by K. J. Emrick
When the Circle had been closed with the ritual words, the sisters went their separate ways. Willow couldn’t wait to get her robe off. She tugged it up and over her head and dropped it against the wall. She got dressed again quickly in her tight jeans and cute purple sweater, already heading out the door to get out of Stonecrest and back to her boyfriend. Kiera was more exact about it, folding hers properly and sliding it into its place on the shelf, but she was in just as much of a hurry in her own right. She wanted to get back to her son.
For a moment, before she put on her long dark dress again, Kiera’s scars shown in the candlelight. Addie felt sorry for her sister, that she had endured so much, but at the same time she was very proud of her. The strength she showed was an inspiration. One Addie hoped to live up to herself someday. Just, hopefully with fewer scars.
After Kiera left Addie was left standing in the chamber room, her robe in her hands, creased and folded with the cumbersome hood lying flat on top. She didn’t have anyone waiting on her, and that fact hit her pretty hard.
Once she put the robe in its place she took out her cellphone and checked her messages. There was nothing there.
She pulled up Lucian’s number, and her thumb hovered over the green “call” circle.
With a deep breath, she closed the screen out and put the phone back in her pocket. She wasn’t even supposed to have her phone here when they were in the middle of a conclave. The electrical field around the device could interfere with certain spells. Or vice versa, and if that happened you could end up with your phone being fried. She’d lost two that way herself.
Whatever. If Lucian wasn’t going to call or text her, then she wasn’t going to go begging for his attention. If he was going to be mad at her for being who she was, that was his problem. Not hers. She could maybe admit to herself that she should have let him collect the potential evidence to use in the investigation, but nothing he would have found out from the coffee residue in that sink would be more important than what she had already discovered.
They were the witches of Shadow Lake. If he couldn’t accept that then she certainly wasn’t going to call him up in the middle of the night and say…
She didn’t even know what she wanted to say to him. She just wanted him to be okay with her. All of her.
With a wave of her hand around the room, she put out the candles, and then closed the door behind her. It automatically sealed with magic. There was no way anyone could accidentally find their way in. No one could get inside without a member of the Kilorian family letting them inside.
Pushing aside thoughts of murder and lost sons and fallen angels and troubles of the heart, Addie made her way downstairs to her bedroom. She felt her eyes drooping as she went. The rest of the world was going to have to wait for her to get some sleep, and tend to its own problems for a while.
A long laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures for what ails you, or so the Irish proverb went. If she couldn’t have the first, at least she could have the second.
Chapter 6
“Why are we starting with Mac?” Willow asked. She was sitting low in the front seat of Addie’s Jeep with both of her sneakers slipped off, one foot tucked under her, the other up on the dash. Her jeans weren’t the same ones from yesterday. Addie couldn’t help but notice how the sweater she had on today was definitely one of Gary’s.
“How much of your stuff do you have at Gary’s now?” Addie asked her as they took a left turn off of Main Street.
“I’m there most nights,” Willow said. “It only makes sense to have some of my clothes and stuff there. He’s a really neat housekeeper. Everything in its place. I know, I know. You’d never guess it to look at him.”
That was certainly true. Addie would have pegged the ex high school football star Gary White as the sort who had stacks of pizza boxes and piles of dirty laundry everywhere. Maybe there was more to him than an empty-headed buffoon after all.
Maybe.
Willow sat up again and slipped her feet back into her shoes. They were almost there. “You still haven’t answered my question. Why are we starting with Mac? I thought Eleanor Griggs had more to gain from Seth’s murder. Or that vile Cavallo Raithmore.”
Addie had been thinking the same thing. “Well, Eleanor’s certainly going to become the next town manager. She has motive. Cavallo certainly had his reasons too. Both of them make good suspects.”
“So why are we starting with Mac?”
“Because,” Addie said. “He wasn’t there at the start of the debate. He might have known Seth was going to die, and so he wanted to be somewhere else when it happened.”
“Ah. I see.” Willow shook a finger in the air as the point became clear. “He wanted deniability.”
“Right. Only, we know that the poison was given to Seth about an hour before he died. And there’s another reason I’m starting with Mac, too.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“I can’t picture either Eleanor Griggs or Cavallo Raithmore hanging out in Seth’s house, drinking coffee before the debate. Can you?”
“Hmm. No. I can’t. Interesting point.”
Addie turned into Mac McDougal’s driveway, and parked behind his gray Dodge Durango. It seemed an overlarge vehicle for a place like Shadow Lake. Cumbersome. Bulky. Kind of like Mac McDougal himself.
The two of them went up to the front door of the single-story bungalow. Addie noticed how the siding needed to be repainted and how the front lawn could use a trim before winter. Apparently, Mac didn’t get out much.
She knocked on the door, wishing she’d worn something warmer than her hoodie. Yesterday had been so nice, but now the temperature was dropping quickly. November would be brutal. The winter would be harsh. She could feel it in her bones. Hopefully Kyle had Stonecrest buttoned up and ready for whatever came.
Another knock was met with a muffled voice from inside. It was another long moment before they heard the shuffling steps of Mac McDougal, and the door opened. He was in a turtleneck sweater today, and a baggy pair of sweatpants, and his bleary eyes told Addie that he had probably only woken up a little while ago. It was still before nine in the morning, after all.
“Hi, Mac. Do you mind if we come in?”
His blocky face transitioned from one emotion to another rapidly. “Well I don’t,” he said, in that halting way of his, “have many, guests.”
Addie turned on the charm. “I understand, but this is about Seth Hunter. We’re going to find the person who killed him. If we want to do that we’re going to need your help.”
He stared at them, and one eye blinked, slowly, while the opposite eyebrow bunched lower. “In that, case. Come on in.”
They followed him down the hallway, watching his shoulder hitching up and down with each step, all the way to the end where he brought them into a small living room. All of the furniture was oversized, making it seem even more cramped than it was. A loveseat meant for two. A heavy wooden table that came up to Addie’s hips. A couch with overstuffed cushions. All of it was the right proportion for Mac. It made Addie feel like a doll. Willows feet actually dangled above the floor as they sat side by side on the couch.
“Would you like, something to drink?” he asked them.
“No, thank you…” Addie waited while Mac supported himself by one hand against the arm of the loveseat, and then sort of dropped-lowered-maneuvered himself to sit down with a long groan. “Um. I mean, no thanks. We’re good. Tell me, did the selectmen decide what they’re going to do about the town manager’s position?”
He shrugged, one shoulder slower about it than the other. “We decided, we don’t have, much choice. There’s only one, candidate left.”
Willow gave up trying to touch the floor. She pulled her legs up under her instead. “So, Eleanor had a pretty good reason to want Seth dead, then. I tried to tell my sister that.”
Addie ignored Willow’s ‘no one ever listens to me’ routine. “We’ll be talking to Eleanor later,” she said. “For now, I�
�m more interested in talking to you, Mac.”
“I don’t mind, talking to you.” Mac’s right hand twitched on his knee. “Don’t know, how much help, I can be.”
“That depends on how honest you are with us.”
Both eyebrows shot up this time. “Are you, expecting me to, lie?”
Addie smiled at him. One thing she had learned, early on, was that everyone lied if they had a reason. She had yet to find a completely honest person. Kiera came as close as anyone she’d ever seen, and she’d had a torrid love affair with a fallen angel.
So.
That reminded her that they needed to get back to Stonecrest, sooner rather than later. Alan would wake up sometime in the early afternoon. Earlier, maybe, if his magical Life Essence was as strong as it seemed to be.
She sat forward on the edge of the couch, no easy thing to do with the way the cushions tried to suck her in. “Mac. I asked you a question yesterday after the debate. You didn’t answer me. Do you remember what I asked?”
His head went down, and up, and down and up again. “Yes. I remember. You wanted me, to tell you why, I was late to, the debate.”
“That’s right. The debate was scheduled for six o’clock, and you weren’t there. It didn’t start until fifteen minutes later, and you weren’t there. In fact, you didn’t show up until Seth died. So. Where were you?”
He looked uncomfortable, just like he had when she’d asked him yesterday. He fidgeted back and forth on the loveseat. The twitching of his hands getting worse. His foot beginning to tap, albeit without any rhythm. Finally, he pressed his hands down on his knees, forcing his huge frame to be still. “I don’t want, to talk about, that.”
Willow looked surprised. “What? Why? Mac, just tell us where you were so Addie can cross you off her list or whatever, and we’ll leave. We can move on to some real suspects.”
Mac shook his head, and then reached over to hold his right side, as if it was hurting him. After a moment, he said, “There are some, things that a man, doesn’t want, to share.”
“I understand,” Addie said, even though she didn’t understand at all. “But Mac, this is a murder. The police are doing their investigation and if we don’t find the killer first, they will be all over our town and no one’s secrets will be safe. If you tell me yours now, I can at least help you keep it.”
Willow coughed into her hand. “At least, as long as it has nothing to do with Seth Hunter being killed.”
“It doesn’t,” Mac said immediately. He had to take a long breath, and then another, before he could speak again. “I had nothing, to do with, that. I promise you, Addie. I didn’t.”
She held his gaze, his murky eyes shadowed by his wide forehead. “That’s all well and good Mac, but I can’t just take your word for it. You need to tell me where you were, and who you were with, and what you were doing. All of it. And remember,” she added severely, “I’ll know if you’re lying. My sisters and I always know.”
That was a bit of an exaggeration. A witch could sense very strong deceits but a casual lie, or a craftily constructed lie, could fool a witch just as easily as the densest Typic.
But nobody in this town needed to know that, just like no one needed to know they were witches. They just needed to have a healthy fear of what the Kilorian sisters could do.
Mac let go of a breath he’d been holding in. Then he stood up, his body repeating the tedious movements it had made when sitting down. His face looked even more disjointed as he scowled at them. “I want you, to leave now. I don’t know, anything about, who killed, Seth.”
Addie smiled at him. She’d known Mac for a long time, and she knew that he was just as strong as he looked. She’d once seen him accidentally break a door off its hinges when he didn’t realize it was locked. He was a big man, and admittedly a little frightening to look at, but he had never scared her. She had faced down moss trolls before, and other big baddies. Mac was just a man.
So she reached down into herself and created a thread of Essence that she released with her voice. A simple spell, to encourage the truth. “Tell us where you were, Mac.”
His lips squirmed, and then curled in mocking disdain. “That trick won’t, work on me, witch.”
Surprise overtook Addie. Beside her, Willow went very still.
“No more, of your tricks,” Mac told them. “I know, what a witch, can do. I know, how to keep, your tricks from, working. Now. I want you, to get out. Get out of, my house!”
That spell should have compelled Mac—or anyone, for that matter—to tell the absolute truth. There were reasons why it might not work. Addie knew all the reasons why it might fail. If someone was worried about going to prison if they told a secret, for instance, their sense of self-preservation would outweigh the effects of the spell. So sometimes, it didn’t work.
But Mac had brushed it aside like it was nothing at all. No Typic could do that.
The other part of what Mac had just said worried her even more than that. Somehow, he knew they were witches.
Willow sprang up from the couch, her feet planting themselves on the floor, her body bladed toward Mac, her hand up in front of her with pink sparks dancing between her fingers.
“Who told you what we are?” she demanded. “How do you know?”
Mac actually laughed at her questions, although it was an odd sound coming from deep within that barrel chest. “Nobody had to, tell me. I’ve known, for a long, time. If I was going, to do, anything about it, I would have,” he paused, and took another deep breath, “done it, by now.”
Addie reached out to him again with her Essence. She had never once suspected Mac was anything other than human. She had never gotten any sense of magic from him. Nothing to indicate he might be supernatural.
She didn’t feel anything like that now, either.
Mac McDougal was human, plain and simple.
“It’s all right,” she told Willow. “Mac’s not going to hurt us. Are you, Mac?”
His smile showed his teeth this time. “No. I’m not.”
Compared to the rest of him, his teeth were perfect. Pearly white and straight. The canines came to sharp points.
Willow clamped her hand into a fist, extinguishing the sparks of her magic. “Fine. You aren’t going to hurt us, we’re not going to hurt you, everybody’s just fine. You still didn’t answer my question. Who told you we were witches?”
He shook his head, his chin lifting higher to the right than to the left. “Sometimes, Miss Willow, nobody needs, to tell you, anything. Sometimes the truth, is just there, if you want, to see it.”
“Only,” Addie said, “if you know what to look for.”
“That’s right,” Mac agreed.
“You know what to look for.”
“I do.”
“How?” Addie asked him. “Everyone knows what a witch is, but no one ever believes they’ll see one. Not a real one, anyway. We walk among normal people every day and no one ever knows because no one believes we’re real. So how is it that you believe, Mac?”
He folded his arms over that heavy chest. “I just do. Now. Get out.”
“Why won’t you answer our question?” Addie tried one last time. “I won’t try to use my spell on you again, I promise, I’m just asking. If you had nothing to do with Seth’s murder then why won’t you tell us where you were before the debate?”
The smile was completely gone from his face now. “Some secrets, you just keep to, yourself. Now. Please go.”
Willow was about to say something else, but Addie took her by the wrist and started them both toward the hallway and the way out. “Let’s go, Willow. If Mac doesn’t want us here, we’ll go.”
“What? Why?” she snapped. “We’re not vampires. We don’t need an invitation to come into someone’s home.”
“No.” She lowered her voice to just barely above a whisper. “We’re witches, and he knows it, and unless you plan on holding him down and using some heavy-duty spells to strip the information from his mind, he i
sn’t going to tell us anything else. Not right now.”
For a wonder, Willow actually kept quiet until they were outside and the door was closed firmly behind them. Addie even heard Mac turning the lock.
That was as far as Willow was able to hold her tongue, however. “He’s hiding something! You know he is. We can’t just let him go because he guessed what we are.”
Addie fished her keys out of her pocket, flipping from one to the other until she found the one for her vehicle. “I don’t think that’s what it is. Somehow, he knows when someone is a witch. That’s more than just guessing. There’s something else going on with him.”
“Sure there is. Like maybe he’s a murderer. Do you think he killed Seth?”
They got into the Jeep, and Addie started the engine. “Honestly, I don’t know. Everyone is a suspect, until they’re not.”
“Oh, that’s very profound,” Willow snarked. “I still say we should have forced Mac to talk to us.”
“You can’t force people to talk to you when they don’t want to. Not without doing permanent damage to them.”
“I could have made him talk.” Willow held her fingers up, slowly flexing them as more pink sparks played along her skin. “You just never want to do things my way.”
“Not when your way involves adding more trouble for us.” Addie glanced at her sister out of the corner of her eye. “Don’t you think rumors might start circulating if there was a sudden rash of people showing up lobotomized by our magic?”
The sparks popped out of existence with tiny crackling sounds as Willow flicked her fingers. “I’m not a child, Addie. I know how to use our magic.”
“I never said you were a child.”
“Yes, you did. You say it all the time, whether you use the words or not.” She leaned her head back and closed her eyes in a huff. “Whatever. What are we doing now?”
Addie had already turned them out of the driveway and back onto the road. “I need to check on the café. I called Darla already and she’s covering for me, but it isn’t fair of me to make her do all the work.”
“Then hire someone else.”