8 Sweet Payback (14 page)

“Mom? You want the address or
not?”

“Yes! Definitely.” She grabbed a
pen and wrote down what Kelly told her.

“You want directions? The map’s
right here.”

Oh god, that
was
invasive. But she wrote it all down. Then she walked around the
house and closed all the shades.

Chapter
16

Sam carried her salad plate to the
dishwasher, wanting to erase the disturbing feeling that had settled over her.
What if that creepy Starkey guy had one of those gadgets and looked up Beau’s
home address? What if any of the many lowlifes and villains he came across did
the same thing? She double-checked the locks all around. Took a deep breath.
This voice in her head was sounding too much like her mother’s.

Settling on the sofa with a cup of
tea and the books Cora Abernathy had given her, Sam flipped one of them open.
Maybe plain old-fashioned witchcraft wasn’t as scary as other things these
days. But the words didn’t hold her attention and she decided maybe it was
better use of her time to make some phone calls.

Cora’s notes had given information
on two covens. The one that held an annual festival seemed a little too New-Age
and public for Bertha Martinez’s style, so Sam called the other contact person,
listed only as Mary.

She had a little difficulty
explaining exactly what she wanted. Mary kept letting Sam talk without actually
answering anything.

Finally, she said, “We take oaths
of silence, you must understand. Few of us would give out our names, much less
discuss what goes on in our rituals.”

“I’m sorry—” Sam stammered. “I
don’t want personal information. What I have is more of an artifact, I guess
you might say. All I know about it is the name of the woman who gave it to me.”

“Perhaps this woman—you said her
name was Bertha Martinez? It could be that she was a solitary practitioner.
Many witches do not care to work with others.”

“I don’t even know that Bertha
considered herself a witch, but I have a feeling you might be right about a
solitary practice. Do you have any ideas how I might learn more about this
item?”

The woman at the other end of the
line paused for a long time, considering. “I can take a look at it. It might
have something to say for itself.”

Sam was beginning to wonder if
this was the right track for her at all, but she agreed to meet Mary at a local
coffee shop the following afternoon. She tried to formulate questions to ask of
the witch when they met, but by this time her attention refused to focus. She
let the dogs out the back door, stepping outside, herself, to stare into the
black sky. The long, brilliant tail of a meteor turned her thoughts from the
troubling forces of man to the more soothing forces of nature.

When Ranger and Nellie returned,
with a chill on their fur and happy smiles on their faces, Sam settled them
into their crates for the night, rechecked the locks and went upstairs. Snuggled
into the lonely king-sized bed, she called Beau to make sure all was going well
on his nighttime patrol and to tell him goodnight. He sent her a kiss—clearly,
he was alone in his car—and told her to sleep well. She did, for awhile.

In the dream she was back in Ireland,
in the very masculine study at her uncle’s home. Terrance O’Shaughnessy came
into the room, wearing the nightshirt from the last time she’d seen him, with a
striped robe of rich fabric and leather slippers. He greeted her familiarly,
joy lighting his lined face.

“Uncle Terry, you promised to tell
me the story behind this,” Sam said, holding up the carved wooden box she’d
found in his bookcase. The twin box to her own.

“Ah, yes child, I did. And I
shall.” He moved to the fireplace in the corner and bent to strike a long match
to the stack of kindling and logs. “Come, sit,” he said, pointing to the pair
of armchairs near the comforting glow.

Sam carried the box with her and
walked toward him.

“You know, Samantha, that I
traveled the world while I was alive,” he said, settling into his chair. “I had
the opportunity to visit many interesting places. I collected many fine pieces
of art, many fascinating items. This one—it does things. Things that I cannot
explain, things no one else would believe.”

Sam felt her pulse quicken. Yes! She
wanted to tell him how well she understood what he was saying. But she woke up.

No
—no, no.

She stared around the bedroom,
seeing only faint outlines in the near-perfect darkness. For the second time,
she felt robbed of the truth. Terry had been ready to share this story with her
last fall. And then he died. She sat up and raised the comforter to her face,
burying the urge to cry out.

With a sigh, she got up and made
her way to the bathroom, finding her carved box on the vanity by the glow of
the tiny nightlight in the corner. She pressed her palms against the top of it
and closed her eyes, hoping for a vision of her uncle, for some words from him.
But nothing came. After a time, she gently patted the box and went back to bed.

The dream never returned and Sam
was surprised to wake at daylight, refreshed by an uninterrupted sleep. By the
time she had brushed her teeth and dressed she began to wonder if she had
imagined the episode. Was it possible to dream that you’d had a dream?

She dumped out her jewelry and
carried the box downstairs, reviewing her plans for the day as she tended the
dogs and gathered the witchcraft books and papers. Finish the windows at the
big house—and yes, she would call upon the energy from the box; her muscles
still felt the effects of yesterday’s labor—then back to town for her meeting
with Mary. She debated whether to tell the woman about the Irish connection or
last night’s dream.

That decision could be made later;
right now she wondered how the night had gone for Beau. She dialed his cell.

“It stayed pretty quiet here,” he
said, his voice sounding weary enough that Sam almost felt guilty for her night
of solid sleep.

“Can I buy you breakfast?” she
asked. “If the café there is open?”

“It is and you may. If I don’t get
a lot of coffee in me soon, I’ll be asleep in this car.”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
She made space in her pack for the wooden box, then headed out the door.

She could smell the coffee almost
the minute she got out of her truck, which she parked beside Beau’s cruiser in
front of the building with its Old West wooden façade. Toward the back of the
single room she spotted Beau at a table.

“Long night, huh,” she said,
rubbing his shoulder as she stepped over to take the chair across from his.

“Too long. I don’t know which is
worse—trouble flaring up or sitting around with nothing to do but make myself
stay awake.” He nodded at the offer of a refill from the teen waitress who
approached.

“So, no new leads about Lee or
about Jessie?” Sam asked as she studied the menu.

He glanced around the near-empty
room and lowered his voice. “Can’t remember if I told you, I had an angry call
from Angela Cayne’s father yesterday. Guy sounded mad enough to have come after
both men. At first I assumed he was calling from his home, in Houston, but then
I got to wondering. I’m waiting for word from Houston PD on whether they can
confirm that. Story of my job—waiting.”

“Beau, do you think there could be
some sort of
avenger
up here,
somebody local who truly believes he’s doing everyone a favor by getting rid of
both Starkey and Rodarte?”

He turned thoughtful, considering
the idea, but then the waitress came back, looking fresh and perky. Beau
ordered bacon and eggs.

“You need some rest,” Sam told him
after ordering French toast and watching the girl head for the kitchen. “Can
someone relieve you for a few hours?”

“That’s the plan. We’ll keep one
man in town today while the night crew gets a little time off. I’ll probably go
home and crash. For later, we’ll see how the day goes before we decide whether
to keep patrols here another night.”

“Well, I’d offer to trade you a
day of washing windows for a night of sitting in the car, but I have a feeling
that, really truly, neither of us would take that deal.”

He smiled, the dimpled grin and
those ocean blue eyes sending a pang right to her heart. Their meals arrived,
along with a table full of diners—locals who were dressed like construction
workers—so their conversation waned. Twenty minutes later, they parted outside
by their vehicles, Beau promising to keep her posted as the day went on, Sam
saying she wouldn’t wake him up to ask.

Her squeegee and Windex waited on
the kitchen counter at the big house, right where she’d left them. If the place
were haunted, it sure would be nice if the spirits would come in at night and
do some of this work. But they hadn’t.

Sam unzipped her pack and took out
the box, closing her eyes for a moment and then holding it close to her body.
Immediately, the wood began to glow and warmth traveled up her arms. She felt
the suffusion of energy more quickly than usual—was it because she hadn’t used
these powers in a long time? As the small red, green and blue stones on the box
began to glow Sam set it down. She rubbed her hands together to diffuse the tingle,
then put the box back into her pack. When she looked up, the kitchen was filled
with sunny yellow light.

It was almost tangible and Sam
reached out a hand, testing to see if it was real, like smoke. No, it was more
as if someone had turned on theatrical lights with a yellow filter. She walked
toward the large windows that overlooked the valley and when she turned, the great
room also had an aura, this one a disturbing, murky orange. Sam’s heart began
to race.

She opened the door to the terrace
and stepped outside. She backed away from the house; she’d seen auras around
people before, and they often conveyed feelings, such as love or fear, sometimes
motivations, like dishonesty. But a house? How could a building have emotions?
She stared out over the open meadows below and breathed deeply twice. Three
times.

When she turned toward the house
again, the windows revealed only clear air and the normal appearance of the
place.

Okay, that was weird.

She went back inside, a little
tentatively, feeling hyper-aware. The room felt cold, much colder than when
she’d arrived. She stared at the doorways to the other rooms. The place was
hollow and deadly quiet. Up the stairs, the same. She walked through every room
and looked inside every closet. No one was here with her.

All right, Sam, you gotta shake this off and get to work.

After fast-walking out to her
truck and back she shook her arms, rotated her shoulders, and went back inside.
No colors, no chills.

She cursed her too-vivid
imagination, picked up her cleaning supplies and marched up the stairs. Two
hours later, every window on the second floor sparkled to within an inch of its
life. Sam rechecked that entire level and decided it would pass muster.

Downstairs, the kitchen and great
room still looked normal and Sam began to question whether she’d really seen
any colors at all. Maybe with all this talk of witches and magic her
imagination had simply been working overtime. That had to be it.

She started to take her cleaning
supplies to the truck but remembered that she hadn’t yet done windows in the
smaller rooms in the other ground-level wing. She picked up clean towels and
headed that direction. She would start with the rooms nearest the back, the
guest suites, and work her way toward the front door.

The first guestroom door was
closed and when she opened it, the entire room filled with a hot, red haze.

“Whoa!” She backed away, slamming
the door, feeling her eyes go wide. Her breath came in short huffs.

Down the corridor, near the home’s
front door, she glanced into the wine cellar. The air in here was clear but the
moment Sam stepped into the chamber, it began to take on a purplish tint and
before she could back out, the air had become murky with the stuff.

“Okay, this is ridiculous. I do
not need to be here this badly.” She deposited her cleaning gear back in the
kitchen, picked up her pack and left.

Out in her truck, logic prevailed.
What had just happened in that house? Evidently, there was some type of
reaction to each room as soon as Sam entered it. The colored fog and variations
in temperature vanished once she left the space. But it didn’t happen
everywhere; she’d spent time upstairs with no bad effects. Not to mention that
she’d been here multiple times in recent days and perceived nothing out of the
ordinary aside from warm and cold. Unless one counted an abandoned
multi-million dollar house as typical. So, what was different?

She glanced at the seat beside
her. The box. Even deep in her pack, in the kitchen, that house could sense the
box’s presence. Sam did a quick little snap-out-of-it head shake. The whole
notion was crazy, impossible, preposterous. Utterly ridiculous. She unzipped
the pack and took a look. The box sat there, ugly but benign. Minding its own
business.

Oh, Sam, Sam . . . what are you doing trying to imagine the box’s
thoughts? Instead of meeting up with a witch this afternoon you need to get
yourself to a psychiatrist.

No, you need to get yourself away from this house.
The place was
flat-out weird. She stuck her key in the ignition and started the truck.
Normalcy—that’s all she wanted right now.

She headed toward home but partway
there remembered that Beau was trying to catch up on a missed night of sleep.
She had far too much pent-up energy to sit quietly around the house for several
hours. So—the bakery was the one place where excess energy could always be put
to good use.

Sweet’s Sweets looked like a happy
little oasis of normal as Sam drove past the front, with its purple awnings and
cheerful displays of cakes and pastries in the windows that faced the sidewalk.
She parked at the back and entered her world of sugar and spice, happy to be
away from things that couldn’t be fixed with an extra teaspoon of vanilla
extract.