A Charmed Death

by Madelyn Alt

  I felt a pang. I hadn’t seen my nieces in ages, either. Mom was right, I was not being the greatest aunt. The girls were sweeties, and it wasn’t their fault that their mother went out of her way to remind me that she was the better daughter.

  “Hey, Maggie?” Marcus called my name, his voice a welcome interruption to the guilt trip I sensed coming on. “We’d better get going, huh?”

  “Right! Sorry, Mom. I’ll let you know about Sunday, okay?” I was talking fast, rushed, still trying to find my keys. “The store is open Sundays, of course, so it may not work out anyway. I’ll have to check the schedule. Oh, and I think I might have promised to go to a movie with Steff that night. Or maybe it was Monday. I won’t feel right unless I check with her, too.”

  “My. You do sound busy.”

  And she sounded hurt. And yup, there was the guilt, right on schedule. I turned away, biting my tongue to keep from making a promise I wouldn’t be able to keep. Funny how, no matter how irritating our moms can be, we still want to protect them from being hurt by our actions.

  “Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. O’Neill,” Marcus was saying.

  “I can see where Maggie gets her pretty face.” He gave Marian a peck on the cheek and a friendly shoulder squeeze. “See you later, Aunt Marian.”

  “Come around sometime, wouldja?” Marian patted his smoothly shaven cheek. “Your poor old aunt gets lonely.”

  “I’ll try to get around more often. You know how things get.”

  “Don’t we all. Oh, and maybe when you get the chance, you can check up on your cousin? Your Uncle Lou tells me she’s giving him quite the time. Teenagers. I seem to recall your mother had the same complaints about you, once upon a time. I can’t tell you how many nights she called to cry on my shoulder . . . but you seem to have turned out all right.” With a final fond smile for her nephew, Marian turned to me and winked.

  So incorrigible. I couldn’t help smiling back. “See you, Marian. And thanks.”

  Mom and Marian got into their respective cars and pulled away while Christine was still warming up. Plagued by a sappy mixture of sadness and relief, I watched the taillights on my mother’s old station wagon fade into the distance on the roadway. While I’d stopped, for the most part, going out of my way to try to please my mother, the urges still came on strong. Maybe one day we’d be able to make peace with each other. I hoped so. Despite everything, deep down, I knew I still desired my mother’s approval. I suppose, deep down, we all do.

  “You okay?”

  I glanced up to find Marcus watching me in Christine’s darkened confines. I nodded and slanted an embarrassed smile his way. “Yeah. Fine. My mom wears me down sometimes, that’s all.”

  “She’s upset because . . . well, never mind. You probably don’t need to hear this from me.”

  No. I knew. That was the whole problem. I knew how much of a disappointment I was. It was reflected back at me in my mother’s eyes every time she looked at me.

  I shrugged to let him know it didn’t matter. “I don’t really want to talk about it right now.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  We sat in silence for several moments until I judged that the oil had thawed enough to flow through the old engine. “Where to?” I asked him. Then, “You know, I never thought to ask. Do you have a car here already?”

  “Nah. I rode in with Aunt Marian. Howzabout the Little Nipper?”

  The Little Nipper was a country-and-western bar located at a crossroads in the middle of nowhere eight miles to the west of Stony Mill. It was dark and smoky, but always filled to bursting with rednecks and young upwardly mobiles alike, as both flanks found themselves in need of being shown a good time on occasion. Though, to be truthful, some found the occasion more than others.

  We parked in the busy lot and entered through a side door, passing through a room lined with pool tables to get to the main area, where a jukebox blared twangy songs about feisty women, faithless men, drinking and deviling and daring all for love, lust, and liberty. I felt my mood lift with the buoyant spirit of the place as I watched a quartet of couples two-stepping around the scuffed dance floor. Lowbrow it might be, but it was honest, it was true, and it was just what I needed on this dismal night.

  We found a table in the corner, away from the ruckus of the dance floor. One of the barmaids, a matronly fifty-something wearing jeans and a red sweatshirt shouting the joys of the Christmas season, approached us with a friendly smile, her jaw cracking her gum in time with the music. “What’llya have?” she shouted as she leaned in over the table.

  “Beer!” Marcus shouted back with the kind of grin that made women weak in the knees. “Longneck, whatever you have plenty of. No glass.”

  “You got it, hon!” She turned to me, waiting, brows lifted.

  “Just Coke for me, thanks.” I was driving, so I figured I’d better keep it simple. Besides, I didn’t need anything alcoholic to feel better. It was enough to be in this place, brimming with life and vivid energy. Generally speaking, I avoided crowds like the plague because of their tendency to drain the life from me, but my spirits were already low enough that the power boost was both needed and appreciated.

  Marcus looked at me when she was gone. “You sure? I can drive us home, if you’d rather.” He paused, then added, “You look like you might need it.”

  I shook my head. “I’ll be fine.”

  He gazed at me a moment, then nodded knowingly. “You will at that.” He held his tongue as the waitress dropped off the drinks at our table. Lifting his longneck, he waited for me to raise my glass of Coke, which the older woman had seen fit to top with a lemon slice and a cherry stabbed onto the thin red plastic straw. “Cheers.”

  I clinked my glass to the brown bottle. “Cheers.”

  “It’s been quite a night, huh?”

  “Quite a weekend, actually.”

  He turned back to look at me, his blue eyes softly questioning. “Did you know Amanda?”

  “Not really. Well, I used to, I suppose. My sister baby-sat her, once upon a time. A shirttail acquaintance, at best. I hadn’t seen her for years until . . .”

  “Until?”

  I took a sip of my Coke, grateful for the distraction of the chemical burn as it slid down my throat. “Until she and a couple of her friends sashayed into the store Saturday morning and got into a verbal slash-’n’-bash session with another of our customers.”

  “Interesting timing, but that sounds like Amanda. Amanda was, shall we say, top poodle in the kennel. Was that about the gist of it this time?”

  I shrugged. “Typical high school posturing, it seemed to me. Apparently she liked to exert her influence wherever possible.”

  “Some things about high school never change.”

  “No, they don’t seem to, do they?” I took another thoughtful sip of my Coke. “She also bought a Christmas present for her mom. A clock. Really beautiful. Really expensive. She paid for it herself, like it was nothing. And then Goth Girl came down from the loft with Evie, and Amanda and her friends started in on her like they were a pack of dogs and she was a trespassing little rabbit.”

  “Goth Girl?”

  Argh. I’d done it again. “Sorry. I called her that in my head before I knew her name, and now I’m having trouble thinking of her as anything else. Tara. Tara Murphy. She goes to SMHS with Evie.” Marcus laughed suddenly. I tilted my head, questioning. “What?”

  “Tara’s my cousin. Stepcousin, technically. My Uncle Lou married Tara’s mom, my Aunt Molly, when Tara was a wee little thing.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “Small world, huh?” He took a drag on his beer as the jukebox flipped to the next selection with an audible mechanical switching of the gears. “Aunt Marian said Tara’s been having a hard time getting used to Stony Mill. Not surprising, considering that Uncle Lou moved the family here from Milwaukee.”

  I nodded sympathetically. “She doesn’t exactly blend in.”

  “No. And people around here aren’t exa
ctly welcoming if they think you’re . . . different.”

  That was for sure. I felt myself warming up to Tara in a way I hadn’t before. Maybe she was just a confused teenager, trying to find her way. I could relate. “Especially not people like Amanda Roberson.” I let my gaze drift toward the dance floor. Not much going on tonight. A lot of rhythmless men trying to dance with women who actually could. A+ for effort, C for execution. Ah, well. No one said life was perfect.

  “Did you want to dance?”

  I froze, not entirely sure I’d heard him correctly. Hoping that I hadn’t, I lifted my gaze to meet his. “What did you say?”

  He slid down in his seat and stretched his long legs out before him, crossing them at the ankle. His clunky motorcycle boots looked even bigger and clunkier for the effort, but it didn’t detract from the overall image he made. Bad ass, all the way. “You were watching the floor. I thought you might want to . . .”

  Oh, I wanted to, all right. Something told me Marcus was one of those rare men who could move his body with the kind of sinuous grace that could make a woman melt like spun sugar. An experience like that can make up for all the crushed toes of a lifetime. But . . .

  I shook my head regretfully. “I don’t think so. I’m kind of seeing someone right now.” And so is he, remember?

  “It’s just a dance.”

  Yeah. Just a dance. “I wouldn’t feel right.”

  “Tom Fielding?”

  I lowered my gaze to where he cradled his beer bottle in his hands, balancing it against his belt buckle. “Yeah.”

  There was a pause, and then he said in a quiet voice, “Liss told me things were on hold between the two of you.”

  Heat flooded my cheeks. I kept my eyes on his hands and the bottle. It was standard fare, as everyday American as the bar we were in. “Liss has been talking to you about me?”

  The bottle turned a quarter-spin in his long fingers. “Do you mind?”

  Hmm. Did I? “Well. She’s right, of course. I think I scared him off.”

  The bottle turned again. “I never pinned him for a wise man. And Maggie?” The softness of his voice insisted that I look at him. His eyes held me the instant I did, as blue as a pool of water, clear and inviting beneath a summer sky. “He can’t dance, either.”

  I stared at him, thrown for a loop again. No matter how often he seemed to read my thoughts, the ability surprised me, every single time. I was going to have to be more guarded—if he was able to discern what I was thinking about dancing, maybe he also knew what I’d been thinking about him. Not that I meant to, drat it! I just couldn’t seem to help myself. I swallowed nervously. “Dancing isn’t everything. Tom has lots of good qualities. I haven’t given up on him yet.”

  We fell into a silence that was feeling less and less easy-going by the minute. I squirmed, needing to fill the space, to get the closeness back. “You know, you haven’t told me why you needed to talk to me.”

  “Hmm?”

  “You know. The whole ‘I have something I need to talk to you about, Maggie’ thing. Remember?”

  “Right.” He lifted his beer to his lips, tilting his head back far enough to expose his throat. It was such a male thing to do. I couldn’t help watching, mesmerized, as the muscles of his throat convulsed with each swallow as he’d drained the rest of the bottle. With a final ahh of satisfaction, he set the bottle on the table with a decided thunk before facing me. “I wanted to reassure you about the upcoming investigation. I know you’re a little wary about things, but everything’s going to work out. I don’t want you to worry. You’re ready for this. You are. And I’ll be there to watch your back. As a friend. That’s all I wanted to say.”

  Mass confusion. I heard the words, but not a single one was registering. “You mean, Amanda’s investigation?”

  He frowned. “No. I mean the N.I.G.H.T.S. investigation. Tomorrow night. Didn’t Devin call you?”

  I frowned, too. “I don’t think so. What investigation? What are we talking about here?”

  He leaned forward in his seat, balancing his elbows on his knees. His hair looked as dark and glossy as a black cat’s coat beneath the dim barroom lights and the intermittent flashing strobes from the dance floor. “It’s an active on-site investigation, Maggie.”

  On-site. My first. A flutter of anticipation tickled at the base of my spine at the thought, playing counterpoint to the sudden rumbling of nervousness in the pit of my stomach. “That’s . . . exciting. Where will we be investigating?”

  “At a cemetery just outside of town.”

  In my mind’s eye, I had a flash of memory: an angel towering over me, arms reaching out, eyes pupil-less and blind. I shuddered. “Not . . . not Oakhill Cemetery?” I said faintly. I had a teensy little problem with Oakhill. All right, so it’s more than teensy. Just between us, I’m a bit of a wuss at times.

  He shook his head. “Rosemont. Out on 500 North. Do you know it?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Why there? What’s the story?”

  “Rosemont Cemetery borders on Joe Aames’s property. The activity on Joe’s place has always run kind of high, but lately it’s gotten worse.”

  I toyed with my straw, sliding the lemon and cherry up, then down, against the edge of my glass. “How so?”

  “There’ve always been cold spots. Flashing lights with no sources. Unusual electromagnetic readings that correspond with experiences people have had. Touches. Whispered voices. Orbs. Visual disturbances. It’s happening all the time now, and we don’t know why. It’s amazing. It’s a wonderful opportunity to get fresh readings against our base point reading from last summer.”

  His expression had warmed with the topic, lighting up in all sorts of interesting ways. Of course he was talking about one of my childhood terrors. That kind of put a damper on the whole thrill factor. I cleared my throat. “I’m—um—I’m not very good at cemeteries. They—um—really—really—scare me.”

  He reached out and closed his hand around mine. “Maggie, if I didn’t think you could handle this, I wouldn’t have mentioned it. I know it scares you. You’re still new to all this. It took me years before I could do an investigation without getting nervous.”

  His eyes were so soft and gentle that I could feel the anxiety easing, just a bit. I licked my lips. “I’m not sure I’m ready, Marcus. My experiences haven’t exactly been pleasant.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to learn some ways of reclaiming control over your reactions to those elements?”

  “Well . . . yes. Is that possible?”

  A mysterious and somehow reassuring smile curved his lips. “Anything is possible. I believe that. Do you?”

  Did I? “Sometimes I do.”

  “Well, then. That’s a start.” He let go of my hand and leaned back in his seat again, almost languidly. “So you’ll come, then?”

  I hesitated. It took everything I had in me to nod. “I’ll try.”

  It wasn’t so bad, right? I had until tomorrow night to muster my courage. A girl could do a lot in twenty-four hours. Considering that tomorrow morning I had an impromptu appointment for my yearly, the ghost hunt might actually turn out to be the lesser of two evils.

  Besides, his grin was infectious. “I knew you would.”

  The waitress came by to refill my glass. Marcus, to my surprise, ordered a Coke as well. “Just one beer?” I asked.

  He shrugged amiably. “Nothing in excess, that’s my motto. Nothing in excess.”

  I leaned forward on my hand, gazing at him. “So. Tell me. What were you really doing at St. Catherine’s?”

  “I told you. I went along with Aunt Marian. Lend a strong arm for support. You know.”

  “Is that the only reason? Seems a little contrived to me.”

  He laughed. “Does it? I guess you’re right. Would you believe me if I told you I love astronomy and the church tower is one of the best places around for looking at the night sky?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Especially when they turn off those dam
ned landscaping lights. What do you think they use in those babies, halogens?”

  “Maybe.” I paused. “Did you grow up Catholic?”

  “Baptist. My dad’s influence. Mom was a Catholic, though. I’ve been to my share of Masses. I’ve always kind of liked them. The ritual aspect. The pageantry.”

  “And yet you ended up . . . what you are.”

  He laughed. “You don’t have to be so polite about it, you know. A male witch?”

  “Shhh!” I looked around us for eavesdroppers, inadvertent or otherwise.

  “Maggie. I’m comfortable with what I do. With what I am. I don’t generally advertise one way or the other because I don’t think it’s anyone else’s business. Now let me ask you a question. Did you grow up Catholic?”

  “Yes.”

  “And yet you ended up . . . uncertain. Searching.”

  “It was a stupid question, wasn’t it. Sorry.”

  He smiled, shaking his head. “No harm. No need.”

  I twirled my straw in my glass, causing the melting ice cubes to chase after each other like goldfish in a bowl. “Marcus?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What do you think they’ll find out about Amanda Roberson’s death? The police, I mean.”

  He was silent for a moment as he looked at me. Then his gaze slipped westward, briefly. “Looks like you’ll have a chance to pursue the answer to that question yourself. Straight from the horse’s ass. Or mouth.”

  He inclined his head toward the bar. I couldn’t resist the temptation to turn and look for myself.

  Tom Fielding stood at the bar, one hip perched on a tall stool and his arms crossed over his chest. For one brief blip in time, the rest of the world fizzled into nonexistence. He looked good. Damn good. Jeans skimming over his hips and thighs, a Kelly green rugby shirt, and—be still my heart—the kind of glasses that made a man look all studious and deliciously intense. The pristine white T-shirt peeking out at the neck was just the icing on the cake.

  He was staring straight at us.