by Amy Boyles
Her gaze drifted from me to him as if she were contemplating what to do. “I’ve already told the police everything I saw.”
“Please, Daisy, just a few minutes,” I said. “Sera’s innocent. We’re trying to help her. I know you don’t believe that, but can’t you just help us—from one sister to another?”
She sighed and let her hand fall from the door. “Come on in.”
We stepped inside. The house was clean and tidy. Soft jazz filled the room. “Thelonious Monk?” Roman said.
Daisy nodded. “You know him?”
Roman grazed his knuckles over his jaw. “I do. A favorite of my parents.”
Daisy gestured to the speaker. “My husband loves him, too.”
“Is your husband here?” I said. “We don’t want to disturb him.”
Daisy shook her head. “He’s out of town.”
So who’s the mystery man?
I stepped around the couch to take a seat and happened to glance into the dining room. I stared for a moment, making sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me before sitting down.
“I’m so sorry about Maisie,” I said.
Daisy snatched a tissue from a box. “It’s been hard on all of us. Mom’s taking it so hard. We had to have some meds called in for her today just so she could sleep.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“We won’t take up much of your time,” Roman added. “We only want to know if you saw anything suspicious, any strange activity.”
Daisy shook her head. “Nothing. It was a perfect baby shower, and then everything went wrong.” She dabbed a tissue to the corners of her eyes.
“How long have you known Tina?” I said.
Daisy sniffled. “For years. Ever since we were little.”
I shot a look to Roman; he seemed to pick up on my train of thought. “Were you in school the day Tina ballooned up like your sister?”
Daisy nodded. “How could I forget? How could anyone forget? It was terrifying.”
“And do you know how it happened?”
Daisy fisted the tissue. “Of course. Caroline Applebury spelled her to get even for Tina pushing her down at recess, or something like that.”
“So Caroline was bullied,” Roman said.
Daisy shrugged. “As bullied as anyone, I guess. That was a long time ago. Everyone’s friends now. What Maisie and Tina did to Caroline back then is long forgotten.”
Roman cocked his head. “What did they do to her?”
Daisy shrugged. “Usual stuff—pushed her down, put mud in her pockets, poured milk on her head, nothing extreme, just kid stuff. You know, the sort of thing that doesn’t matter to you when you grow up.”
Right. Maybe in her world it didn’t matter, but I was pretty sure there were plenty of adults still dealing with the scars that childhood bullies had left on their psyches.
“So they’re all friends now? Or were?” Roman said.
Daisy pulled her hair over one shoulder. “Yeah. As far as I know. We all were. Listen, if you’re trying to say you think that Caroline was getting back at Maisie or had some sort of grudge against her, then you’re wrong.”
“What about Tina?” he said.
“What about her?”
“Were there any rifts in the friendship between her and Maisie? Any issues I should know about?”
Daisy inhaled a deep shot of air. When she spoke, it was slow, hesitant. “There was one thing.”
Roman’s brow quirked. “What’s that?”
“Tina had recently come into some money that Maisie was sure her friend hadn’t received in a good manner.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean?”
Daisy cleared her throat. “I mean, Maisie thought Tina had worked some black magic to receive the funds.”
“Black magic?” I said. “How is that different from what we normally do?”
Daisy’s mouth curved into a knowing smile. “White magic deals with nature and doing good deeds. Black magic is more nefarious, dealing with dark entities and using them to get what you want.”
“It’s not something to play around with,” Roman said. “At all.”
He made it sound like a warning. He didn’t have to worry, I wasn’t about to meddle in forces I didn’t understand. Heck, I barely knew how to work the little magic I could. The last thing I needed was to summon something I couldn’t control.
“They fought about it,” Daisy said. “Maisie accused Tina of using black witchcraft, but of course Tina denied it. If you’re doing it, you don’t tell anyone that’s the case.”
“So was she doing it?” I said.
Daisy shrugged. “I don’t know. For Tina’s soul, I hope that’s not the case.”
“For her soul?” I said.
She nodded. “When you deal with that sort of magic, there are dire consequences.”
Roman turned to me. “Using black magic corrupts you. It takes the one thing that is yours in this life and the next.”
I gulped. “Your soul?”
Roman nodded. “You lose it for eternity.”
SEVEN
“Do you think Tina sold her soul?” I said to Roman when we were back in the car.
He shrugged. “No clue. But even if she had, why kill Maisie?”
I nibbled on my bottom lip for a moment. “Yeah, that doesn’t make a lot of sense. If they’d gotten into a fight about it, that would be one thing. But murder? That’s a whole other bag of nuts.”
“Exactly what I thought, minus the nuts,” Roman said.
“Glad we see eye to eye on that.” I paused. “So let’s get this straight. In middle school Caroline Applebury made Tina blow up like a balloon, a fact Tina didn’t tell us. Daisy met with a strange man tonight and then said Tina and Maisie fought over the fact that Tina was dabbling in black magic. And let’s not forget the mousy Caroline Applebury I met at the shower was different from the woman who spoke to us at her house.”
“Right,” Roman said.
I gnawed on the inside of my cheek for a minute.
“Okay,” Roman said. “Spit it out. What’s going on in that brain of yours?”
“Mine?” I said innocently enough. “Nothing. Why?”
His gaze flickered from the windshield to me. “There’s something going on in your head. We’re getting married, remember? I think I know you well enough to be able to tell when your wheels are spinning.”
“Okay,” I said. “There was something weird in Daisy’s house.”
“You mean besides the random man she was having dinner with?”
“Yeah, besides that.”
“This, I’ve gotta hear.” Roman turned down a road and parked in front of the jail.
“And I’m supposed to tell you before we deliver the food?”
“Yep. What’d you see?”
I winced. “Okay. When we were walking in, I snuck a peek into Daisy’s dining room.”
“And you saw the open wine bottle and glass.”
I sucked in air. “You saw it, too?”
He winked at me. “I’m a detective. There’s not much I miss.”
I crossed my arms and wedged my back into the seat. “I swear. Why do I even bother trying to outdo you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Why do you bother? You can’t win. I’ve got super skills on my side.”
I grabbed the plastic bag containing Sera’s burger and pushed open the door. “Come on. Brock should be here soon, anyway. We need to fill him in.”
There was one police officer on duty, a woman, who sat behind the desk. “We brought Sera some food,” Roman said, handing the plastic box over.
The officer inspected it and smiled. “Doesn’t that joint have the best food?”
I nodded. “It was good.”
She rose. “Come on. We’ll take it to her.”
The officer escorted us to Sera’s cell. My sister sat in a ball on a cot. When she saw us, her eyes brightened.
A pang of sadness clotted my stomach. It was ho
rrible seeing her like this. Really bad. I wanted to get her out. Needed to get her out of this mess.
“We brought you some food,” I said.
The officer slipped the box through a rectangular gap in the bars. “I’ll get you a Coke from the machine. Anything in particular you want?”
“Diet,” Sera squeaked, taking the box.
The officer nodded and left.
“We called Brock,” I said.
Sera flashed me a dark look. “What? Why?”
Her answer took me by surprise. “Because I thought he’d want to know where you are. What happened between you? He is your boyfriend, after all.”
Sera shook her head. “We’re in the middle of a fight.”
I nodded. That much I had gathered. “A fight about what?”
Sera shook her head. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter. I just wished you hadn’t called him.”
I glanced over at Roman, who backed away, giving us some privacy. “What are you talking about?” I hissed. “What sort of fight could you be in that would make you not want to see him?”
She shook her head. “Nothing, Dylan. It’s not a big deal.”
“Will you get your hands off me?” came shouting from the front. “I am not some piece of cheese that can be manhandled like that. I’m a delicate flower.”
I groaned. “Oh no. What’s happened now?”
I closed my eyes for a moment and leaned my forehead on the bars. Then I headed to the front, afraid of what I was going to see. When I reached the desk, there stood my grandmother with her hands cuffed behind her back. Reid slumped beside her, also cuffed. Two officers were escorting them to a desk.
I sidled up to Roman. “What’s going on?”
“It looks like they’ve gotten themselves arrested,” Roman said.
“That’s not good.”
Grandma spotted me. “Dylan,” she yelled. “Thank goodness you’re here. You can get this mess straightened out.”
“What’s going on?” I said.
Roman flashed his badge to the officers. “What are these ladies in trouble for?”
The first officer, a young guy with a buzzed haircut and thin mustache, said, “Disturbing the peace. Apparently, they were causing a real commotion down at one of the shops.”
Grandma sniffed. “The prices were outrageous, Dylan. You wouldn’t believe what they were trying to charge for scarves.”
The officer thumbed toward my grandmother. “When we went in to investigate, this one attacked us.”
I sighed. “You attacked them?”
Grandma shook her head. “I was only protecting my rights. They’d already taken one of my granddaughters today; I didn’t want them to take the other. Pretty soon I won’t have any left who aren’t in jail.”
“Okay, well, I think that’s getting a bit carried away,” I said.
“Dylan, when do I ever get carried away?”
I glanced down at her handcuffs. “How about now?”
“Nonsense. I’m trying to protect my family.”
“And so am I,” I said.
Roman rubbed his eyes. I had a feeling he had a serious headache about to start pounding behind his eyes, if he didn’t have one already. He showed the men his badge.
“Can I talk to one of you for a minute? I know these ladies well. I think this is a misunderstanding.”
The officers exchanged a look. The mustached one said, “Yeah, we can talk.” He turned to the other officer. “You come, too.”
To my dismay, they shackled Grandma and Reid to a pole over a bench and headed down the corridor.
“Darn it, I was hoping they’d let us go,” Grandma said.
I shook my head. “What did you do?”
“She started a fight with an officer, after she raged about the prices at the store,” Reid said.
My eyes widened. “Why would you do that? Have you been drinking?”
Grandma glared at me. “Dylan, I don’t imbibe.”
I smacked my forehead. “What a cluster. How am I supposed to do anything with all of you locked up in here?”
“You’re a perfectly capable witch,” Grandma said.
I shook my head. “That’s not the point. The point is my entire family is being incarcerated. This is horrible.”
It was. My stomach twisted with anxiety. My heart pounded and my breathing shallowed. I felt the stability in my life being pulled from me.
Which, I guess was a feeling I had every time I was around a murder and my life went haywire. So really, I should’ve been used to the feeling, shouldn’t I?
Still, that thought didn’t help.
Roman and the officers returned a few minutes later. I met his gaze, desperately searching for information. Roman shook his head, which I took to mean he couldn’t help them. My hopes sank.
The officers started filling out paperwork. “We’ll release you in the morning,” one of them said.
“The morning,” Grandma gasped. “What if the rats get to me by then?”
The officer frowned. “What rats?”
“The ones who may or may not live in the cell.”
The officer shook his head. “You’ll be fine. We’ll put the three of you together.”
I shook my head. “Great. We’ll visit you first thing in the morning.”
Realizing that there was no way my grandmother and sister were going to get out of this, I glanced at Roman. “Want to spend the night in here to keep them company?”
He shook his head. “No thanks.”
I kissed Reid and Grandma on their cheeks, and Roman and I left. We reached his SUV right as another car was pulling up. I didn’t recognize it, but it screeched to a halt beside Roman’s. The door opened and Brock got out.
Brock was about as big and wide as Roman, but with dark wavy hair and a voice as smooth as velvet. A dusting of beard speckled his cheeks, and his straight nose, dark eyes and sharp jawline gave him a classic yet almost rugged look.
“Is she okay?” he asked.
I nodded. “She’s fine. They’ve got her in a cell inside. She’ll want to see you.”
Brock brushed a crop of hair from his face. “Thanks. Are y’all going to be around?”
Roman nodded. “We’ll be around. If you want to meet up later, text me.”
“Give me just a minute,” Brock said. He went inside, almost hesitating.
“They’re in a fight,” I explained to Roman.
“Can nothing be normal today?” he said.
I scoffed. “Isn’t that the truth. I don’t think Sera’s so mad that she won’t want to see him.”
Roman leaned against the SUV. “Let’s wait and see.”
“So why didn’t the cops release Grandma and Reid?”
Roman grimaced. “Because I didn’t ask them to.”
“What?” I nearly shrieked. “I thought that’s what you talked to them about.”
“Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “I was asking them something else.”
“What?”
His mouth curved on one side. “I got them to run that plate for me.”
I rubbed my hands together gleefully. “You did? That’s awesome. What did you find out?”
“Found out the owner is a businessman who just moved into town.”
My eyebrow quirked with interest. “As in just moved like all the other new supernaturals?”
Roman clicked his tongue. “That’s my guess. No way to know until we talk to him for sure.”
I nodded. “Sounds like a plan. But can you promise me one thing?”
“Anything, darlin’.”
I swear, it didn’t matter how many times he said the word darlin’. Every time I heard it come from his mouth, a small shiver ran down my spine.
“Promise me that you won’t get arrested while we’re here.”
Roman threw his head back in laughter.
“I’m serious. Sera, Reid and Grandma have all been arrested. All I need now is for Milly to show up and get thrown in the slammer.”
“Don’t even think about it,” he said. “You never know what she’s up to. She just might appear because you summoned her.”
“From the way things are going around here, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
The police station door swung open. Out strode Brock, a sour expression etched on his face.
“Guess it didn’t go well,” I whispered.
“Guess not,” Roman said.
Brock stopped in front of us. “So what are y’all up to?”
I smiled at him. “We’re going to talk to some guy in town.”
Brock smiled. “Is he a supernatural?”
Roman smirked. “Might be. As of right now, I’m not sure.”
Brock zipped up his jacket and punched his hands into his pockets. “I know a thing or two about this town. If this guy’s supernatural, best thing to do is talk to their mayor.”
“The town mayor?” I said, confused.
Brock shook his head. “Not the town’s mayor, the supernatural’s mayor.”
“The supernaturals here have a mayor?” I said. “That’s interesting.”
“Not only that, but he’s a vampire.”
My blood ran cold at that. Like it could’ve frozen in my veins, for as chilled as Brock’s words made me.
“Oh, are we supposed to go see him?” I said. “Y’all two can go and talk to a vampire. You can leave me out of it.”
Roman shook his head. “Vamps are nothing. Trust me, darlin’. I’ve met my fair share. Never encountered one I couldn’t overtake.”
“Are we talking about the same creatures? Vampires are supposed to be super strong, super fast and super lethal.”
Roman cracked his knuckles. “So am I.”
I shrugged. “Well, I guess that explains it. Roman’s as lethal as a vampire. I knew there was something I loved about you.”
He smiled. “You want to ride with us?”
Brock shook his head. “No, thanks. In case I need to leave unexpectedly, I’ll take my car. But I’ll lead us to him.”
We pulled up outside a nice mini-mansion just past the congested residential part of town. Normal was incredibly quiet at night, as most small towns were. I was still nervous about talking to a vampire, but I had Brock and Roman with me. Surely they would be enough protection.
We rang the doorbell, and a man about my age answered. He had dark amber-colored hair and piercing blue eyes that betrayed an intelligence that few folks possessed.