Bloodstone (13 page)

He rolled down the driver’s window and leaned his dark, unlined face out, the wind not altering his tight hair one bit.

“You want a ride to the office?” he said.

“I’m on leave, remember? Injured reporter here. But I will take a ride.” I hopped in the passenger seat and my leg thanked me by slowing the pain to a steady ache.

Derek turned the car off, draped his arm over the seat and stared at me, both eyebrows raised. We hadn’t known each other that long, but our professional relationship and the newspaper business in general required a certain amount of mutual respect and a fully functioning bullshit detector. The look on his face told me Derek’s was cranked all the way up to ‘high’.

Crap. He knew something. But what? Which absurd event that dropped in on me these past few days was he aware of?

I read an Einstein quote once that said something like 'the only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once'. I’d bet a million dollars Einstein had never met a Geraghty because from my vantage point, everything was most certainly happening at the same time.

When the lives of my loved ones or my own life is under direct threat of imminent danger, I’m usually fast-thinking and I have to admit, quick-witted. This was not one of those times.

“What?” I said stupidly.

“You gonna sit there with your big green eyes and try to make me think there isn’t a posse parked out by your granny’s house with a big ol’ meat wagon front and center?”

“Really? I had no idea.” That was kind of true, actually. Those poor guests had no idea what they were in for when they signed up for the murder-mystery package. Probably they would never leave their homes again.

I craned my neck as if I could see through the thirty houses that separated the block we were on from Birdie’s corner.

With a snap of my fingers, I said, “You know there is that murder-mystery thing this weekend. That’s probably it. They’re making it look authentic. Can you drop me off on Ruby Lane?” I asked, not a hint of concern in my voice.

“Not until you tell me who died.”

I sighed. What was the use, he would find out soon enough anyway. “Look, all I know is he’s a guest at the inn and his last name is Sayer.”

“Cause of death?”

“Do I look like the coroner?” I was getting a little agitated. Of course I was going to work the story, but until I had more information there wasn’t much to report.

“Well come on, woman, give me something. Was it at least suspicious? Did your granny poison his pancakes or something?”

Anger took control of my mouth before my brain could gag it, mostly because I hated the word ‘granny’. “Drive the damn car, Derek!”

Derek’s lower lip dropped a little bit. “I was kidding, Stacy, but don’t play with me. If there’s something going on, you gotta clue me in.”

The problem was I didn’t even know what was going on at that point, but I suspected soon I would have to come up with something to bring to Shea Parker, my editor, and with the other ‘family’ problems I had to attend to, Derek may have to partner with me on this one. He would have his work cut out for him interviewing the Geraghty Girls but I knew he had more ambitions than snapping photos for our small paper and he was hungry for the opportunity to investigate a story.

It didn’t take long to realize that I needed Derek to have my back on this one. His assistance meant I could steal some time to look into what had happened to my mother—a story newsworthy for the Amethyst Globe as well, although one I would never share with any other reporter. I’m sure its founding father—
my
father—would agree with me on that point.

Maybe it was time to give Derek a break after all.

“I’ll give you everything I know once I know it.”

Derek shook his head. “Uh-uh. Not good enough. You cut me in from point A.”

I sighed to make him think
I
was doing
him
a favor. Mostly because it would be easier to get him to follow instructions, but also because I couldn’t have him going rogue. He would have to check in with me every step of the way because—Goddess forbid—if there was something rotten in the house of Geraghty, I needed to know about it before the rest of the world.

I promised him a co-byline and he started the car.

When we got to Ruby Lane, I told Derek I would text him to let him know when we would meet. Then I called Shea Parker, my dad’s old business partner and my boss, and left a message asking if he was available to come to the office today. Parker texted back, said he was making chili and
how about noon
? I agreed, forwarded it to Derek and knocked on Chance’s door.

Before he answered, my cousin, Cinnamon, sent a message that she was on her way home from the airport and couldn’t wait to see me. Said she had a surprise.

I didn’t bother telling her that I had a few surprises myself and agreed to meet in the afternoon at her place.

If Chance had told me on the phone what he had discovered, I never would have made any of those plans.

THIRTY-NINE

Chance swung the door open before I reached the stoop. He looked a bit harried and his face was moist as if he had been working out, but he was wearing a tight navy tee shirt rather than the usual sleeveless jersey he wore to pump iron.

“Hey, how did everything go at Birdie’s?” he asked.

I said, “Let’s talk about it later. What did you find?” I didn’t see Thor. “And where’s my boy?”

“Out back with Ivy.” Chance grabbed my hand and said, “Come on. It’s downstairs.”

I tried to ignore the jolt of electricity at his hand engulfing mine as I trotted behind him down the stairs to where Ivy and I had slept last night. The back door opened and coos of Ivy sweet-talking Thor drifted down to us.

“Ivy, come downstairs and shut the door to the basement, please,” Chance called.

The shelf was re-attached to the wall, the trophies back in place and the bed made. Guilt sucker punched me.

“Chance, I would have helped you put the room back together,” I told him.

“Stacy, I’m a contractor. It was no big deal.” He looked at me, lowered his voice and said, “I’m sure you can think of a way to make it up to me.”

I elbowed his shoulder and Ivy bounded the stairs.

“Did you tell him, Stacy?” Her face was flushed as if she had run all the way here.

I shook my head, widened my eyes to indicate I had not and didn’t plan on it right now, thank you.

Ivy just nodded and feigned a hang-nail.

Chance was busy fiddling with a lamp that was on the shelf. Either he hadn’t heard her or he chalked it up to nothing important.

“Chance, what did you call us down here for? What did you find?” I asked.

He reached for the shelf and produced the article Ivy had found in the purple box. The article that had brought her to Amethyst. To me.

“One second.” Chance smoothed the page out on the bed, adjusted something on the lamp again and asked Ivy to run over and wait by the light switch until he signaled to turn it off.

Patience was something I should have acquired years ago growing up with Birdie and her theatrics, Fiona and her love-potions and Lolly and her...well, just Lolly. Somehow though, the trait eluded me.

“Dammit, just tell me!”

I am working on it, though.

“Geez, keep your pants on.” He smirked as he said that, then he said to Ivy, “Now.”

She flipped the switch and the room blackened except for our eyes, our teeth and Ivy’s hat.

All of that was glowing.

“This is what you dragged us down her for? A black light?” I asked.

“Retro,” Ivy said.

I would have gone with creepy. “Chance, 1987 called and said they want their light back and P.S.—chicks
do not
dig it.”

Ivy jumped in. “Actually that was a conference call with 1974 and they want their lava lamp back.”

Chance stiffened next to me as Ivy and I laughed. “Would you two just look please.” All I could see were his eyes narrowing.

“Are you pointing at something? Because if you are I can’t tell,” I said.

“The bed.” His teeth gritted as he spoke. That I could see.

I looked down at the bed and saw a series of slash marks atop a slip of paper. The article. The article I wrote was on the bed. Someone had marked it up in code with glowing ink.

“Ivy, this was what was glowing in your backpack! Not the money you marked with the counterfeit pen.”

I thought that ink didn’t glow. I had used it at the Black Opal enough times and that place could get awfully dark after last call. The article was what I saw that glowed—and even pulsated.

Kind of like it was doing right now.

The letters appeared to be coming at me in 3-D. I looked at Ivy. She was staring at the note. Did she see that? Did Chance?

Chance said, “I have no idea what kind of code that is but it has to be some kind of message either to Ivy or you, Stacy.”

“It’s Greek to me,” Ivy said.

The letters seemed to float off the page. Danced around me. Every word composed of simple slash marks. Some diagonal. Some straight. There were circles too, which I could only guess was circling words or letters in the actual text of the newspaper article. It would be tricky to decode and time consuming, but I knew it could be done and had to be done fast.

“Ivy, run up and grab my laptop.”

She bounded up the stairs.

One word popped out at me. The only one my brain could instantly translate.

Because I had seen that language before.

The word was
ivy
.

IVY GERAGHTY’S PERSONAL BOOK OF SHADOWS

by Ivy Geraghty

Entry #12

Oh joyous day! A hidden message. A secret code. Finally! A step closer to uncovering The Truth. Watching my sister work her magic sends shivers down my spine. (Pretty sure Chance feels the same way, but Stacy is, like, sooooo oblivious.) I bring Sister her trusty tool for cracking codes. (Okay, so it’s not The Book, it’s a computer, but whatever.)

-Ivy Geraghty, Junior Apprentice Warrior Goddess (in training)

FORTY-ONE

Ivy had left the door open when she went up the stairs and Thor sauntered down, trotted over for an ear scratch, then curled up near the heat vent. The light from upstairs was chasing away the darkness as I turned to Chance.

“Thank you and your black light,” I said.

“You know, chicks did dig it once. My dad told me so.” He grinned.

I grinned back. “They also dug mullets. Things change.” He knew I was teasing him and he chuckled. That was the thing about Chance. He was never threatened by women. Over-protective at times, at least with me, but never threatened.

I had forgotten how easy it was to be with him. How much fun we used to have together. After I moved back and began dating Leo, I kept my distance from Chance. Out of respect for both of them and because I didn’t want to send mixed signals.

I missed his friendship.

Ivy fluttered down the stairs, flipped the light switch and said, “Got it!” Burst my thought bubble just in time. There were more important things to worry about right now than my love life.

Like what the hell the message was trying to tell us.

“So do you know the code? Do you know what it says?” Ivy was so excited she was bouncing, her long hair flipping up in ribbons. Thor caught her excitement and hopped over to lean against her. He nearly knocked her over as he looked from Ivy to Chance to me, waiting for someone to explain what all the fuss was about.

“It’s written in Ogham. An ancient language of the Druids,” I told her. “It was named after Ogma, Celtic God of Eloquence.”

“It looks like what I’ve seen on rune stones,” Ivy said.

I nodded and turned on my laptop. “The structure of the letters is similar, yes, but runes are typically Germanic. The Celts never used rune stones for divination.” I looked up at her. “But they did use this.”

Chance said, “You mean this is a magic language?”

The laptop was still booting up next to the note on the bed. I looked at Chance, pointedly. I had never been all that comfortable with the word magic, or at least, the present day connotation of the word. As Birdie had taught me, magic is simply the culmination of energy and will.

“It was a secret,
ritualistic
language used in the 5th and 6th centuries across Celtic lands. Sometimes for spellcasting, sometimes in divination or to call the gods, but also to pass messages. It was so secret, in fact, that the alphabet was guarded by priests and scholars alike. When they needed a written record of something, they used Greek letters. Confused the hell out of Julius Caesar who assumed the Gauls felt the written word was taboo. He wrote about it in his
Commentaries on the Gallic War.
Of course, the real reason was to protect Ireland from the Romans, which Caesar never did invade.”