by Amy Boyles
He looked around and headed up the back stairs.
It was go time.
Chapter 19
The man stalked up the back stairs, swinging his head around, looking like he didn’t want anyone to see him.
That makes two of us, buddy.
He pulled something from his pocket. It was long and narrow. Realizing that my night-vision goggles were sitting in my lap instead of on my head, I yanked them on and sucked air.
Payne Owens had a flat-tip screwdriver in one hand. He jammed it into the doorknob’s lock and started jiggling it.
If that didn’t scream break-in, I didn’t know what would.
I held my breath and watched as the lock broke with a loud pop. Payne glanced around again. I ducked lower in the bushes and got jabbed in the ear by a leaf. I grunted. Payne stopped moving and stared in my direction.
Do not blow this, Clem.
He waited a moment before pushing the door open and going inside. Now, what to do? Obviously Payne would not be breaking into his own house. I had a couple of choices—call Earl Granger and tell him what was going on. But doing that meant making noise, which would probably scare Payne away.
The other choice I had was to confront him myself—but not inside. It was wiser to wait until Payne stepped out into the open.
A low beam of a flashlight flared in a window, and sounds of rummaging through drawers drifted outside. My heart rate spiked.
I heard Payne sigh with satisfaction, and then it sounded like he was picking his way back out of the house.
I could feel my power charging, my magic swirling about me. I darted to the rear door and stood at bottom of the stairs, which I actually realized might not have been the best place to be. Wasn’t having the higher ground always the smarter choice?
Well, there was no time for smarter choices. There was only time to act.
Payne charged through the back door, and as I started to speak, another voice interrupted me.
“Care to explain what you’re doing in there?”
I whirled around to find Rufus, of all people, standing behind me.
How annoying. This was my win. I saw Payne first and had every right to interrogate him. “What are you doing here?” I said, fury pouring from my voice.
“I am your backup,” he replied, his dark gaze leveled on Payne.
I scoffed. “I don’t need backup.”
“Malene thought you did. She called me.”
“She called you? She has your number?”
He hiked a shoulder. “We’re very close.”
“So I gather,” I mumbled. “But you can leave. I don’t need help.”
“Do either of you care to tell me what’s going on,” Payne interrupted. “I’m in a hurry here.”
I pivoted to see him smoothing his hair with one palm. “First, you can stop right there.”
He peered at me. “Clem? Is that you?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you wearing goggles? They really aren’t a good look on you. Personally,” he said, his voice like satin, “I think you’d look better in silk.”
Rufus sidled up next to me. “Do you care to tell us what you were doing in that house?”
“Do you mind?” I said. “I’m the one who is doing the talking.” He lifted his palms in surrender. “Thank you. Payne, what are you doing in Knight’s house?”
Rufus cleared his throat. “Breaking in, obviously.”
“I thought you said I could talk,” I snapped.
“I’m only pointing out the obvious. He was breaking in. He has a screwdriver in his hand and used it to pop the lock. I mean, if you’re going to interrogate him with night-vision goggles on, you should at least get it right.”
I yanked the goggles off my head. “There. Now is everybody happy? I’m not wearing the goggles anymore. Are both of you satisfied?”
“Yes,” they said in unison.
“Great. Now can we please get back to what’s important? Payne, what are you doing breaking into your brother’s house?”
Payne fumbled with the buttons of his shirt and winked at me. I think it was his attempt at seduction, which honestly made me want to vomit on his shoes.
“If you must know—”
“I do, otherwise I’ll be calling the police.”
The stars illuminated his face enough for me to see malice sparkling in his eyes. “Well, there’s no reason to do that when I’m only looking for what’s mine.”
“And what’s that?”
He put his hands behind his back and pulled something from his waistband. “The family Bible. It’s been in the Owens family for years. I wanted to get it before my mother swooped in and took it back or worse, Lynn snatched it and harbored it in that gothic house of hers.”
Likely story. Who breaks into someone’s house for a family Bible? My guess was that the book was like the journal and had money stored inside it.
I shot Rufus a skeptical look, but his expression remained neutral.
Opening my palm, I said, “Hand it over.”
Without a word of argument, Payne laid the tome in my hands with reverence. When I peeled back the cover and flipped through the thin, brittle pages, I realized that yes, it was the family Bible.
I felt like an idiot. But let’s face it, from what I’d heard about Payne, he wasn’t exactly someone to trust.
His gaze seared into me. “You think I’m bad because of what happened to my dead wife, don’t you?”
“I’ve heard some rumors.”
“Yes,” Rufus answered. “We don’t trust you.”
I shot Rufus an annoyed look. “How do you know about the rumors?”
He shrugged. “Word gets around.”
“I’m so frustrated that you’re here.”
Not looking at me, he replied, “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Can I please have my Bible back?” Payne asked. “I’m not interested in getting in the middle of a lover’s quarrel.”
“Whoa, that is not what this is,” I corrected. “The last thing that is happening here is a lover’s quarrel.”
Rufus’s head dipped toward the ground.
I handed the Bible back to Payne. He stared at it a moment. “For the record, I had nothing to do with my deceased wife’s death. Yes, I had a lover on the side, but when the house burned with my wife in it, at that moment I decided to change my ways.”
I crossed my arms in disgust. “Is that why you blew the money on cars and vacations?”
“Okay”—he backtracked—“maybe it was after I spent all the money that I realized that I needed to change.” His eyes became wet. “One day I looked in the mirror and realized that I didn’t like who I was. That I needed to be better.”
“The Bible is worth money, isn’t it?”
Payne’s gaze dropped. “Maybe.”
I shook my head. “Of course that’s why you want it. But if you don’t even believe that Knight is dead, why are you here?”
“Because, sweetheart, this is the only thing of value I’ll be able to get. Whatever money is in his accounts, we’ll split, or my mom will get. But I promise you”—he stepped down until he stood only inches from me and the scent of his Polo cologne wafted up my nose—“that wherever Knight is, his money is, too.”
There, Payne was wrong. So he didn’t believe there was money to be found. Which meant that I could strike Payne off the list of suspects who’d gone to Harlow’s and riffled through the cabinets.
Harlow, Payne, and Lynn were not my suspects in this death and disappearance. So who was it? Who had killed Knight?
Payne brushed past Rufus and me. “If you’re really convinced that you saw Knight with a knife sticking out of his gut and that someone stole his dead body, then you should be looking at my mother.”
My brows lifted at that. “Why should I be looking at her?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Because word on the street is that Mama wanted her money back and she and Knight had gotten into a fight about i
t.”
With that, Payne disappeared into the night.
“That went well,” Rufus said.
I whirled on him, frustration practically sparking on my fingertips. “Why are you here?”
“We already covered that,” he said smoothly.
“I can take care of myself.”
“I’m aware of that, and seeing as how you don’t want me here, I’ll kindly take my leave.”
He stalked away, but Rufus wasn’t getting off that easily. “I don’t need you coming to my rescue.”
He paused, his back tensing. “I’m not trying to come to your rescue.”
“That’s the second time. The first was when Shane Prader pulled a gun on me.”
His expression morphed into disgust. “And what would have happened if I hadn’t been there? You could have been killed.”
“I was doing just fine—then and now.”
He lifted his hands in surrender. “Then I’ll leave you alone, if that’s what you want, but you can go on denying that you’re not a spell hunter, that you barely have magic, and that you don’t care about those who care about you.”
“I do care about people.”
“Just not me.”
His words were a whip of lightning that raced down my back, jolting me all the way to my fingertips.
“Whatever your beef is with me, get it out,” he said.
I crossed my arms, sulking. “I don’t have a problem with you.”
He snickered. “Of course you don’t. But if this is how you repay me for trying to free you of your magical constipation, then I don’t want to have anything to do with you, either.”
He started off again, and every piece of me screamed not to let him go.
“If you want me to get it out, then fight me.”
This was what I needed. To really face off against Rufus and win, to release my aggression and anger and beat him in a showdown.
“You’re being ridiculous,” he replied, his back to me.
“No, I’m not. If you want to get it all done and over with, then fight me.”
He slowly pivoted to face me. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
Confidence coursed through my veins. I felt good, strong, taking on this challenge. I wouldn’t cower and be defeated by my fear. I would face it head-on.
“I do know what I’m saying. This will help you, too. It might bring back some of your memory, release some of your own magic.”
His gaze darted to the ground. He sighed slowly before lifting eyes full of anguish to meet mine. “If you’re sure.”
I curled my hands to fists. “I’m sure. Let’s go.”
Chapter 20
I had gone and lost my dang mind. What was I doing telling Rufus that I was going to fight him? Where was the sense in that?
There was no sense, that’s what it was. I had absolutely no sense. But I felt that fighting him would get some of my tension out, and like I had said, it might help him remember who he was. And if he did…well, then I’d finally know what lived in the real Rufus Mayes’s heart.
Was he the man that I remembered or was he more like John, the kind, generous-hearted person who dropped whatever he was doing to run halfway across town to sit with me in the bushes? Even though we didn’t sit in the bushes—I mean, at least not literally.
But here we were now, stalking off, away from the houses to a park not far from Cherry Street.
“What if someone sees the magic?” I asked.
“They’ll think it’s soundless fireworks,” he said in a clipped voice.
“You’re angry.”
“I think this is childish, but if it helps you get over your past and realize that not everyone with magic is here to hurt you, then I’ll do it.”
“Thank you.”
He grunted in response. It didn’t exactly sound like you’re welcome. In fact, it didn’t sound anything like it.
A few streetlamps shone down on the park, which had a baseball diamond on one end and a public swimming pool and tennis court on the other. We moved to the baseball side of the field.
Rufus stopped. “You’ll want to stay where you are.”
I did as he said and waited until he walked about ten paces and turned to face me. We studied one another as the humidity thickened. I could practically feel it making my hair frizzier by the minute. Humidity was not a good look on me.
“So what do we do?” I asked.
Rufus shook his head, laughing. “This was your idea. Do you want to walk up to me and blow me into next week, or do you want to attempt to actually focus the living spells within you?”
You know, I really should have thought this through before I made the challenge. Rufus probably had a sleeve of spells waiting up his arms. All I had was a spear that, maybe or not, I could summon.
“I suppose,” I answered after considering it, “that I would like to actually focus on whatever it is that is locked up inside me.”
He nodded. “You’ll get no direction from me.”
“I don’t want any direction from you,” I said sharply.
“Then we’re agreed,” he said quietly. “I’ll let you begin.”
Me? I didn’t even know what to do. But I couldn’t demand that Rufus fight me and then not have a plan.
“Okay,” I said. “Let me think.”
I closed my eyes and tried to summon my magic the way I had with the spear. It whirled and spun inside me, coiling and writhing like a snake unfurling in my stomach.
My eyes popped open, and I threw out my hand. A small spark of light flicked from my palm and fell to the ground, hitting the earth with a sizzle.
“That’s terribly disappointing,” Rufus said. “You would have done better to walk up to me with your magic charged. At least then you could have blown me across the grass.”
“You don’t have to make fun of me,” I snarled.
He tsked. “I’m not making fun, only pointing out the truth.”
“You are making fun of me,” I growled.
His gaze sharpened to a point that lodged in the back of my spine, making me shudder. “The last thing I’m doing is making fun of you. These are the facts: you don’t know how to use your magic, and you’re using the past as a shield against yourself and me. Let the shield down, and you’ll figure out how to become a better witch.”
“I don’t want to be a witch,” I shouted.
“You are a witch. There is nothing that you can do about it.”
I curled my hands and brought them to my face, screaming, “You’re only saying that.”
He stalked up to me, fury flaming in his eyes. “Do you know how many people would kill to be able to hunt spells and do what you can do? Thousands, and yet you squander your gift, using it only to hurt people, and that’s because you never had the chance to learn it properly. You are immature, Clementine Cooke. God knows why I care about you.”
His words were a punch to my chest. Anger surged in me, and I glared at him. “Get back to your spot.”
“Oh?” He lifted a brow. “Is this on now? You’re going to figure out how to use your magic against me? Is that right?”
“Yes,” I ground out.
He raised his hands and stepped back, keeping his gaze on me. “Then do it. Hit me with everything you have.”
Once again I closed my eyes. I’d started to feel my magic when something hit me in the shoulder. My eyes flared open.
A small light blue ball was smearing down my clavicle, oozing onto my arm.
My jaw dropped, and I stared at Rufus. “What did you do?”
He smirked. “It’s a shield and will stop you from using your power. During that time, I can work any spell on you that I choose.”
My heart rate ratcheted up. “You can do what?”
He let one hand fall lazily to his hip. “Like I said, you’ll essentially be powerless. Unless you break free from the spell, I can use any spell on you that I want. But you’d better move quickly. It’s acting fast.”
&n
bsp; He wasn’t lying. The blue ooze was seeping over my chest, and I could feel it locking away my power, pushing it back. This was my worst dream—that Rufus could do whatever he wanted to me.
“That’s cheating,” I snapped.
He smirked. Somehow he made a smirk appear sexy. Was that a thing and I never noticed it before? That men could smirk, and with one curl of their lips, their entire demeanor became like a thousand times more appealing.
He spread his hands wide in innocence. “All’s fair in love and war. Better stop talking and start fighting your way out.”
As the spell crept over my chest, spilling like water toward my navel, a burst of anger flooded me.
How dare Rufus do this. How dare he incapacitate me. It was just like…before.
I closed my eyes, ground my teeth and saw, with my mind’s eye, the spear that I’d thrust before, the manifestation of my magic.
Look, I know that I should have been trying to do more than simply spew out the same spell, but I didn’t know what else to do. This wasn’t the time to start improvising and come up with some new fan-dangled way of churning my power. No, this called for tried and true.
Too bad that I hadn’t summoned the spear since the other night. There was no way to know if it was a consistent manifestation of my magic.
I dived deep into myself. Even as I felt the shield spreading down to my waist, I dug hard into my magic. Even as I felt it being hidden away, tucking behind folds of my psyche, I reached for it, grasping at air until I found…a strand.
I yanked hard, pulling with everything that I had. My eyes opened wide, and in my palm something hummed—the spear. I felt like a warrior, standing tall, aiming the object at my own chest to break the spell.
The tip hit the icy-like mass covering me, shattering the cast. It dripped like gobs of light to the ground, sinking into the earth.
Rufus’s eyes smiled. “Now, throw the spear at me.”
I hesitated.
“This is what you wanted,” he said, “to fight me. Do it.”
I lifted the spear and launched it into the air. Rufus pulled a red orb from thin air. He tossed it at the spear, and my spear dissolved.
“You’ll have to do better than that,” he said.