Witches and Ghosts Supernatural Mysteries

by Angela Pepper

  Toni continued, “Warren was a good man. Even if he'd been suicidal—and he wasn't—he wouldn't have left himself as a mess for someone else to clean up, you know? Maybe the accident did have something to do with the lightning strike that burned that tree. Maybe I'll come back here again with a hatchet and take vengeance on what's left of its stump.” She let out a semi-joking maniacal laugh.

  Samantha coughed and forced out a chuckle in agreement.

  They walked in step for a mile before Toni spoke again, asking, “Why are you staying here, anyway? I can think of more exciting places to be.”

  Samantha rubbed the fingers of her left hand. “A person's got to be somewhere,” she said vaguely. She kept rubbing her fingers. There was an itch beneath the skin she couldn't get to, and she had the bizarre idea of biting her fingers off, choking on them. Too much talk of death. She shook her head to change the channel.

  “What's the deal with Caitlyn?” she asked. “Why didn't she come up here with you today?”

  “We aren't that good of friends.” Toni broke her stride and plucked a tall stalk of wild grass to chew on. “And she's probably busy with work, or busy freaking out about her so-called stalker.”

  “Stalker?” Samantha thought about it for a minute, remembering the small man at the bar the night before. “Oh, you mean that Charles guy who bought us the sangria she wouldn't drink.”

  “Charles?” Toni stopped walking, leaned over, and slapped her knees, laughing. “Charles DeWitt is no stalker, just a standard-issue weirdo. Did you get a good look at him? He's the human equivalent of a pug, with his bulgy little eyes.”

  Samantha thought of her diminutive cousin, who had a similar appearance due to a thyroid condition, and refrained from making fun of Charles. Toni, however, didn't take a hint. She went on at great length comparing him to creatures of both land and sea.

  When they finally got back to the cabin, Toni offered her a ride into town. When Samantha couldn't figure out why, Toni explained, “Don't you want to pick up your car? You left it at the bar last night.”

  Samantha smacked herself on the forehead dramatically. “They say the mind is the first to go.”

  “Join the club,” Toni said as she opened the door of her car.

  Samantha popped into the cabin and rushed around, getting her car keys and grabbing a light jacket in case the weather changed within the next ten minutes—in Colorado, it could happen—and joined her new friend in the car.

  As she slid into the seat, she felt the compulsion to admit to Toni that she'd been on a date with Warren, that she'd even kissed him. But Toni's driving skills were cause for concern even without the emotional bombshells flying. She crossed her hands in her lap and vowed to let the secret remain buried with Warren.

  Ten minutes later, they were in the heart of downtown Owl Bend, and the sun continued to shine. They said goodbye, and Samantha located her car parked up the street. The sandwich board for a coffee shop caught her eye, and since she hated to come home from a trip into town empty-handed, she walked in and ordered an iced coffee.

  On her way out, she bumped into a familiar-looking man in dark, nondescript clothes. It was Deputy Sheriff Robichaud, whom she hadn't seen since the night of Warren's accident. As she looked up into his eyes, which were a muddy green, memories of that night came back to her, and emotions rushed forth like water through a busted dam. The words had blurred, but his kindness was indelible—how he'd stayed on the phone with her until they were face to face, and then, at the sheriff's office, how he'd tried to make her a cup of tea at least three times.

  He looked down at the iced coffee in her hand. It had been topped with whipped cream and a clear, domed plastic cap.

  “Are those any good?” he asked.

  She was handing the cup to him already. “Try some, Deputy. Uh, Officer?”

  “You can call me Dan,” he said.

  “Try some, Dan.”

  They locked eyes, and the rest of the world disappeared.

  Chapter 6

  Deputy Sheriff Daniel Robichaud and Samantha Torres stood face to face within the door frame of the cafe, the air around them charged with tension.

  A woman with four kids in tow huffed at them for blocking the entrance. Samantha felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment. After the intensity of their first meeting, she felt familiar with Deputy Sheriff Robichaud, and was treating him the way she would any friend, offering him a sip of her frosty coffee.

  But through the judging eyes of this huffy-puffy mother of four, Samantha saw herself as a flirt. She was a raven-haired vixen, twisting her body in the doorway to show off her angles the way the prostitutes in Amsterdam shift their poses in windows, all Barbie dolls waiting to be taken from their plastic coffins. What right did she have to be happy, to be flirtatious, when she should be in mourning?

  She stepped out onto the sidewalk, then to the side, into the shade cast by the striped awning. In that moment, she wished the dark shadows would swallow her up.

  But Daniel Robichaud had her coffee in his hand, and he was smiling—as though everything was going to be okay, forever. He stood on the opposite side of the front door and took a long, slow sip, making eye contact the entire time.

  “That's nice,” he said, licking his lips. “I'll keep this and buy you a new one.”

  She leaned across the space between then, arm extended. “That's fine. You hardly had a sip.”

  He took a step back and another sip through the straw, emptying it below the ice cube line, his green eyes teasing the whole time. His cheeks hollowed above his square jaw as he sucked through the straw, emptying the drink. She nodded in admiration of his moves. Now she had to wait while he bought her a coffee. He hadn't initiated the maneuver, but he was an excellent improviser.

  “And I'd better get another one for myself,” he said. “For your own protection, so I don't take your fresh one.”

  “You're smooth,” she said with a smile.

  Ten minutes later, they were enjoying a stroll on a cobblestone path next to the river that ran through the small town.

  “Thanks again for getting me hooked on this stuff,” he said of the iced coffee. “With the whipped cream on top, it's surprisingly addictive. We may have to set up a treatment program, once we deal with the meth and booze.”

  “Don't forget the gambling,” Samantha suggested. “And murder.”

  He was quiet, slowing to kick a loose stone off the cobbled path and into the slow-moving river. “What makes you think we have a murder problem here in Owl Bend?”

  She felt her cheeks flush again. “Just a terrible joke,” she said. “I don't have any friends who are cops.”

  “We're even. I don't have any friends who are magazine reporters from the big city.”

  “Who said I was a reporter?”

  “You're not?”

  “I take photos of food and superficial girlie stuff, like shoes and handmade ornaments, for a lifestyle blog.”

  “So, you're not here to investigate a scandal involving local law enforcement and coffee theft?”

  Samantha laughed and reached up to sweep her dark hair off her hot neck and shoulders. She immediately dropped her arm when she caught a whiff of her own sweat. She didn't smell awful, but she hadn't freshened up since the multihour hike with Toni. She'd only dropped into town to pick up her car, not to have a late-afternoon stroll with a handsome young cop who was in civilian clothes but still carried himself with the stiffness of authority.

  “Explain your job to me again,” he said. “And talk slow, like I'm simple.”

  She thought again of people claiming to be the opposite of what they were. Deputy Sheriff Daniel Robichaud was anything but simple. Every gesture and word betrayed him as a man who let little slip past unnoticed. She didn't dare ask, but she guessed that his arrival at the cafe, which had to be visible from his office window up the street, was anything but a coincidence.

  While they walked, she explained about the business side of blogging for p
rofit—everything from website traffic reports and search engine optimization of content, to affiliate fee revenue and browser cookies. He said he knew all about cookies and IP addresses, thanks to some experience investigating cyber crimes.

  The conversation shifted to his work, the highs and lows, the heartbreak of seeing the victim of abuse take the worst route out of a bad situation, and the thrill of seeing at-risk kids grow beyond their circumstances and “pay it forward“ within the community, helping others. He explained how he had once been one of those at-risk youths. When his father lost his job at the steel mill, he'd been fifteen and just as angry as his old man. While his father had crumpled in on himself, young Danny Robichaud lashed out at anything resembling authority. He was headed for an early grave and wouldn't be walking God's green earth now, except for a fortunate drowning.

  Samantha asked, “Since when is a drowning fortunate?”

  They'd reached a standstill, unconsciously walking slower and slower as his story got more dramatic. He glanced around as though worried about someone overhearing him.

  He looked her straight in the eye and said, “Since I saw something that night.”

  “Something?” She gave him a sidelong look as a chill ran up her spine.

  “This isn't something I want repeated.” He bit his lower lip and looked pensive. “I probably shouldn't be blabbing to you, but I can't resist your nosy reporter ways.”

  She snorted and rolled her eyes, pretending to be less interested in the secret than she was. “If you want this off the record, it's off the record.” She knew enough about real journalism to say the phrase with some authority.

  “Off the record,” he said, both of them at a standstill and staring directly into each other's eyes. Three people on funky-colored single-speed bicycles whizzed by. “Samantha, I died that night. I was dead for several minutes before the paramedics revived me.”

  “That's not too scandalous,” she said dismissively. “You were in icy water. It's not something I'd sign up for, but young people have lasted longer.”

  He nodded his head forward and gave her an eyebrow raise, as if to say the good part was yet to come.

  “I saw angels,” he said. “And I know what you're going to say next. You'll say people report seeing a guardian angel all the time after near-death experiences. That it's a hallucination brought on by changes in the brain.” He blinked and glanced at the river momentarily, then back to her. The muddiness in his green eyes was gone, and they were bright and vivid, emerald, like the eyes of a dragon. He continued, “But I saw multiple glowing figures. I was floating above the water, and I saw two of them, leading the paramedics right to my body.”

  Samantha sensed it was the appropriate moment to say something, and not that she was currently dating a ghost boyfriend. She simply said, “Wow.”

  “Wow is right.” He nodded. “After, I compared notes with the paramedics, and I knew things I couldn't have known. My body was under the water, but I repeated back to them the exact words they'd called out to each other when they were searching for me.”

  “You were a ghost,” she said.

  He frowned, creasing his unlined forehead in a manner it didn't seem accustomed to. “I don't think of it that way, because I'm alive now, and ghosts belong to the realm of the dead.”

  She stepped back, smiling, and looked him up and down. “You seem very much alive to me. No body parts falling off or anything.”

  He swished his mouth and looked across the river. He took three steps away, off the path, and started collecting pebbles. He turned his back to her, and threw the stones at the water. Each one skipped farther than the previous.

  Samantha sidled up next to him. She could sense a raw emotion radiating from him like heat. He'd opened himself up to her, and now he regretted it. Her flippant remark about rotting body parts hadn't helped.

  “That's a cool story,” she said softly.

  He didn't look at her as he kept chucking the pebbles, his biceps rippling under his short shirtsleeves. “It's just a story,” he said dismissively.

  She reached out to put her hand on his arm, but stopped just short of touching him. Something across the river caught her eye. Was it Warren Jameson, wearing his tuxedo, the white shirt practically glowing in the late afternoon sun? No, it was just a black and white collie, jumping to catch a Frisbee.

  A gust of wind ruffled the long grasses and wildflowers along the river bank. Her arms got goose bumps. She took a step back from Robichaud and pulled on the light jacket she'd been carrying around draped over her arm.

  “Yeah,” Robichaud said, as though responding to something spoken aloud and not just the tension. “I should be on my way as well.”

  She nodded back in the direction they'd come. “I'll walk you back to your office. My car's right by there.”

  He bunched up his shoulders and stuck his hands in his pockets. “No, you go on ahead. I'm just going to check on something in the opposite direction.”

  In the opposite direction of wherever I am, Samantha thought. “Sounds good,” she said, and she started walking away.

  As she walked, she clenched her fists and fumed over how touchy some men could be. Women were open about their feelings constantly, just on the off chance someone might listen. But men? They had a one-strike rule that just wasn't fair.

  She heard footfalls behind her. Robichaud was running to catch up.

  “I'm so sorry,” she gushed before he could say anything. “I didn't mean to be insensitive. Trust me, I'm very open-minded about such things.”

  He gave her a perplexed look, as though he'd moved on, and forgotten the whole thing already.

  “Never mind that,” he said. “I'm actually glad I ran into you today because I wanted to ask you something, just a follow-up question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “How well do you know Toni Winters?”

  She slowed her pace but kept walking. “The redhead? I'm confused. I thought Caitlyn's last name was Winters.”

  “It's a big family,” he said. “Toni's the one who dropped you off by your car this afternoon. The two of them are second cousins.”

  “So, you were spying on me from your window.”

  He almost smiled. “It's not spying if you're looking out the window and someone happens to walk by.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I guess I don't know Toni that well if I didn't know her last name. Last night was the second time we met. Why do you ask?”

  “Like I said, just a follow-up question. Did you happen to see Toni on the fifth of May?”

  “I did. Right before I got the phone call from you, actually. She drew a mustache on my finger.”

  “And that was the first time you met her, or saw her? You didn't see her anywhere else earlier that afternoon? For example, up at the lake where you're staying?”

  Samantha shrugged. “Not that I noticed, but there are always people around, especially by the boat launch.” She turned to watch his expression as she asked, “What's going on? Is there something about her I should know?”

  “Just that she's not quite what she appears to be. I'd keep your distance if I were you, at least until this whole thing blows over.”

  “What thing? Is there an investigation?”

  His green eyes widened. “Who said anything about an investigation? I'm just suggesting that if you meet with Toni Winters, you do so only in a public place.”

  “Or what?”

  He stopped walking and glanced around. Sunset was still hours away, but the riverside didn't seem as warm and sunny anymore.

  He hadn't answered her question, but she pressed on with another one. “Is Toni a stripper? Is that why you don't want me hanging out with her?”

  “That's not why.”

  “Fine. Be mysterious. Can I ask you something about Warren Jameson? Was he struck by lightning?”

  Robichaud's eyebrows rose in surprise. “Lightning? What makes you say that?”

  “Was he?”

  “No.” He sh
ook his head. “No lightning. It was the fall that killed him. But that's all I can tell you.”

  “Something's going on, I know it. You wouldn't be acting like this if it was just a normal accident.”

  He gave her a pained expression, as though he had secrets that were pulling him apart. “Listen, Samantha. Keep your phone nearby. Give me a call if you ever need help.” He dug in his pocket and handed her a crumpled business card. She already had one from the night they met, but accepted it anyway.

  “I'll add this to my collection,” she joked.

  He said, “If you don't see me around town, you can always give me a jingle just to check in... or talk about stuff.”

  “Sure,” she said with a sigh, growing tired of his guarded, cloak-and-dagger routine.

  They parted ways, and this time he didn't run to catch up with her.

  She picked up a few more groceries at the nearby store, including some fresh local seasonal produce—arugula, blueberries, snap peas, plus some luscious red early cherries—and drove back to the cabin.

  * * *

  Samantha poured a drink and took a seat in the rocking chair on the wrap-around veranda to wait for nightfall and the return of Warren. She nodded off and woke up to find him watching her from the foot of the stairs.

  She clutched her hand to her pounding heart. “You scared the heck out of me!”

  He gave her a sweet smile of apology, but didn't approach. He stayed where he was and looked down pointedly at the dirt.

  She had so many questions that he wouldn't answer, but she could look at him more carefully. What could she learn about his death? Had he been struck by lightning? He didn't seem to have any signs of burns on his body. His hair didn't look singed. But then again, his head didn't look crushed from a fall, either. He looked perfect—no blood or bruising. What was he so fascinated with on the ground?