To Charm a Killer (Hollystone Mysteries Book 1)

by Wendy Louise Hawkin

Michael sighed and rolled his eyes. “Listen love, I know the kid can be an ass, but he is my baby brother.”

  “I get that.”

  “I don’t think you do. Clive’s family. God, we’ve talked for hours and hours since I’ve been laid up.”

  “Not about me, I trust.”

  “About family. He came here from England because he wanted to start a relationship. You know that he was still an infant when Nigel emigrated with me, and I told you about the Twyfford-Farringtons. Nigel tells me there is no family in Britain quite like them. Just think of anything derogatory you’ve ever heard about pompous heartless Brits and multiply it by a million.”

  “So?”

  Michael downed his wine and finished off the bottle. He sauntered to the bar and picked up another bottle, then set it beside the corkscrew on the table. “So, Clive grew up with these people. The bloody Twyffs brainwashed him against us. Naturally, when he arrived he was hesitant to make himself known. He wanted to see for himself, and then, when he did—apparently I am the clone of my maniacal father—well, it made him a little crazy.”

  “Rage and madness: both great motives for murder.”

  Michael shook his head. “It’s not like that. Clive believes that our father is culpable for our mother’s death.”

  “Why?”

  “I told you that they were killed in a car crash.” Estrada nodded. “Well, there’s more to it. Apparently, they were returning from a Queen concert in London. After consuming copious amounts of alcohol and drugs, my father opted to drive home from Wembley in his Ferrari. He was so wasted, he crashed the car into an iron railing at 150 miles per hour. My mother was decapitated.”

  “Jesus. I’m sorry, man.”

  Michael shrugged. “I know it sounds horrible, but I don’t remember either of my parents. I only know them from photos and tidbits I’ve heard from my grandmother. Nigel always downplayed the accident, but the Twyffs turned it into a family melodrama that starred my father as a drug-crazed murderer. Clive grew up with that shit.” He sniffed. “Oh, and get this: my father’s Ferrari was red.”

  “So?”

  “Crimson?”

  “So you both like fast red cars.”

  “Or, it’s genetic. Don’t tell anyone I said this, but sometimes I don’t know why I do the things I do.”

  Estrada gazed out the window into the darkling night. “You’re not alone there, amigo.”

  “Now, I know you don’t trust Clive, but we all have our stuff.”

  As does every criminal in and out of prison, thought Estrada. Nodding, he opened an ornate box on the glass table, took out a joint, lit it, smoked some, and passed it to Michael. Then picking up the corkscrew, he opened the second bottle of wine. Michael might say it didn’t bother him to speak of his parents’ deaths, but Estrada knew better.

  “Thank you, compadre. You know, I called you a dozen times over the last three days. I know you’re mad at me because of Clive, but I need you to understand.” He held the smoke in his lungs and then exhaled. “How I feel about him, and how I feel about you…they’re two separate things.”

  Estrada accepted the joint and nodded. “I’m not mad at you. I never was.”

  “Then why did you disappear?”

  “I had to go back to that cave. I thought he might…I needed to…” He finished the joint and stubbed it out. After blazing up another, he passed it to Michael.

  “So it’s true what Clive said? You’re involved—”

  “Not like that. It’s hard to explain.” Estrada’s head was swimming in the smoke. He perched in the corner and drew up one knee. “It’s weird…an obsession.”

  “Obsession? God, I’m jealous.”

  “Don’t be. You and me, we’re…us. But this thing with him. It’s like crawling through shadows. You know, I’ve never even seen his face. He wears a mask, and the first time, he kept me blindfolded and tied to the bed.”

  “Good god. How does he know your proclivities?”

  Estrada shrugged and stared at the flickering candles on the mantle. “Exactly. How does he know?” He accepted the joint, and inhaled deeply. “It must be the spell.”

  “Really? You people can do that?”

  Estrada laughed. “Yeah, I suppose we can. The thing is though, even if I could break this spell, I don’t know if I should. I mean, he’s the killer, the man who burned Jade, and grabbed Sensara and Maggie. Maybe this connection is meant to help me catch him.”

  “I’d like a crack at him myself.” Michael lit a cigarette and leaned his head on the arm of the couch. “So you think you’re obsessed with him because—?”

  “Because I have to know him to stop him.”

  “Know him intimately.”

  Estrada sighed. “Yeah.”

  “But, that day in the cave, the day he shaved your head; why didn’t you just pull out a gun? Hit him with a rock? Or bludgeon him? I like that word bludgeon.”

  Estrada grinned. “For one thing, he padded me down; and for another, how could I prove anything? I have no evidence. I’d end up doing time, and if there’s anything I cannot do—”

  “I understand, compadre.” Setting his cigarette in the ashtray, Michael turned slyly. “So just how intimately do you know him?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “You know I like details.”

  “It’s not just sex. If it was…” Estrada shook his head and then finished his glass of wine. “This man, this killer—he told me he loves me.”

  “Loves you? Now I’m really jealous.” Reaching across, he scratched the magician’s stubbly cheek. “But, why wouldn’t he love you?”

  Estrada rolled his eyes. “There’s more.”

  “Do tell.”

  “He said that he had to shave my head to save my life.” Estrada was still trying to solve that riddle.

  “That’s rather cryptic.”

  “Yeah. He said that my hair was my power.”

  “And was it?”

  “I feel different…not powerless, but different.”

  The room was suddenly silent. Michael lit another joint, took a couple of huge tokes, coughed, and passed it over. Stretching out on the soft leather couch, he laid his head in Estrada’s lap. “Untie this sling please. I’m feeling fettered.” Estrada undid the knot and let the silk scarf fall to the floor.

  “You know that, with or without your hair, I adore you.”

  “But you, amigo, are no killer.”

  “There are those who would disagree. Like the Empress.”

  “I assume you are referring to Sensara?”

  Estrada pressed his palm on his friend’s bare chest and felt the slow beating of his heart beneath his bare skin. He’d missed these moments.

  Michael grinned contentedly and placed his hand on top. “Have you two spoken at all?”

  “No. We’re done. And I’m afraid it will affect the coven. How can we lead ceremonies when she won’t even talk to me? When we were just friends, before sex got in the way—”

  “Oh, don’t disparage sex, compadre. It wasn’t sex that got in the way. Look at us.” Estrada played with Michael’s fine hair and felt like himself again. “Sex is rapture, a gift from the gods. It wasn’t sex that was the problem. It was her rules about sex, her enforced monogamy—the preposterous expectation that you would never desire to share this divine gift with anyone but her. I mean, why do the gods make us so hard so often if not to—”

  Estrada started to laugh and couldn’t stop. Perhaps it was the smoke, or perhaps it was this moment of freedom. Leaning over, he clutched Michael and laughed until tears ran down his face. Caught up in the craziness, Michael burst out laughing too. It felt so good to finally release some of the accumulated tension of the last few weeks. And Michael was absolutely right. Until Estrada looked through her eyes, he’d felt free to enjoy his body and the pleasure it gave him with anyone of his choosing at any time. She had made it into something else with her rules. She had made him feel guilty.

  “It’s the
truth, amigo, and while we’re being honest, I have to say—I never liked the tight-assed bitch. Never. Well, maybe there were a couple of nights at the club, when she wore that little leather thing with the laces—”

  “Whoa. I’m trying to forget her.”

  “Easily done. I can arrange whatever you desire.”

  “Ah, but I can’t, man. I’ve got to catch a plane in the morning.”

  Miffed, Michael sat up and reached for the wine. “Where the hell are you going now?”

  “That’s what I came to tell you. I know you dislike Sensara, but you have to admit that she’s a credible psychic.”

  Michael nodded. “Go on.”

  “Well, she’s been dreaming about that priest, Grace. She’s convinced that he’s gone after Maggie.” Estrada shrugged. “So, I’m going after him.”

  “But, didn’t that girl go abroad?

  “Yeah. She’s in Ireland.”

  “Ireland? And you’re going there to—”

  “Find him. Stop him.”

  “In the morning.”

  “Yeah, and I have to pack and get some sleep.”

  “You piss me off,” said Michael sternly. “We’ll do another few lines and party all night. You can sleep on the plane.”

  “Man, I’m so wasted right now, I can barely sit up.”

  Michael rolled off the couch and settled on the floor. Reaching up he clutched Estrada’s arm. “Come join me, compadre. Be comforted.”

  Estrada slipped off the couch and rolled onto his back. Clasping his hands behind his head, he closed his eyes, and sank into the thick Persian rug. “I drained a mickey of tequila the night before last, and I’m still not right. If it hadn’t been for this Stó:lō guy who showed up and cooked me some fish, I might not have made it home.”

  “You really must stop having adventures without me.”

  “He was cool.” Estrada felt around in the pocket of his jeans, and pulled out the charm that Josh had given him. Holding it up, he examined it. “He gave me this.”

  “A wooden bead with mysterious powers.”

  Estrada smiled. “He told me to stop drinking and go home to my brother. That would be you.”

  “Here. Here,” said Michael, and propping his back against the base of the couch, he raised his glass. “A toast to our Indigenous brothers.” After draining the glass, he set it down and lit another joint. Estrada was lost in a spin. “I will tell you this, compadre. You are more of a brother to me than Clive ever will be, despite our blood ties. We share something more vital than blood.”

  “More vital than blood to a vampire?”

  “Yes, our lives. Everything that happens in our lives, and no one can ever change that—no smart ass brother, no prudish priestess, not even this psycho killer. You understand? I take you as you are, and every way I can.”

  Sensing his closeness, Estrada opened his eyes. Michael was leaning over him and staring. “Are you trying to mesmerize me, my vampire friend? You look hungry.”

  “That I am, but I wear no fangs tonight.” Taking a big puff on the joint, he leaned down and blew the smoke through Estrada’s open mouth. Closing his eyes, he took it in. Then their lips touched. It was something they rarely did, and he savoured the intricacies of Michael’s long smoky kiss, his silken tongue, and fluttering fingertips that knew exactly where and how to touch. Heart pounding, he rode the wave, his body arcing with pleasure. Michael was a virtuoso, and within seconds he was near to bursting without ever having loosed his clothing.

  “I feel like fucking you,” Michael breathed in his ear. Leaning over, he kissed the magician’s lips again, filling his mouth with a tongue that spoke more of love than lust. “Nailing you to the floor with my—”

  “Jesus,” said Estrada at last. “If you do that, neither of us will ever leave.”

  “Exactly, compadre. I don’t want you running off to Ireland to confront a killer who’s mad for you.” While Michael settled back against the couch, Estrada continued to hold his gaze, desperate to imprint in his mind, the face of a man he truly trusted. “I think I should come along.”

  “I’d love that, I really would—”

  “But—”

  “But, I’d rather you stayed here and kept watch on little brother. I really don’t trust him.”

  Michael frowned and lit another cigarette.

  “You don’t have to worry about me, amigo. I can take care of myself. Besides, Maggie’s staying with a friend of Sylvia’s, a very powerful witch named Primrose. I’m sure if there’s trouble—”

  “Primrose. Good lord. I can see her now—an elderly matron puttering about in a rhubarb patch.”

  “With a feather in her hat and horn-rimmed glasses—”

  “And a black cat in a tweed handbag. Well, at least I won’t have to worry about you getting into any mischief without me while you’re abroad, not with Primrose at least.”

  Michael poured them each another glass of wine. “I love to see you smile, compadre. Now, relax and sip your wine, and allow me to say adiós in my own way.”

  ≈

  Cong was the kind of place a girl wished her long-lost grandparents lived—a village with the feel of Tolkien’s Shire (before the invasion of the Nazgûl.) According to the brochure at Sean Thornton’s B&B—which Maggie had read thoroughly while ensconced in a hot bath away from the ever perky Primrose—Cung was Irish for “the land between two waters.” And, so it was: edged along the eastern shore of Lough—pronounced lock, not luff or loo—Corrib and Lough Mask. The landscape was fiercely green, and even in the November gloom, the village was hedged in rhododendrons and massive hot pink fuchsias. Seeing Ireland, Maggie understood why her mother chose the property at Hawk’s Claw Lane. There was an uncanny similarity between the two verdant landscapes.

  Cong was a quaint village, a living museum; still the picture of what it had been when a Hollywood film company invaded it in the early 1950s to film The Quiet Man with John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara. A fifty-year dalliance with tourism had kept it that way. The only signs of modernity were satellite dishes that clung to the steep shingled roofs of pastel bungalows, waiting each night for Hollywood’s return. Even the nearby five-star hotel was ensconced in the eight-hundred-year-old Ashford Castle.

  Maggie had watched the film once with her mother and couldn’t fathom how it had won two Oscars. She hated it. Hated watching John Wayne—his character an ex-fighter—drag his poor bride for miles by the hair, kick her, throw her to the ground, and then haul her up, only to beat her down again. It was abuse, pure and simple, and yet the townsfolk cheered him on. Shannon advised her to take the film with a grain of salt.

  How horrible it must have been for Shannon to watch the film, shot so near her childhood home, and not be able to say, I’ve been there or I know that place. And why hadn’t she directed her here first, instead of sending her on a wild ride with Primrose? Shannon herself had been beaten down, just as surely as John Wayne’s bride. Too ashamed to speak the truth, she’d constructed a fraudulent life for them all. Maggie wished her mother was here now, wished they could walk up the front path together, meet and talk as one family, and make it right. She needed something to go right. She hadn’t slept since her ghostly encounter at Drumcliffe Cemetery and was convinced her father had passed on. She was waiting to call Shannon until she’d met her grandparents, so hopefully, she could cheer her up with some good news.

  “Aren’t you coming with me?” asked Maggie. She felt guilty about taking her anger out on the only friend she had in this strange land. “Don’t you want to meet them?”

  Primrose leaned against her bike and shook her head. “Aye, sure. In good time.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll just take a wee walk. Go on now. Do it for your ma?”

  The faerie tale house was built of stone, its roof thatched with rushes. Big bay windows perched on either side of a scarlet door. With shaggy blinds hung halfway down its paned glass like sleepy lids, it appeared to gaze drowsily down the narrow
lane. An enormous ivy clutched it from beneath and crept across the flagstones. Wrapped around the house, its leaves obscured one entire side of the attic floor. Smoke curled from the chimney like the box houses Maggie had drawn as a child. Wistfully, she thought, I could have lived in this house. Perhaps still could. They could all be together again—one big family, except for—

  The door opened before she’d even knocked, and an old man stared down at her. He filled the doorway, as wide as he was tall. His forehead shone, as he was bald except for two strips of white hair that ran around the sides above his rosy ears. He had a creamy moustache, a large red nose, and a stern no nonsense manner, though his eyes shone like ripe chestnuts.

  “Mr. Vallely?”

  “Could be. Who’s askin’?”

  “Don’t be grumpy now, Paddy.” It was a woman’s voice, as soft as kitten fur and just as soothing.

  “My name is Maggie Taylor. Your daughter Shannon is my mother, and she asked me—”

  “I’ve no daughter name o’ Shannon,” he shouted.

  “Paddy!” chastised the woman. “Don’t—”

  Maggie strained to see her, but the giant man blocked her view. If only she had answered.

  “Wrong house. Sorry for your trouble,” he said, closing the door so abruptly he almost caught her hand.

  Stepping back chagrined, Maggie took a deep breath and banged on the scarlet door again. She could hear them arguing inside, but no one would open the door. Finally, she turned and walked away from the faerie tale house, tears shining in her eyes. Stupid old man—wouldn’t even listen—stupid old man, stupid and mean. No wonder her mother left.

  Maggie was slouching on the bike when Primrose returned. “Let’s go. Wrong place.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” she snapped.

  There was no such thing as faerie tale endings.

  ≈

  No daybreak, no rising sun, no solace could end the unfathomable night that smothered Galway Bay in black and murky sheets. Water dripped from the end of Maggie’s nose, mingling with teary snot. Swiping at it with the end of her soggy sleeve, she sat with her legs hung over the edge of the sidewalk and stared into the churning river below. Swelled with the rain, the River Corrib rushed to the sea in green brackish waves spiked with ivory caps. Glancing downriver, she saw the charging current catch in circling eddies beneath the triple arches of the grey rebel bridge.