by K. J. Emrick
“By all means,” Addie told her. “Share and share alike. That’s the way it is between sisters.”
“And friends,” Willow said.
Addie would always remember that moment between them.
Sitting on the couch across from Rosemary, Willow crossed her legs and waited for all eyes to be on her. “Let’s see. First of all, you said Eugene hit you and then ran away. Right? Well, Dahlia and Christine were down here at the time. Neither of them saw Eugene and the only way out of the cabin is through here. So he couldn’t have been running from your room when you said he was.”
“Then let me ask you something else,” Addie said. “After you banged your own head on the corner of your sink, how long did you have to lay on that floor before my sisters and I found you? It must have been a while. You couldn’t risk someone coming in when you weren’t ready so you had to stay on the floor the whole time, right? You must have been down there… what, half an hour? An hour?”
“It seemed like forever,” Rosemary sneered. “This was a perfect plan. It was perfect! You couldn’t have figured it out just like that.”
“But we did,” Willow said with sing-song triumph. “You left the knife at the scene. You left your blood on the sink. When you think about it, you’re really bad at this.”
Addie snickered. “Yeah. You should really find a different way to make money.”
“I’ve killed three people.” It almost sounded like she was bragging now. “No one caught me. Three people. I’d say I know exactly what I was doing. No one ever even suspected me!”
“Until now,” Willow said. “Just your bad luck, I guess, that someone with common sense came along to stop you.”
Her glance slid toward Dahlia again, and while it was obvious that she was getting in a final dig on the private investigator in the room, Addie couldn’t help but feel some of that sarcasm was directed toward Lucian and the police, too.
“I don’t understand,” Christine admitted. “Why would she kill Eugene? Rosemary was his girlfriend.”
“She was pretending,” Addie explained. “In fact, she was doing to Eugene the same thing you accused Eugene of doing to your aunt. Rosemary was with him for the money. She killed him to get his fortune.”
Rosemary didn’t say anything to that, but Addie could tell from her expression that she’d gotten it exactly right. This woman was despicable. There was nothing good about her. Anyone who was willing to end the life of not one, not two, but three people just to steal money deserved no pity.
“I think I get it now,” Dahlia said, although Addie saw the doubt in the fine lines creased around the woman’s eyes. “But then, how does Danny fit into this? She didn’t need to kill him to get Eugene’s money. She only needed to kill Eugene and his wife.”
“My aunt,” Christine corrected her.
“That’s true,” Addie said. She was so glad now that they had gotten to talk to Eileen/Bethany, because otherwise she wouldn’t have put this part together. “Danny was Eugene’s financial advisor. That’s the motive. He handled all of Eugene’s money. If any of it went missing, he would know about it. So, if someone was going to steal Eugene’s fortune, he had to be removed. That someone was Rosemary.”
“What about the wallet?” Christine asked. “Why did she take his wallet?”
Addie opened up the bifold leather wallet. Her eyes held everyone’s attention as she deftly slipped out a thin plastic card from the left side. “She was going to use a very simple method to steal the money. Online banking.”
“Online banking?” Dahlia repeated. “I don’t…”
Willow gave her a glance. She stopped talking.
“It’s really kind of smart,” Addie had to admit. “All she would need was this debit card number, and his passwords, and she could have transferred as much of Eugene’s savings as she wanted to. By the time anyone caught on to the fact that the transactions were fraudulent she could have left the country. Mexico, I’m guessing?”
Rosemary slumped against the couch. “The Marshall Islands, actually. There’s no extradition between them and the U.S.”
“Right. And being Eugene’s girlfriend, you would have seen all of his passwords. You had him coming and going, as they say.”
“Well, well, well,” Willow mused. “She’s really thought this through, hasn’t she? Maybe she’s not as dumb as she led on.”
“Maybe,” Lucian said, “but she’s still a murderer. Officer Foreman, take her to your car. Don’t let her out of your sight. I’ll be out shortly and we can bring her back to our station then. I can not imagine the paperwork we’re going to have to deal with to wrap this one up.”
“So we’re done here?” Willow asked brightly. “Great. Let’s go.”
“Willow,” Addie tried to scold her.
“No,” Kiera said gently. “She’s right. We’ve completed our task here. We have… other things which need our attention now.”
Addie felt the smile slip from her face. Kiera’s son. She’d almost forgotten about Alan.
She felt awful, standing here reveling in a personal victory, when Kiera was still being eaten up inside. Not being able to find Alan was bad enough. The image they’d seen in the Circle had only made it worse.
Yes, they had caught someone who was truly evil. They’d helped to put a woman in jail who had murdered three people for money. She deserved everything she was going to get.
All of that was true, but the work of the Kilorian sisters wasn’t over. Not yet.
Chapter 15
The kitchen smelled wonderful. Kiera had always been able to make the most of Stonecrest’s 1970’s vintage cookstove with its six burners and its convection oven, and the modern double-doored refrigerator, and the spacious countertops. Their parents had spent hours every day in here. They always did love to cook. Addie had inherited at least some of that flair. She had used those talents to open her café. Even so, Kiera was better in the kitchen even if she only shared her talents with her sisters.
Addie helped by gathering ingredients as her sister asked for them, and basically staying out of the way in all other respects. She and Kiera had come straight here from Pendulum Lodge. Willow, on the other hand, had stuck around just long enough to get out of Addie’s Jeep Cherokee and into her sexy blue Mazda Miata and take off again. She was on her way to visit her boyfriend Gary. She’d promised to be home by dinner, because after that the sisters had planned to look for Alan again.
In the back of her mind, Addie had a feeling that Willow was going to invite Gary over tonight, for him to sleep over. Which meant another night of the sisters casting their spells upstairs in the Circle while Gary sat down here obliviously watching football on the flat screen television. Well. As long as he was in Willow’s life, he’d be in Addie’s life, too. She’d just have to accept that.
Willow had actually given her a hug before she left. It felt good, to know they might be getting close to each other again. It spoke of better times to come.
In the middle of the kitchen was an island counter used for food preparation. Addie took a seat on one of the two stools there, rubbing at her eyes and stifling a yawn. She needed a spell to keep herself awake, more than anything. That, or else she needed to start getting more than three or four hours of sleep every day.
A black and white ball of fur jumped up into the stool next to her. Doyle narrowed his eyes as he twitched his whiskers. “You sure look like something the cat dragged in.”
“Thanks,” she muttered. “Any other good news you’d like to spread my way?”
He shifted on his front paws. “That Dom bloke might be all right. We can keep him around for now, I suppose.”
“Oh. You’re going to let us keep him, are you?”
“Yes. I think I am.”
“You may not have a choice, you know.” She reached over, and scratched behind his ears. “Willow has taken a liking to him. I think he’s here to stay.”
Doyle leaned into her hand. “Well. If he’s going to be stay
ing, he has my permission for it.”
Addie smiled and shook her head. “That’s very nice of you.”
“I’m a nice guy.”
“You have your moments,” Addie admitted. “I’m just wondering if you might have another reason for being so nice to Domovyk all of a sudden.”
From over by the stove, Kiera tapped a spoon against the side of the saucepan. “Doyle found out that Domovyk also believes he is royalty. Our two feline princes were chatting each other up the whole time we were gone, apparently.”
“That’s right,” Doyle purred. “Finally, I’ve got someone in the house who understands what it’s like to be as special as me.”
“Great,” Addie remarked before she could stop herself. She only hoped her sarcasm wasn’t too obvious. “Well, I’m glad you made a new friend, Doyle.”
“Nice to have friends,” he agreed. “That smells really good, Kiera. Spicy.”
“It’s my Irish Whiskey sauce. It will pair nicely with the pork chops baking in the oven. You may have some when they’re done, Doyle, if you like.”
Addie breathed in the aromas of the meal. Doyle was right. It smelled wonderful. “Kiera, I told you we didn’t mind picking up something to eat at the café on the way back home.”
“It isn’t a problem,” she said. “It keeps my mind occupied. Now that the mystery at Pendulum Lodge has been solved, I need something to do or I will simply go crazy. Alan is here. He’s here, and he knows me. I can’t believe it, but now we know for sure. So if you and I and Willow are going to try scrying through Shadow Lake for my son again, we will need nourishment to keep up our strength.”
“I agree, but you didn’t have to cook for us. I could have gotten us something from the Hot Cauldron on the way here. I wanted to check on Darla anyway.”
“Darla?” Kiera added something crushed and green and aromatic to the sauce mix. “Why would you need to check on her?”
“Well…” Addie blew out a breath as she thought about how to put it into words. Was she just being silly? No. She knew something was wrong with Darla. They’d been friends for over a year now and even though the woman was older than Addie and a little rough around the edges, Addie knew her well enough that she could see how much she had changed from just a week ago.
Something had happened between then and now. She just couldn’t figure out what.
Kiera was still watching her, waiting for an explanation. “There’s something going on with her,” Addie decided to say. “Everything in me tells me so. My regular senses, and my extra witchy senses too.”
Her older sister nodded, and for a moment a mask of pure sadness fell over her face. “You must trust your instincts. You must let them guide you whenever they speak to you. Even when they say that something will be a lost cause no matter how hard you try.”
Addie looked at Doyle. They both knew that Kiera was talking about her son. Finding him was starting to feel like chasing down a will-o-the-wisp through the forest. Kiera would keep trying from now until the end of time, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t losing hope.
Doyle laid his ears back flat against his head and pointed his nose at Kiera. “Addie, you need to go talk to her,” he whispered. “We both know that you’re better at all this human emotion stuff than I am. Go on with you, then.”
Addie didn’t need Doyle’s encouragement to go comfort her sister, but she knew he was right, too. Doyle always acted so aloof when it came to the emotions and drama of the people around him. In a cat’s world, people existed for your pleasure. They were there to provide for your every need. Even so, Addie knew he cared. In true cat fashion, he just didn’t show it.
“Hey,” she said, coming over to the stove to stand next to Kiera. “You know we won’t give up looking until we find Alan. He’s somewhere close by. I’m sure of that.”
“Then why can’t we find him?” Kiera’s attention stayed riveted to the sauce she was stirring, mixing the darker swirls of the whiskey with the spices and the broth. “We have used all of our combined knowledge of the magic arts and still come up with exactly nothing.”
“We saw him last night. He was there, in the Circle. More than that, he saw you, too. He recognized you, Kiera. There has to be a reason why that happened.”
“I was thinking of him,” Kiera reminded Addie. “My own thoughts conjured up his image.”
“Then tell me this,” Addie pressed her. “If he was just an image from your mind, how did he see you? No, that was really him, Kiera. Now we know he’s alive, and now we know he’s close.”
She hadn’t meant to add in the part about knowing Alan was alive, but she felt it was important to say. They’d just experienced what it was like to search for a dead man, and the possibility that they couldn’t find Alan because he was dead had been a very real one. Now they didn’t have to worry about that. Somewhere out there, he was waiting for them.
“So then why,” Kiera asked, “can’t we find him?”
“Something is hiding him from us.” They had discussed this possibility before, and Addie felt more certain now than ever that it was true. “I don’t know what or who is doing it, but we aren’t giving up. We’re the Kilorian sisters.”
Kiera nodded, still focusing on the sauce in front of her. “What could be strong enough to hide a person from us? Especially one I am related to by blood. I don’t understand why he came back to Shadow Lake after all these years, Addie. I don’t understand why my magic showed him to me, only to have him disappear completely. Can you explain any of that to me, Sister?”
“You know I can’t, Kiera. We all have the same questions, but none of us are giving up.” She reached over, and took the long wooden spoon from her sister’s fingers, and set it aside. “None of us. That includes you.”
“I don’t know… oh, Addie, I don’t know if I’m strong enough to keep doing this.”
“You are,” Addie promised her. “You’re the strongest woman I know. You’re also the most powerful witch I know, and that means you can do anything.”
Even though she was still staring into her cooking, her expression smoothed over, and a sort of calm returned to her. “Thank you. I needed to hear that. Yes. I suppose all we can do is keep trying. I gave him up once. I won’t give up on him now.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“Heh,” her sister said. “Witch humor.”
For a moment Addie stared at Kiera. Was that a joke? Did Addie just hear her eldest sister, the same sister who ironed the collars on her dresses and owned no fewer than six pairs of identical black shoes… did Kiera just make a joke?
They both fell against each other, and the sound of laughter echoed in the kitchen. Addie couldn’t remember the last time they had laughed like this, and just been sisters together. Even amid all the murder and mayhem, the mystery of Kiera’s missing son, and all the other worries that were pressing against the world of the Kilorian sisters, they could still have this moment together.
From the corner of her eye, Addie saw Doyle prop himself on his front paws up on the kitchen island, his right ear swiveling back. Something had caught his attention.
His tail twitched. “Someone is here.”
No sooner had he said it than they all heard the loud knocking at the front door.
Kiera went back to her cooking, the barest hint of mirth still playing about the corners of her lips. “Would you mind getting that, Sister Addie? If I walk away from this, it will burn.”
“Of course,” she said, making her way quickly out of the kitchen and out to the main hallway. Who would be here now? They weren’t expecting any deliveries and it wasn’t like their neighbors came to their front door… well, ever. The magical barrier around Stonecrest should keep out any magically inclined bad guys. Although, she knew that sometimes the big baddies slipped through…
Addie’s footsteps slowed as she thought about that. Now she could just imagine a werewolf standing at the door, knocking to get her closer, waiting to pounce and tear her from limb to l
imb. Or worse, a troll.
Or worse… Belladonna.
No. There was no way any of those could get right up to their house without them knowing.
Still…
Addie reached out with her Essence, threading a streamer of magic through the air and through the door to get a feel for whoever was on the other side.
Then she smiled like crazy and ran the rest of the way down the hall to throw the door open. On the other side, Lucian stood there waiting for her. She had the strongest desire to throw her arms around him and hug him, and she didn’t know why. He just made her feel that way. She settled for watching him grin back at her. When he looked at her like that, whenever he looked at her like that, chills rippled along her skin. Something was going on between them. Maybe it was all in her mind, or maybe her witchy senses were picking up on the truth quicker than her other senses.
Maybe, this was what falling in love felt like.
“Hi,” she said to him.
“Hey.” He looked very pleased with himself, standing there in his sharp white shirt and his beige overcoat. “You maybe want to take a walk with me?”
“A walk? You came all the way out here to ask me to go for a walk?”
“Well, no actually.” He rubbed at the back of his neck, a sure sign that he was nervous about something. “I came out to talk to you but now that I’m seeing this place for the first time, that’s what came to mind. You don’t mind, do you? I have to get back to the station and help process our murderer, so I don’t have a lot of time, but you guys have such an amazing tract of property here.”
“Yes, we do. It’s been in our family for generations. Stonecrest, is what we call it. Um.”
She looked back over her shoulder, down the hall, imagining Kiera standing at the stove in the kitchen still. She didn’t want to leave her sister here, alone.
At the same time, her sister was keeping busy, and she had Doyle and Domovyk for company, and she and Lucian wouldn’t be gone that long. He’d already said he didn’t have much time. She should tell him yes. Shouldn’t she? She couldn’t hover over Kiera like a nervous mother. Kiera wouldn’t let her, first of all, and their respective ages wouldn’t allow that analogy to stand anyway.