2 Dead & Buried (2 page)

“Maybe they killed him somewhere else and dumped him there,” Celeste said as she opened the double wide refrigerator and took out some spinach.

“But why?”
 

“I don’t know,” Fiona said, “I’ll ask Jake later today what he knows.”

“Yeah, I’m surprised he’s not here.” Morgan glanced out the window looking for the handsome former detective and newest member of the Noquitt Police department. Jake Cooper had proved to be an invaluable ally when Morgan had been accused of murdering Prudence Littlefield.
 

Morgan smiled at the way Fiona’s ice-blue eyes got all dreamy when she said Jake’s name. Jake and Fiona had gotten close during the Littlefield investigation and now they were practically inseparable. Morgan tried to push down the pang of sadness she felt for herself.
 

Would she ever be able to find love like that again?

She’d had that kind of love once with her high school sweetheart, Luke Hunter. They’d dated into their early twenties. But Luke had decided he wanted to join the military and had broken it off with her. She hadn’t seen him in over a decade and hadn’t found anyone else that sparked her interest either.
 

Morgan remembered several weeks earlier when she’d
thought
she’d seen Luke downtown. But it hadn’t been him … just someone who looked like him. Still, it had raised all those old feelings, of love and betrayal. She should be over him by now. But …

“… Morgan?” Celeste interrupted her thoughts.

“Sorry, what?”

“Did you say it was a man? What did the guy look like?” Celeste stood in front of the juicer, a cupful of spinach and some green sprouted stuff in her hand.

Morgan’s heart clenched as she thought back to the body on the cliff. “He was a big guy, blonde and muscular. Rough looking. One thing was strange though.”

Celeste raised a blonde eyebrow. “What was that?”

“He had a black mark on his hand. Like a big circle. It just struck me as odd.”

Celeste stood looking at Morgan, chewing her bottom lip, her brows creased with worry.

“Celeste, is something wrong?” Fiona asked.

“It’s just that I had a dream about something similar.” Celeste shrugged and turned back to the juicer. “Just a coincidence, I’m sure.”

Morgan watched her sister, a strange feeling of foreboding starting to spread in her stomach.

“Meow.”
 

Belladonna flopped down over by the back stairs that led to the attic, which was once servants’ quarters and now housed several generations of Blackmoore family cast offs, and proceeded to clean her snow white fur.

“I guess Belladonna agrees.” Morgan opened the cupboard, sifting through the herbal tea bags for chamomile. She could use something to soothe her nerves.

“Do you think we should call Delphine?” Fiona asked, referring to the lawyer who had been instrumental in shielding the girls from the threats of Overton earlier that summer.

“I think Overton was just trying to scare us. I mean, he doesn’t have anything to tie us to the body, since we didn’t kill him.” Morgan plunked her tea cup into the microwave. “We don’t even know if he actually was murdered.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Fiona nodded. “Hey, where’s Jolene?”

Celeste rolled her eyes. “Still sleeping.”
 

Jolene, Morgan’s youngest sister, had only been fourteen when their mother jumped to her death. The three older sisters had tried to raise her as best they could. She’d been a handful, but was recently starting to come around. Still, like most teens, she loved sleeping in.

“Celeste, will you let her know what’s going on out there?” Fiona nodded toward the cliff. “I don’t want her to wake up and panic when she sees the Noquitt Police Department in the back yard.”

“Sure, I don’t go into the yoga studio until noon.” Celeste ran her greens through the juicer producing a cup full of thick green goo.

“I guess we better go open the shop.” Fiona turned to Morgan, car keys in her hand. “There’s nothing for us to do anyway. I’ll call Jake later and find out what Overton’s game plan is, and if we should be worried.”

Morgan shrugged. “I guess you’re right.”
 

She grabbed her tea and headed for the door, the feeling of foreboding growing stronger—whatever Overton’s game plan was, Morgan was pretty sure she wasn’t going to like it.
 

Morgan felt her spirits lift as Fiona pulled her truck up to their shop,
Sticks and Stones
. The old cottage that had been in the family for generations, sat at one of the highest points in their town of Noquitt, Maine. It was quaint with antique weathered cedar clapboards, crisp white trim and an abundance of flowers.

Set back in the woods, the shop was just slightly off the beaten path, but not so out of the way that it discouraged customers. In fact, the wooded location helped add to the mystique of the herbs and crystals the girls sold.

Morgan finished the last of her tea then hopped out of the truck, eager to get inside and start the day’s work. She always felt content in the little cottage and she needed a little bit of contentment after the morning’s events.

“We need to cut some of these roses.” Fiona pointed to a thick red rose bush to the right of the porch steps which was loaded with a carpet of blooms.
 

“I’ll do that later.” Morgan bent over to smell a rose. She loved having vases full of fresh cut flowers from their garden in the shop and cutting off the blooms would keep the plant flowering all summer.

As she straightened, she felt a prickle at the back of her neck. She spun around, her stomach sinking.
 

Was someone watching her?
 

Narrowing her eyes, she scanned the woods around the shop but didn’t see anything.

“What’s the matter?” Fiona was standing on the porch, her hand poised in front of the electric keypad that disarmed the alarm.

“Oh nothing.” Morgan shrugged. “I guess I’m just jittery from finding that body.”

“No doubt.”
 

Fiona punched in the code and went inside. Morgan followed her in, taking one last backward glance out into the woods before she turned the sign to “open” and closed the door.

Inside, the earthy smell of old wood and herbs soothed her senses. Fiona went straight to her workbench where an array of jewelers tools lay surrounding her latest piece—a moonstone and peridot necklace commissioned by one of their regular customers.

Morgan turned to the left where tall wooden racks with small cubby holes housed a variety of herbs. She picked out some chamomile, loaded it into a tea infuser, and heated some water on her small gas burner.

On the other side of the shop, Fiona let out a sigh. “I can’t stop wondering
why
someone would turn up dead on our cliff. I mean, what was he doing there in the first place?”

“That’s a good question. I don’t think he got there by boat. It’s too treacherous to land anywhere near there. He must have walked in.” Morgan felt a chill run up her spine thinking of a random stranger walking around in their yard while they slept.

“Well, maybe we’ll get some answers once we find out who the guy was and why he was killed. Until then, there’s not much we can do except work.”
 

Fiona turned her attention back to the necklace. Morgan looked at the stack of orders she had for herbal mixtures. Picking one from the top she gathered various herbs from her stock, placing small amounts into a stone mortar for grinding.

The girls worked in silence and time passed slowly, measured by the ticking of the grandfather clock in the back of the store.

Morgan was almost in a trance, grinding together a mixture of ginger, black horehound, raspberry leaf and mint for a seasickness remedy when the bell over the shop door announced a customer.

 
“Hello girls!” Amelia Budding, one of their elderly regulars, shuffled into the shop, her magenta polyester shirt and shorts somehow made her four foot frame seem even smaller.

“Hey, Amelia.” Fiona put down the moonstone cabochon she was working with and stood up. “What can we do for you?”

“Oh I’m looking for some black onyx, you know, to protect myself in case evil descends on the town.” Amelia shuffled toward Fiona’s antique oak jewelry display case, which she was barely tall enough to look down into.

Morgan and Fiona exchanged raised eyebrow looks over her head.

“Evil?” Morgan ventured.

“Well, I heard about the trouble out at your place.”

“And you think some evil menace is involved?” Fiona bent down on the other side of the case and removed a black bracelet.

“Well, I heard tell it might have something to do with pirates … and you know how nasty they can be.”

“Pirates? I thought they died out two hundred years ago?” Morgan narrowed her eyes at Amelia.
Surely the woman couldn’t be serious?

Amelia shrugged and looked across the room at Morgan over the tops of her eyeglasses. “Believe what you want. If you’re great-grandma were alive she’d have some tales to tell you.”

The girls exchanged another look. Morgan was three years older than Fiona and only had the vaguest of memories of their great-grandmother. She wasn’t even sure if they were real memories or just from pictures and stories she’d been told. She didn’t remember anything about pirates in those stories.

Fiona laid the black bracelet on a purple velvet cushion. “This one is all black onyx with a sterling silver clasp.” She unhooked the bracelet, laying it over her wrist to demonstrate how it would look.

“And black onyx will protect me, right?”

“That’s one of its powers. It will also make you stronger and alleviate worry,” Fiona said then raised her head to look at Morgan. “And it can also help you let go of past relationships and move on with your life.”

Morgan ignored the pointed look from her sister. Since Fiona had gotten involved with Jake, she’d been on a mission to get Morgan to forget about Luke and find someone new. It’s not like Morgan didn’t
want
to. She glanced over at the jewelry case warily. Maybe she
should
consider wearing some black onyx.

“It’s perfect.” Amelia unsnapped her purse and dug out an overstuffed wallet, squinting into it as she retrieved some bills.

Fiona rang up the sale and they watched Amelia shuffle toward the door. Just as she reached for the handle, she turned back dramatically, pointing her bespectacled gaze at Fiona and then Morgan.

“You girls be careful now. I think dangerous times are upon us,” she said, then opened the door and shuffled out.

“Is she for real?” Morgan squinted at the door then looked at Fiona.

“Pirates? Seriously? I don’t think so.” Fiona laughed. “She’s almost one hundred years old for crying out loud. She’s probably senile.”
 

Morgan laughed. “Yeah, she’s probably just inventing danger to make her life more interesting. After all, what else is there to do when you get to be in your nineties?”

“Right. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for the body on the cliff that has nothing to do with pirates or some evil menace that’s going to descend on the town.”

“Of course, that would be ridiculous,” Morgan agreed. But, as she turned back to her work, she had to wonder—if it was so ridiculous, why did she have that nagging feeling of doom in the pit of her stomach.

Luke stared at Morgan through his high powered binoculars. She was even more beautiful than he remembered.
 

He was glad to see she still had that long ebony hair he’d found so appealing. His pulse quickened as he remembered the silky feel of it in his hands. And even though he couldn’t see them, his heart clenched remembering her ice-blue eyes that could make him melt with a single look.

He put the binoculars down with a sigh. He was better off not remembering. He’d chosen the military over her. It really wasn’t a decision he had much control over—it was more of a calling he couldn’t ignore … to do his part for the country.
 

He didn’t think it was fair to expect her to wait for him. What if he got maimed or killed in action? He’d loved her too much to put her through that, so he’d broken things off. It had nearly killed him to do it, but he felt she deserved a chance to find someone who could be there for her. His gut churned as he wondered if she’d found that someone.

Seeing her after all these years stirred up feelings that he hadn’t had in a long time. Feelings that he thought were dead and buried … feelings that he had no time for now.

Luke used his Special Forces training to shut off his thoughts. It wouldn’t do him any good to start pining over something he couldn’t have.
 

True, he was no longer in the Special Forces. Now he had a different job. A more dangerous job. That was why he had to push aside his longing to see Morgan. He’d do everything he could to protect her while he insured the success of the job he had come here for, but he had to do that all from afar.

He was afraid of what might happen if he let himself talk to Morgan. Afraid of his feelings, and also of what he might tell her. Morgan always had a way of getting him to spill his guts and he knew he wouldn’t be able to lie to her.