Jared didn’t answer.
“Of course, he’s too scared to talk. Either that or he didn’t see anyone. He’s just a kid,” Keaton prodded.
“Yes I did,” he growled. “I see everything, including the person who was wearing a mask and gloves when the bodies were carried in a wheelbarrow through the backyard.”
A mask and gloves. Keaton and I shared a despairing look. I’d had hope for just a second. Hope we’d find some clues that would lead us back to who had done this.
“Can you tell me where Veronica is?” I asked.
“She’s protecting the girls in the basement until you can send them home. Bad things are coming Faith.” Jared finally lifted his gaze from Keaton’s to mine. “You need to leave before you end up like the others.”
“I’ll be home in just a bit.”
“You can leave him where you found him,” Jared said, nodding to the back of Keaton’s head before he vanished out of sight.
Keaton turned back around in his seat. “That kid doesn’t like me much.”
“What did I miss?” Jimbo asked.
“He’s just territorial,” I said to Keaton before explaining what had just transpired to Jimbo.
Jared was territorial. I just didn’t know why or what sparked it. He didn’t like visitors in my house. He didn’t like people in general, and I often caught him angered like he was about to kill.
Chapter 18
I was pacing the police department, waiting on Keaton to finish up with his statement. It was a good thing he’d been there that night to corroborate my story that there hadn’t been any reeking smells coming from the basement.
Jared’s words ate at my mind while I paced in the little space near the front entry. Why would I be on anyone’s list? It didn’t make sense. None of this made sense.
Brandon walked out from the police station pit and paused when he noticed me inside
“Faith, what are you doing here?”
“I should ask you the same thing, Doc,” I teased.
“I offered to come by and give my statement about the conversation Ms. Adams and I had at the hospital.”
“I heard Erin was a reporter,” I said.
Brandon slid his hands into his pocket. “Some of the missing women were patients at the hospital where I worked before moving here.”
“Only some?” I asked, unsure how much he wanted to divulge.
“That’s why we were arguing. I can’t give out doctor-patient information, and she claimed she already knew the answer, but now hearing the names of the victims, I knew five out of the seven.”
“Eight,” I corrected.
“There was another one?”
“I believe Mary Pender was killed by the same person.”
“Oh yes, the witch who could read auras and such.”
“So, you did know her?”
“Yeah, I was her doctor. She told me that my aura was unnaturally blue.”
“Sounds pretty.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I don’t know what that means either. But what I do know is that she was alive and breathing when the hospital released her.”
“So, you knew six of the eight,” I said as a matter of fact. “Doc, is there anyone that would want to frame you? Anyone that would want to see you hurt or lose your job?”
“No one but Reggie, but he wouldn’t hurt me like that. He’s just an angsty teen that wants to move back to where his friends are.”
“What about any of his friends? It sounds like all of this originally started in Greenbridge.”
The door opened, and Jimbo stepped out. “Doc, thanks for giving your statement. We’re going over everything now and looking for the connections.” Jimbo shook Brandon’s hand.
“Of course, Detective. I want this person caught just as much as you.”
Jimbo pulled his personal truck keys out of his pocket and handed them to me. “This may take a while for Keaton and me, so just take my truck back to the motel.”
I nodded.
“No need for that,” Brandon said. “I can give Faith a lift home. I know where she lives.”
Jimbo shoved his keys back into his pocket. “Faith, you get your car and you go straight back to the hotel. Don’t pass go,” Jimbo said.
“I can’t promise that. I have to check in with my sisters, but I’ll try to make it quick, and then I still have to help deal with that other issue I told you about in the car.” The spirits in my basement needed to move on and I could help. “It’s daylight. What’s the worst that can happen?”
I didn’t wait around for Keaton and Jimbo to argue with my decision. I knew Brandon wasn’t the killer. I would like to think my senses would warn me.
We were walking out to his car when my phone chirped. A text was coming in from an unknown number.
It was from Keaton. It wasn’t wise to leave with a suspect in the investigation.
Holding my breath, I tapped out an answer I knew he wouldn’t like. He’s not a killer. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you guys that.
The three dots did their syncopated dance as he keyed his response back. My phone pinged again. Check-in with me to let me know you’re okay.
Sun-like warmth spread in my chest. He cared. Sure, dad.
I slipped into Brandon’s car, and he started the ignition. “You were reading that text and smiling.”
“Yeah. I guess I was. It’s nice for someone to worry about me, no matter how off base they are.”
“Let me guess, the cop that offered his keys?”
I shook my head. “Detective Daniels.”
“He’s from Greenbridge, right?”
“Mm hmm. He’s here for this case.”
“Long-distance relationships are hard. I tried it once after I moved, and it didn’t work out for me. Reggie needed me so I broke things off, although the woman and I are still friends.”
I had faith that Keaton and I would figure things out if it came down to it and we decided to put in the effort. An hour away wasn’t too bad.
Brandon turned onto a road that led away from my house.
“Uh...I don’t live this way, Doc.” I said.
“Oh yeah. I need to grab Reggie from his friend’s house on this side of town. It will only take a second. Is that okay?”
“Is this the one he went to the movies with?” Unease trickled down my spine. Reggie only had one friend in town. How was I to know if that was really where we were headed?
“No, this one isn’t a girl.”
“I thought he only had one friend.” I swallowed hard.
Brandon glanced at me. His brows dipped. “Relax Faith, this will only take a minute.”
I didn’t think I breathed until Brandon turned into a driveway and parked the car. The white picket fence was pristine. The skateboards on the porch eased the tension in my muscles. When the door opened and Reggie, another boy, and paramedic Patricia stepped out, I relaxed and got out of the car.
I waved. “Patricia, I didn’t know you have a son.”
“Yeah, Greg. He’s Reggie’s age,” Patricia answered. “Brandon, I could have brought Reggie home. I didn’t know you had…company?”
“Oh, I’m just about to drop Faith off. It’s fine, but thanks for keeping an eye on him.”
I climbed back into the car as they all said their goodbyes. Within minutes we were on the road again, and ten minutes later, we were pulling into my driveway.
“Dad, her house is a crime scene. Why can’t ours be a crime scene? Is it haunted? Do you have ghosts? Can I come in?”
“Reggie, that’s not polite,” Brandon said, and his words fell on deaf ears. Reggie was already out of the car and had ducked beneath the crime scene tape.
“Why don’t you come in and I’ll fix some coffee while Reggie tries to catch a ghost.” I smiled.
“I’d hate to impose,” Brandon said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, opening my door. “Coffee is the least I can do for giving me a ride home and dinner th
e other night.”
Chapter 19
Lifting the tape slightly, I passed under it and led Brandon inside to the kitchen where I started a pot of coffee.
Reggie was standing at my stairs. “Can I go check out the rooms upstairs?”
“Sure, and when you’re done there, the crime scene was in my basement. Maybe you can find a clue that the police left behind.”
“Cool,” Reggie said, jogging up my stairs two at a time.
I poured Brandon a cup of coffee, and he sat at the table as I stared out my kitchen window to my wheelbarrow.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, stepping outside. I followed the wheelbarrow tracks from the shed to my back door and then around my house to the street in front of my house. The tracks stopped at the sidewalk.
I shifted my gaze, letting it roam up and down the street. The only set of eyes that were staring back at me belonged to Elenore Bell in the window across the street.
She stepped out of her house, and I crossed the road.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Following the wheelbarrow tracks that was used to put the dead bodies in my basement.”
“And they lead to here?” she asked.
“Afraid so. For someone to notice everything on our street, you didn’t notice any strange cars that didn’t belong parked over here?”
Her brows dipped.
Was Elenore responsible for some of this? What did I really know about her?
“The only thing that’s been parked blocking my view of your house is an ambulance.”
My heart skipped a beat. “You mean when I fainted?”
“After that,” she said. “I think they were here picking up someone else or bringing you home. I don’t know. I got distracted with my website.”
“You’re sure it was an ambulance?” I asked.
“Of course,” she answered.
I slipped my phone out of my pocket just as Elenore spoke again. “And I don’t know whose car that is parked down the street.”
My gaze flew in that direction, and my heart almost stopped. She didn’t know whose car that was, but I did. I’d just seen it. “Go back inside, Elenore. Go call the cops.”
“And tell them what?” she asked.
“The killer is on my street.”
I’d turned to run back to my house when Elenore grabbed my arm. “It’s dangerous. You can’t go back in there.”
“I have to. I have guests who might be in danger,” I said.
“Wait here.” She ran into her house and returned seconds later. She handed me a bat similar to the one I own. “Take this.”
I didn’t hesitate, grabbing the bat and jogging the same route I’d taken before. I pulled out my phone and sent a text to Keaton and Jimbo, giving them Patricia’s name and telling them she was probably in my house. At the end of the sentence I put several 911’s to let them know this was an emergency.
Slipping around the back of the house, I peered into the kitchen. Brandon was still sitting at the table, holding his hands in the air. Reggie was nowhere to be seen.
“Crap,” I whispered. “It isn’t an angel-of-death doctor, it’s a psychotic paramedic from hell.”
Tears streamed down Patricia’s face as she cocked the gun. I stepped around the corner. “Patricia, put the gun down.”
She waved the gun between both of us. “We’ve been waiting on you, Faith.”
“Don’t hurt him. I’m here,” I held out my hands with the bat in my clutches.
“Hurt him?” Patricia snorted and turned the gun on me. “It’s not him that’s going to die; it’s you. Brandon can’t help himself. He keeps falling for the wrong women. He’s a man, and it’s in his nature to sleep around, but he always comes back to me, to my bed. Isn’t that right?”
Brandon slowly rose. “Patricia, we’re just friends.”
“Like you are with her?” Patricia asked, lifting a brow. “Do you sleep with all of your friends, Doc?”
“Whoa now,” I said, ignoring the gun pointed at me. I dumped my coffee and poured another cup. “Why don’t we sit down and talk about this like adults? Brandon and I aren’t sleeping together, Patricia. We are just friends.”
“Right, go lie to someone else. He was bringing you home at eight thirty in the morning after I spent the night watching his damn kid. He was with you.”
Anger stirred in the air. The satchel in my pocket vibrated. Jared and Veronica appeared in the kitchen with me.
“Brandon was the connection all along?” I asked and turned my gaze to him. “I thought you didn’t know two of the women? I thought they weren’t your patients.”
“They weren’t,” Patricia said. “They were the little whores who were visiting other patients. They smiled at Brandon. They flirted with him in the ER. I saw it all.”
“Patricia, put the gun down. We’ll get you some help,” Brandon said.
“Sit down, Doc. You aren’t calling the shots here,” Patricia growled and then pointed the gun at me and pulled the trigger.
“Patricia, no!” Brandon screamed.
White hot pain exploded in my stomach, spinning me toward the countertop. A splotch of red bloomed on my shirt. The searing agony shot through my body stealing my breath.
My fingers found the knife handle laying on the counter as I struggled to stay standing. Never again would I yell at the 7-year-old for leaving them out. I grabbed a dishcloth and held it against my wound as I turned throwing the knife through the air. The blade wobbled before embedding itself in Patricia’s chest.
Thank God.
She dropped the gun just as I fell to the ground, pressing the rag to my wound to stop the bleeding.
After that, it was all a big blur. Patricia struggled to pull the knife out of her chest, and Brandon stopped her.
“You do that, you’ll die. It hit an artery. That knife is the only thing keeping you alive, and you know it.”
My vision blurred just as sirens sounded through the house.
Patricia went to reach for her gun, but I grabbed it first and held it pointed at her with blurry vision. “Why Mary?”
I needed to know. Mary was too old to be considered a romantic threat.
Patricia didn’t answer.
“Why Mary?” I asked, cocking the trigger.
“That bitch told me my aura was black. That I didn’t have a soul,” Patricia growled. “Just like you told me I needed to pick a new boyfriend.”
“We were both right.” I blinked rapidly, trying to stay awake.
Keaton came through the back door as half of the police force entered through the front.
Jimbo had Patricia at gunpoint, and I collapsed into Keaton’s hold.
“Where’s my son?” Brandon asked, searching the sea of faces. “He was here.”
“I locked him in the basement,” Jared said from across the room. His ghostly apparition not even fazed by what he said.
“He’s locked in the basement.” Both Keaton and I answered.
“I’ll get him, Doc,” Jimbo said. “You can put your doctor skills to the test on the way to the hospital.”
“Her first,” I said, gesturing toward Patricia. “Her wound is lethal.”
Those were my last words before the blurry room flashed out of sight.
Keaton
Chapter 20
Keaton paced the surgical waiting room. He’d make a pass, and then Jimbo would do the same. Other police officers were seated around the room along with Reggie, who demanded to wait too.
Doctor Myers was in ER working on Faith while Patricia was passed off to another doctor. Brandon cared about Faith almost as much as Keaton did.
Female voices carried down the hall, making Jimbo pause in his tracks. “They’re here. Everyone brace yourself.”
Six women and two men burst into the room like tornadoes ready to strike everyone in their path.
“You,” one of the women growled and pointed a finger in Jimbo’s direction.
Jim
bo held up his hands. “Gwen, I didn’t do this.”
“You’re damn right you didn’t. You didn’t protect her. You’re supposed to keep her safe. Why do you think I haven’t run you off yet?”
“Because he’s her best friend,” Keaton said. “And Faith would be pissed at you if she knew you were attacking him.”
Gwen narrowed her eyes and stepped in Keaton’s direction, but Nina, the only sister he’d met, stopped her. “Gwen, this is Keaton. Faith’s Keaton.”
“The other cop who didn’t protect her, great. I can kill two birds with one stone,” Gwen growled.
“She didn’t mean that.” A man dressed in an expensive suit stepped up behind Gwen and wrapped his arms around her waist. “She’s just worried. We all are.” He leaned down and whispered something into her ear.
“Did you catch the killer?” the other man with the sisters asked, flashing an FBI badge.
“Faith did,” Reggie announced. “She figured it out. She saved my dad’s life. If it wasn’t for her, I’d be an orphan.”
No one else in the room could see all of the ghosts crowding around. Keaton’s seven were in attendance, along with Jared and Veronica, and Keaton could only assume the rest were Mary and her witches, swirling overhead.
She better be okay, he kept repeating over and over in his mind. Please be okay.
Jared stepped up beside him. “She will be.”
Keaton shouldn’t have answered the kid with the amount of people in the room, but he did anyway. “I hope you’re right, kid.”
“I’m always right,” Jared answered before he vanished out of sight. Veronica was right behind him, calling out his name as if Jared was a toddler and about to get into mischief.
Faith had been in surgery for three hours before Brandon walked out, removing his mask. The frown made Keaton’s heart clench.
“Dad,” Reggie screamed and ran to his father.
“How is she, Doc?” Dr. Myers met Gwen’s gaze. “It was touch and go, but she’ll be fine. Looks like you’ll still have to wait several more years for her to haunt those people you hate.”
The other women gawked and turned their gaze on Gwen.
Down and Dirty (Bennett Dynasty Book 3) Page 9