by K. J. Emrick
“Yes, we are. How did you know that?”
Addie ignored his question for one of her own. “Why would you split up to do things alone on your honeymoon?”
“Well we just got married, sure, but that doesn’t mean we’re glued to each other’s hips. She has her interests, I have mine, August… well, I don’t really know what August likes but that’s not really the point, is it? Why are you here? What’s wrong?”
Addie exchanged a look with Kiera. They couldn’t hold off telling him the sad truth any longer. “Your wife was found earlier tonight in our town, Shadow Lake.”
“Found? What do you mean, she was found?”
“I’m sorry, Corbin. She’s dead.”
His legs buckled as soon as he heard that one word. If Addie hadn’t been right there to catch him and help him over to the bed to sit down, he probably would have landed on his face on the floor. The color had drained from his face and his eyes had lost their focus. Kiera put her fingers to his wrist to check his pulse. This wasn’t magic. This was basic first aid that anyone could do.
“He’s going to be fine,” she told Kiera. “He’s just in shock.”
“I don’t blame him. Let me try something.” Kiera put her hand on top of Corbin’s head. He didn’t resist, didn’t fidget. He just sat there as magic began to form a bright haze around Addie’s fingers and then slowly cascade down to Corbin’s shoulders. As it did, he began to breathe easier. A shudder went through his muscles as the spell relaxed him. “That’s better now isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Corbin said, his voice slack and monotone.
“Good. Now. Can you answer a few questions for us?”
“Yes.”
Addie kept her hand on his back, supporting him, just in case. “Is this a good idea?” she asked her sister.
“We need to do this now before he recovers fully,” she pointed out. “And before any members of the police arrive to interrupt us. We need to help Willow. Now, then. Corbin, is what you told us about your wife true? You haven’t seen her since dinner?”
He smacked his lips, working up to the answer. “Yes, that’s true.”
“Good.” With the spell Kiera had cast, that could only be the truth. He might able to refuse to give an answer, but any answer he did give had to be the truth. “Now explain to me why you and your wife are here.”
“Honeymoon.”
“Well, yes, but why here, I mean. In this motel, in Birch Hollow?”
“Wanted to sleep. Wanted to get Autumn into bed with me and—”
“No, that’s all right,” Kiera said quickly. “You don’t need to finish that one for me, thank you. I’m well aware of what a man and a woman do in bed while on their honeymoon. Let me try it this way. You’re wearing silk pajamas. I can tell from here that the luggage over there in the closet is real leather. I’m also betting that the very expensive BMW in the parking lot is your car. You obviously come from money, Corbin, and you could have treated your wife to a honeymoon anywhere in the world. Why are you here, with her, in Birch Hollow?”
The question finally seemed to sink through the relaxed synapsis firing in Corbin’s mind. “Autumn asked to come here. We are on our way…” He had to stop, and swallow, and blink his eyes, and work his way back up to the conversation. “We are on our way to Cape Cod. Autumn wanted to stop here first. Autumn… Autumn wanted…”
He snuffled back a breath, and his eyes almost focused.
“It’s wearing off,” Addie said. “We still don’t know why in the world Autumn asked him to stop here on the way to the Cape.”
“She said…” Corbin started to answer the question, even though it hadn’t been directed at him. “She said she had a friend here. She wanted to see him.” Blink. Blink. “I think that’s where she went after dinner.” Blink, blink. “Who did you say you were? You said… you said Autumn was dead. She’s dead? No! Oh, no, please God no! How? How!”
He was shouting now, and there was no doubt that the thin walls of this place wouldn’t keep anyone else in the motel from hearing him.
“We should be going, I think,” Kiera suggested.
“We can’t just leave him here alone,” Addie said. “Not like this.”
“I think that will be taken care of.” Kiera raised a finger, pointing to the wall on their left, pointing through it to the room on the other side. Her arm tracked with that finger pointed, following something she and Addie could both sense even if their eyes couldn’t see it. “In just a few seconds. Three, two… one.”
A key was jammed in the lock of the door and then it was thrown open again and a man came rushing in. He was probably a foot shorter than Corbin, but he was tone and buff and tan, looking exactly like the stereotypical California surfer in a dozen and more movies Addie had seen Disney pump out for their television channel. His blonde hair was mussed like he’d been in bed but unlike Corbin he was dressed in jeans and a button up shirt, still ready to take on the day.
This could only be August, the victim’s brother.
“Corbin? What is it?” August looked at Kiera, then Addie, confused to see these two women would be standing in the room. “Who are these people?”
“They came here to tell me about Autumn. It’s so terrible. I don’t understand. August, it’s your sister. They came to tell me about your sister.”
“What do you mean? What about my sister?”
When Corbin couldn’t make himself say the words, Addie said them for him. “I’m afraid she died, August. She was found dead in our town, down in Shadow Lake.”
That announcement stopped August where he was, frozen in place like a living statue. He didn’t say anything, or even breathe, for several long seconds. Then he slowly lowered his head, and Addie heard him mumble, “I knew it. I knew something was wrong.”
Kiera stepped closer to him. “We are sorry to bring this to you. We just thought you should know.”
“Shouldn’t it be the police here informing us?” he demanded.
“They’re a little busy,” Addie said, and the irony in that statement bit deep. “They’re looking for someone who might be the killer.”
“What? They have a suspect already?”
“Yes, they do.” No reason to say who it was, Addie figured. That would all come out in time. “What did you mean when you said you knew something had happened?”
“I’ve been trying to send a text to my sister for the last two hours. She isn’t responding. She won’t answer when I call. We’ve been close since we were both teenagers. She always answers me.”
“Since you were teenagers?” That was an odd way of putting it.
“Yes. We were very close. Inseparable, you might say. Well, I mean, I guess that was over now that she married Corbin. She’s Autumn Reif now. Or, at least, she was…”
Addie nodded as she let him talk. The identification on Autumn’s person had still been in her maiden name because she had only just gotten married. There had been no cellphone with her either, which would be why her brother couldn’t get ahold of her that way.
Well, for that reason, and also the fact that she was dead. Even if the phone had been with her body she couldn’t have answered.
The question was, where was the cellphone? Addie had the feeling that if they found the phone, they would find their killer. After all, why not just leave the cellphone with her body, unless there was something on it worth hiding?
August rubbed a hand at the back of his neck, his expression pained. “You two still haven’t explained why you’re here and not the cops.”
“Sure, we’re not the police,” Kiera admitted, “but we are trying to help them. We work with the police quite often, for better or for worse. Once we leave you can call Detective Lucian Knight at the Birch Hollow Police Department. He’ll vouch for us. Tell me something, please. It was Autumn who picked Birch Hollow as a stopover point on your trip to Cape Cod. She had a friend here?”
“That’s right. Percy Pokins.” The hand massaging his neck paused. “
I’m not sure I should be telling any of this to you. I think I’d like to wait for the police. I’m sure Corbin feels the same way.”
“What do I care?” Corbin almost shouted. “Autumn is dead! I don’t care about anything else. I just… I can’t take this. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Please, both of you, please just leave? Please? You too, August. Please, just give me a few minutes and then come back and help me figure this out. Just a few minutes. That’s all I need. Please?”
“Of course,” August said immediately. He turned to the open door and motioned for the Kilorian sisters to walk out ahead of him. He wasn’t going to leave them in the room a minute longer with his grieving brother in law.
Addie followed Kiera across the parking lot back to her Jeep Cherokee. With just a little bit of magic, they had learned quite a bit. Maybe they didn’t have all of the answers they wanted but they definitely knew more than they had before. There were other spells they could have used, bigger spells, that would have given them more information. They might have walked away with the whole mystery solved. Addie knew those spells, but she was just as happy not using them.
The problem with spells like that was threefold. First, intruding on someone’s mind with a forceful sort of magic was like opening a door with a battering ram. It could leave a person’s mind permanently screwed up. Secondly, that much magic required a lot of a witch’s strength. If she used those spells Addie might end up sleeping for two whole days, which was something she couldn’t afford right now. And thirdly, a powerful show of magic attracted all sorts of Big Baddies. Things that liked to eat magic, or the witches using the magic.
So, yes. She was just as happy having half the answers and not being devoured by a Holly Bell Worm.
Still, just by talking to Corbin and August they actually had learned a lot. Did she suspect either of them of being the murderer? Addie asked herself that question and decided she didn’t really know. Corbin seemed honestly upset. August had seemed stunned that the police might already have a suspect. Did he think it might be himself? Most murders were committed by someone the victim knew, so either of them might make decent suspects, she supposed.
She did know that they had another suspect to talk to now. This Percy Pokins. If Autumn left the motel to go and see him, he might very well have been the last person to see her alive. What kind of friend did that make him?”
It was when they were almost back to her Jeep that she realized Alan was no longer inside. Kiera’s son was gone.
Well, not gone, exactly. She found him quickly enough, standing over by an empty parking space next to Corbin Reif’s car, the only BMW in the lot.
“What’s he doing?” she asked Kiera. “Examining the parking lot?”
He was down on one knee, and when he saw them he waved them over. “Careful where you step,” he said. “I think I may have just found the murder scene. This is kind of exciting, isn’t it?”
Addie frowned, surprised that he would know anything about such things. She’d seen more murder than she cared to think about, and even she had trouble finding clues without her magic sometimes. Alan had found the murder scene? Really?
They carefully flanked the spot that he pointed out, Kiera on the one side of it and her on the other, and it only took a moment for Addie to realize what had him so interested.
The horseshoe shape of the Nash Palms Motel worked to keep most of the weather out of the parking area. The snow that blanketed the ground all around the three-sided building hadn’t found its way in here. The pavement was dry, and where Alan was standing they could see obvious drag marks. There was two uneven lines, there and there, that started right up against the curb, and then went down close to the side of the BMW, to the back of the empty parking space, and there they stopped. That was right where a car’s trunk would be, Addie realized, if a car had been parked here.
Where they ended, an irregular dark spot on the pavement was most certainly blood.
Part of what Lucian had told her at the convenience store in Shadow Lake came back to her now. Scuff marks on the heels of her shoes indicate she was dragged to the trunk, probably after she was dead.
This was where Autumn Lynch had been murdered. Right at the hotel where her husband and her brother were staying. Right next to her husband’s car.
Then, she was dragged into the trunk of whatever car had been right here in this empty space, and her killer had driven away.
Addie gasped. Had this space been occupied by the car Willow was driving? Was it possible? The body had been in her trunk…
No. No, it was not. She was adamant about that. She knew that her sister could not have killed anyone. There was no motive. Certainly, there was opportunity because Willow had been up here in Birch Hollow for some reason and she had obviously come back to Shadow Lake with a body in her trunk. Yes, that part was true. It was unbelievable, but it was true.
That did not mean that Willow was the killer. No. It must have been one of the two men staying here, in this motel. Corbin, or August.
Then how did Willow become involved?
She didn’t know, but she had to find out. In the Jeep was her small pouch of spell ingredients. Herbs and dried plants. Essential oils. She’d recently added a few dried sticks of cinnamon, useful in certain divination spells. If she used the right spell, she and Kiera could potentially find a trail from this blood, backward through time, to the murderer. This could lead them right to whoever killed Autumn!
“Hey, what’s going on?” The shout was from Corbin, dressed now and coming out of his room side by side with August. “What are you doing next to my car?”
As the two men moved in their direction Alan took swift action, jumping up to stop them from getting too close, physically restraining Corbin who was even more upset now than he had been before. August tried to push past but Alan held him back until both men finally started listening to him explain what was going on. They backed off, and just stood staring, confused looks on their faces.
Addie had gone two steps in the direction of her Jeep and the pouch of spell ingredients inside. Now she stopped. Rule number one of being a witch in the modern age was never let anyone see you using your magic. They might not want to burn you at the stake or toss you in a lake to see if you float but getting sent to a psychiatric facility was still a strong possibility.
There would be no spells now. Corbin and August were watching, and their shouting was bringing other people out of their rooms. This part of their investigation had gone as far as it was going to go.
Chapter 5
Lucian scowled at Addie. “You just couldn’t stay away from this one, could you?”
She crossed her arms and leaned on one hip. “We’re trying to help catch a killer, as you well know.”
“You mean you’re trying to prove Willow is innocent.”
“Both. We’re doing both, Lucian. Okay? One doesn’t exclude the other.”
“You shouldn’t be here, Addie. You should have let the police handle this.”
There were moments when she could throttle this man. “We’ve had this conversation before, Lucian. My sisters and I are the protectors of Shadow Lake. We go where our responsibilities lead us.”
“This time is different,” he pointed out gently. Obviously, he remembered the last time they had this conversation, too. “Your sister is the main suspect, and you can’t do anything to jeopardize this case unless you want it to go badly for her. Speaking of Willow, we still can’t find her. Any ideas?”
They were standing in the motel parking lot, as uniformed officers searched for clues around the area that Alan had been able to find. Two floodlights on stanchion poles had been set up for them to work by, and take photographs, and collect samples of the blood. Several of the occupants of the motel rooms were standing in their doorways, watching. Addie was surprised they weren’t holding bowls of popcorn while they enjoyed the show.
She shook her head. Nothing they had done here had helped Willow one little bit. In fact,
if anything, they might have strengthened the case against her by proving Autumn’s body was dragged to the trunk of a car. They needed to find her fast and get her side of the story.
So where was she?
“I honestly have no idea,” she answered Lucian. “We’ve been trying to get in touch with her and she isn’t answering her phone. When we find her, we’ll let you know.”
“Oh yeah? So you’ll let me know right away, first thing?”
She could have lied to him, but their relationship was based around each of them being able to trust the other one. Even when the truth was going to hurt a little bit. “Well. Maybe not right away,” she said, a little sheepishly.
“Addie…”
“What do you want from me, Lucian? She’s my sister. Did she do something incredibly stupid? Yes. Do I think she killed someone? No! So, if I’m going to help her I need to talk to her before she gets locked up for the rest of her life. After that, I promise, I’ll call you.”
She stopped talking when she saw the expression on his face. He almost looked amused. “Stupid? Yeah, I’ll say she did something stupid. Do you know what kind of song and dance I had to give my people to explain her slipping out of a car right in front of their noses? It’s not like I could tell them it was all an illusion or some kind of spell, which is what I’m guessing it really was. How did she do that, exactly?”
With a little smile of her own, Addie shrugged. “Trade secret.”
“Okay, fine, I probably wouldn’t understand it if you explained it to me anyway but please tell me you understand how serious this is. I’m not going to be able to keep the Chief from putting out an all-points bulletin for Willow. I won’t be able to stop her from getting put behind bars either, if we don’t come up with something concrete to prove she’s innocent.”
Addie pointed to the area of the parking lot with the scuff marks and the blood. “Autumn was killed right here. Doesn’t that point to Corbin or August?”
He shook his head. “Not when they both say they were out of the motel for hours. Off by themselves around Birch Hollow. It’s a crappy alibi, I know, but there it is. And yes, before you ask, I checked for cameras at the motel and there aren’t any. I can’t prove they weren’t here, I can’t prove they were. At the same time, you might want to be glad of that because there’s nothing to prove Willow’s car was here, either.”