigail

  As the light thins to evening, Michael and I make our way to the shore. The Spartans have turned out for Daniel. In fact, they’ve spent the day calling around and on their social media, making sure everyone turns out.

  Hundreds of people are here. Giant photographs of Daniel line the shoreside running track, each with candles in mason jars in front. One of the Spartans’ fathers owns a chain of grocery stores and donated for a barbecue, and the smell of roasting meat drifts on the breeze. Th
e team marching band is playing. It’s almost a party atmosphere, a carnival. The only thing that reveals the event’s true nature is the giant banner across the clubhouse: #JusticeforDaniel.

  There’s no better proof that Harper’s grotesque claim was a lie than this show of love and support. First, we clear Dan’s name, then we bring his killer to justice.

  Several television cameras and people with microphones and recording equipment are circulating among the crowd. I go brief them that something is planned for later.

  Moving on, I spot Tad. Technically, he’s still on leave, but he called in orders to send some of the local uniform boys and girls along.

  “Where’s Jake?” I ask as he huffs his way over.

  “At home. He’s laid up with that mono some kids at the school have. I blame the stress of all this bullshit.”

  I lay my hand sympathetically on his arm. It would have been good to have Jake here, but he’s already done his part. It’s someone else’s story I’m telling tonight.

  The banner flaps in the breeze. Any number of the Sports on the Shore parents come up to me with condolences. Several of the moms are in tears. I am their worst nightmare. I smile and thank them—and in a small corner of my heart I hate every one of them for their healthy, happy, living children.

  “Dan did so much for this club,” sniffs one. “He was always generous with his time. My daughter was so looking forward to joining the junior girls soccer and was actually kind of heartbroken when he had to stop volunteering at the club. I think she was a bit in love with him. She cried for a day when we heard what happened.”

  I give the woman a comforting hug. So many tears for my son. Of course her daughter was in love with him. They all were.

  Moving on, I spot a few of the cops in uniforms tucking in to sauce-slathered wings and beer. And there’s the detective, talking to Pierre Martineau. I’m surprised Pierre is here, given how close he is to Sarah. But then he’s part of Sports on the Shore, too, running their boxing classes.

  I’m glad the cop is seeing all this. She needs to understand how loved my son is. How innocent.