by Raven Snow
“I don’t have anything to say to you,” said Margo.
“You had plenty to say earlier today,” Terry said, throwing Rowen a meaningful look.
Rowen released Margo for just a moment, puzzled by that. Had Margo called Terry to complain after that fight they had? She had been fairly certain Margo was happily involved with David now.
As if on cue, David moved to the other side of Margo. No doubt, he didn’t much appreciate Terry making Margo uncomfortable like this. He couldn’t really say much on the wreck in the front yard. At least he had the good sense to stay quiet and not try to pick a fight.
Terry didn’t take to David’s presence kindly. “Stay out of this,” he said, when David leaned down to say something quietly to Margo.
“Excuse me?” said David, unable to keep complete composure much longer than that. “Listen, man, don’t make a scene. Just get back in your truck and wait for the police to come.”
That was a mistake. Rowen knew it before the words had even finished leaving his mouth. Terry marched right up to David and launched himself at him, fists raised. David wasn’t exactly a small guy. He was quick to defend himself intercepting Terry’s first punch and throwing one of his own.
“Stop it!” shouted Margo. No one listened to her. They were too busy dragging one another down to the ground and grappling for dominance.
Rowen tried her own hand at getting them to split up. She reached out and grabbed both men by their shoulders. “Cut it out!” she said, raising her voice. She got a punch in the chin for her trouble. Her teeth clattered together, and she stumbled back, rubbing at her jaw.
Eric was outside by then and was quick to split the two up himself. “David!” he said, firmly. That got his brother to stop at least. After that, it was fairly simple to stop Terry.
Rowen took that opportunity to take Margo inside before Terry could say anything else. Margo was reluctant to go but did. Understandably, she was pretty upset.
The entire household was waiting right at the front door. “Give us some space,” Rowen said, leading Margo past them.
“Is that Terry out there?” asked Tiffany.
Rowen rolled her eyes. She didn’t answer her. There was a decent chance Tiffany had neither been told nor figured out that Margo and Terry weren’t even married anymore. Rather than answer questions, Rowen led Tiffany up to her attic bedroom. Margo went willingly - though, by the time they got up there, her breathing was more than a little erratic. “It’s okay,” said Rowen, sitting her down on the bed. “He’s done this before.”
“It’s my fault,” Margo said with a sigh, cradling her head in her hands.
Rowen raised an eyebrow at that. “How could any of this possibly be your fault?”
“I called him by accident earlier today,” Margo admitted with a sigh. “I wasn’t thinking and I called him.”
Margo and Terry had married fresh out of high school. The family suspected it was because Margo wanted a wedding, but no one actually called her on that. Greensmith relationships never lasted. For a few years there, Margo and Terry had been awfully close, though. Rowen had never been crazy about the man, but Margo had. That had been enough for her for awhile there.
Since the two had divorced, Terry had been less predictable. He had a tendency to show up drunk, and he was an awfully pathetic drunk. “Why didn’t you just hang up?” asked Rowen. Margo had to have known that talking to him would only encourage him, make him think that they weren’t completely finished.
Margo gave a helpless shrug of her shoulders. “I don’t know,” she said, in a voice that implied she did know. “He used to be so easy to talk to. You’re normally one of the people I talk to when I’m upset, but this time I was mad at you. I needed to talk to someone.”
“Yeah, but Terry?”
Margo threw her hands up. She didn’t even bother with excuses. Sirens outside kept her from having to formulate a proper response. Both Rowen and her cousin stood and headed over to the window. A police cruiser had just pulled up. They had already been in the area, as per Ben’s orders that Rowen’s place be checked on periodically.
For the second time in only a handful of hours, the Greensmith family had to give statements to the police. Terry was taken away, and gradually, everyone headed back to their respective bedrooms.
“You’re not having a very good day, huh?” Eric asked, chuckling as he took Rowen’s face in his hands. His fingers moved lightly over her chin.
Rowen winced and Eric drew his hands away with an apology. It was going to leave a bruise. “Horrible day,” Rowen agreed. “I think we’ll leave this part out of the paper.”
Chapter Five
As it turned out, Terry’s little stunt in the front lawn did make the headlines. Rowen found out the next morning when she came downstairs that it made Julia Martinez’s paper.
“They found an unregistered hunting rifle in the bed of his truck,” Rose explained, looking down at her phone and relaying the news to the rest of the family. “Ballistics say something similar is what took a shot at you. They’re trying to match the weapons now.”
That sent Rowen reeling just a bit. Terry might have been the one who had been shooting at her? That was certainly a hard pill to swallow. She had never much liked the guy, but she had also never thought of him as someone capable of murder.
“That’s ridiculous,” said Margo, not touching her scrambled eggs and toast. She had her coffee mug in a death grip and her gaze fixed on Rose. “Terry is a jerk, but he’s not the sort of jerk who’s violent.”
David snorted. “I’d have to disagree with you there,” he said, touching his fingers gently to his black eye.
Margo elbowed him in the ribs. When he gave a pained grunt at even that, she apologized and kissed him on the cheek. “He wouldn’t try to kill anyone,” she insisted.
Aunt Lydia frowned. “Well, I just don’t trust anyone who rams their truck into our personal property.” She took a sip of her coffee then gave David an apologetic smile. “Not you though, dear. I like you just fine.”
David looked considerably more uncomfortable at the breakfast table than he had before. He kept his eyes on his plate as they continued talking.
“Did you tell him anything about your fight with Rowen?” asked Eric.
“You two had a fight?” asked Tiffany, her eyes growing wide.
Aunt Lydia waved a hand, dismissing her concern. “The girls fight all the time. They’re like sisters. It comes with the territory.”
“I did,” Margo said, answering Eric. “But it’s not like I never complained about my family to him before. I complain about them all the time.”
Aunt Nadine cleared her throat loudly and purposely at that slight. If Margo noticed, she ignored her.
“Maybe he was just trying to get back on your good side,” suggested Rose. “This isn’t the first time he’s done some big romantic gesture. Remember the time he caused a scene by serenading you outside the office?”
Margo rolled her eyes. “I’m not sure that trying to kill my cousin counts as a grand romantic gesture,” she muttered.
“We don’t actually know that the shooter was trying to kill Rowen,” Eric pointed out. “Maybe it was just a warning shot. Whoever did it might have been trying to scare her. Maybe Terry thought that would get him back on your good side.”
“And how exactly was he going to break that to me?” asked Margo, sounding annoyed. “I shot at your cousin and terrified her. Take me back?”
Eric shrugged. “Maybe he wasn’t sober when he did it. He certainly wasn’t sober when he turned up here.”
Margo said nothing to that. She couldn’t deny that he had made some terrible decisions in the past. Ever since the divorce, Terry had certainly been drinking more.
Rowen wasn’t sure which version of events she preferred. While she didn’t like Terry, she loved Margo. Having her ex be arrested for shooting at her cousin wasn’t going to be terribly easy on her. On the other hand, Rowen would much prefer th
at the person who was after her be behind bars already. She would prefer the shooter was someone like Terry. Terry was an idiot, sure, but he was mostly harmless… or maybe just incompetent. Same difference, really.
“What are we doing about this?” asked Peony, shifting in her seat. She looked a bit nervous. “Do we go ahead and write about it, or…” she trailed off, waiting to hear what the consensus was.
Rowen looked at Margo. She would leave it up to her this time. It took Margo a moment to notice that everyone was looking at her. She threw up her hands, as if giving in. “Write about it,” she said. “Why not? Julia Martinez will. We’re never going to run any stories if we leave out the ones that involve us.”
Rowen smirked at that. “At least we have a unique perspective on this stuff.” She looked at Margo. “We should head to the police station after breakfast.”
Margo groaned but nodded. “Fine, just let me go get dressed.”
Ben had asked them to come down there at their earliest convenience. When Rose, Willow, and Peony headed off to the office, Rowen and Margo got into the car with David and Eric. Tiffany asked to go, but Rowen told her to just wait at home. She would call her when it was over.
“You should have let her come,” Margo said, when they were headed down the road. “It wouldn’t have hurt anything.”
“Except my sanity,” Rowen corrected. “She doesn’t need to shove her nose into everything.”
“She’s family.” Margo shrugged. “That’s what family does.”
Rowen snorted and crossed her arms over her chest. “She’s hardly family,” she muttered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Margo turned her head and gave Rowen a puzzled look.
Did Rowen really have to spell it out for her? “She’s hardly ever around. I didn’t see her for most of my childhood.” Only after she had said that did she realize what an odd thing it was to say to Margo. Margo hadn’t grown up with either of her parents. Her father had been a Greensmith. That sort of thing didn’t happen often, and he hadn’t stuck around for long. Last Rowen had heard, he was living in Europe as a self-help guru. Margo’s mother, meanwhile, had died young. Rowen considered apologizing to Margo but decided against it.
Margo didn’t look terribly offended anyway. “Well, she’s trying,” said Margo with a shrug. “I guess she can be hard to deal with, though.”
“That’s putting it lightly,” Rowen muttered, but she didn’t say anything else on the matter. She just waited until they made it to the police station.
Ben was there to meet them when they stepped through the front doors which was a good thing. The receptionist looked none too happy to see a couple of Greensmith girls come inside.
“They’re fine,” said Ben. “They’re with me. I need them here to answer some questions for me.”
They were all led to Ben’s office. He had the old chief’s office, and it was a nice one. There were papers everywhere and not a lot of furnishings. Ben either never stopped working or was the messiest person Rowen had ever known. Rowen suspected the former.
“Take a seat,” said Ben, clearly not noticing that every single one of the chairs in the room had stacks of manila folders and loose papers on them. “Sorry,” he added, moving to help clear room when he realized.
“Is my ex here?” asked Margo, growing impatient while they still stood.
“No,” said Ben, dumping the last of the folders onto the floor. Even then, no one sat. No one seemed to be relaxed enough to. “They moved him to a more secure location.”
“Where?” asked Margo. “For how long?”
Ben just shook his head at those questions. “We’re sorting all that out now. For the record, I don’t think he did it.”
“Did ballistics prove that?” asked Eric, sounding a little too disappointed by Ben’s news.
“Not yet,” said Ben. “We couldn’t find the bullet that was shot at Rowen. Without that, we can’t match it to the barrel. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot to go on with the ballistics front. Your ex-husband’s gun had been cleaned very recently, so it’s difficult to conclusively determine when he last shot it.”
“That’s no surprise,” said Margo. “He goes hunting just about every weekend.”
Ben nodded. “I’m not saying he’s the one who did it. Like I said, my money isn’t on him.”
“Who do you think it was?” asked Eric, his hand reaching for Rowen’s without looking.
Rowen took Eric’s hand, flashing him a smile that he didn’t notice. She could see that all of this was making him very anxious and that touched her. He had hoped it would be Terry because if it was Terry, then the person who wanted her dead was off the street.
Ben spread his hands as if to say he had no clue. That probably wasn’t a very professional thing for a police chief to admit. “Recent crimes aside, I like to think we don’t have the biggest population here in Lainswich. When a crime like this is committed in the wake of other violent crimes, I try to look for connections.”
“Connections?” Rowen repeated, raising an eyebrow at that. “You mean, you think the person who shot at me is the same one who’s been murdering people?” Rowen couldn’t say that the thought hadn’t occurred to her. Honestly, she had hoped that she was just being paranoid. “But that isn’t really his style, is it? He hasn’t shot anyone.”
“A violent crime in and of itself tends to be pattern enough for me around here,” said Ben. “But, you’re right. It wouldn’t be his style… Unless it was just a warning shot. Can you think of anything you might have done to upset anyone recently?”
“No,” Rowen said, immediately.
“She upsets people all the time,” said Margo, shooting Rowen a meaningful look. “It kind of comes with the territory of being a journalist, I think. We publish some stories that people aren’t crazy about. Never mind that we come from a family of witches. I’m not sure there are too many people in this town who are fans of us. Anyone could have motive.”
“Geez.” Rowen raised an eyebrow at her cousin. “You have a really sunny outlook about our place in this town, don’t you?”
Margo shrugged. “What? I’m just being realistic. People hate us.”
“She’s right,” Ben conceded, inclining his head toward Rowen. “You don’t have a lot of fans.” He went around his desk, removing a pad and a pen. “I’m going to need a list of names,” he said.
There were some familiar voices outside of their door that kept Rowen from writing down those names. She immediately recognized the voices of her aunts and of her mother. Rowen cursed under her breath.
The phone in Ben’s office rang. He answered, and Rowen immediately heard the put-upon receptionist’s none too pleased voice, “Will you come out here and do something about these Greensmith women? Just… arrest them. Please. The Lydia one just said she was going to put a curse on me if I didn’t let them in the back.”
“Oh, for the love of…” Rowen stormed out of the office and right up to her aunts. They were in the waiting room making a fuss about their rights or some nonsense. “What are you three doing?” Rowen demanded, effectively silencing them.
Aunt Lydia and Aunt Nadine exchanged looks. “Your mother said you called on the way. She said you needed our help.”
Rowen frowned at her mother who was looking awfully sheepish. “Of course she did.” Tiffany had wanted to come along and stick her nose into some drama. When she didn’t have a way into something, she tended to just insert herself into the situation even if it meant manipulating people to do so. “We’re fine. This is routine. We’re not in any kind of trouble.”
“They can come on back,” Ben called from the door of his office. To his credit, that was probably the most expedient way to sort this out.
Everyone crowded into Ben’s office. Lydia made some thinly veiled complaints about how cluttered it was. Aunt Nadine actually began cleaning. She started with organizing some of the folder that were scattered about. Tiffany, meanwhile, just stayed silent in the cor
ner. That was good. Rowen wasn’t sure she could deal with any lies about how she had been sure she got a call from Rowen.
Back at the pen and paper, Rowen wrote down all the names she could think of. There were quite a few, but a lot of those people were infirm and elderly or otherwise unlikely to be would-be assassins.
There was Roland Davies. He was a middle-aged, God-fearing fellow who thought the Greensmith girls should be run out of town with pitchforks. Once, he had stood outside their building with a sign that creatively read: “Die, witch, die!” Below that, a little stick figure was burning at a crudely drawn stake. He seemed like a noteworthy addition to the list. At the very least, the police could hassle him a bit.