“Do you ever think that maybe we’re wasting our talents by being lazy?”
“Our magic talents or our awesome talents? Because I’m not Puritan enough to get working for the sake of work. We’re rich now. It’s the American dream to be rich and lazy. Or something like that.”
“You are rich. I’m a mooch,” Emily said. She didn’t say sadly or whiningly, but Ingrid glanced over, a frown on her face.
“We are rich,” Ingrid said. “In all the ways that matter, it’s both of us. What do you think of going to St. Maartens? Did you know it is spelled with two a’s? Anyplace spelled that stupid is probably fun. And warm. I’m pretty sure it’s a warm place.”
“Do I have to water ski, parachute, or surf?”
“I’m pretty sure the whole point of tropical vacations is to float in the water or lay in the sun. That and fruity drinks. The slushy kind with chunks of pineapple on the edge of the glass.”
“Oh, hey,” Emily said. “I think that the necklace swung the other way a while ago. I wasn’t paying attention.”
“So turn around? What do we have for snacks?”
She spun the SUV in a U-turn, but it was too big for the little island roads, so it took her five attempts to get it fully around. Once it was facing the other way, she wiped her brow and said, “Okay, that solves it. I need another car. Something smaller. But cute. And stupid. As stupid as this monster SUV but smaller.”
“What about one of those little British cars?”
“As you say that,” Ingrid said, opening the bag of cheese puffs that Emily had brought for snacks, “I am thinking that a little, little car might be as irritating as a big one. What would have I done with the espresso machines in a tiny car? What will I do when I go stress shopping and buy seventeen pairs of shoes? I can’t just get rid of my rainbow wedges because they don’t fit in the trunk. I’ll have loved them by that point.”
“Wait,” Emily said, holding up the hand that held the pentagram on a chain, “are these theoretical wedges or real ones? Because they sound cute.”
Ingrid batted the chain out of her face and said, “Theoretical. But after the murder investigation and before St. Maartens, we should find some. Want to be twinners on the vacation?”
“For rainbow wedges, yes. Also, I’m pretty sure that the pentagram in your face means that Melinda is that way.”
Ingrid pulled over and they both looked into the trees. “Is there anything even back there? Like roads? A creepy cabin inhabited by a recluse? A tribe of feral pigs? It could just be an abyss.”
“Um, woods. Wild dogs? Badgers?”
“I don’t think the island has predators like that,” Ingrid said. “I’m feeling a bit of…what is it?”
“Creepy-ass fear?”
“Yes, that’s it, and also dread.” Ingrid agreed. “We are going to have get out and walk. I am feeling sorrow for my shoes. They were not meant for hiking through the woods. These heels will never be the same, probably. Especially because I’m not cleaning them.” She swung the door open and wondered why she wore a flippy little skirt. She remembered the look of Gabe’s butt in his jeans and remembered. Sometimes you had to suffer to be adorable.
“So, do you think that she’s going to kill us in the woods?”
“Probably,” Ingrid replied. She looked at the trees again. This was part of the Pacific Northwest, so they were tall, and it would be dark underneath. Dark. Possibly murky. “So, maybe a weapon or something? Also that flashlight. And do you think that we’re going to get ticks?”
“Yes to all of it. I don’t have a weapon. Do you? I find I’m not too concerned about her. Woods equals creepy. But Melinda equals like…”
“Right. Right,” Ingrid said nodding, not needing Em to finish. “You make an excellent point. She’s older. We’re younger. There’s two of us. We aren’t scrappy or anything. But we have twenty fingernails when she only has ten. But bring the hairspray. We can get her in the eyes,” Ingrid said. “Or set her on fire, if she gets to be hoochy. Did you see that movie? I swear there’s a movie where teenagers set someone on fire with hairspray and a lighter.”
“We can’t set her on fire until after I slap her. Also, I have not seen that movie. But if it does not exist, it should. And I should own it. And watch it while being tipsy.”
“Fair enough about the slap, but you don’t want to catch whatever germs she’s harboring. Wouldn’t it be ironic if you got an STD from your ex’s cheating lover, instead of from him?” Ingrid said.
Emily snorted. “Ew. I’m not planning on having sex with Melinda, so I think we are good. Just a slap. A good solid, vicious, ear-ringing slapping. Or two.”
“Or four. Let’s recap, there’s two of us. Melissa is a wimp. Right? We could be feisty, right? Scrappy?”
“No,” Emily said. “We’re definitely not scrappy or feisty. We’re snidely mean.”
“Oh, yeah,” Ingrid said. “Shoot. I don’t think that will do us a lot of good in the woods.” She used her shoe to toe aside some of the undergrowth before gingerly stepping over it.
“Pedis later,” Emily said, following Ingrid into the dark. “Do you have the hairspray ready?”
Ingrid held up the can of hairspray, and they tip-toed through the woods for several minutes, grumbling under their breath and jumping at every sound.
“How far do you think she is?” Ingrid asked. “I’m regretting only walking up the stairs twice in the last, like, seven months.”
Emily started giggling. Soon the two of them were laughing as they followed the pull of the pentagram—even though their laughter was a tinge hysterical. It was the woods. The woods and the probable badgers.
Ingrid looked back at Emily, watching her carefully move through the undergrowth, and said, “We should have brought those cheesy puffs.”
She was turned around as she stepped forward, which is why she didn’t see the lump in the ferns. Her heel caught on something, she spun forward and landed half on, half off a large, soft, squishy something.
“Ouch,” Ingrid cried as Emily started laughing at her. Ingrid rolled off whatever tripped her and giggled up at Emily before trying to untangle her foot. Then she saw what it had caught on—the strap of Melinda’s purse. Ingrid froze as her mind started adding up what she saw.
Ingrid was shaking her head and scuttling back as Emily said flatly, “I think we found Melinda.
“Oh, gross,” Ingrid finally said when she had pressed herself against a tree trunk. “I have dead people gook on me.”
She flipped off both of her shoes and moved to the side, trying to get even farther from the body.
A bug crawled out of Melinda’s nose, and Ingrid turned over and started gagging into the undergrowth. She puked up her breakfast of coffee and cheesecake and her snack of cheesy puffs before crawling farther away from the body and the vomit. After all, there was sushi in that too.
“Man, this day sucks hard,” Ingrid said. Pushing back her hair, she realized she’d just crawled into poison ivy. “Damn it. Dang it. Suck it.”
She stood, already feeling itchy as she turned to face Emily, who stared down at Melinda.
“Are you all right?”
“No. Yes. No.” Emily said. “I wanted to slap her.”
“For sure,” Ingrid agreed, staring down at Melinda. Based on the hole in her forehead, Ingrid assumed Melinda had been shot.
“Damn it,” Emily said. “You know what this means? She probably didn’t kill dickhead. They’re gonna think I killed her, too.”
“Nah, you wouldn’t have killed her. Where’s the fun in that? We’d have hexed her or gotten someone better at spells and witch whatnot to hex her with incurable genital warts or something else mildly evil. Killing her is so much more not us.”
“Yeah,” Emily said. She sighed and turned to Ingrid. “So we should probably call your Hotpants and figure out who killed this one, too.”
“Wait,” Ingrid said. “I mean obviously it was Davis, right? Who else would kill both dickhe
ad and ho-bag down there?”
“Oh, yeah,” Emily said. “It figures that dickhead’s brother was a real a-hole, too. I never liked him. You’re totally going to have to sell the SUV now. Because when you get in it, you’ll have poison ivy, vomit, and dead people gook on you.”
“Ew. Shoot. Now I feel forced into it, but also nothing else is acceptable,” Ingrid said. “I might mourn the Escalade now. It suddenly has a name. Its name is Henry, and it misses me already.”
They stepped over Melissa’s body and started trying to find their way back to the SUV.
After they’d wandered past the same tree a couple of times, Ingrid said, “Probably I shouldn’t have left my cell phone next to my bed. Also probably you shouldn’t trust yourself in any relationships from now until forever. Since you liked Melinda. I don’t have any good judgment either, so we’ll need to get a third party to approve who we like.”
“What about Gabe?” Emily asked, carefully avoiding all of the things that had contaminated Ingrid.
If Ingrid could have taken off her skin, she would have. If it wouldn’t have been possibly friendship-ending mean, she’d have rubbed up on Emily just to share this horrific case of the ookies. It was absolutely not fair that Ingrid had to carry the ookies alone.
15
Wednesday Evening
Emily and Ingrid trudged through the darkening forest, looking for the way back to the Escalade. “I’m super happy to let the cops look for Davis,” Emily said. “It’s dark, and there’s an actual dead person back there. Can’t we just call Gabe from home? After we have soaked in the tub and had a glass of wine? It’s not like it will make a difference to Melinda.”
Ingrid snorted and said, “Yeah. Let’s get out of here. Also, and this is important, which way is the car?”
A male voice came from out of the dark. “I don’t think you two are going anywhere.”
Emily and Ingrid jumped together. Emily shrieked while Ingrid held her hand to her mouth and then slapped Emily’s arm for being there while pants were almost peed. They had to both pee their pants or neither.
“Damn it all to hell,” Ingrid groaned as Emily said, “Davis? What are you doing out here?”
Ingrid’s instincts didn’t tell her to shut up, even though there was a murderer with a gun across the clearing from them. Fingers digging into Emily’s bicep, Ingrid said, “What is it with all the creepy a-holes lately? Em, you’re a magnet!”
He stepped farther into the clearing, leaving the shadows. Now that they could see his face, they shivered in unison. It hadn’t seemed this creepy before, but now that they knew he was at least a two-time murderer it changed things. He pointed a gun at Emily’s chest.
“I’ve been following you around for two days. Just waiting to get to a place that was deserted enough for me to kill you. You two are incredibly annoying.”
“First, rude.” Ingrid’s voice shook slightly, so Emily knew that her best friend was freaked out as Ingrid added, “Second, he’s like Ken doll. Look at how gelled his hair is. He’s got plastic head.”
“Yep,” Emily agreed, shrugging out of Ingrid’s grip and side-stepping her friend, hoping to move the gun with her. Instead the a-hole swung it back and forth between them. “Fake-tan yellow. Too-bleached teeth. He’s a living Ken doll without the abs.”
“I always hated Ken,” Ingrid said. “I cannot be murdered by Ken. You’d think he’d have just left after killing Melinda. How does killing us help? Are you stupid?”
Davis stepped closer, and the moonlight cast a sinister edge on his face. Or maybe that was just the gun. “Did you just call me stupid? You do realize I have a gun, you stupid whore?”
“Rude,” Ingrid repeated as Emily stepped closer to the gun.
The reflexive joking faded in her fury. And her voice shook like Ingrid’s had. But in rage.
“I can see why you killed Owen. Everyone hated him. He was not worth the oxygen he consumed, but Melinda? How could you kill your own wife? I know she was a whore, but I don’t think she deserved to be killed and left out here in the woods for the worms. Seems a little harsh. Even for an a-hole like you.”
Davis laughed, which gave Emily chills. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Ingrid rubbing away her own goosebumps. Emily sort of wished she knew a bit of magic right now. She tried to grab for her power and lift something, but she felt helpless. Being out here in the dark with creepy murdering brother-in-law was less than desirable.
“I could care less who Melinda was sleeping with. Owen and Melinda deserved each other. If she would have just left well enough alone, I wouldn’t have had to kill her. But she was going to tell you that I killed Owen. Stupid whore. I was going to share the inheritance with her. She knew I killed him as soon as she saw you testify to Gabe. Told me in the car that only one of the three of us had a motive. What an idiot! Didn’t she know about all the husbands who hated Owen? All the marriages he’d ruined? All the money he’d embezzled and moved overseas? I need that money. But when she found out that I had to kill you in order to get it, she suddenly grew a conscience.”
“Okay,” Ingrid interjected, edging toward a tree behind them. “I regret like twenty percent of my hate for Melinda now. Maybe twenty-two percent.”
He grunted again. “Like I said, she was a stupid whore. No need to feel guilty hating her before your own death, Ingrid. Too bad your money won’t come to me.”
“You were going to kill me? What did I ever do to you? I thought you liked me?” Emily sounded shocked and edged back with Ingrid.
“Oh, yeah. I like you just fine, Emily.” He looked at Ingrid. “Your friend annoys the hell out of me, but you aren’t so bad. Not really. But I couldn’t wait any longer for your divorce to be final. I needed Owen’s money and as long as he was alive and you were married, I didn’t have access to it. There was a business deal, and I needed the cash.”
“This was about money?” Emily asked, incredulously. She was mostly offended, and mad at herself that she was offended. But if she had to be murdered in the woods, it needed to be over something awesome like true love or an ambassador’s daughter who’d been kidnapped and was saved just as Emily covered the child with her own body. She deserved to go out in a blaze of glory. Damn it.
“He’s a dickhead, too,” Ingrid said. “We’ve established this.”
“Everything is about money, Emily.” Davis’s arrogant voice was more condescending than ever. “I already wrote a check from his account and put it in a Swiss bank account. Made it look like it was from him before he died. But then Melinda had to mess it up with her big mouth. So I shut her up. That’s fine, though. Now I don’t have to share the money.”
“You don’t actually think you are going to get away with this, do you?” Ingrid’s voice was laced with acid. And a touch of humor. “Also, your kids are effed up, aren’t they? They are, of course. Don’t bother to answer.”
Emily giggled at Ingrid’s irreverence to the murderer waving a gun in their faces.
Davis smiled. “Of course, I’ll get away with this. I’m going to kill both of you. And burn your bodies along with Melinda’s here so nobody ever finds you. They’ll think that you guys ran off with the money since you already look guilty, and I’ll tell everyone that Melinda left me. Nobody will look for any of you.”
Ingrid smiled. “The sheriff will definitely be looking for me, you dumb ass. Also her aunt is the most powerful witch on the island. You don’t have a chance in hell to get away with this. She’ll know we were murdered when I haunt her and then track you down to screw with you until you kill yourself to escape me. Also, and please realize this is true, that Hazel will remove your ability to use your man parts and leave you to be a girlfriend in jail. She can make you all alluring and sultry for your prison mates.”
“Plus,” Emily said, “ghost me will totally be whispering to them while they sleep until they slowly kill you. Super, painfully slowly.”
He pointed the gun at Ingrid and cocked it as he said, “I
don’t believe in magic.”
“Run, Ingrid.” Emily shouted as she dove for Davis.
Ingrid leapt behind a tree, but not before using her magic to hold Davis in place for a moment. With the combination of Emily’s tackle and Ingrid’s magic, they knocked him down just as the gun went off.
Ingrid hurried from behind the tree, grabbed Emily’s arm, and they ran into the woods, holding hands so they wouldn’t get separated. Ingrid’s magic held Davis in place long enough to get well and truly lost but she felt it snap just as they ducked down near a thick tree and some massive brambles.
“I—can’t—breathe,” Emily huffed. “We have to slow down.”
Ingrid led them behind another large tree where they both struggled to catch their breath. “I’m gonna call Gabe. I’m certain he will object to this dickhead chasing his girlfriend through the forest and shooting at her. Also, you think a-hole believes in magic yet? I’m going to light his undershorts on fire either way.”
Emily laughed.
“Damn it all to hell. My phone is by my bed. Give me yours.” Ingrid searched through her purse. “All I’ve got is my wallet, car keys, and a can of hairspray.”
“Well, now what?” Emily said as Davis rounded into the clearing where they were hiding. Ingrid dropped to the ground and pulled Emily down. Em was so angry, it was too likely she’d dive for the guy again and who knew where the next bullet would end up?
“I hate that a-hole so hard right now,” Ingrid whispered. “But I can’t get my magic. I’m almost to pants-peeing scared, so my magic is slipping through my damn, inept fingers.”
16
Wednesday Night
They were squatting next to the massive trees of the Pacific Northwest, not quite peeing their pants, and Ingrid reconsidered the sanctity of bunny life.
“I’m feeling okay about bunnies dying for us now. When we get to a phone, I’m calling Saffron. I’ll pay her a small fortune to take care of this. Screw Karma. We should have done that already,” Ingrid said as she felt around for anything. Maybe a branch. Or a badger. Something to throw at that murderer. Car keys even. She dug in her purse finding gum, mints, lip stick. Nothing useful.
Inconvenient Murder: An Inept Witches Mystery Page 15