by K. J. Emrick
Addie went inside, through the lobby with its uncomfortable plastic chairs, right up to the sliding glass service window. She pushed a button on the wall, under the sign that read “Ring For Assistance.”
A young officer with her blonde hair pulled back from her face in a short ponytail came in response to the annoying buzzer sound the button produced. Addie remembered her from past visits to see Lucian here, and greeted her with a friendly wave.
“It’s Brenda, right? Hi. I’m Adair Kilorian. I think Lucian is expecting me.”
“Detective Knight is busy,” was the terse reply. “I know who you are, Addie. I also know our two main suspects in a murder case are related to you. Isn’t the guy we have in the back your nephew?”
She raised an eyebrow with the question, which Addie didn’t take offense at. Alan was nearly her own age. Kiera had been just twenty when she gave birth to him and explaining the big age difference between herself and Kiera was not something Addie had time for right now.
“Can you just tell Lucian I’m here?” she asked with a polite smile.
“Like I said, he’s busy,” was the just-as-polite reply. “If you want to take a seat out there then I’m sure he’ll come out for you just as soon as he can.”
She closed the sliding window and turned away.
Addie was very sure that if she chose to sit out here, waiting for Lucian to be not busy, then she would be sitting for hours or better. Maybe Brenda planned on passing on the message that Lucian had a visitor, and maybe she didn’t. Either way, sitting and waiting just wasn’t Addie’s style.
To her right was the door that led from the lobby into the police station. It couldn’t be opened from this side. Not without a key.
On the far wall next to the door was a fire alarm pull box. It was just a little red plastic box with a white plastic lever. In case of fire, pulling the lever would set off the building’s alarms. In these modern times, they were required by code in every public building. This one could only be activated with a key as a safeguard against someone pulling it as a prank to get the whole building to evacuate
Keys offered a certain amount of security. Protection. Peace of mind.
Witches didn’t need keys.
Although she’d been hoping to get past this point with just a polite request, she’d been prepared for the answer to be no. From inside her coat, she took out the folded pouch of blue felt, tied with its leather cinch. She’d removed it from her Jeep’s glove compartment while she’d been waiting for Kiera to say goodbye to Percy.
She took a seat in one of the plastic chairs and undid the pouch’s leather cord with practiced fingers. The bundle unrolled easily in her hands, revealing the row of sewn pouches inside, each holding a small amount of different herbs. Modern medicine had discovered that a wide variety of plants could have a positive or negative effect on the human body. This was old news for witches who had been using dried plants to cure sicknesses for centuries. What science called medicine, witches understood to be just one more aspect of magic.
Besides. The right herb mixed into a spell didn’t just bring health or sickness. The right mix of power and plant and Life Essence could affect reality itself.
From the third pouch in she took out a small pinch of dried, blood-colored powder. The root of the purple amaranth had a lot of applications. Healing. Protection. Mending a broken heart. What she planned on using it for was one of the more obscure uses and not one she used very often. It had a tendency to leave blisters on the skin if the spell wasn’t done properly. Not to mention a burning sensation when you peed that lasted for weeks.
Well. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
First, the alarm box.
Holding the pinch of dried amaranth root between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand, ready for the spell that would come next, she pointed at the box with her left hand, and spoke a single word in ancient Gaelic.
“Aile.”
The word for fire, thrown across the room on an echo of her Life Essence, like an arrow shot from a bow, struck the keylock on the fire box with an audible SMACK. The plastic box cracked. The white t-shaped handle snapped out of position, falling down, activating the alarm.
Addie smiled as a blaring tone sounded through the entire police station. She wondered if they had ever heard that sound before and decided probably not. The chances of a place built from cinder block and steel catching on fire was pretty slim. Unless you had a witch sitting in your lobby, of course.
There was no need to really set the place on fire, of course. Not when you could fool an electronic device into thinking there was a fire.
The alarm had its desired effect. On the other side of the service window Addie heard people talking frantically over each other, wondering what was happening and what they were supposed to do now and giving orders that contradicted each other. The alarm had brought panic, and that was just what she needed.
Now came the hard part.
Standing up, she tilted her head back, and brought the pinch of amaranth root up over her face, held tight to make sure none of it spilled out before she wanted it to. The words of the spell came first, a line of Gaelic so ancient that she didn’t even know its origins. When she had whispered them through, and repeated them twice, she spread her fingers to release the powder.
Addie blew on it as it fell, pushing Life Essence into her breath, feeling the drain on her body caused by pulling that much of her energy out of her at once.
The amaranth root sparkled as she puffed it up, and then let it filter back down over her face, and her hair, and her clothes, and all of her.
Now she was ready.
Tying her felt pouch up again, she put it back into her coat and stepped over to the door that would take her into the rest of the building. She was prepared to open it with a few words of magic but as it turned out, she didn’t have to.
The door flew open, and Brenda stood there, looking flustered and wide eyed. She came rushing into the lobby, the hydraulic door starting to slowly close behind her.
“Addie, the fire alarm’s going off and we need to evacuate the building.” She stopped and looked around at the empty chairs. “Addie?”
With a satisfied smirk, Addie slipped past Brenda and through the door before it could close again. Invisibility spells took a lot out of a witch, but they were so worth it.
Carefully threading her way through police officers who never once suspected she was standing just inches away from them, Addie made it to the central hallway. She knew where the holding cells were, and she was sure that was where Alan was being held, if he wasn’t in one of the interview rooms. There was a stop she wanted to make first, however, before going to confront her nephew on several things.
The office used by the detectives of the Birch Hollow Police Department was just up on the left. She waited outside the door for several long heartbeats, listening for movement inside. When she didn’t hear any she held her breath, turned the knob and went inside.
The room felt cramped with three desks and a whole wall of filing cabinets. The bookshelf on the right held more office supplies than real books, and dozens of file folders stacked on top of each other. Lucian’s desk was that one there, with his nameplate on it. She was hoping that he hadn’t had the time to process the evidence from the motel yet. To her relief, she found the clear plastic bag with Alan’s personal effects inside it right on top of everything else on his desk.
This was a secure building, after all, and there was no reason to think anyone would just sneak in here to have a look around.
Next to the bag with Alan’s things was another bag with Autumn’s cellphone in it. She ignored it. The phone wouldn’t tell her anything. What she needed was in this other one.
From her pocket she took out her keys, holding up the key to her Jeep. Picking up the bag of things, she found Alan’s keys, and held them side by side to her own.
There had been so much going on at the motel that it hadn’t clicked in h
er brain at first that Alan had pulled these out of his pocket. He’d had them with him when Lucian confronted him. The only thing was, Alan didn’t own a vehicle. His had been totaled in the wreck that had brought him to Shadow Lake and back into Kiera’s life. He had no reason to be carrying car keys.
Holding her key up against the car key on Alan’s ring, she let out a single, strangled gasp. The two were a perfect match. Alan had a key to her Jeep.
Someone had taken her car from Shadow Lake, up here to Birch Hollow, and back again. They had done that earlier today, when Autumn Lynch was being murdered. When Alan had been out of Stonecrest, supposedly on a walk through the woods. That person, Autumn’s killer, had transferred her body to Willow’s car to frame her.
Curse her Irish eyes. If she looked in the trunk of her Jeep, was she going to see blood from Autumn’s body? Had Alan used her car to transport a dead woman from the Nash Palms Motel?
It couldn’t be true, but all the facts said it was. She remembered telling herself earlier that the facts would prove who really killed Autumn. If she could eat her own words, swallow them back so that she had never ever said them, she would.
Addie shook her head, trying to clear it, and then dropped the evidence bag back on the desk. This couldn’t be happening. She had to be wrong. Yes, she didn’t know a whole lot about Alan, but she knew he was a good guy. He’d been so good to Kiera. He’d been nice to all of them. Even the cats liked him. Well. Domovyk certainly liked him. Doyle was still a little up in the air, but Doyle was like that with everyone.
She had to know for sure. She had to hear it from his own lips.
Next to the bags on Lucian’s desk was an open folder and lying on top she saw a computer printed statement form. The name at the top was Corbin Reif’s. Curious, Addie scanned through his official statement to the police. Under his statement she found August’s. She read through that one as well.
They both said the same thing. The two men and Autumn had gone for an early dinner, and then split up to do their own thing, they came back to the motel separately. They waited for Autumn, but she didn’t show up. August’s statement mentioned the lawyer, Percy Pokins, but nothing else about it. Corbin still seemed to be blissfully unaware that his new wife had been about to divorce him.
Leaving the door to the office open because doors that opened and closed by themselves drew a lot of attention, Addie headed toward the back of the building where the holding cells kept the prisoners locked up tight. She was sure Alan was back there. Lucian might not have the information about him using Addie’s Jeep, but he had Corbin and August’s statements, and he had the fact that Autumn’s phone had been in Alan’s pocket.
A single tear fell down Addie’s cheek. She wasn’t crying for herself, or Alan either. She cried for Kiera. This was going to break her inside.
At the very back of the building a locked metal door needed a special key to allow access the holding cell area. Addie placed her palm against the lock and then twisted her hand to the left. With a ringing clang the lock disengaged and the door opened.
As she said. Witches didn’t need keys.
On the other side of the doorway sat an officer at a desk, reading through a copy of Time magazine. Apparently, the fire alarm that was still going off hadn’t bothered him, or else he’d been given orders to stay and watch over the single prisoner.
His head snapped up when the door opened. His eyes narrowed.
“Who’s there?”
Addie didn’t answer him. A voice coming from empty air might seem like a ghost to him, or like he was losing his mind, and he might run away screaming or he might call for backup. The whole point to the invisibility spell was not to be seen, and not to draw attention to herself. So instead, she stepped inside silently, and waited.
“Hey, who’s there?” the officer repeated, getting up from his desk now. He came to the door and peeked around the corner out into the hallway. “Guys? Davis, is that you?”
He stepped out into the hallway.
After one more step Addie grabbed the door and slammed it shut, engaging the lock behind him.
“Hey!” the officer yelled from the other side. He banged his hand against the door several times, and Addie wondered what he thought that was going to accomplish. As far as he knew, it was just Alan back here now.
After another moment, Addie heard the man saying, “Great. Now I have to go and get a key from someone. Next time the key goes in my pocket. No, better yet. Next time Davis stays, and I evacuate during the fire drill.”
His voice trailed away as he left, until Addie couldn’t hear him at all. Even the alarm was muted back here. Good. She didn’t have much time, but she had a lot to say.
She found Alan in the second cell, sitting there miserably on a metal bench attached to the wall, his hands in his lap, and his head down with his eyes closed. He looked like a man who had come to the exact end of his rope and now saw himself dangling over a precipice. Which she supposed in a lot of ways, was exactly where he was.
She dropped the invisibility spell as she stepped closer. She wrapped a hand around a bar and drew a breath.
“It’s all right, Aunt Addie,” he said. “I knew it was you.”
Her fingers tightened their grip. How could he have known she was here? Lucian’s question about whether Alan could do magic came back to her. No. That wasn’t possible. He must have smelled her perfume, or just guessed it was her when the door opened and closed by itself on the hapless police officer who had been guarding him.
“Well, that’s nice,” she snarked. “I’m so glad you’re paying attention. I didn’t come back here to chitchat, Alan. You need to explain yourself.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Seriously? Are you serious right now? You’re under arrest for murder! You’ve got nothing to say to that?”
With a little wave of his finger, he pointed up at the corner of the room. “You know there’s a video camera, right? They’re recording all of this.”
Addie lifted a finger of her own, pointed in the same direction, and as she flexed her wrist she spoke the same word as before when she broke the fire alarm box out in the lobby.
“Aile.”
This time sparks flew from the camera housing. The little red light next to the lens stopped blinking. Smoke drifted out from the seams as the wiring inside melted.
A little twinge inside of her chest told her that she was overextending herself. In her anger, she might have hit the camera a little too hard. Magic always took a toll on the user. Holding the invisibility spell that long had winded her, and she was going to have to take it easy for a while.
She took a breath and forced herself to be calm. “No one is listening in now. So. Tell me what’s going on, Alan.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
The metal bar grew warm in her hand as her anger rose again. “Don’t play with me, nephew. I’m not in the mood.”
“I’m not playing,” he insisted. “Something’s going on here, and I don’t understand what it is.”
“Oh really? Really? Then let’s start with something simple. Why did you drive my Jeep up to Birch Hollow today?”
“I didn’t. At least… I don’t think I did.”
“Alan, you had a key for my Jeep in your pocket! Not to mention, you had Autumn’s cellphone in another pocket. You were here. You were here in Birch Hollow. Just admit it. Admit it!”
His head came up, and now she saw the strain around his eyes. He was on the verge of crying. It was real emotion that she sensed from him, but emotions could be faked, and worse yet they could be used as a weapon. Some people could use them as a mask to hide their real intentions. Addie hardened her heart. She had to know the truth. She couldn’t let this go just because it was Alan sitting there. Kiera’s son. Her nephew. It was family, and she couldn’t let that matter. Enough people had lied to her over the years that she knew better than to trust tears. People cried for lots of reasons.
“Tell me the truth,” she said, threading a small amount of Essence into her words like they had done with Percy Pokins. “You were in Birch Hollow today, weren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Alan insisted, his hands shaking with the intensity of his denial. The spell compelled him, and he still wouldn’t give her an answer.
Addie blinked in surprise. That was a simple magic she had just used, hardly a draw on her reserves at all, but it always worked. No one could deny telling the truth to a witch who was compelling them to do so. Unless, of course, they were holding onto a secret so tightly that it would take enough magic to fry their brain in order to dislodge it.
Or… unless they really didn’t have an answer to give.
She loosened her grip on the bars. “You honestly don’t know?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Aunt Addie. I’ve got several hours in my day that are blank. Completely blank. Just before I came in for dinner I woke up on the couch in the living room at Stonecrest. Domovyk was on my chest. I figured that I just took a nap, but I can’t remember most of the day and now… I just don’t know. Autumn’s cellphone was in my pocket, like you said. All that missing time. Dear God, what if I did have something to do with this?”
Addie tried to believe him. “What about you having my key?”
He shrugged. “I have keys to all your cars. Even Kiera’s, although she never uses it. It’s just in case I need to go somewhere and you guys are out doing your witch thing.”
“And you never told me?”
“I told Willow,” he said. “It was actually her idea.”
“Of course it was,” Addie muttered. “Since you brought up your other aunt, why don’t you tell me this. Have you seen Willow today?”
“No, I don’t think—” His eyes widened, and his mouth hung open for a moment. The spell compelled him to the truth. “Wait. Yes, actually, I think I did. I seem to remember talking with her. We were talking about… I don’t remember. Something. And we were… somewhere. Why can’t I remember, Addie?”