“Uh, Win?” she called, her normally lightly tanned face pale white.
“Yes, Dove?
Stevie positioned the mouse over a video dated today and hit play. The reporter, a slick, dark-haired bloke with hawkish brown eyes and a sharp black suit, stood in front of an enormous body of water surrounded by roads and buildings—somewhere in Seattle, I’m guessing.
Behind him, a small red Toyota pickup hung from a crane. The area was filled with men in diving suits and policemen. The reporter looked into the camera, his gaze intense and somber. “A gruesome discovery found here today at Elliot Bay, where the police are plumbing its depths in the hopes of recovering the bodies of not one, but two passengers from the truck you see hanging behind me, according to an eyewitness account. Channel 4 newsroom tells us the vehicle is registered to an Inga Von Krause-Nurnberger, daughter of suspected terrorist and arms dealer, Heinrich Von Krause.”
My stomach sank, and I had to reach for the bench’s arm to keep me upright.
Bloody hell, there were no lengths to which he wouldn’t go to keep control of his daughter.
But there was one thing I knew for sure: Von Krause was behind this, and he must pay if he hurt sweet Inga—and it must hurt.
Chapter 5
As I gathered my wits, the scene in the video then changed to an earlier taped interview in which a young couple, every available space on their faces pierced, stood nervously looking at the reporter, the mutilated guardrail behind them.
“Can you tell me again what you saw?” he prompted, pushing a microphone into their faces.
The young woman, with dark blonde dreadlocks and painfully thin arms, swallowed hard. “It was awful! We were just walking along the path here, enjoying a nice summer evening, when out of nowhere, a car comes flying through the guardrail and slams into the water! I still can’t believe it happened. It was like right out of a movie!”
“And you say you saw two people in the car?” the reporter asked.
The young man nodded, running a nervous tongue over his pierced lip as he eyed the camera before looking to the reporter. “Yeah, man! A lady and a dude. I know it was a lady driving because she was screaming her head off like ladies do. Could hear it even from here. It was so tragic, man—”
The news station cut away and back to the reporter, but Stevie clicked the video off. “I’m sorry, Win,” she whispered.
Clearing my throat, I fought to keep my head on my shoulders. We had no confirmation it was even Inga at this point. Though, if it was, who’d been with her in that truck? Gerhard? Had he done this? And where had she come upon a red Toyota pickup? Inga might despise her father, but she’d never minded his Bentley.
“First, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions until we have verification that was Inga. Second, I’m not convinced it is Inga.”
Stevie bobbed her head, scooping up Belfry in her palm to give him a snuggle. “We need a timeline here, Win. What time did it happen last night? I mean, if she was busy dropping off Baby-Spy, what time did this accident occur? We need specifics.”
Arkady slapped me on my back, his wide hand clapping sharply against my suit jacket. “Arkady does not like this. Something is smelling like fish. You don’t think Von Krause order a hit on his own flesh and blood, do you, Zero? I know I keep asking the question, but I can’t warp my head around it.”
“It’s wrap your head around it, and we’ve discussed this, Arkady. He’s capable of anything if crossed. If he was angry with Inga, if she threatened to leave Gerhard, whom he loves like a son, I believe he would.”
Stevie got up and went to the kitchen drawer, pulling out her trusty yellow legal pad and pen. Tucking her hair behind her ears, she sat back down, a look of determination on her face. “Before we freak out, let’s get our heads in the game. That might not have even been Inga, that much is true. But I won’t say I don’t hope it was Gerhard. Yet, that makes no sense. If what you say is true, Win, why would he take a fall with her? Just to see her dead? Did he orchestrate this so it would look like it really was an accident, and if he did, where the heck is he now? I’d sure like to talk to the couple that witnessed this so-called accident.” She pressed play again, turning the sound down as she wrote the names of the couple listed when they scrolled at the bottom of the screen.
“It could just be me, Dove, but they look awfully sketchy.”
“Do we have anything else to go on, Win? Look, I’m going to try to locate them on Facebook and then I’m going to send them a message—or something. While I do that, you two go peek in on the baby. The monitor’s been so quiet, I’m afraid he’s up there building a bomb.”
Both Arkady and I chuckled. “Shall do, but please, don’t do anything before telling me.”
Stevie busied herself with Facebook as Arkady and I went upstairs to check on Hardy. True to Stevie’s words, while he wasn’t building a bomb, he was wide awake, lying on his belly and playing with the stuffed rabbit she’d left him with squeals of delight.
“Ah. He is fine-looking boy, yes, Zero?”
Peering down at him, I nodded. “That he is, mate. You’re a fine young man, aren’t you, Hardy? Even if Auntie Stevie wouldn’t know a solid name if it hit her in the back of her head.”
At the sound of my voice, Hardy lifted his dark, curly head and cooed, raising a chubby fist to wave.
Arkady and I both looked at each other in surprise. “Zero… You do not think he can…”
My brow furrowed as I postured. “No. No, of course not. How could he see us? Hear us?”
Hardy waved again, and he didn’t just open and close that little fist of his errantly, he directed it right at us.
Arkady and I both took a step back and hissed as though Hardy weren’t a small bundle of joy but a demon in a chubby package of baby powder and toothless grins. And we behaved as though we weren’t two ex-spies who’d taken on the likes of Satan himself.
“He can see us!” Arkady whispered.
“Hardy?” I asked, ever so tentatively. Which is just ridiculous rubbish. I’m a grown man, for heaven’s sake. But I couldn’t summon any more authority in my voice than a mere ragged squeak.
And again, he looked right at me; his soft brown eyes, fringed with a healthy dose of lashes so thick like Inga’s, twinkled.
“He can see you!” Stevie cried from the doorway, her eyes wide. “OMG, guys! How awesome is that?”
“Surely he can’t, Dove?”
“Au contraire, Spy Guy. I think he can. What I want to know is this—why have you been letting me talk to the ceiling all the time when you’re actually standing right next to me? It’s not nice to make fun of the ex-witch. Now it’s a habit I can’t break.”
I couldn’t answer her question for the awe overwhelming me. “How is this possible, Stephania?”
She zipped across the room and scooped Hardy up, pressing a kiss to his cheek before putting him on the changing table. “Babies are innocents, Win. They don’t know enough to be skeptical. They have open minds and open hearts.”
I don’t know why her answer stirred me so, but my chest began to ache again. Not ache as in I’d been shot by rebels, but ache as in swell, twist. In fact, I caught Arkady rubbing his chest, too, right where his heart is. “How incredible,” I murmured in amazement.
Stevie leaned over Hardy and cupped his cheek, her gaze tender. “It’s probably also because he’s the smartest boy in the world, isn’t he? Who’s so smart?”
Hardy giggled up at her, kicking his little legs, further making my chest ache.
Stevie was falling in love—with the wrong chap, I might add, but if and when someone came for the baby, I foresaw some tears.
As she scooped him up, and Whiskey stood at instant attention, she headed back downstairs, chatting as she went. “So, I actually was able to find the couple who witnessed the truck go into the water. It was pretty easy—they’re getting a lot of attention in the media and on Facebook because of Von Krause. I sent them a private message. Let’s hope they answ
er back. Until then, this little man needs a nice snack, don’t you, good-lookin’?”
Hardy grabbed a thatch of Stevie’s hair and bounced against her, obviously delighted with the idea.
“Then let’s do this, boys. Also, I realized I don’t even know what Inga looks like. I need to look up a picture of her, too. Just for a frame of reference.” She tickled Hardy under the chin. “I bet Mommy’s as pretty as you.”
As she made her way back downstairs to the kitchen, passing the pictures we’d so carefully lined the hallway with, she asked, “Hey, what about his grandmother in all this? What happened to Inga’s mother?”
I coughed. She wasn’t going to like this any more than the lot of us had when I was in deep cover. “Oh, Dove. He…well, you know…”
Stevie gasped when she hit the landing of the stairs, covering the baby’s ears. “He killed her? Please say he didn’t kill her!”
I winced as Arkady and I looked at each other in guilt. “Well, she was unfaithful with the landscaper. Benicio was his name, as I recall.”
Stevie’s face went pale with disgust as she turned on her heel and headed to the kitchen. “He is a monster! At all costs, we need to keep him from ever getting his hands on Hardy. Diabolical beast!”
Pulling the new highchair she’d had delivered from the corner of the kitchen, Stevie dragged it over to the table and sat Hardy in it, handing him a biscuit he instantly put in his mouth and began to suckle, biscuit-colored drool spilling from his mouth.
Stevie’s gaze said it all when she ruffled his hair and sighed. This was love. “He’s so good, don’t you think? I mean, you’d think he’d be hysterical without his routine and everything familiar, without his mother, but he’s adapted so well.”
“My tasty ice cream sandwich, I think it is you. The boy knows he is safe and you will take good care of him until his mama comes for him.”
Stevie paused for a moment before sitting back down at the table, her eyes so warm beneath the sunlight pouring in from the kitchen windows, her skin glowing from our walks on the beach, and I suppose she pondered that thought before she smiled, making my heart shift.
“It breaks my heart that he might be missing his mother—or worse, he’ll have to miss her for a lifetime because that monster killed her. I just want him to feel wanted during this gap of chaos in his life. So, I hope he at least feels that, Arkady. I really hope he does,” she whispered before pulling her laptop to her.
No one understood chaos and the need to feel wanted like my dove. She’d had a hard childhood; her father hadn’t been in the picture until just recently, and her mother hadn’t exactly been mother of the year during her formative years.
I often felt Stevie’s fierce independence was a point she was proving to everyone around her—a survival mechanism, if you will. But every once in a while, like right this moment, when she was vulnerable, I knew she never wanted anyone to feel the way she once had. It stood to reason, preventing Hardy from feeling anything but secure would be paramount to Stevie.
Bel flew to the back of Hardy’s highchair and perched on the corner, whispering something in the boy’s ear that made him flail his arms and legs as, once more, Whiskey settled beside the highchair, and the moment of melancholy passed for Stevie.
“Oh! Sunflower emailed me back!” she exclaimed, making me set aside the sadness I sometimes felt because I couldn’t make up for all the things my dove had missed—not as long as I was dead, anyway.
“Sunflower, Dove?”
“Yes! It’s the woman from the crime scene. According to her Facebook profile she’s a child of the earth or some such something, and she took the name to represent her rebirth. Regardless, she’s willing to meet me in Seattle tonight!”
“I don’t understand what actually talking to them will achieve, Dove. What can they tell you other than what they told the reporter, and probably by now, the police?”
Stevie shook her head, putting her chin in her hand. “I don’t know. I just kind of feel like I need to see where it happened, you know? Also, you know the police miss stuff all the time. Maybe I’ll see or hear something they didn’t.”
“But what about the baby, Dove? As much as I’d like to babysit, I certainly can’t do much more than entertain him, nor can Arkady. And didn’t I hear Carmella say she and Enzo were going to their son’s for his birthday?”
Stevie grabbed her cell phone and scrolled before pressing a button and holding it up to her ear with a grin. “Never you mind. I have just the person.”
* * * *
“Officer Nelson.”
Dana, tall and handsome in his uniform, stood outside on the porch in the fading sunlight and tipped an imaginary hat at Stevie. “Miss Cartwright. I understand you have a noise complaint? How can the Ebenezer Falls Police Department help you tonight?”
Stevie giggled and flung the door open. “Thank goodness you’re here. He’s unruly, I tell you. Did you bring the handcuffs? I think you might need them.” She tweaked Hardy’s toes as he grinned up at Dana, his round cheeks rising, making his devilish eyes squint.
Dana reached out and tickled the baby under his chin with a wide grin. “Would you look at him? Good-looking boy, isn’t he? Your cousin’s, you said?”
Rather than look into Dana’s eyes, she looked down at her sandals. Stevie could spin a grand tale. The part where she had to produce a poker face needed a little more work.
Stevie twisted a strand of her chestnut hair around her finger, another sure sign she was lying. “Uh-huh. She’s in France—”
“Rome!” both Arkady and I shouted in unison.
“Um, Rooome, I mean. All those European places where they make wine blend together for me. Anyway, yes, Winnie and her husband are in Rome, and I’m babysitting. But I totally forgot a super-important dinner meeting in Seattle I absolutely can’t miss, and Carmella was busy tonight. I didn’t want to impose. But I know you have lots of nieces and nephews, so you know how to change a diaper. Plus, I figured I could trust you because, well, you’re an officer of the law and all.”
“Of course you can trust me. Speaking of trust and all its properties, Sandwich is on his way over right now with the keg and some pizza. We’re going to show this little one what it is to be a man, aren’t we big fella?” He held out his hands to him, and Hardy only played shy for a moment before he allowed Dana to take him and he settled in. “Do you like anchovies? Sandwich says no pizza’s complete without ’em, but I’m kind of against fish on my pizza. What kind of beer are you into? Pale ale? Dark?”
Hardy gripped Dana’s cheek with his awkward fingers, giving Dana the chance to nibble them, making the baby giggle in delight.
Stevie gave Dana a cocky glance. “Wow, Officer Rigid. Look at you, all cops-gone-wild, huh?”
“We all have to blow off steam sometime, even us rule followers.”
Stevie led Dana and the baby into the parlor, where she’d set up enough accoutrement to satisfy a childcare facility. I don’t know how she did it, but she’d managed to think of every single item a baby could need, along with whatever else she could get her hands on.
“No beer,” she chastised with a snort. “He’s gassy. You won’t like that. But I’m not opposed to pepperoni with extra cheese.”
Now Dana laughed, a hearty chuckle I was so pleased to hear. He’d had a tough go of it last summer when his almost fiancée, Sophia, had been killed. Dana was a good bloke, steady and true, he deserved only the best as far as I was concerned.
“No beer for the kid, but the pepperoni is a go. Got it, She Who Talks To Dead People. Oh, and by the way, do you mind if Detective Kaepernick drops by?” he asked casually as he settled in with Hardy on his lap.
Stevie’s eyebrow rose, and she smiled secretively as she set Hardy’s blue blanket on the coffee table before she turned around and said, “I don’t mind at all, Officer By The Book. I love Melba.”
Melba was the newest detective at the Ebenezer Falls Police Department, and I must say it warmed my
cockles to think Officer Nelson might have found a new romantic interest. Melba wasn’t the type I’d peg as conservative Dana’s sort, but then, love with polar opposites is always a wonderful surprise.
Stevie stood up straight and brushed her hands together before handing Dana the remote. “Okay, I think I’ve got everything. I left you a list as long as the yellow brick road on the fridge for every little incident that could occur, and my cell number. There are eighty-batrillion bottles of formula in there, in case he decides he’s going to pass on the beer and stay sober. His jammies are upstairs in my room, all laid out on the changing table, where he has another eighty-batrillion diapers and wipes, and if you want anything at all, it’s in my fridge I’m sure, all thanks to Carmella. So you and Melba enjoy.”
But Dana held up his hand and set the remote on the end table. “No television for this little guy. It’s too much stimulation. We’re going to do some tummy time and then we’re going to play a memory game, aren’t we, little fella?”
Hardy gazed up at Dana with a look of such sweet adoration, I almost felt Stevie melt right in front of me.
“You, sir, are scaring me. Don’t ever let anyone tell you you’re not hardcore. Now, Auntie Stevie has to run.” Dropping a kiss on Hardy’s cheek, she inhaled his scent before she smiled at Dana. “Thanks, Officer Nelson. I shouldn’t be late.”
Dana lifted Hardy’s hand and helped him wave at Stevie. “Bye, Auntie Stevie!”
Blowing the baby yet another kiss, Stevie headed out to her second new car with us in tow. Once inside, she helped Belfry out of her purse and set him on the passenger seat.
“So, boys. Are we ready?”
“Indeed, Dove. Say, what did you tell Dana about tonight?”
She smiled like a Cheshire cat as she started the car and began to back down our long driveway. “I didn’t. I knew he wouldn’t ask questions because Officer Rigid’s nothing if not respectful of one’s privacy. That’s why I asked him.”
“You’re ever a surprise, Stephania.”
As she drove into the fading sun, the sky that bruised purple and pink so prevalent in an Ebenezer Falls summer evening, she grinned into the rearview mirror. “I like to think I’ve learned a thing or two from you guys. Now, let’s go see if we can figure this out. By the way, I looked up Inga’s picture online. Gosh. She’s hard to look at, eh, Spy Guy? I think I almost yakked up my Twinkies when I saw her picture, she’s such a cow.”
Ain't Love a Witch? (Witchless in Seattle Mysteries Book 6) Page 6