“Bitch!” Devin cried in fury.
There was a rustling in the woods and Gayle burst through the trees. Devin staggered to her feet, staring down at Beth with disbelief. She turned to Gayle. “It was Beth all along. She used us. She played us—all of us. Theo is dead. But I used my pepper spray, and—”
Devin broke off, because Gayle’s face had changed. Her expression was dark, insane. Dangerous. Devin could hear the distant sounds of sirens now, but all her attention was on the woman standing in front of her.
“She’ll have to take the fall, won’t she?” Gayle said, looking contemptuously at Beth.
Staring at Gayle, Devin saw it all so clearly. “You,” she said. “You killed Melissa Wilson. Beth wasn’t in on it, then, was she? Then you chickened out for a few years. You didn’t want to get caught. You knew who you were—who Beth was—who your ancestors were, right? Margaret’s sisters-in-law. How stupid are you? Did you really believe in a bunch of old legends about Satan? No devil is going to make you live forever and give you everything. How the hell could a woman of your intelligence fall for the Strega of Satan? Well, it’s over now.”
Gayle smiled at her. “Beth was always my best student,” she said. “Ready to keep on learning as she grew. So, you know, huh? You’re Margaret’s descendant. It’s only right that it ends with you.”
Devin had Beth’s athame and the pepper spray, and she was ready to use both. But to her astonishment, Gayle drew a gun.
“Drop them. Drop the athame and the pepper spray. Buy yourself a few more seconds of life,” Gayle said.
“Gee, a bullet, or my throat slit,” Devin said.
But before she had to make a decision, she saw someone in the woods.
“Drop the weapons and let me do this right,” Gayle said.
“It’s Melissa Wilson,” Devin said. “She’s come to get you.”
“Seriously? Oh, come on, Devin. So what if a ghost is here? I’m protected by a stronger power!”
“Well, I’m not saying that a ghost is going to get you, Gayle. But someone is,” Devin said.
Because Rocky was right behind Melissa Wilson, who had led him straight to her.
Gayle spun around, ready to fire, just as another scream rent through the night—a different scream.
Poe.
Poe soared through the night and dive-bombed Gayle’s head. She fired, but her bullet went astray.
Another gunshot.
And Gayle screamed as Rocky’s bullet caught her gun hand. She dropped her weapon and fell to the ground, sobbing and screaming and cursing them all.
Rocky rushed to Devin. She dropped the athame and the pepper spray, and fell into his arms.
“You didn’t kill her,” she whispered.
“I should have. But she wanted to die, I think. Maybe find the ‘master’ she was serving. I think a lifetime in prison is going to be a different hell for her. She needs to live, and so does Beth. They need to find hell, all right—hell right here on earth.”
Jack, blood dripping from his forehead, came staggering toward them.
He looked at the fallen women, then back to Rocky and Devin.
“I don’t believe it,” he said. Then his eyes widened.
As if, Devin thought, he’d seen a ghost, just like the expression said. She watched as he shook his head, as if to banish what he thought he’d seen.
Devin turned. Melissa Wilson smiled at them, then turned and walked away. As she neared the huge gnarled oak, she met up with the ghost of Margaret Nottingham.
Together, they disappeared.
“Rocky,” Jack gasped. “Rocky, I just saw... Oh, man, that bitch really did crack my skull.”
* * *
“We weren’t figuring on two killers—and we sure as hell weren’t figuring on women,” Rocky said.
Three hours had passed since Gayle and Beth had been taken away in cuffs, and now they were gathered in Devin’s cottage—Rocky and Devin, the Krewe members, Brent, Jack and Haley—who’d driven Jack back from the hospital, where he’d had his head stitched up—Vince, Renee and, of course, Auntie Mina, who sat on the sofa next to Devin, an arm around her. She touched Devin’s hair every now and then, a true doting great-aunt. Devin could have sworn she felt her touch.
“I still can’t believe it,” Devin said. “We should have seen it. Remember back when we were in school and Gayle—Mrs. Alden to us back then—was always telling us how important our pasts were, especially if our family trees went back to a key moment in history, like the witch trials. She must have researched all our family histories. And religion—she used to talk about all religions and how closely religion and history were connected. She must have found out what went on and read so much about Satan that she convinced herself there really was a devil who would reward her. And she was still Mrs. Alden in this town. She must have started going crazy—I mean really crazy, diagnosable—somewhere in there, but people looked up to her. No one would have thought to question her even if she seemed...off sometimes.”
“And the hotel security system wouldn’t have been a problem for her. She ran the computer lab at school. She was always a whiz at tech stuff,” Brent continued.
“What I’d like to know,” Jack said, “is how the hell Gayle got Beth under her spell. So to speak.”
“We know for sure Beth wasn’t involved in Melissa’s murder,” Devin said. “Which...I guess that’s something.” Tears filled her eyes. “She was my best friend. Maybe if I hadn’t moved away, she wouldn’t have—”
Rocky stepped in then. “Devin, it’s not your fault in any way.”
Devin shook her head, blinking back the tears. “But the friend I knew... She was a great person and then... I guess I miss the person I knew.”
Rocky smoothed her hair back. “It’s all right to miss people you loved—even when they’re still there but not really the same person anymore. Even when they tried to kill you.” He looked at the others again. “Like Devin said, Gayle did that one on her own. She was inexperienced, and it was her first kill. From what she was raving on about as they cuffed her and got her into the patrol car, she’d found Melissa’s story in her research on the trials, and though we’ll probably never really know what happened, she decided Margaret had been killed to curry favor with the devil, and win power and riches in hell. I think she thought the devil would help her kill when she took up his work—after all, she was framing Wiccans, basically his enemies, so she assumed he would be pleased—but when he didn’t, she got freaked out by what she’d done, and she was afraid of being caught.
“So she waited,” he went on. “She waited—growing crazier all the time—until she could find an accomplice. Somewhere over the years she glommed on to Beth, caught on to how insecure she was and played on that until Beth was as crazy as she was.” He was quiet for a minute and then shrugged. “I thought there was something strange about the way Beth was attacked. The two of them staged it—staged the whole thing—to throw suspicion off them. Gayle hit Beth on the head, because it had to do more than look real, it had to be real, then left her lying in the bushes till we came along and she could sucker us into going out searching.”
“How about tonight? How did they get Theo out here?” Jane asked.
“That was the easy part,” Rocky said. “They just said they were worried about Devin and asked him to drive them out to visit. Then Beth pretended she saw something in the woods, so he pulled over and ran out to defend them. They followed him, attacked him, then started screaming and calling for help, trying to lure me out, since as far as they knew I was here with Devin, so they could go after her.”
“And it damn near worked, too,” Jack said sheepishly. “They just got me instead of you.”
“That was probably why Gayle had the gun,” Rocky said. “So she could shoot me before moving on to Devin.”
>
“I know I’m a cop,” Jack said. “I should be used to seeing what people can do, but this kind of craziness...well, it gets to me. After what happened here in Salem, you’d think people would be smarter.”
“People are just people,” Rocky said. “Most of them are wonderful, but those who aren’t...”
They were all quiet for a minute, a moment of reflection that was broken when Angela’s cell phone rang. They all watched expectantly as she answered, but her string of “uh-huhs” told them nothing.
“Thank you,” she finally said, then looked up at them with a big smile. “Theo has a chance,” she said. “Gayle missed the artery, so he lost a lot of blood, but they’ve stitched him up and given him a transfusion, and there’s real cause to hope.”
“Thank God,” Devin murmured. “And we were so sure it was him.”
“Don’t forget Chris, the old guy at the bar,” Sam said. “We got him cleaned up and fed, gave him some new clothes, since his old ones are evidence. He’s taking us to the place where Gayle buried each knife after she killed. Apparently the devil demanded a virgin blade for each sacrifice or something. His testimony will be invaluable at their trials.”
“And I have a friend who’s going to set him up in assisted living and help him get a job,” Jack said. “Then it will be up to him.”
“I’m so glad,” Jenna said.
Eventually everyone except the Krewe left, which was actually something of a relief, since it left them free to talk about how invaluable Melissa and Margaret had been in catching the killers—and saving lives.
There was a knock at the door. Devin hopped up to get it, but Rocky was right on her heels. Clearly he was taking no chances with her safety.
A dignified, elderly man was standing there when she opened the door. “Miss Lyle?” he asked.
She didn’t have to guess who he was, because she heard the other Krewe members cry out in delight.
“Adam!” Angela called.
The man smiled at Devin and winked. “Yes, well, you all told me I needed to meet Miss Lyle, so here I am.”
“Come in, please,” Devin said.
“Yes, please come in,” Auntie Mina said, leaping up and smiling just as if Adam could see her and respond.
Adam Harrison joined them, and they quickly brought him up to speed on the case. It was long after midnight at that point, though, and everyone was physically and emotionally exhausted, so the Krewe said good night and headed back to their hotel, while Adam accepted Devin’s invitation to stay the night at the cottage.
That night Devin decided to believe that Auntie Mina would stay discreetly away from Devin’s room.
She suspected that her great-aunt would probably be busy sighing at the door of her own room—where Adam Harrison would be sleeping.
Devin lay next to Rocky, just glad to be with him—and so thankful that they’d survived dangers from both the past and the present. She threaded a strand of his hair through her fingers and asked him, “When you shot Gayle...don’t you usually shoot to kill when someone is shooting at you?”
“Yes,” he admitted, then was silent for a long moment. “But what I said—I meant. She wanted hell so badly, but I truly think that for someone like her, there’s no hell like the hell you can find on earth.” He pulled her into his arms. “And,” he added, “there’s nothing even close to the heaven you can find on earth, either.”
Devin smiled and touched her lips gently to his. “Mmm,” she said softly.
“Mmm what?” he whispered against her lips.
“I’m tasting heaven,” she told him.
Their kiss deepened.
Heaven.
They hadn’t exactly settled their future tonight.
But wherever it led, they would head there together.
* * * * *
“Graham deftly weaves elements of mystery, the paranormal and romance into a tight plot that will keep the reader guessing at the true nature of the killer’s evil.”
—Publishers Weekly on The Unseen
If you loved The Hexed, be sure to also catch all the titles in the popular and dark Krewe of Hunters series by New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham. Available now wherever ebooks are sold!
The Cursed
The Night Is Forever
The Night Is Alive
The Night Is Watching
The Uninvited
The Unspoken
The Unholy
The Unseen
The Evil Inside
Sacred Evil
Heart of Evil
Phantom Evil
Looking for more Heather Graham? Then don’t miss Waking the Dead and all the titles in the Cafferty & Quinn series.
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ISBN-13: 9781460336618
THE HEXED
Copyright © 2014 by Heather Graham Pozzessere
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.
www.Harlequin.com
Sleepy Hollow Isn’t So Sleepy Anymore...
One night, New York FBI agent Aidan Mahoney receives a visitor in a dream—an old friend named Richard Highsmith. The very next day he’s sent to Sleepy Hollow because Richard’s gone missing there.
Maureen—Mo—Deauville now lives in the historic town and works with her dog, Rollo, to search for missing people. She’s actually the one to find Richard…or more precisely his head, stuck on a statue of the legendary Headless Horseman.
Mo and Aidan, a new member of the Krewe of Hunters, the FBI’s unit of paranormal investigators, explore both past and present events to figure out who betrayed Richard, who killed him and now wants to kill them, too. As they work together, they discover that they share an unusual trait—the ability to communicate with the dead. They also share an attraction that’s as intense as it is unexpected…if they live long enough to enjoy it!
Praise for the novels of New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham
“Murder, intrigue, and some hot-and-heavy magnetism between Quinn and Cafferty make for a fast-paced read. You may never know in advance what harrowing situations Graham will place her characters in, but…rest assured that the end result will be satisfying.”
—Suspense magazine on Let the Dead Sleep
“Graham does an amazing job of bringing real-life elements into her fiction worlds… [The] messages are subtle, expertly woven through a story that focuses on solving mysterious crimes using the Krewe members’ unique talent
s. Graham also brings the surrounding areas of Nashville alive, with vivid details and lush descriptions—so authentic you can practically see history happening.”
—RT Book Reviews on The Night Is Forever (Top Pick)
“Bestseller Graham launches the third arc in her paranormal romantic suspense Krewe of Hunters series (The Unseen, etc.) with a rousing tale of the intriguing haunted town of Lily, Arizona…. Readers will enjoy Sloan and Jane’s interactions as romantic partners and competent professionals, aided by Lily’s ghosts.”
—Publishers Weekly on The Night Is Watching
“Graham deftly weaves elements of mystery, the paranormal and romance into a tight plot that will keep the reader guessing at the true nature of the killer’s evil.”
—Publishers Weekly on The Unseen
“I’ve long admired Heather Graham’s storytelling ability and this book hit the mark. I couldn’t put The Unholy down.”
—Fresh Fiction
“The very prolific and best-selling Graham has crafted a fine paranormal romance with a strong mystery plot
and a vibrant setting.”
—Booklist on Haunted
“The paranormal elements are integral to the unrelentingly suspenseful plot, the characters are likable, the romance convincing.”
—Booklist on Ghost Walk
Also by Heather Graham
THE HEXED
THE CURSED
WAKING THE DEAD
THE NIGHT IS FOREVER
THE NIGHT IS ALIVE
THE NIGHT IS WATCHING
LET THE DEAD SLEEP
THE UNSEEN
THE UNHOLY
THE UNSPOKEN
THE UNINVITED
AN ANGEL FOR CHRISTMAS
THE EVIL INSIDE
SACRED EVIL
HEART OF EVIL
PHANTOM EVIL
NIGHT OF THE VAMPIRES
THE KEEPERS
GHOST MOON
GHOST NIGHT
Heather Graham Krewe of Hunters Series, Volume 4 Page 60