He looked around. “I thought it would have been obvious, I’m attending a rally for people who are in favour of the Ocean Mist resort going ahead.”
“You are not,” I replied. “You’re new to the town anyway. You’re up to something. What is it?”
“Wow, you’re quite the conspiracy theorist Angie,” Jason replied, his eyes twinkling with laughter that made me want to punch him. “If I really was ‘up to something’ as you put it, don’t you think I’d be hiding myself just a little bit better instead of being out here in plain sight? Anyway, I should ask you the same thing. I’ve asked around town and I hear you’re very much opposed to the Ocean Mist plan. So why are you here?”
“That’s none of your business,” I replied.
“Well same to you.”
Damn it. I had no idea what Jason Black was up to, and he certainly wasn’t going to tell me. I figured I might as well go back and see Sophie and Charlotte. I stormed off without another word to Jason Black.
“Stay out of trouble,” he called out after me, and I replied by flipping him off without looking back. I could practically picture him laughing at me.
When I got back to where Charlotte and Sophie were waiting, I could see them laughing at me, too.
“What?” I asked, the annoyance on my face obvious.
“Nothing,” Sophie said, trying to hide a smile. “It’s just, you two would make a really cute couple.”
“I could slap you right now, so easily,” I replied. “No, worse. I’ll curse you. I’ll curse you so your hair falls out,” I replied. Ok, I didn't actually know that curse. Sophie didn’t know that though.
“Pfffft, my mom will be so pissed at you if you curse me that it won’t be worth it for you,” she told me, and I knew she was right. Lisa took the Witches’ Rulebook extremely seriously. There were basically just two basic rules to witchcraft: don’t ever let non-witches who aren’t immediate family find out about your powers (so Charlotte and I weren’t allowed to tell boyfriends about our powers, we had to wait until we got married), and don’t curse humans without extremely good reasons.
There was actually a court of witches that upheld the rules for those who broke them really, really badly. I didn’t know the details, but from what I heard, they were not a group you wanted to be hauled in front of. I highly doubted they would call me in just for putting a dumb curse on my best friend, but the wrath of Sophie’s mom scared me almost as much.
“Ok, how about we deal with this stuff later?” Charlotte suggested, getting in between Sophie and I. I grumbled a fine, but Sophie had a bit more fight in her.
“What do you suggest then, Einstein? Your brilliant plan of coming here and getting Mr. Robot over there or the Happiest Person Ever to admit to murder has failed.”
“It didn’t fail completely,” Charlotte protested. “Zoe Wright seemed a little bit shaken up when we mentioned it. I think we should go down to the proposed resort site and the property Tony Nyman owns and see if we can come up with any clues.”
“Oh yeah? What kind of clues are you expecting to find down there? A billboard advertising the motive to kill Nyman?”
“Obviously I won’t know what clues are down there until we go look.”
This time it was my turn to play peacemaker.
“Ok. Calm down guys.” I waited a second and Sophie and Charlotte stopped looking like they were going to go at each other’s throats, so I continued. “Why don’t we go down to the Ocean Mist building site? We can look around, see where Nyman’s property is, and see if there’s anything that will give us a clue. After all, it is one thing to see the records and all that, another completely go to and have a look. And if we don’t find anything, we can do what Sophie wants to try and get info on the mob guys. Agreed?”
“That sounds fun,” came a voice from down in the grass. I rolled my eyes.
“You’re not coming, Bee. You don’t get a vote.”
“Why don’t I get to come?” my cat protested.
“It’s too dangerous.”
“Really? What are you planning to find down there, a loaded gun and then play around with it?”
“Not for you. For the wildlife. Ocean Mist is going to be built on land with a ton of birds, and I don’t want them to have to worry about you.”
“If you let me come I promise I won’t kill anything.”
I narrowed my eyes and looked at my cat.
“Why are you so intent on coming? You never care about what I do.”
“I don’t care about this either. But today was my first time out in the fresh air in a while and I realized I miss it.”
“Fine,” I huffed. “But if I so much as see you tease a bird you’re going back in the car, and I’m never letting you outside without your leash again.”
I hoped the threat of the leash would be enough to keep Bee in check; she hated that thing more than anything else on earth. The first time I’d put it on her she refused to walk, and I literally dragged her along the front lawn to the sidewalk before realizing my efforts were completely wasted.
“We think it’s an ok idea too, since you asked,” Sophie offered, and I laughed.
“Sorry. Bee’s coming too.”
“Yeah, we figured that out,” Charlotte replied. “Now let’s get going, I want to be able to get over there before it gets dark.”
Chapter 21
“This is like hands down the dumbest thing we’ve ever done,” Sophie grumbled.
“Really? Because I can think of at least eight things that were dumber, and that’s just off the top of my head,” I replied.
“And that’s not even counting the list of guys Sophie’s dated,” Charlotte added.
“I hate both of you,” Sophie replied, but in all honesty, she wasn’t wrong.
Because of Chief Gary being suspicious of us, and not wanting Lisa to find out we really were investigating Tony Nyman’s death, we decided to park the car a little ways away from the Ocean Mist site and walk the rest of the way.
Unfortunately, the quickest way from the outskirts of town to the Ocean Mist site meant walking about two miles in half-swampland as the sun was just starting to show signs of dropping down out of the sky. We were starting to get cold, and in case anyone was wondering, yes, it was late enough for the mosquitos to be out.
“Ugh, we should have just driven the whole way,” I complained as I swatted away yet another mosquito.
“This isn’t too bad, really,” Bee said from her perch on my shoulder, where she was happily allowing herself to be carried across the muck.
“You’re welcome, your highness,” I said to her, and Bee’s response was to start licking a paw.
“We’re almost there guys,” Charlotte encouraged us, looking at GPS co-ordinates on her phone, seemingly unfazed by the mud, puddles and stinging insects.
“Yeah, yeah, you said that half a mile ago,” Sophie replied.
“But this time I’m telling the truth. The Ocean Mist property begins twenty yards in front of where I’m standing now. Nyman’s property begins a hundred and fifty yards to the left,” she said, pointing.
We all stopped.
“So how do you want to do this?” I asked Charlotte. “What are we even looking for?”
Charlotte shrugged. “Anything that looks like it might be relevant.”
“Oh look, a blood soaked knife!” Sophie exclaimed, and we all looked at her, shocked. She held her arms out. “Seriously? We’re not going to find anything here. But I guess I will help.”
“Ok. Well why don’t we not make jokes about finding things anymore,” I said. “Why doesn’t Charlotte take everything on the Ocean Mist property to the right of here, Sophie you take everything to the left, and I’ll take the stuff in the middle. Everyone meet on the other side of the property. Charlotte, how far is that away?”
Charlotte checked some notes she had written.
“If we meet three hundred yards away we should be good,” she replied.
“Ugh, great, that’s going to
take forever,” Sophie complained.
“Well, we’re not doing your thing until we finish,” I told her.
“Fine,” Sophie huffed, moving over to the left. To her credit, she started actually scouring the ground, looking for anything that might help us. I had to admit, a part of me shared her scepticism. What on earth were we going to find here that we weren’t going to be able to find elsewhere?
Charlotte and I took our cues and started on our sections of the ground.
“Why don’t I get a section to look for clues in?” Bee complained from my shoulder.
“Because that would mean you’d have to get off there.”
“Well in that case never mind. No one told me the ground here would be so wet.”
“You’re the one who wanted to go on an adventure,” I replied, my eyes glued to the ground. All I saw so far was mud, mosquitoes, sticks and grass.
“I didn’t realize adventures meant so much… outdoors,” Bee said, and I rolled my eyes.
“I’m sorry, I’ll try and make sure any future murders and everything they lead to involve more indoor adventures.”
“Thank you,” Bee replied without a trace of irony. Ah, cats. Loving Bee was the only thing that stopped me from wanting to strangle her half the time.
“I will remind you that you were the one who wanted to come here,” I muttered.
“I didn’t realize it was going to be so messy,” Bee replied.
I was about to start rolling my eyes again when I saw something move in the forest nearby. I called out to Charlotte and Sophie, who were both about fifty yards away from me at that point.
“Hey guys, did you see that?” I asked.
“See what?” they asked in unison. I pointed towards the trees, but there was nothing there. Of course, now I was the one who was going to look like a crazy person.
“Are you sure there was something?” Charlotte asked, coming towards me to get a better look.
“I am, I’m sure there was.”
Suddenly, a little bit to the right, Zoe Wright came out of the woods, holding a gun.
What on earth?
“I guess that was it,” I muttered, my eyes not leaving the gun.
“Ah, lovely, you’re all here,” Zoe sang with that same fake enthusiasm that made me want to punch things. It just couldn’t be real.
Bee hissed and jumped off my shoulder, speeding away from Zoe.
“Bee, wait!” I cried out, but I still couldn’t bring myself to look away from the gun. I’d seen Chief Gary, and all the other cops carrying theirs before. But this one seemed so… real. Like, Zoe could actually use it to kill us right now.
I felt Charlotte’s hand reach out and grab mine. I gave hers a squeeze. Charlotte was my little sister, and I was going to do everything I could to protect her. And Sophie as well.
“Look at that, the cat has more sense than the rest of you,” Zoe said. “She’s running away. You should have left well enough alone. Why you’ve been hunting around looking for Nyman’s killer is beyond me.”
“You did it,” I told her. I wanted to keep her talking. The more talking she did, the less she was shooting at us. She laughed, but it wasn’t the measured, warm laugh she maintained for TV crews and groups of supporters. No, this laugh was shrill, harsh.
“Of course I did it. The man was sitting on a gold mine, and he didn’t even know it.”
My brain was swirling. First of all, the fact that she was the murderer! I had never imagined that the head of a business project would murder someone. And for what?
“But why?” I asked her. It was like the pieces of the puzzle were starting to form a picture, but I hadn’t quite managed to slot all the pieces together. I could tell it was all linked, but I didn’t know how.”
“Because some moron at the county office screwed up when he did the surveying. It turned out that Tony Nyman’s land was two hundred yards over, which took up a significant portion of the only land here stable enough to build a large hotel on.”
One of the puzzle pieces clicked.
“So you were the one who broke into the library and stole that map!” I exclaimed. “It was old. It would have shown the old land layout, with the property that was Nyman’s being shown correctly.”
“You heard about that, did you? I was surprised no one was mentioning it at the rally. You Willow Bay people, you freak out at the slightest thing that’s just a little bit out of the ordinary.”
“I didn’t realize breaking and entering was a normal thing for you,” Sophie replied, finding her voice. I silently willed her to stop. This wasn’t exactly helping. Zoe turned to face Sophie, pointing the gun at her chest. I heard the sharp intake of breath from Sophie next to me, and I really, really hoped this wasn’t going to be my best friend’s last moments.
“Wait!” I cried out. “I need to know, why did you break into Nyman’s house?” Zoe turned back and trained the gun on me this time.
“You’ve figured out the rest,” she said. “I would have thought you would have figured this part out, too. I went there to take the will.”
“Well yeah, but why? I mean, Nyman didn’t have anyone to give his property to.”
“Except his son.”
“Nyman had a son?”
“And none of you idiots, and I include the police in that, figured it out. It wasn’t even that hard. I thought for sure the cops were going to get there when they found Nyman’s old links to the mob. Thank you for that, by the way. I needed someone to pin suspicion on, and I didn’t know how to let the cops know about Nyman’s old life without being suspicious. You took care of all that for me.”
I glared at the woman. I couldn’t believe that we’d inadvertently helped her.
“So that was you running away from us when we were in the house,” I heard Sophie mutter next to me.
“Run away? What? No. What are you talking about?”
Despite the fear, Sophie and I looked at each other for a second.
“When we were at Nyman’s house, there was someone else there. That was how we knew it had been broken into by someone who wasn’t us. When they heard us come in they waited for us to go into the kitchen and ran out the front door. Are you saying that wasn’t you?”
Zoe shook her head, looking at us suspiciously.
“No. Is this some kind of trick? I was there before the body was even discovered.”
Wow. So now it turned out that at least three groups of people had gone into Nyman’s house after he died. Sophie and I, Zoe, and someone else.
I didn’t have time to think about that right now, though. I had to think about how to get Sophie and Charlotte out of here, if nothing else.
The gun was still trained on me. If I charged Zoe right now, chances were I’d be shot and killed. But maybe I’d give Sophie and Charlotte a chance to get away. There were no guarantees, though. At least if I went this way, I would die having solved the mystery. I knew who had killed Tony Nyman now. There went my theory that Jason Black was involved.
Suddenly, there came an awful screeching sound from behind Zoe. She turned in surprise, and for an instant let the gun down, just as a giant black cat screaming her head off came running up behind her, goring her claws into Zoe’s face.
“Run!” I yelled as Zoe screamed. None of us needed to be told twice. Sophie, Charlotte and I all ran for the forest as fast as we could. “Get back to the car!” I cried out to the others as we made our way into the woods. “I’m going to stay back for Bee.”
“Leave… the…. cat…” Sophie gasped, but I shook my head.
“I can’t! Keep going. Call the cops!” I cried, stopping and resting my hands on my knees to catch my breath once more. For Sophie and Charlotte, Bee was just a cat. But to me, she was my cat. And she’d just saved our lives. I couldn’t just leave her.
I made my way back to the edge of the forest, trying to be as quiet as I could without moving at a snail’s pace. I reached the edge of the forest and looked out. Zoe had dropped the gun, she
was trying to pry Bee off her, who was still screaming and scratching Zoe as much as she could. I could see the familiar red marks all over Zoe’s face and arms as she struggled with my cat.
This was my chance. I ran out from the woods towards the gun. All I had to do was get it away from Zoe and we were free. Unfortunately, it meant running pretty close to them; the gun was only about two feet from where Zoe was now. I ran, focusing my energy entirely on the gun. In a normal situation I would have used a summoning spell, but I knew I couldn’t do it around a human like Zoe, not without incurring the wrath of the Witch’s Council. Plus, I could do this with just my normal human abilities. I ran to the gun. I reached out to grab it, right as Zoe got Bee off her and threw her as far as she could.
Zoe kicked out as she threw Bee, and her boot connected right with my face. At that moment, everything went black.
Chapter 22
I was only out for a second or two, but it was enough. When I woke up, Zoe Wright was reaching for the gun. My vision was blurred and I moved for it as well, but with my weakened reflexes, I missed. I had one option though: I reached out and grabbed Zoe’s perfectly groomed hair – although Bee had already done a number on it herself – and yanked as hard as I could.
Zoe fell to the ground, yelling, and I took up every ounce of strength I had to get up and run.
Bee was lying on the ground, motionless, about ten feet away. My heart sank like a stone. No. No, no, no. This couldn’t be. I ran to her and grabbed her off the ground, and as soon as I did I could feel my cat’s heart beating against my hands. Thank goodness.
“Oh Bee, I’m so glad you’re ok,” I whispered to my cat as she began to stir. She’d just been knocked out for a minute. I’d never been so relieved in my life, I don’t know what I would have done if anything had happened to my cat. My aggravating, annoying, unbearable, beautiful, perfect cat.
“I told you this adventure was a bad idea,” she murmured softly as I ran to the forest with her in tow. I could hear Zoe running after us.
Every ounce of my being was focused on getting out of the forest and back to the road as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, I was never exactly what you would call a runner, and after a few hundred yards I could feel my breath becoming more ragged, and a sharp metallic feeling in the back of my throat.
The Purr-fect Crime: Willow Bay Witches #1 Page 11