by K. J. Emrick
“Little man,” Abierta warned, “you need to watch yourself.”
“Lucian,” Addie said, “what are you doing?”
He ignored the question. “Sure!” He snapped his fingers. “I can see it now. You even went to the bathroom during the dinner and changed your makeup.”
“I had to touch up my face!” she protested.
“Sure, to make it look like the man you used to be. You even changed your clothes. Did you know Sheila was coming here? Did you set this up ahead of time? Sure! You dressed like a guy, so no one would recognize you if they saw you, and then you killed her. Afterwards you change your makeup again, change back into your dress, and here you are, this sexy woman no one would ever suspect.”
Addie tried to stop this, but she couldn’t seem to get a word in between them.
“I did not do this!” Abierta insisted, thankfully keeping her voice down and low. “I did not!”
“I say you did. Admit it. You were hungry, and you were angry, and you did this!”
“I did not—”
“You did.”
“No.”
“You did.”
“No!”
“You did!”
This time there was no denial. She simply threw herself at Lucian, grabbing at him and twisting her fingers into his shirt.
She picked him up like he weighed no more than a feather, and then dropped him to the floor. He landed on his side, quickly twisting over to his back, raising his arms up defensively as she bent over him with her hands raised and her fingers clenched. Her half face glowered at him, the scales smeared with her makeup, her eyes flashing with anger.
Addie had a spell ready to cast, but she didn’t need to.
Abierta stepped back from Lucian, wiping the back of one wrist across her mouth, visibly trembling. “I am so hungry I could drain you dry,” she told Lucian, “but I will not. I am not a killer. I can handle being hungry until I can feed properly once more.”
He smiled up at her unexpectedly and held his hand up for her to take. “I believe you,” he said. “I just wanted to be sure. Can you help me up?”
With a surprised little gasp, Abierta pulled him to his feet effortlessly. “You aren’t afraid of me, Detective Knight?”
“I think I would be a fool not to be afraid of you. That doesn’t mean you’re a killer.”
Addie sighed in relief and dropped the spell she had been about to hurl at one of her oldest friends. Then she fixed Lucian with a hard stare.
“You couldn’t think of a different way to do that?”
“I had to be sure,” he repeated. “She could have seriously hurt me right now, and she didn’t. Abierta, I’m really sorry. Maybe Addie and I can take you to dinner sometime to make up for this?”
Her tongue tickled over her false teeth. “I think, perhaps, it would be better if you stayed away from me for… a while.”
“Fair enough. But I am sorry.”
Abierta was about to say something else when they heard footsteps down the corridor. It was Alex coming back with his two from the bathroom. Abierta quickly turned her back away from him to hide her face.
“Everything all right?” Alex asked them.
“We’re fine,” Lucian told him. “See if you can help Chuck wrap it up in there, will you? Those people won’t stay calm if we hold them much longer.”
“You got it. Oh, and I checked the bathrooms like you wanted me to. There’s nothing in there that shouldn’t be.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
Abierta sighed after Alex was gone. “Excuse me, please. I have to touch up my face.”
She turned and strode down the hall, heading for the restrooms to reapply her makeup from the supplies hidden in that bracelet. A smart woman always accessorized, after all.
Addie gave Lucian a measured stare. “That was kind of harsh, wasn’t it? Abierta hasn’t had it easy. Being who she is, in a world where every person she passes smells like dinner, is a daily struggle for her.”
“I apologized, and I’ll apologize again if you want me to,” Lucian promised, “but I had to be sure. Besides, now that I’ve seen her true nature, I know she didn’t commit this murder.”
“Oh, really. Well, I never considered her a suspect at all so I’m glad we’re on the same page. What made you change your mind?”
“Actually, it’s the whole thing about how she eats blood. We both know she’s hungry right now. She’s keeping herself under control for her boyfriend, sure, but if she had lost that control tonight because she was hungry, I don’t think she could have kept herself from drinking up Sheila’s blood. There was no sign of anyone taking blood from the body, or from the scene, and I’m pretty sure we would have noticed. Plus, why would she have to use a knife? She picked me up like I was a ragdoll and dropped me on my… ahem, backside. She could have snapped Sheila’s neck without thinking twice about it.”
“Doesn’t that make her strong enough to have knocked out Roderick?”
“Yeah, sure it does, but the rest of it doesn’t track.”
Addie nodded. “Exactly.”
“There’s just one problem.”
“Just one?”
He nodded. “We’re running out of suspects.”
Addie thought about it. “Well, yes and no. I’m still not ready to cross Roderick off our list. He could have done it and cracked his own skull to cover it up. It would explain why we couldn’t find the weapon he was supposedly hit with. He was in a big hurry to get Sheila away from Marcelle and alone in the security office with him, after all.”
“True.” Lucian pulled a face, and it was obvious that his next words were hard for him to say. “We can’t totally write off Marcelle either, I suppose. Whoever did this changed out of their shirt. I guess it’s possible that Marcelle washed and scrubbed his hands after changing clothes. I still keep going back to how this was premeditated, though. Marcelle wasn’t expecting Sheila to be here tonight.”
“Really? Because, as I recall, he’s been keeping pretty good tabs on her since their breakup.”
“That’s true.” He pursed his lips and shook his head. “All of it’s true, but I’m just not getting a strong vibe from either of those two as suspects. I can’t help but feel like we’re missing something.”
“Well, I know someone who has a pretty long list of possible suspects right in his office.”
Lucian knew who she meant. “Marcelle. Right. Well, come on then. Let’s go find us some more suspects.”
CHAPTER 8
When they got back to Marcelle’s office, they realized their mistake.
“This would be a whole lot easier,” Lucian said, “if people weren’t so security conscious these days.”
The number pad lock was keeping them from getting in. Ten numbers, zero through nine, meant almost infinite combinations. There was no way they were going to guess the combination.
“I thought you cops liked it when people locked their doors?” Addie teased him.
“Usually we do. When I want to get through the door, however…” He paused, kneeling down to feel around the outside of the lock box. “When that happens, I don’t like locks very much.”
His fingers felt along the edges of the box where it met the wall, and with a little work he pulled the plastic cover aside, exposing the guts of the lock. It was a jumble of wires, and plastic, and metal connections. Addie couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
“What are you doing?” she asked him.
“I’m picking the lock.”
“What do you mean you’re picking the lock? You can pick locks like that?”
“They teach us stuff at the police academy,” he said, and then he shrugged. “Then sometimes we learn stuff on our own.”
“So my boyfriend the cop knows how to be a thief?”
“Hey, I’ve got skills that you know nothing about.”
A spark leaped from a wire he was pulling on. He yanked his hand away, shaking away the pain from the little zap.
; “You know,” she offered, “I could just cast a spell to undo the lock and open the door.”
She waggled her fingers in front of him to demonstrate.
“I could just go and ask Marcelle for the code, too.”
“But you’d rather do it the hard way?”
“No. I’ve got it.”
“You don’t have to show off for me, you know.”
“I’m not.”
“Actually,” she said, “I think you are. It’s kind of cute, actually.”
“Just give me one more… there we go.” He twisted two wires together and with a beep the light on the front turned green, and the door opened. “Voila.”
“My hero.” She watched him put the box back in place and now from the outside, it looked like it had never been tampered with. “That’s a neat trick.”
“Said the witch.” He stood up and kissed her cheek. “Now, let’s see who else is on our list of suspects. Remind me to thank Marcelle.”
“Sure, unless he’s the killer.”
“One thing at a time,” he said.
They found the folder on the desk, right where they had left it. At the time, when Marcelle was showing it to them, it hadn’t seemed important enough to take. It was interesting to learn about Sheila’s past in those articles, but that was all information that the police would find on a background check anyway. The list of names Marcelle had written down were just guesswork on his part, or wishful thinking, or maybe even his way of casting blame on everyone but himself.
However you looked at it, this folder hadn’t seemed important before. It did now. There were still gaps in their investigation and they had to explore every possible lead in order to fill them in. Even if it meant staying here and spending the rest of the night looking through a list of people who might have been scammed by Sheila Davenport, instead of going home with Lucian to find out what his big surprise was.
Oh, she’d almost forgotten about that! Once again, her life as a witch and as the protector of her town was getting in the way of her the normal, ordinary, life she wanted with Lucian. She sighed, and let that thought float away, because it wasn’t like she could give up being who she was. Even if she turned her back on Shadow Lake and all the people who lived there, she would still be a witch. She’d just be an evil witch, like Belladonna Nightshade.
And where was Belladonna? Addie was still very much convinced that it wasn’t a coincidence that Belladonna had been here tonight. There was a reason for everything she did. What was the reason tonight, Addie wondered?
“Well, here’s something,” Lucian said, bringing her attention back to the present moment. “There’s a few names here I recognize, but this one here is a very well known figure in local politics. If it was ever found out that he was having an affair with Sheila Davenport, and gave her money, too, then his career might just be over.”
Addie looked at the name. She knew that person also, and she had heard the rumors that he was going to run for governor in the next election. Lucian was right. If news like this got out, then his aspirations of moving to the state capitol would be over.
“I can’t see him committing murder, though,” she said.
“Yeah, I think you’re right. I’m also pretty sure that someone would have noticed him if he came here tonight. I know I didn’t see him. Even if he did have a change of clothes stashed somewhere in the museum, there wouldn’t be any hiding his face. Not unless he’s one of those yak-shes?”
“No, he’s not.”
“Then we’ll put him in the maybe pile.”
Addie nodded, but her mind was busy with what Lucian had just said. The clothes in the museum. Someone had gotten into the building ahead of time and left fresh clothes for themselves, knowing they might get bloody and need to change. A preplanned attack. They even brought weapons with them. Something to knock out the witness, Roderick, and then a knife to kill Sheila.
They got rid of the weapon that they used on Roderick.
They left the knife sticking in Sheila’s back.
Why take one, but not the other? No doubt the killer had worn gloves or wiped down the knife because, thanks to television and movies, everyone knew that when you committed a crime these days you wore gloves so there would be no fingerprints at the scene. With no physical evidence left behind…
Why take the one weapon, and not the knife?
“I know this man, too,” Lucian was saying. “Sort of. He’s in his seventies, though. I somehow doubt that he came here to commit a murder. No way he knocked out Roderick, either.”
He flipped a page, while Addie’s mind still raced.
Sheila had been stabbed in the back. Oh. Could it be… might the killer have done it that way symbolically? He stabbed her in the back…
Because she was a backstabber.
“Hmm. How about this guy?” Lucian asked her, turning the folder around on the desk to show her. “He’s from another state but according to Marcelle’s notes, Sheila took him for quite a bit of money. That’s always a good motive.”
“No,” she said emphatically. “It’s not him.”
“You don’t think so? How come?”
“Because it’s none of these,” she said, flipping the pages backward in the folder. “None of the names in these notes. Lucian, we’ve been looking at this all wrong. What we need isn’t someone who was jilted and then conned by Sheila. We’re looking for someone who feels betrayed by Sheila.”
“You don’t think these men felt betrayed? If Sheila was leading them on, letting them think there was something between them, they might have felt plenty betrayed.”
“No, not that kind of betrayal. I’m talking about the kind where you feel a special bond to someone. Something that takes a long time to build up. Sheila moved quickly on all of these people. There was no long con game, it was just a couple of dates and then asking for money. What we need is someone who knew her long enough to feel totally betrayed by her. Like she broke a sacred trust.”
He nodded, his eyes serious. “Like you thought I did earlier, when I was under Belladonna’s spell.”
She cupped his face with her hand. “Yes, like that, but I already told you that I forgive you for that. It wasn’t your fault. I don’t blame you.”
“And you think the killer did blame Sheila for something that was more meaningful than a lie about her sick kid.”
“Exactly. We need someone who thought they had an arrangement with her. A deal that she broke. What we need isn’t in Marcelle’s notes. It’s in these articles.”
“The news stories? Why? What did you see that I didn’t?”
She scanned each line of each article in turn. She hadn’t actually seen anything when they read them before, she was just assuming it would be here. Somewhere. She kept reading, carefully looking for what might be the final clue.
Sure enough, there it was.
“Listen to this,” she said to Lucian. “According to this article, several of Sheila’s victims reported there was an unknown male who tried to intimidate them into not going to the police. In fact, there’s speculation that there might be many more victims out there who didn’t dare come forward because of what this man threatened to do to them. That’s it!”
“So, an accomplice.”
“Exactly. These two were partners.”
Lucian read the article again. “I don’t get it. The police tried to get information on this supposed accomplice,” he noted, “but even the ones who were willing to talk about him never gave a good description. They never found anyone, and Sheila never admitted there was anyone helping her. For all we know there never was an accomplice. It was just a way for these poor, embarrassed guys to save some face. They said there was a big, tough enforcer who made them keep quiet. They were scared, and they had to do it. People make up stories to sound better all the time.”
“I think these victims were telling the truth. Sheila had a partner, that’s who we should be looking for.”
“Why?”
�
��Because,” she said, following her own logic, “whoever this partner was, Sheila violated his trust. He thought she was a backstabber.”
“The knife in her back!” Lucian exclaimed. “Oh, wow, I can’t believe I didn’t see that for myself.”
“Sometimes you have to look at something from different angles. That’s why we’re such a good team. You have your way of doing things, and I have mine.”
He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “That’s not the only reason we’re a good team. So, who do you think Sheila’s accomplice was? Roderick? He’s certainly got the size and the personality to scare people.” He shrugged. “And like you said, he was in a hurry to get Sheila away from everyone and into that office where they could be alone.”
“Maybe. I don’t think we have any other suspects who would fit that description. Means, motive, opportunity.”
“The three pillars of any crime,” he said. “If only I could pick up the rules of your world that quickly.”
“My world’s a little trickier. Yours has rules and laws. Good and bad. In the world of witches, everything is a little murkier.”
She had to smile. Here they were, in the middle of another murder mystery, building off each other’s ideas and guesses. It was like they were one mind. One soul. One heart, even. Deep within, that feeling she had whenever he was close by grew and spread throughout her entire being. What they could do together had no bounds. Someday, they would do something truly spectacular. Something amazing. It was the reason why he was in her life.
Well, it was part of the reason. The biggest part of it all was that she loved this man.
They shared all of those thoughts and more as they looked into each other’s eyes, emotions that had no words, feelings that could only be expressed in the synchronized beating of their hearts.
“So,” he said after a long moment, “Roderick is our killer. Now how do we prove that?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” she told him. “I know what we need to do next, and I know how to prove exactly who killed Sheila. Come with me.”
“WE’RE BACK HERE?” Lucian asked her. “Really?”