“What about the rest of the group?” I asked.
“It was a little chaotic, I must admit. I touched Mila’s hand to bring her gently out of the trance. Only she thought I was signaling her for the final step in the ritual—the burning of the poppet.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Yeah.” Max rubbed her temples. “Mila took her candle and lit the doll on fire. I managed to put the fire out quickly by stepping on it, but the damage was done. Tish insisted that Mila be arrested for disorderly conduct. She claimed Mila was a troublemaker who was disturbing the peace. Tish said she was pressing charges.”
“Poor Mila.”
“Actually, Mila seemed unfazed by the whole thing. When she realized what was happening, she told me not to worry. She said she had had a vision of her spending a night behind bars, so she wasn’t even surprised. She was more concerned about the rest of us.”
“So only Mila was arrested?”
Max nodded.
I glanced around the empty police station. “Where’s Catrina? I would have expected her to jump at the chance to be locked up for civil disobedience.”
“I don’t know where Catrina is,” said Max, frowning. “She took off the second she saw the police officer approaching.”
Max checked her watch. “I need to get going. I’m already late picking up Janie from the babysitter.”
I nodded, regarding her curiously. “How do you do it, Max? How do you manage to be a public Wiccan? Aren’t you worried about your job?”
Max looked surprised. “Oh, everyone in the English department knows about my religion. Most students find out eventually, so I get questions sometimes. Occasionally, someone tries to convert me. I don’t pay them much attention.” Max laughed. “It’s a free country, remember?”
The steel door next to the front desk opened and a police officer stepped out, looking our way. “Attorney Milanni?”
Max left, and I approached the officer. She searched my purse and patted me down. Then she led me through the steel door and down a hallway to a small conference room with a metal table and two chairs. Mila was sitting in one of the chairs. She was wearing an orange jumpsuit.
“Mila!” I exclaimed the moment I caught sight of her. “You shouldn’t have to stay here overnight! You should be able to post bond and go home.”
Mila gave me a resigned smile. “Apparently, the judge left already. The next bond hearing won’t be until tomorrow morning.”
I opened my mouth to protest. Surely I could make a couple of calls and find somebody to handle this tonight. Mila held up her hand.
“It’s okay. I already discussed it with my husband. He’s reaching out to a bail agent now. This is how it’s supposed to be. I had a vision. This is the consequence of my binding spell, but it’s worth it. It had to be done.”
I studied Mila for a moment and saw there was no use arguing with her. “Would you like me to attend the hearing with you in the morning?”
“That’s not necessary,” she said. “I know this isn’t your area of law. Besides, my husband said he would find a defense attorney.”
I couldn’t help feeling Mila was declining my assistance in order to protect my privacy. I felt bad about that. As if reading my mind, Mila reached over and squeezed my hand. “There is one thing you can do for me,” she said.
“What is it?”
“Ask the police officer for the ring of keys in my personal effects—I’ll tell her it’s okay. Then go by Moonstone and check on Drishti.”
“Drishti is in the shop?”
“Yes. She’s fine staying there, but I didn’t have a chance to refill her food and water bowls. You can find them in the back room. The cat food is in the bottom drawer of my desk. I would be so grateful if you would do this for me.”
“Of course,” I said.
Mila smiled, while I marveled at her serenity. “It’s just one night,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”
Suddenly, Mila’s smile faded and a look of worry crossed her eyes. “Be careful, Keli. The shop is enchanted with the most powerful protection charms I know. And the police should be watching it, too—I told them about the caller’s deadline. But this person is not predictable. First, it was notes and graffiti. Then a fire, phone calls . . . murder. There’s no telling what the killer will do next.”
Mila’s words made me shiver. I knew she was right.
“Watch your back,” she continued. “I’m afraid this person is getting desperate. And desperation spells danger.”
Chapter 25
I decided to leave my car where it was and walk the short distance to Moonstone Treasures. A few holdovers from the street festival loitered in Courthouse Square, but most partiers had relocated to the concert hall at the university. I thought I could hear the strains of Rhett Shelby’s country band echoing through the night air.
Using the key the police officer retrieved from Mila’s purse, I let myself in through the front door of the shop. With Mila’s cautionary words still ringing in my mind, I locked the door behind me. I turned on a light and moved through the front half of the shop.
“Drishti!” I called. “Here, kitty-kitty. Where are you, Drishti?”
After a quick check in the clothing section upstairs and the book section downstairs, I went through the curtain to the back room and turned on a lamp in Mila’s divination parlor. There was still no sign of the cat, but I found her food dish and water bowl. I filled them with dry pellets and fresh water. Then I stood in the center of the room and gazed around.
If I were a hidden tunnel, where would I be?
Underground, obviously.
I looked down at the wood plank floor. In the divination area, it was covered with an Oriental rug. On the storage side, the floor was mostly bare except for a carpet runner in front of the back door.
Slowly, I walked around the room, bouncing my feet as I went. The floor felt pretty solid to me.
When I reached the round table where Mila had read our palms, I recalled Farrah’s jumpiness. For a minute there, she looked like she really had seen a ghost. I wasn’t sure what I believed when it came to ghosts. Was it possible Charlie’s spirit could still be lingering on the earthly plane? Thinking about it now—and being alone in this place—made the back of my neck prickle.
I dropped into a chair at the table and peered into the shadowy corners of the room. This was a century-old building, I reminded myself. Was it so far-fetched to imagine it contained residual energy from long-ago occupants?
Yet, when Farrah had felt the breeze on her ankles, neither Mila nor I had felt any ghostly presence—and we were both intuitive Wiccans. I bent over to look under the table.
I had been sitting closest to the curtain that evening, and I didn’t feel anything. The air must have come from the back of the room.
I stood up and considered the gap between the two Japanese screens. As I walked around to the other side of the screens, my eyes fell upon the closet next to the bathroom. I opened the closet door, pulled the cord for the overhead lightbulb, and looked inside. Along the right wall were a vacuum cleaner, a couple of brooms, and a mop in a plastic bucket. On the left was a set of wooden shelves holding folded tablecloths and other linens. In the back, across the width of the closet, was a steel rod on which hung a few cloaks and dresses.
I turned around. If the door had been open that night, a current of air coming from the closet could have touched Farrah’s ankles. Of course, that meant there would have had to have been a source of air in there.
My heart beat faster as I searched the closet. Pushing aside the hanging clothes, I studied the wall and floor. Is there an opening in here? The floor seemed solid, but the walls were made from knotty pine. I pressed the knots in the wood and felt along the edges of the wall.
Remembering the old phone in the speakeasy, I searched for something that could hide a trigger mechanism. Nothing in the closet was bolted down except for the coat hooks behind the mop and brooms. For good measure, I tried twisting each hook
—with the final twist, a part of the back wall clicked open.
Holy Goddess!
I rushed forward to examine the opening. It was only about three feet high, but I could see stone steps leading into the blackness below. I was tempted to climb down the steps and have a look, but I didn’t want to be foolhardy. I backed out of the closet, found my purse where I had left it on Mila’s desk, and pulled out my phone.
I had to call Farrah. Never mind if she thought it was strange that Mila had given me the keys to her shop. I would worry about that later.
I was about to press CALL when my phone buzzed in my hand, nearly causing me to drop it. I glanced at the display and saw a number I had seen many times before—Catrina’s. She probably wanted to tell me about Mila’s arrest.
“Hello,” I said, hoping to end the call in a hurry.
“Keli, are you doing anything right now?” Catrina asked. “Can you meet me at Moonstone?”
“Why?”
“There’s something I want to show you.”
I frowned. “Actually, I’m at the shop now. I saw Mila at the police station and she gave me her keys.”
“I’ll be right there.” Catrina hung up, leaving me to stare at my phone.
Now what?
Before I could decide what to do, my phone buzzed again. This time it was an unknown caller.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Keli? This is Andi Roark. You called me earlier.”
“Oh! Right. Hi, Andi. I’m not sure if you remember me. We met at Mila’s shop last summer.”
“I remember,” said Andi. “Your message said you wanted to talk about Trina?”
Briefly, I told her about seeing Catrina argue with Reverend Natty—and then seeing the tires slashed on his truck. “Do you think Catrina would do something like that?”
“She would totally do something like that,” Andi said without hesitation. “She’s gone off the deep end.”
Whoa. I didn’t expect that. “What do you mean?”
“I mean she’s certifiable. She’s nuts. She used to be okay, or so I thought. Then she got it into her head that everyone’s against her. Everything’s a conspiracy. She lost touch with reality.”
I paced the room, suddenly worried about Catrina showing up any minute now. “Andi, forgive me, but that sounds really harsh. When did things change?”
Andi sighed. “It started when she was fired from her job as a teacher’s aide. She loved that job, but she was let go. She claimed it was discrimination, because someone found out she was a witch. To add insult to injury, she started to get hate mail, and someone even egged her car.”
So Catrina was being targeted just like Mila. That explained a few things.
“Then what?”
“Then we left the Chicago suburbs and moved to Edindale. Catrina had filed a grievance with the school district, which she continued to pursue even after we came here. A few months ago, she learned she lost her case. I think that started the downward spiral.”
“Hmm. It kind of sounds like she had a legitimate reason to be upset.”
“Well, maybe at first. But she wouldn’t let it go. She got so negative. I mean, she could put on a normal face for the public—that’s how she got the job at Moonstone. Behind closed doors, it was another story. She’d troll on the Internet, anonymously picking fights with people. She lost her sense of empathy, only seeing the bad side of people. She became unbearable.”
“Wow. I’m sorry to hear that, Andi. That’s really sad.”
As I spoke with Andi, I wandered into the front part of the store and turned out the lights. Standing at the front window, I looked out onto the empty street. There was no sign of any police officers watching the shop.
“Yeah,” said Andi. “It is too bad. I couldn’t handle it anymore. Trina became too scary for me.”
I was beginning to think Catrina was too scary for me, too. After thanking Andi for being so open, I hung up and bit my lip.
Could Catrina be the person behind all the anonymous notes and calls to Mila? Could she have vandalized the shop and burned the books just to draw attention to the discrimination that some Wiccans suffer—and that she experienced when she lost her previous job?
Was she crazy enough to burn the hand that fed her?
Gazing out the window, I looked at the dark courthouse across the street and the empty bench where Charlie used to sit. I couldn’t believe Catrina would have killed Charlie . . . at least, not on purpose. Maybe she was in the midst of causing more destruction at the shop when he came along, and she . . . what? Hit him over the head with a candlestick?
The sight of headlights on the other side of the square drew my attention. A car was coming this way. As it grew closer, I was pretty sure I recognized Catrina’s lopsided hairdo behind the wheel.
Crap.
My first instinct was to hide. Moving quickly, I returned to the back room and rummaged in Mila’s bureau for a pillar candle and a book of matches. Then I grabbed my purse, cut the lights, and closed myself in the closet. After only a slight hesitation, I gingerly ducked into the dark stairwell and pulled the secret panel shut behind me. I heard the jingle of the front door right before the panel clicked into place.
Holding my breath, I held on to the cool, stone wall as I descended the rough steps. Being careful not to misstep in the darkness, I proceeded with caution, counting as I went. Eleven steps in all.
I stood still at the bottom of the stairs listening intently for any hint of sound. It was completely silent. The soft ground beneath my feet felt like bare earth. The air was dank and musty, making me wish I had a scarf to wrap around my mouth and nose. I pulled my coat closed and waited.
After a few seconds, I struck a match and lit the candle. As I suspected, the steps had led to a narrow, cave-like tunnel. By the light of the flickering flame, I could see only a few feet in front of me, but I imagined the tunnel was long and winding. I shivered.
Well, I wasn’t going to explore it now. I would wait a few minutes for Catrina to leave, and then I’d go back up into the shop and call Detective Rhinehardt. As much as I wanted to investigate it myself, I knew the tunnel might not be safe.
I strained to make out any sounds in the shop above me, but I couldn’t hear a thing. I was counting on my belief that Catrina didn’t know about the tunnel. If she was harassing Mila for her own twisted purposes, then it was unlikely she was also the one committing the burglaries. The crimes must be unrelated after all.
Right?
A twinge of doubt tugged at my mind, but a small pile of debris on the ground by my feet distracted me. I lowered the candle and squinted. Are those bones?
Reaching down, I picked up a dusty piece and turned it over in my hand. It was definitely part of a bone. I remembered the fragment I found on the floor when I helped Mila clean the storeroom. The bones on the ground were the same color and texture.
I frowned. Was Catrina playing around with sorcery? Were these bones used as part of some black magic ritual? Or could there be another Pagan who didn’t like Mila? I would have to ask Mila or Max about the other members of their coven.
Puzzling over the possibilities, I glanced up at the door to the shop. If Catrina knew about the tunnel, surely she would have entered it by now. It was probably safe to go up.
With the candle in one hand, I used my other hand to hold on to the uneven wall as I carefully climbed back up the steps. Shining the light on the backside of the panel, I looked for a doorknob or handle. There was none.
Uh-oh.
There had to be a way to open the closet from this side. I held the candle close to the door and examined the wood, inch by inch, using the fingers of my right hand to feel for a latch. Finally, I found something. A keyhole.
You’ve got to be kidding me. My heart thudded in my chest. I couldn’t get out of here without a key?
Alarm coursed through me, as the truth sank in.
I was trapped.
Chapter 26
Without a se
cond thought, I pounded on the locked door. “Catrina!” I yelled as loudly as I could. “Catrina! Are you in there?”
I paused and listened. It was as quiet as a tomb.
What have I done?
Trying not to panic, I pulled my phone from my purse. As I feared, there was no signal. Not a single bar.
The clock on my phone told me it was after 7:00 P.M. I groaned. I was supposed to have called Wes about having dinner this evening. Would he think I was still sleeping? Or worse, that I was standing him up?
Gathering my nerve, I climbed back down the stone steps and into the dingy cellar. I would have to find another exit. Holding the candle out in front of me, I took a few tentative steps forward.
The silence was unsettling. Not to mention the impenetrable darkness in the tunnel ahead. The crumbling walls and dirt floor seemed ancient, like something in a medieval dungeon. The sound of my own breath called to mind a found-footage horror movie—with me as the star victim.
Get a grip, Milanni!
After only a few yards I came upon a metal ladder. I looked up and saw the bottom side of a trapdoor. With my long coat on, the purse on my shoulder, and candle in hand, it would be a tricky climb, but I didn’t hesitate. I scrambled up the ladder and pushed on the hatch with my free hand while bracing my legs for balance. The door didn’t budge.
“Come on!”
I held the candle above my head to see the trapdoor better. That’s when I saw the keyhole. My heart sank and I climbed back down the ladder.
Continuing down the tunnel, I thought about the map Farrah had printed. The trapdoor probably led to the handbag store next to Moonstone Treasures. If I was remembering the map correctly, I should come upon Elena’s Boutique next. Would it be locked, too?
As I trod along, I noticed the dirt floor seemed to be exceptionally black, and I wondered if the trapdoors could have been coal chutes years ago. Maybe the tunnel was used to transport coal. Then I remembered the back of Charlie’s suit when we found his body, and the black dirt in his hair, and it suddenly hit me. He had been dragged through this tunnel. The murderer had definitely been here.
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