It's definitely something to think about, but there's always a possibility that they're not connected and that incident was just a complication of Kat's witch festival publicity stunt. Logan yawned and stretched before flouncing over and hopping into my lap, then clambered up from my lap to perch on my shoulder.
"I guess I'll talk it over with Ray whenever he gets back and see what he thinks." I reached up and scratched under Logan's chin, and he purred hard enough my shoulder vibrated.
Can I ask you something without you getting prickly about it?
I rolled my eyes at the cat's sarcastic tone. "What?"
What's the deal with you and Ray? I can tell you're attracted to him, but you refuse to do anything about it. You've also got an explosive temper when it comes to him, and I just don't get why. He's been pretty calm and patient about it so far, but how much is the guy going to take before he washes his hands of the whole situation?
I plucked Logan off my shoulder and set him on the floor beside the couch with a grunt of disgust. "Once upon a time, I had a gigantic crush on him, but it didn't work out, okay? Why does everyone in my life seem a hundred percent determined to make me relive the absolute worst parts of my past?" I crossed my arms and scowled down at my familiar.
No matter what you do, the past is always going to come back to haunt you, Rox. That's just the nature of the beast. What if the key to getting Kat back safe is buried somewhere in the past and you're just not seeing it because you don't want to relive that stuff? Logan rubbed against my shin and stared up at me with unblinking eyes. It felt like he was looking into the depths of my soul as he waited for my answer.
I shuddered at the thought of speaking all of my most horrible, torturous memories surrounding Ray aloud for Logan’s examination. "Can't we just do some kind of mind-meld type thing since we share a telepathic link? If I focus hard enough on the memories, would you be able to see them for yourself, rather than me having to tell you?"
Logan's tail twitched. He was quiet for so long I didn't think he was going to answer me at all. I've never really thought about it before, but I think that could work. If you go into a deep enough meditative state to enter the Night Realm, then focus on the memories, I could watch them like a movie.
"The Night Realm?" My mouth went dry and I swallowed hard.
Why do you sound like you'd rather burn alive than enter the Night Realm? Logan's voice, usually so light and flippant, was heavy with suspicion.
"I haven't actively entered the Night Realm in seven years. Sometimes I end up there when I have nightmares, but I don't go there on purpose anymore." My palms were slick with sweat at the mere thought of actively entering the Night Realm, and I scrubbed them against the denim of my jeans.
Why?
My t-shirt's collar felt like it was made of ants, and I scratched at the hot, itchy skin. "It's hard to explain. Probably better if I just show you, and we can get this mess of going over the past out of the way in the process."
I got up, gulped down my soda, and shuffled into the kitchen to rinse the can, looking for any excuse to delay the inevitable. Once it was clean, I placed it in the dish drain, thinking that Jenea might be able to use it for some scrap art or something. Bayshore wasn’t big enough to fund and sustain an actual recycling program, but I didn’t want to clog up the landfill with metal if I could help it.
Come on. The longer you put it off, the more you suffer, Logan coaxed.
My heart rate spiked with every step I took back to the couch. By the time I laid down, it felt like every quick, fluttering beat of my heart shook my whole body. My breath came in quick, shallow gasps, and it took an enormous effort to slow down. I closed my eyes, crossed my hands on my breastbone, and focused on relaxing every muscle in my body from head to toe.
I cleared my mind, sinking deeper and deeper inside myself until Logan and I were both standing in the decimated ruins of my Night Realm. Nothing but barren desert stretching out as far as the eye could see in all directions.
I took a deep, bracing breath and looked down at Logan, who was curled up on the area rug beside the couch. "Are you sure you're ready to see the whole, ugly truth?"
He stared back at me with those luminous, unblinking green eyes. Better late than never.
The sudden bang of the house’s front door closing shattered my focus. "Shit!"
I bolted upright, scrambling off the couch and standing up as adrenaline jolted through my limbs. My heart pounded so hard all I could hear for a moment was the sound of my pulse thundering in my ears. Ray stood frozen with his hand on the doorknob and a wary tightness around his eyes.
It took me a moment to register that I had something in my hand, and I was poised to throw it. I frowned and shook my head, letting my arm fall to my side, still clutching the remote control in a white-knuckle grip.
"Are you okay?" Ray's brows pinched together, and he set the notepad he was holding down on the table. "I didn't mean to scare you."
"I’m fine," I said, shoving my sweat-dampened hair back out of my face. "I was...meditating and the noise startled me, that's all."
I kept my gaze locked on his notebook as I leaned over and put the remote back on the ottoman in front of the love seat.
"Meditating? It looks more like you ran a marathon. I thought meditation was supposed to be relaxing." Ray frowned and strode over to me. I flinched when he raised his hand, and judging by the way his eyes narrowed, he didn't miss that detail. Slowly, like he was dealing with a wounded animal, he reached out and pressed the back of his hand against one of my flushed cheeks, and then my forehead. "You look like you're running a fever or something."
"Fever? Nah." The hair on the back of my neck prickled and I fanned at my face, trying to cool it. "It was just a really intense visualization session."
The joke came out almost as awkward and strained as the forced laugh that followed.
Ray pursed his lips and looked like he was considering arguing with me, but he must have decided against it because he shrugged. "Okay..."
I stepped around him and tapped the notepad on the table with my index finger, pinning him with a searching gaze. "How did things go at the police department?"
Rather than meeting my gaze, he shifted his attention to Logan, who was perched on the arm of the couch, staring at us with unsettling intensity. Not at us, at me. His tail twitched furiously. You need to tell him, Roxanne. His best friend from high school tried to ruin your life and drove you into the arms of a psychopath. He deserves to know the truth.
I pressed my lips together and focused on answering the cat telepathically. He didn't believe I was telling the truth back then, and I don't think he'll believe the truth from me now, so what's the point?
"The guy seemed like a complete nut job to me." Ray's gruff assessment snapped me back to the problem at hand. "He just kept saying over and over that he was on a mission from God, and the cops should let him go so he could protect us from the evil in our community."
A chill crept over my skin, eliciting goosebumps and a hard shiver. I stepped closer to Ray, clutching one of his hands in my cold fingers. "Did you ask him about Kat?"
"I tried." Ray looked down at our joined hands. "I don't think it mattered what we asked him, though. He wasn't going to tell us anything except that magic is the work of the devil and he had to kill the witches to keep everyone safe."
My stomach tied itself into a hard, heavy knot. "Witches and magic aren't inherently evil."
I dropped his hand and dug my fingernails into my palms as my mind raced.
"If that's true, why won’t you have anything to do with it?" Ray's expression was sharp, analytical as he awaited my response.
Pain squeezed my heart and I licked my lips. Steeling myself, I stood up a little straighter and looked him dead in the eye. "It is true. They're not evil...but maybe I am. I got involved with some dark shit when everything was going to hell in a handbasket for me...right before I attempted suicide. Once you let the darkness in, it never goe
s away. I don't trust myself with magic anymore, but none of the other witches in this community deserve to die just because they're different from most people."
Ray went pale. "I don't think you're evil, Roxanne." His hoarse whisper had me shaking my head.
"That's only because you don't really know me...not yet." I shot him a bitter smile, but it faltered and died. "I need to talk to this suspect myself and ask him where the hell my baby sister is. Before you argue, you should know I went to Misty today and got a charm from her that should help me keep my magic under control."
Ray swallowed, his adam's apple bobbing like a cork on storm-tossed water. "I better tell James—"
I stepped so close to Ray that if either of us so much as twitched, we would be pressed against each other, and stared deep into his eyes. "Please, Ray...I'm begging you. Put me in a room with this guy so I can find out if he has friends who might hurt my sister before it's too late. If you tell him he’s talking to a witch, maybe he’ll get emotional enough to let something slip."
Ray opened his mouth to answer me, but when he did, the temperature in the room plummeted.
I turned, realizing what was about to happen. Before I could say anything to warn Ray, Granny's ghost appeared, hovering a couple feet away from us in the kitchen.
"I already told you to leave well enough alone, Roxanne!” she shrieked. “Weren't the rattlesnake and nearly burning to death in a fire warning enough for you?"
I recoiled from her rage, bumping into the hard wall of Ray's chest. He rested a protective hand on my shoulder, but I could feel the tension and fear humming through him like a tuning fork that had just been struck. His lips almost brushed the shell of my ear as he muttered, "Was she like this when she was alive?"
"No." Fierce anger boiled through me and heated my skin as I glared at the ghost of the woman I once trusted more than anyone else in the world. I held up a hand to silence her tirade, shaking from head to foot with the force of the rage I felt. Her apparent will to obstruct me at every turn nauseated me. It was so unlike what she would have done when she was alive.
"First of all," I said, jabbing an accusatory finger in her direction. "Ray said he'd prefer not to see any more ghosts, and I don't appreciate you breaking your word that you'd respect his wishes. Second, there is nothing you can say or do to stop me from doing everything in my power to bring Kat home safe. Third, I don't understand why you're so...not yourself since you died, but I'll be damned if I don't get to the bottom of it! Now leave, or I'll call someone who's willing to perform a banishing ritual."
Granny dematerialized, and for a second it was hard to breathe, as if all the air had temporarily been sucked out of the room. I wrapped my arms around myself as I turned to face Ray. There were so many things I wanted to say, but I didn’t know where to start.
I flinched when he wrapped his arms around my shoulders. He held me in a loose embrace, and I rested my forehead against his breastbone, breathing in the heady mixture of his natural scent mingled with the remnants of his delectable-smelling shower gel. The slow, steady rise and fall of his chest was hypnotic and I focused on the motion, letting it drown out my thoughts and feelings.
“I think we need to figure out why your granny’s spirit is behaving so strangely, but I don’t know how we do that,” he murmured, resting his chin on the top of my head.
I grimaced. “I do, but you’re not going to like it.”
The next morning, I was following Ray to the office when the neon “Hot Doughnuts” sign at the local doughnut shop sucked me in and I swung my car into their drive-through line. My cell phone trilled and I pressed the hands-free answer button on the steering wheel.
“You stopping to pick up breakfast?” Ray yawned.
“Yeah.” I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, impatiently studying the car in front of me as they shouted their order into the drive-through microphone.
“Can you grab me some, too?”
“That was kind of already my plan.” I snorted and rolled my eyes. How could he assume I was planning on leaving him out?
“Oh, thanks! I appreciate it.” The sunshine in his voice erased my irritation and warmed me from the inside out. “I’ll wait for you in the employee parking lot and help you carry it in.”
“That’d be great,” I smiled. “I’ll see you in a few.”
Judging by the dark circles under Ray's eyes when he opened my car door for me and held out his hands for the coffee cups, I guessed his sleep was as fitful as mine.
“I hope regular glazed doughnuts are okay?” I grabbed the donut box off my passenger seat and got out, bumping the car door closed with my hip.
“Okay?” Ray chuckled and shook his head, passing one of the coffees back to me. “You’re an angel of mercy.”
I stole a glance at him in my peripheral vision as he pulled the office key out of his pocket and unlocked the back door. Even tired, he looks good enough to eat.
The doughnut box tried to go limp in my hand and I winced, unable to save it without dropping my coffee. Ray's hand shot out and steadied the drooping box as he tugged the door open with the other.
"You didn't have to get me a coffee, but thanks." He spoke the words through a yawn, and I shook my head.
"I figured you could use the caffeine after last night and it looks like I was right. Can you hold this for a sec so I can lock my car?" I thrust the doughnuts at him.
Ray took them, nodded, and propped the door open with his shoulder as I dug my keys out of my pocket and locked up. Shoving my keys back in my pocket, I reached for the box.
"I got it. You go ahead." Ray took a sip of his coffee and winced. "Careful. The coffee's basically still boiling."
I stepped around him and flipped on the light, leading the way up the hall. I held the door to the lobby for him and set my coffee down on my desk. "I'm hoping to put another big dent in the clutter today. Are you actively working on anything?"
Ray set the box of doughnuts next to my coffee and flipped the lid open. He grabbed a plain glazed doughnut. “I’m actually working a new side case as a favor to James. Things keep disappearing from Lynn’s grandparents’ beach property over on Fort Morgan Road in between renters. They want me to keep an eye on the place and see if I can catch the thieves. I need to see if Paul can help me set up one of those wireless doorbell cameras, among other things.”
I snagged one of the doughnuts for myself and took a big bite, chewing slowly as I mulled over how best to word what I wanted to ask him. "Is that something you could maybe put off until after we close tonight? You might need an excuse to be away from my place for a couple hours."
"Probably." Ray eyed me suspiciously. "Why?"
"I called Misty while you were in the shower this morning and we're going to have a séance tonight to try to get to the bottom of Granny's...uncharacteristic behavior lately." I stared at the box of doughnuts rather than meeting his eyes. "Given your feelings about interacting with spirits, I kind of figured you wouldn't want to be at the house when we do that."
He let out a burst of shaky laughter and my head snapped up. Ray sagged against his closed office door with a slow smile. "You guessed right, and thanks for the heads-up about it. Do I need to find somewhere else to crash tonight, or are you going to call me when it's over?"
I shook my head. "I'll call you after."
"Sweet." His whole body seemed to relax and he pushed the door of his office open. "Can I help you with the mess in here since I didn't really have anything else planned for today except the favor for James?"
I finished off my doughnut and licked my fingers clean, before grabbing my coffee. "That’d be great."
He held the door open for me and I strode past him. I stood, hands-on-hips, as I surveyed the amount of work we still had left to do.
"So, what's the plan?" He stood at my shoulder, rubbing his hands together like he was ready to dive in.
"I think things will go much faster if we can set up a system where I pass anything I'm
not sure about to you and you have the final say in sorting them. Everything that has to do with cases that were closed more than six months ago can probably be put in the storage room. Everything else needs to be organized by date, keeping the most recent things at the forefront, and older cases shuffled to the back." I grabbed the nearest stack of files off his office floor and started flipping through them. Any that had a date, I handled myself. Anything more ambiguous got passed to Ray.
We'd been working in a comfortable silence for almost two hours when Ray cleared his throat in an obvious attempt to get my attention. I looked up from the thick file in my hands to find him studying me.
The tight set of his lips and sharpness in his eyes made my stomach go leaden and drop to my feet. The hair on the nape of my neck prickled under his intense, unwavering scrutiny and I licked my lips as my pulse went erratic.
"You've got that look again," I stammered.
"What look?" He frowned and I cringed.
Heat crept up my neck and flared in my cheeks.
"The bloodhound look," I muttered, half hoping he wouldn't hear me and would just shrug the whole thing off.
"I look like a dog?" He snorted, and his cheeks reddened too.
I waved my hands and shook my head, horrified that I might have offended him. "You're not taking it the way I meant it at all."
He quirked an eyebrow at me and the corners of his mouth twitched like he was fighting the urge to grin, or maybe he just wasn't sure how he should feel about what I said. "Well, how did you mean it, then?"
"It's more of an attitude than you actually looking similar to a bloodhound," I grumbled, flipping aimlessly through the file so I wouldn't have to look him in the eye. "You just get this expression sometimes, like you're on a scent and you're not going to give up until you track down whatever that scent leads to, whether you like how it turns out or not."
Coven of Lies (The Bayshore Witch Legacy Book 2) Page 6