“Oh, for crying out loud, cut the whining.” Jolene rolled her eyes. “We aren’t going to kill you.”
“You aren’t? But you killed Hale.” Swain looked at them skeptically.
“For the umpteenth time, we didn’t kill your brother.” Morgan felt sorry for him and her intuition was telling her he wasn’t the enemy. She didn’t know how far she could trust her intuition, but she doubted he’d killed his own brother. “But I saw his body … and a black licorice beside it, just like those in your pocket.”
Swain looked down at the Black Crow licorice box peeking out of his top pocket. “Yeah, I was there. Hale had taken off … he was always so impetuous. Anyway, he rushed off with the map and I went out to find him. I found him, all right, but not before someone else got him first. I must have dropped the licorice. I wasn’t really paying much attention after I saw what had been done to him.”
“Someone killed him, either to keep him from getting to the relic or to find out what he knew about it,” Celeste suggested. “But why did you think it was us?”
Swain shrugged. “I’d heard about you girls through some of my underground contacts and when I saw the burn on him, I knew no normal person could have done that, so I just assumed it was you. I knew you lived here and I figured you’d be after the relic. So I followed you around figuring you’d know where it is.”
“We are,” Jolene said. “But we wouldn’t kill for it. That doesn’t explain why you and your brother are so hot for it, though. Were you that eager to make a big discovery and get in the papers?”
Swain scrunched up his face. “Is that what you think this is about? Trust me, the relic itself isn’t any big discovery as far as the archeological community is concerned. In fact, it probably doesn’t mean squat to anyone outside of the paranormal community. But we don’t really care about any of that. Hale was so eager to help our mother get better that he rushed off … well, I suppose now it doesn’t matter. What’s to become of me?”
Morgan’s heart melted. She believed Swain was sincere—he wasn’t after the relic for personal gain. He wanted it because somehow it could help his mother. She didn’t know what was wrong with his mother, but she could sympathize.
She glanced at her sisters. “Well, since we aren’t killers or kidnappers and you don’t seem to be a threat, I guess we’ll just let you go.”
Fiona, Celeste and Jolene nodded and Morgan bent down to untie his hands.
He looked up at them incredulously. “Really?”
“Yes. I don’t know what you heard about us, but we’re the good guys. We’re just after the relic to keep it out of the hands of people who would use it for bad intent.”
“But if you didn’t kill Hale, then who did?”
“There are other paranormals who aren’t as nice as we are. They want the relic, too. One of them killed your brother.” Jolene frowned at Swain, who was rubbing his wrists. “You’re not a paranormal, are you?”
He shook his head. “No. I’m just a simple archaeologist. I found out about the relic through my contacts.”
“And this.” Morgan gingerly picked up the mirror weapon. It looked ancient. The frame was bronze with symbols around it, and the middle piece which she’d thought was a mirror appeared to be mica. “Did you get this from your contacts?”
Swain nodded. “I paid a pretty penny for it. It’s Mayan. It’s said to bounce energy back at the sender. And it worked a treat too, didn’t it? I wasn’t sure if it really would.”
“Yes, it did.” Morgan looked at her sisters. “This could come in handy.”
“I might be willing to trade it for the relic.” Swain started toward the hidden compartment.
Morgan stepped in front of him. “Not so fast. We didn’t say we’d let you have the relic.”
“Oh, I don’t want to keep it. I just need it for my Mom and then I’ll give it right back to you guys.”
Jolene snorted. “Right. Like we’d trust you with it.”
Swain looked hurt … and desperate. “You can come with me. Please. She’s dying.”
Morgan’s heart pinched. Clearly, Swain new more about the relic than they did. He thought it had some healing powers. Morgan wished she could help him.
Celeste must have felt sorry for him, too. She looked at Morgan, then at Swain, her face pinched. “Maybe we could try to help him out? I mean, it can’t hurt. And anyway, I’m dying to see what this relic is … sounds like it has something to do with healing.”
Morgan pressed her lips together as Celeste started toward the hidden compartment. “Don’t bother.”
Celeste’s brow creases as she turned and looked at Morgan. “What? Why not?”
“The relic isn’t here. The compartment was empty.”
Chapter Fourteen
Jolene’s brow creased. “What do you mean? It was empty the whole time?”
“Yep. I was just about to tell you that when Indiana Jones here burst in on us.” Morgan tilted her head toward Swain.
Swain marched over to the compartment and opened it. He bent over and peered inside, then slammed the lid shut.
“I don’t believe it.” He paced the length of the altar, running his hands through his short, dark-blond hair. “It seemed like we were so close.”
Morgan raised her left brow at him. “We?”
He shrugged sheepishly. “Well, you. I was mostly following, but don’t take that to mean that I don’t know how to find something. I am an archaeologist, after all. But I figured why do the work when I could let you do it for me?”
Celeste narrowed her eyes at him. “You had a map. So why were you following us?”
Swain looked at them as he paced. “It seemed like you girls had some sort of an advantage. Plus it’s your home turf. The map led me to the graveyard at the Finch farm and when I saw you there, I figured I’d let you do all the work and just follow behind.”
“So, you did look in the cornerstone before us, then.” Fiona said.
“Yep. It was empty.”
“This is frustrating,” Jolene said. “These clues keep leading us to the wrong place.”
“Maybe this is the right place and someone got here before us,” Swain said.
Morgan shook her head. “No. When we came in there was a layer of undisturbed dust on the floor. No one has been here in decades.”
“We must have interpreted the clues wrong,” Celeste said.
“What, exactly, were the clues?” Swain asked.
“The epitaph on the gravestone,” Jolene answered. “Of course there was that last line …”
“Last line?” Swain pivoted to look at Jolene. “Sounds like you have some sort of question about it.”
“We’re not sure exactly what it is,” Jolene admitted.
“Let’s just go read it, then.” Swain started toward the exit.
“That’s the thing.” Morgan’s voice stopped him in his tracks and he turned back around to face them again. “We can’t.”
“Why not?” he asked.
His eyebrows crept higher and higher on his forehead as they told him about the freak snowstorm in the graveyard, how the gravestone was smashed to pieces and how they couldn’t read the last line since it was buried.
Swain was thoughtful for a few seconds, then said, “So these bad guys … they must think the clue is on the gravestone, too, then. I mean, if they were the ones that created the storm and smashed the stone.”
“Yes, that’s what we think,” Fiona said.
“But is it really?” Swain asked. “I mean, why do you all think that?”
“Well, you said yourself the map leads there and Celeste … well …” Morgan hesitated. Should she tell Swain Celeste talked to ghosts? Seeing as he’d already admitted he knew they had paranormal gifts, she didn’t see the sense in keeping it a secret. “She talked to Ezra’s ghost.”
“Ezra Finch? He was in my research, too. I think he is the key.” Swain started pacing again. “But maybe we are going about this all wrong. Maybe he hid i
t in plain sight.”
“Here you go with the ‘we’ again,” Jolene said. “There is no we. You just tried to shoot us!”
“That was an honest mistake. I thought you’d killed Hale. But now I can see that you aren’t killers.” Swain held up his chafed wrists. “Because you let me go. So we should team up.”
Jolene scrunched up her face. “I don’t know about that. We usually work solo.”
“Yeah, you’ve been doing a great job so far.” Swain waved his hand at the empty compartment.
Morgan looked down at it and grimaced. He did have a point.
But maybe you are stuck on one track,” Swain continued. “You might need a different perspective. This happens in archaeology sometimes—you get stuck going down the wrong path, and sometimes you just need to reevaluate what you think you know.”
“What do you mean?” Celeste asked.
“Well, so far, you’ve been operating under the assumption that Ezra Finch hid the relic somewhere. In the cornerstone or this box, but maybe he hid it in plain sight.”
“Plain sight?”
“Yeah, out in the open, where it’s not obvious that it’s something special. You girls know the family history better than me. Is there somewhere he might have put it where it would seem like it was just normally supposed to be there?”
Morgan glanced at her sisters. “Umm … we’re not sure.”
“What about that guy you keep visiting in the nursing home. His grandson, is it? Maybe he would know,” Swain suggested.
“It’s his great-grandson,” Jolene said. “And he’s not really that reliable with his information. Plus he doesn’t know Ezra had a magical relic.”
“He doesn’t necessarily need to know it’s a magic relic. You can ask if his great-grandfather had one…” Swain narrowed his eyes at them. “You know, where one would normally be.”
Morgan shifted her weight on her feet and looked at the ground.
Swain stopped pacing and gave them a sideways look. “I’m sure you can name several places the relic would be camouflaged or where it wouldn’t call attention to it being something special, right?”
“Of course we can.” Morgan avoided eye contact. How could they know where the relic would look ‘normal’ if they didn’t even know what it was?
“Meow.”
Morgan had almost forgotten about the cat, but here she was, weaving her way around Swain’s ankles. He bent down to pet her and a low purr reverberated around the room.
“So, it seems like we can help each other figure this out,” Swain said. “I say we team up.”
Jolene shook her head. “I don’t think that’s in our best interest. Besides, it sounds like that would benefit you more than it would us. You don't have much to offer us.”
“Au contraire. I think you need my help. Don’t forget that I’m an archaeologist and am used to deciphering clues. I’ve brought more artifacts to the light of day than any other archaeologist this decade.”
Celeste jerked her head up to look at Swain. “Light Of Day—so that boat in the cove is yours!”
Swain nodded. “Yes.”
Morgan could feel Celeste tensing, her knees slightly bent as if she was readying to get into her karate stance.
“And that poor woman on the boat,” Celeste said. “What did you do to her?”
“Do to her? That’s my mother.” A cloud of sadness passed over Swain’s face. “She’s sick. That’s why I want the relic—to heal her. I’m not interested in getting credit for it or even keeping it. In fact, you girls can have it after I’m done.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Morgan asked softly.
“Cancer. Stage III.” Swain turned his desperate eyes on Morgan. “Don’t you see? The relic is my only hope to save her.”
Morgan’s heart melted. She sensed he was telling the truth, and the truth was they were running out of leads. She could relate to his desire to cure his mother—it wasn’t that long ago that she thought her own mother was lost to her forever. If they had a chance to help cure Swain’s mother and they didn’t take it, Morgan would never forgive herself. Most importantly, though, her gut instincts were telling her that joining forces with the archaeologist was the right thing to do.
“I think we should team up with him.” Morgan eyed her sisters hopefully. “He’ll probably just follow us around anyway if we don’t. This way, we can keep an eye on him.”
Jolene sighed. “I guess you’re right.
“And Belladonna seems to approve of him.” Fiona pointed to the cat, who was still enjoying Swains attention. Belladonna took a moment out from her slit-eyed purring to wink at Morgan.
“And he does have that mica thing that could really come in handy against paranormal bad guys,” Celeste pointed out.
Swain broke out into a smile. “You girls are making the right decision. Plus teaming up with me will probably benefit you girls as much, if not more, than it will benefit me.”
“How’s that?” Jolene asked.
“Because I know what the relic actually is.”
***
“A mortar and pestle?” Morgan frowned at Swain. “But those aren’t very rare. I have several of them right in my shop.”
“Yeah, how would we know if we even had the right one?” Jolene asked as she passed Swain a mug of coffee across the island of their kitchen, where they’d all come to after they left the church.
Swain accepted the tea and, taking the rectangular box of licorice out of his pocket, he tipped it towards the girls. “Licorice?”
“No, thanks.” The four of them declined.
Swain put the box back in his pocket and leaned over to grab his coffee. A Black Crow licorice fell out and bounced on the counter.
"Darn things are always falling out." Swain picked up the licorice and dropped it into his cup of coffee.
"That explains why we were always finding them everywhere," Morgan said. "You left a trail like Hansel and Gretel."
Swain grimaced. “Anyway, the mortar and pestle we’re after is special. It’s imbued with potent healing properties.”
Celeste snapped her fingers. “That makes perfect sense. Ezra was a pharmacist and back in the day he would have used a mortar and pestle to compound his remedies. Even the chemical ones.”
“No wonder he was so popular,” Fiona said. “His remedies were magic.”
Morgan’s left brow ticked up. “Boy, I wouldn’t mind having one of those in my shop.”
Swain winked. “Maybe one of your mortar and pestles is the one?”
Morgan’s eyes widened. “Could it be?”
Swain shook his head. “No. I don’t think so. I think you’d notice right away that the remedies you made were very powerful. Besides this one, I’m told, is easily recognizable as being different.”
“Different how?” Luke, who had been sitting in the corner silently, narrowed his eyes at Swain. He hadn’t been too happy that the girls had taken Swain in, but like the rest of them, he’d learned to trust Morgan’s instincts—which he was now doing reluctantly.
Swain tipped the licorice box in Luke’s direction. Luke shook his head and Swain shrugged, then picked a licorice out of the box and popped it in his mouth.
“That, I’m not entirely sure about,” he said as he chewed. “I figure it’s marked in some way so that one would know it’s not just an everyday mortar and pestle.”
Jolene shifted the carnelian-filled towel she was holding to her head into her left hand and picked up her cell phone with her right. “I can text Brody to see if I can get a list of the items stolen from the museum. Maybe there will be something obvious, but I think we need something more specific to go on that just that it's 'different'.”
“Maybe there’s a clue to that in the epitaph on Ezra’s gravestone, too,” Celeste suggested.
“The bottom line?” Johanna asked.
“Maybe,” Celeste answered. “Too bad we don’t know what it said.”
“We could ask Thaddeus,” Fiona sugge
sted. “He might remember, or maybe he has some paperwork from when the stone was engraved?”
“I just wish I could remember. I should be able to.” Jolene sounded defeated.
“You’re probably exhausted,” Morgan said. “In fact, I’m pretty tired myself. We should all get to bed early tonight. I want to get started first thing tomorrow.”
“Good idea. With all the excitement in the graveyard and at the church, we forgot to stop by Sticks and Stones.” Fiona glanced out the window at the dark night. “It’s too late now, but we need to go first thing tomorrow. We should be wearing those in case things get cagey with Bly.”
Johanna nodded. “You girls better make that a priority. Those amulets could save your lives.”
“That’s right,” Luke said. “You girls need the protection.”
Jolene let out a loud sigh. “Especially since my unique gifts don’t seem to be working. I can’t even defend us against a child.”
“Well, at least we have this gizmo now.” Fiona pointed to the mica mirror.
“I was wondering what that thing was,” Luke said. “What does it do?”
Morgan explained how the ancient object’s surface was mica and it would reflect energy back at the sender. “So basically, whatever you try to do to your opponent ends up happening to you.”
Luke’s lips flattened into a thin line. “Wait a minute, are you saying Swain was able to redirect what little paranormal powers you have back at you and he had a gun? How did you guys manage to defeat him?”
Swain swallowed his licorice hard. “That is rather embarrassing.”
“It was luck on our part,” Morgan said. “Celeste took a big chance and chopped him with a karate kick.”
“Surely a big guy like Swain could have taken her out?” Luke glanced at Swain’s broad shoulders and muscular arms.
“Probably,” Celeste said. “But he hesitated and that gave me the opening I needed to tackle him. Then Morgan and I jumped on him and we tied him up.”
Morgan’s eyes narrowed. “Hey, why did you hesitate, anyway?”
Swain flushed and dipped his head. “My mother told me never to hit a woman, so when it came down to it, I couldn’t fight back.”
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