Starstruck Witch

by January Daphne

  “Let’s first take a look at what you’ve got here.” Angie’s expression tightened as she hit the play button on the phone.

  Benjamin wandered back to my side, as I leaned over Angie’s shoulder to watch the video.

  On the screen were blurs of trees and leaves. I could make out the faint whispers and breathing of Ace and Meredith. The camera moved wildly, bumping up and down, moving away from the ledge.

  “It’s Savannah Silver,” I heard Ace say on the video.

  Meredith quickly shushed him.

  Then the camera landed on two figures picking their way along the path.

  I could hear murmurs from the two of them—a male voice and a female voice—but the phone had been too far away to pick up words.

  The couple stopped at the edge of the cliff, right where Angie and I were currently standing.

  The low sun laid a soft glow over the couple, and with a twist of excitement in my stomach, I realized that I could see their faces.

  I’d been right. It was Tom Nelson. The man had the same styled salt and pepper hair and orange jacket that I recognized from the party earlier.

  “That’s Tom Nelson, all right,” I said, squinting at the screen.

  “And the woman is Savannah Silver,” Angie said quietly.

  I had to agree. It was unmistakably Savannah Silver. Who could miss that perfect figure, pretty hair and those captivating green eyes?

  The shaky video played on, and we watched as Tom Nelson tenderly touched the cheek of the actress and leaned in for a kiss. Had those two been a couple? She’d come to the party with Dean. It made no sense. Clearly, Roger Spitz had been slacking on the job if he didn’t know about this little affair.

  I felt sick to my stomach watching this man’s last moments, but I had see exactly what happened, grisly as it was.

  The woman accepted the kiss, tipping her head up to meet his mouth as the last rays of sun faded away. The mountain breeze tugged at the hem of her dress as she rested her wrists on the man’s shoulders.

  Then it happened in a blink.

  The woman planted her sandaled feet in the dirt and leaned back from the man.

  The air around her appeared to shimmer, and Savannah Silver transformed into a completely different woman—someone shorter with shoulder-length brown hair and, oddly enough, a hospital gown.

  This woman stood in front of the man and let out a shrill, haunting laugh.

  Startled, the producer stepped backwards and lost his balance. He waved his arms frantically, grabbing for the woman to keep from falling, but she calmly took another step back. The producer let out a yelp as he disappeared over the ledge.

  There was a thud.

  And then there was nothing.

  The woman in the hospital gown inched up to the ledge, leaning over to get a look, just as the Sheriff and I had.

  Satisfied, the woman strolled back down the path.

  The camera followed her, aimed at her back as she walked away.

  A moment later, I noticed that same strange shimmer in the air around her. The woman transformed again, but at that point, it was too dark to see who.

  One thing was certain—this was no accident. No way. It also didn’t look like a heat-of-the-moment kind of thing. No, this woman wanted Tom Nelson good and dead.

  But was it Savannah Silver who had killed him, or the other woman? And how in the world had she transformed into a completely different person?

  5

  “You’re telling me that the Harris kid currently has a snuff film recorded on his phone?” Dean perched on the edge of the kitchen table, sitting across the room from Blake and me.

  I hadn’t particularly wanted to share what I had seen with Dean, but Blake thought he might have some valuable insight since he’d been the one with Savannah at the party.

  I slumped on the bar stool at the kitchen counter, picking bits of leaves and bark out of my hair. “Not anymore. He sent it to Angie and then deleted it.”

  Dean’s dark eyebrows lifted. “Did you watch him delete it?”

  “No.” I glowered at him. “Because he’s a good kid. He knows what’s a stake.”

  “He’s not a kid, Wilder. He’s a teenager, which means that video is already on the internet with a million views and counting,” Dean said, interlacing his fingers behind his head. “I thought you were a PR professional.” He shook his head. “Rookie mistake.”

  “I trust Ace, and anyway, we’ve got bigger things to worry about.” I tapped the screen of my phone and held an image I found on the internet. “That’s the woman from Ace’s video. She was Tom Nelson’s wife.”

  Dean pushed the sleeves of his leather jacket up as he squinted at the phone. “Great, arrest her. Mystery solved. Can I go home now?”

  “She died three years ago,” Blake said, getting up to pour himself another cup of coffee. “Car accident. Tom was out of the country at the time, and didn’t make it back before she passed away.”

  “Yikes,” Dean said. “That sucks.”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head as if trying to get rid of the image of that woman in the hospital gown. I couldn’t get bogged down in past tragedies right now. I had a murder to solve. “Do you think she was a ghost?”

  Benjamin snorted, lifting his head from his spot on the rug. “Honestly, Natalie, don’t be absurd. Ghosts only show up that clearly in black and white photos.”

  I massaged my temples with my knuckles. “OK, never mind. My dog tells me that’s impossible.”

  Blake nodded, scratching at his stubble thoughtfully. “Ghosts really only show up when you’re filming in—”

  “In black and white,” I said, cutting him off. “Got it. How about an astral projection?”

  Benjamin let out an even louder snort.

  “OK, what is so funny about that?” I asked. “I looked perfectly clear when I astral projected.”

  “And how do you expect a dead woman to astral project? That’s completely ridiculous,” the Rottweiler said.

  I folded my arms. “OK, now my dog is telling me that it can’t be astral projection.”

  Dean gave me a confused look. “Well, duh. Dead people can’t astral project. Is this your first day being a witch or something?”

  “You’re dead,” I shot back. “And I’ve never heard anything about vampires not being able to astral project.”

  Dean held up his palms defensively. “Hey, now, I’m not dead dead. I’m undead. Those are two very different things, Wilder.”

  Blake took a sip of his coffee. “I didn’t see the video, but it sounds to me like it was a shapeshifter.”

  Dean smacked his hand over his face and groaned. “Please, dear god, anything but a shapeshifter.” Then he straightened up. “Didn’t Mattie get rid of all of them, like, ten years ago?”

  “Eight years ago,” Blake corrected.

  “Whatever,” Dean said. “So what are they doing back here?”

  “It sounds like it’s only one,” Blake said. “If there were more, we probably would have heard about them by now.”

  Dean got up and headed over the counter. “You have a point. They do have a way of making themselves known,” he said as he plucked one of the cranberry muffins off the wire cooling rack and took a big bite.

  After chewing a moment, his face froze.

  In a flurry of movement, he raced to the garbage can and spit out the baked good.

  He straightened up, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth. His angry eyes landed on me. “This muffin tastes like the blood of a sunburned sorority girl.” Dean’s black pupils were expanding the way they did when he was close to giving in to his vampire-side. That kind of thing usually happened when Dean was furious. “Did you hex those muffins, or are you seriously that bad at baking?”

  Before I could answer, I heard a knock at the door.

  “Long story,” I said, heading for the door. “Sorry, I meant to throw those out.” I covered my mouth with my hand, trying to control the bubbling laughter build
ing up inside of me.

  I’d been expecting Angie to stop by to discuss the murder after she got things squared away with her coroner friend in the next town. The plan was to document the death as a hiking accident.

  Yet another coverup, I thought, but what else could we do?

  I opened the door and saw Angie holding her sleeping son, Chris in her arms. Beside them stood Liam. “What are you doing here, Liam?” I asked, stepping aside so Angie and her son could come in.

  “Good evening to you as well, Love.” Liam’s blond hair sparkled in the moonlight. He wore a yellow t-shirt that set off the green in his eyes and was snug enough to show off the sloping lines of his chest muscles and biceps. “I’m here because I heard we had another supernatural murder on our hands—you can’t possibly expect me to sit this one out?”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “How did you hear about this so quickly? Does everyone know about this?”

  “I didn’t hear about anything.” A smug smile slid across Liam’s mouth. “I smelled a supernatural murder.” He tapped his nose. “I’m a werewolf. The smell of a corpse is unmistakable.”

  “Gross,” I said, holding the door open wider for him.

  Liam hesitated. “You’ve got to invite me in. You know, because of Martha’s wards.”

  I frowned, glancing down at the threshold between the porch and my foyer. “What would happen if you just tried to come in?”

  “I’d rather not find out,” Liam said. “I’ve heard it feels as if you’re holding your hand to a hot stove, but imagine that all over your body.”

  “That’s disturbing.” I tipped my head to the side. “So how come it doesn’t do that to Dean?”

  Angie cleared her throat as she shifted Chris to her other hip. “Martha made an exception for Dean.”

  “I will never understand why she did that.”

  Liam snickered. “Some questions are better left unanswered.”

  Dean called out from the kitchen. “I can hear you, you know.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. Liam, you are officially invited into my cabin, good enough?” I asked.

  Liam took a deep breath, his chest rising. “Let’s hope so.” He gingerly inched his foot across the threshold and let out a sign of relief.

  Angie’s eyes followed Liam until he disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Are you coming in?” I asked.

  Angie cleared her throat. “I’ll need you to invite us in as well.”

  “Why would I need to do that?” I asked slowly. “Wait a second. Are you…” I let my voice trail off. If Angie was supernatural, wouldn’t I have known?

  Angie leaned forward, her voice a whisper. “Not me.”

  Understanding trickled into my consciousness as I looked at the five-year-old with strawberry blond hair sleeping soundly in his mom’s arms.

  “It’s from this father’s side,” Angie said. “Please, don’t ask anymore about it tonight. Not many people know, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “I’m pretty sure Dean knows now,” I whispered. If he hadn’t known before, he certainly would now with his vampire hearing.

  She nodded. “Unfortunately, Dean knows a lot of things he shouldn’t.”

  “OK,” I said, taking my time to make sure I did this right. “Chris Dempsey, I invite you into my cabin,” I said it as quietly as I could. Hopefully, Blake and Liam were too far away to hear.

  “Thank you.” Angie smiled. “You’ll have to do that for him every time he comes in, and you’ll need to make sure you’re in the house the entire time he is—at least, that’s what I gathered from when Martha updated the wards on this cabin. The way she explained it to me is that the wards are most effective inside near the doorways and windows. If my son was to wander into the warded area without you being in the house, he would suffer the effects of Martha’s protective magic.”

  I nodded. “I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  Angie, Chris and I joined everyone back in the kitchen.

  Dean’s piercing eyes followed me as I slid back into the bar stool next to Blake at the kitchen counter. His expression was unreadable, and I hoped mine was as well. I wanted to keep Chris’ secret, even if I didn’t know why.

  Finding out that Angie’s son was supernatural was a shock, but then again, things were never quite what they seemed to be on Wolf Mountain.

  “Let’s go over what we know,” Blake said, drumming his fingers on the counter. “A woman who looked exactly like Savannah Silver was caught on video kissing Tom Nelson. Then she appeared to transform into Tom’s late wife, Janet Nelson. The shock of seeing all of this caused Tom Nelson to step off Banshee Overlook and fall to his death. According to Meredith Waters, Tom Nelson died on impact.” Blake pursed his lips and looked down. “I’ve known Tom for a long time, eight years now. I’ve worked with him on my first movie, and several movies after that. He was a brilliant filmmaker, and very well-known in the movie industry. His personal life was a little complicated. There were rumors about an affair between Savannah and him, which I guess were true. But he didn’t deserve what happened to him. ” Blake said, his navy eyes clouding over. “This is going to be big news.”

  I shifted on the stool, picking at a loose thread on the hem of my sundress. “I’ll write a press release,” I said. “Hiking deaths are common in the mountains, especially at night.”

  Dean snorted. “Good luck trying to cover this one up.”

  “It’s not a coverup,” Angie said. “True, we’re not going public with the full story, and it’s obvious why we can’t. But we are going to solve the murder privately. Whoever did this needs to be brought to justice.”

  “Seems obvious enough to me,” Liam said, dragging a chair from the kitchen table and turning it around to sit in it backwards. He rested his toned forearms on the chair back. “That bloke got himself mixed up with a shapeshifter. I think the most likely suspect is Savannah Silver. She’s an actress—textbook shifter move. She was at the party—that establishes opportunity. And she clearly doesn’t mind making out with unsavory characters.” Liam made a point of looking at Dean.

  “You’re a regular gumshoe,” Dean said. “But you’re wrong. Savannah Silver is not a shapeshifter.”

  “What makes you so sure?” I asked.

  “Because I was with Savannah during the intermission, and let’s just say one thing led to another, and soon I was fangs deep in that woman’s jugular.”

  I gasped. “You fed on her? What is wrong with you?” I grabbed on the edge of the counter, feeling physically ill.

  Dean shrugged. “Grow up, Wilder. Not everyone’s as squeamish as you about what vampires do.”

  “Did you wipe her memory after?” Angie asked matter-of-factly.

  “No,” Dean said. “Didn’t have to. Blake has already blabbed every single one of Wolf Mountain’s supernatural secrets back when he was dating her. She probably knows more about the supernatural stuff than you do, Wilder. Not that that’s so hard.”

  Blake’s hand curled up into a fist. “You feeding on her during intermission doesn’t prove that it wasn’t Savannah. What if there's more than one shapeshifter, and they’re working together?”

  Dean examined his cuticles. “Possible, but not probable. Shapeshifters are loners by nature. But let me assure you, I’ve tasted shapeshifter blood before and it’s disgusting. It’s, like, ten times worse than Natalie’s baking. Trust me—Savannah’s blood tasted as smooth as a tall glass of sweet tea. And don’t act all horrified, brother. You must have known she was into the whole blood-sucking thing. You dated her.”

  “OK.” I clasped my hands together. “Let’s move on before that gets more awkward.”

  “I second that.” Angie held her hand up, glancing down at Chris to make sure he was still sleeping. “We have to stay on topic. We were all at the party. I think our best chance at catching this shapeshifter is to figure out who we don’t remember seeing during the intermission.”

  Blake leaned forward.
“I can help with this. I made a point to say hi to everyone from the movie. Let me think for a minute.” He closed his eyes, chewing on his lower lip. “I don’t remember Tina Price being there. She’s the makeup artist for the movie. Lenny Holmes wasn’t there either. She’s Savannah’s assistant.”

  “What about that other tall asian chick?” Liam said, snapping his fingers. “The one who looks like Savannah Silver, but has the brown eyes.”

  “Wow, you even noticed her eyes?” Dean commented. “That’s very observant of you. You really are taking this detective stuff seriously.”

  Liam shrugged. “I learned early on in life that women love it when you notice random things about them like their eye color and stuff. I’m not exactly sure why, but I make it point to remember.”

  “You’re talking about Vicki Burgess, right? Savannah’s stand in?” I jumped in before Angie lost patience with these guys.

  When Liam nodded, I pressed on. “OK, so we have three suspects. Can anyone remember anyone else who was not there during intermission?”

  “Roger Spitz,” Blake said. “He disappeared before intermission, but I doubt he went far. He’d never want to miss an opportunity to violate another person’s privacy if it meant making an extra buck.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Angie said, jotting something down on her notepad. “These four people had opportunities. Let’s talk about motives.” She turned to Blake. “And thoughts on that? You know them better than the rest of us.”

  Blake nodded, staring out the window at the starry sky. “I honestly don’t know. Anything I say would be pure speculation. I know Tom Nelson was not favorite with the females working on the film. There have been rumors of sexual harassment over the years.”

  “Considering that three of our four suspects are female, I’d say that’s worth looking into,” Angie said, shifting Chris in her arms again as she turned to a fresh page in her notebook. “Particularly since the murderer chose to lure the victim to a secluded spot, kiss him, then change into his late wife. That feels personal to me. It feels like revenge.”