Every Witch Way But Wicked (A Wicked Witches of the Midwest Mystery) (24 page)

Landon shook his head in disbelief and turned his attention back to Ken. For his part, Ken looked like a sweaty mess. The trickle of blood running down the side of his face only made him look more unhinged.

“You know,” Landon lamented. “This is the second time in six weeks that I’ve been in a situation like this – and it has almost all the same players.”

“At least Ken’s not a drug dealer,” Clove said helpfully. “And he’s alone. Last time, we had a lot more crazy people with guns.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I was thinking,” Landon said sarcastically. “I don’t know how you do it,” he swiveled on me.

“Do what?” I grumbled, rubbing my wrists to restore circulation. It was a painful process, but I figured I might need my hands in the next few minutes.

“You find the exact worst situation in the world to get into,” Landon continued. “It never occurs to you that it’s a terrible idea. You just jump in headfirst and see how badly you can screw things up.”

“How is this my fault?”

“Why didn’t you call me from the paper?” Landon challenged.

“I was on my way to find you downtown,” I said.

“No, you were on your way to find Clove and Thistle,” Landon corrected me. “If you happened to run into me, then you would have told me, too.”

“That is so . . . well, true, but I was totally going to tell you,” I said.

“After you told them?”

“Is that really important now?”

“Ken,” my mom interrupted my little spat with Landon. “Just let Twila go. We’ll tell the judge you weren’t really going to hurt anyone.”

“He killed Myron and Ellen,” Aunt Tillie pointed out.

“You’re not helping,” my mom hissed through gritted teeth.

“I didn’t know you wanted me to,” Aunt Tillie sniffed.

“In what scenario – especially this one – would you think I wouldn’t want you to be helpful?” I had heard that tone of voice before. Someone was in for an earful later tonight.

“Can we all focus on me?” Ken asked irritably.

“Of course,” Aunt Tillie said amiably. That was a clear sign she was about to do something awful. “Let’s focus on you, Ken.”

Ken looked appropriately abashed. “Well, then, what about me?”

“There is no money, Ken,” Aunt Tillie said evenly.

“What? That’s not true,” Ken sputtered.

“The money is gone. It has been for years.”

“How do you know that?” He asked.

“Myron told me.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

Crap.

Landon looked surprised. “Yesterday,” he interjected. “Myron has been dead for almost a week.”

“Only his body is dead,” Aunt Tillie said. “His soul is still lingering.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“You’re saying he’s a ghost?” Ken looked stunned.

“He is,” Aunt Tillie said carefully. “And is he ever pissed at you.”

“He told you that Ken killed him? Why didn’t you tell us that?” I practically exploded.

“I forgot,” Aunt Tillie shrugged.

I glared at her openly. “He didn’t tell you that. You’re making it up.”

Landon looked at me doubtfully. “That’s what you’re incredulous about? That she’s making up stuff from a ghost, not that she claims she’s been talking to a ghost?”

Yeah, that was a conversation for another time – like hopefully never.

“He would have told me that, if he’d remembered,” Aunt Tillie argued.

Whatever. “That’s so not the point.”

“Well then, what is the point?” Aunt Tillie asked irritably.

“Where is my money?” Ken screamed.

“I told you, it’s gone.” Aunt Tillie was nonplussed. “Myron moved it to that old cabin in the woods. It burned when the cabin did.”

“They were gold coins,” Ken argued. “They don’t burn like paper money.”

“Yeah, well no one found them,” Aunt Tillie said. “Then the flood of 1998 washed the entire embankment away.”

“No, no, no,” Ken shook his head in disbelief.

“Yes,” Aunt Tillie nodded smugly. “The money has been gone for almost fifteen years. You’ve been out here looking for something that doesn’t even exist.”

“How long have you known this?” Landon asked.

“I told you, since yesterday.”

“That’s impossible,” Landon barked out. “Myron is dead. He’s not a ghost.”

“You don’t know that,” Aunt Tillie scoffed. “You just don’t understand our ways.”

“What ways?” Landon cast a dark look in my direction.

“Not now,” Aunt Tillie said dismissively. “We have other things to deal with. Twila looks like she’s going to pee her pants.”

“And how do you, in your infinite wisdom, think we should deal with this?” Landon looked like he was going to spontaneously combust.

“No one needs your sarcasm,” Aunt Tillie chided Landon. “I understand this is a difficult situation for you, but you’ve got to learn that there’s a time and place for you to deal with your stuff. This is about Twila now. We need to worry about her stuff.”

I heard Clove bite down a mad laugh behind me. The situation really had spiraled out of control.

“I really can’t believe I’m in this situation,” Landon complained.

“Welcome to my world.”

Aunt Tillie straightened up, bringing all of her four feet and eleven inches of height to bear, and stepped in front of Ken. “Let her go, or I’ll make you wish you had never been born.”

“And how are you going to do that?” Ken asked caustically. “I hate to break it to you, but I’m already there.”

“Things can always get worse,” she said evenly.

“I don’t see how,” Ken said bitterly. “What are you witches going to do? Curse me? What could you possibly do to me that’s worse than what I’m looking at right now?”

That’s was the dumbest question he had ever asked – or at least the dumbest question he had asked this afternoon.

Aunt Tillie reached up and dramatically drew her sunglasses away from her face. Her usually brown eyes were tinged with red, and the atmosphere around us was suddenly sparking with invisible electricity that threatened to ignite the dusk sky itself.

I looked up at the previously clear havens and saw the darkening clouds that were now rolling in and felt my stomach drop. Oh shit. The hairs on my arm were suddenly standing on end. She was going to do it. She was really going to do it.

“It’s time for you to do one right thing in your life,” Aunt Tillie said to Ken, taking another step towards him. “Let Twila go and take responsibility for yourself. For your actions. Stop blaming others.”

Ken looked helpless. “I can’t.”

“How did I know you were going to say that,” Aunt Tillie sighed. “Once a coward, always a coward.”

“What are you doing?” Ken screeched. He was looking at the suddenly dark sky and I could tell that any sanity he had left had fled.

“What makes you think I’m doing anything?” Aunt Tillie asked. Her voice had dropped three octaves. She was going for scary, I know, but she was rapidly bordering on demonic.

“You’re making it storm,” Ken said accusingly.

“That’s not possible,” Aunt Tillie scoffed. “That would make me magic . . . or something.”

Or something was right.

“Bay, what’s going on?” The alarm in Landon’s voice tugged at my heart.

“It will be fine,” I said soothingly. “I promise”

“But what’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” I lied. “It’s just one of those sudden fall storms.”

“Sudden?” Landon’s voice had gone squeaky. “This is more than sudden. It wasn’t supposed to storm.”

“It’s her,” Ken pointed at Aunt Tillie with his knife. “She’s calling on the devil to come and get my soul.”

“The devil has had your soul for a long time, Ken,” Aunt Tillie said. She was still using her scary voice. “Maybe he thinks it’s just time to take payment of what is already his?”

“That’s not helping,” I hissed.

“Surrender now, Ken,” Landon suggested. “Maybe the storm will go away if you do?”

“I can’t surrender,” Ken whined. “I can’t go to jail. I won’t survive in jail.”

“He has prison bitch written all over him,” Marnie said knowingly.

“Now you talk?” I glanced at her dubiously. “Now, when it’s too late?”

“When what’s too late?” Landon’s voice sounded like he was miles away instead of feet.

I took a hesitant step towards Aunt Tillie. “Don’t do this.”

“We don’t have another choice,” Aunt Tillie said. “Ken is beyond reason. Can you see another way out of this? One that doesn’t end with Twila’s death?”

“We can talk to him,” I pleaded. “We can work out a trade.”

“You can’t barter with crazy,” Aunt Tillie said, turning back to fix her glowing eyes on me for a second. “You, of all people, should realize that.”

“What is she talking about?” Landon asked.

Aunt Tillie’s red eyes showed me a lot of things – including the sad truth: She was right. I took a deep breath and stepped back away from her.

“Do your worst,” I nodded.

When the lightning struck, it was close. A blinding light filled the clearing and the sound of thunder was deafening. Everyone was thrown back by the shock of it all – and then everything went dark again.

And eerily silent.

“Someone better tell me what just happened! Right now!”

I rolled over and saw Landon sitting on the ground a few feet away from me. He was looking in the direction where Ken had been just a few minutes before. Ken wasn’t there anymore, though, and Landon was climbing shakily to his feet in disbelief.

I looked around in a blind panic for a second. Where was Twila? I was relieved to see her entwined in a pile of arms and legs with Marnie and my mom. They were all grumbling wildly.

“Get off me!”

Thistle and Clove were another few feet away from me, to my left, and they looked a little dirty but unharmed. Aunt Tillie was still standing where she had been before she’d opened the sky above us.

Landon was on his feet. He looked queasy, but he was towering over me as he grabbed my hand and pulled me up beside him.  I basked in his warmth for a second – but the feeling didn’t last. “What the hell is going on?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly.

“Really? Because you don’t seem surprised that your Aunt Tillie threatened Ken with imminent harm and then a lightning bolt struck exactly where he was standing and your aunt, who was also standing there, is fine and Ken just seems to be gone?” Landon was breathing hard. I didn’t blame him.

“I saw exactly what you saw.”

Landon shook his head. “You know more than you’re saying.”

I brushed his hand away and hurried to Aunt Tillie’s side. I was happy to see that her eyes had returned to normal. She didn’t seem at all shaken by the events of the past hour.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she said dismissively. “I am ready for my nap, though.”

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The next week was intense – to say the least. The murder mystery had gone on as planned – and all the tourists seemed to have a good time. Twila’s death scene was a tour de force – or so I heard. I hadn’t actually gotten a chance to see it. Landon and Chief Terry were questioning me – the former having maintained a steadfast
distance since Ken’s disappearance – while Twila was earning her Oscar in the town square.

Chief Terry seemed concerned by Landon’s report of the day’s events, but he had also seemed disinterested in following up on the matter. I think Chief Terry had an inkling of what had happened, but he knew he couldn’t explain it so he was eager to bury it instead.

The official story said that Ken had disappeared in the confusion of the moment – but I knew better. I think Landon knew better, too, but he didn’t want to admit it. He had been shaken when we left the clearing by the creek, but he had also been quiet. I didn’t take his silence as a good sign.

After the dust had settled, I made up with Brian – or at least apologized for suspecting him of murder. He brushed off my apology, but I could tell his nose was still out of joint. I could only hope he didn’t take out the aggression he was obviously feeling on the paper – or me specifically. I still had no idea why he had been searching William’s office so relentlessly. I figured that was a mystery for another time, though.

Marcus and Thistle were lost in their own little world, and he had graciously accepted my apology for thinking that he was killer – even though it was just for a few random minutes. He was now doing constant sleepovers. It was actually nice to have him around, though. He’d done a ton of home repairs in the past week. The guesthouse was looking better and better.

A few days after Ken had disappeared, I had caught a glimpse of Myron and William’s ghosts walking through town together. They had looked happy, like they were catching up on old times. It was about time.

Edith had told me that they had passed on together a few days after that. I guess William’s unfinished business had nothing to do with the money and everything to do with his son. When his autopsy came back, it turned out he had died of natural causes after all. At least Ken didn’t have William’s blood on his hands as well.