Otherworld 11 - Waking the Witch (17 page)

T
iffany lay curled up on her side, under the covers. Her younger daughter still stood on the bed, uncertain. She gave a tentative bounce, and for a second, I saw myself years ago, bouncing away as my mother sang,
Ten little monkeys bouncing on the bed...

My mom. Their mom. Oh, God. Please no.

I touched Tiffany’s neck. She was warm, but I couldn’t find a pulse. I shook her shoulder. Her head lolled back, eyes still closed.

I turned. “Adam—”

He was already running back into the hall. “I’ll get them.”

“Mom?” the older girl said, her voice wobbling.

“She’s sick,” I said.
Liar, liar
. “Take your sister and—”

I stopped. I wanted them out of that room. God, I wanted them out of that room. But I’d just been found over another dead body. I couldn’t stay in there alone. So I scooped up the younger girl and carried her out, motioning for her sister to follow.

“Let’s get the baby, okay?” I said. “The doctor is on the way and your mom—”

I stopped myself before I said “your mom will be fine.” I wouldn’t. When my mother died, they hadn’t told me for days, and that only made it worse.

The baby was howling again. When we walked into her room, she was sitting up, face red, chubby body trembling with exhaustion.

The oldest girl snatched a cartoon character pillow out of the crib. “She isn’t supposed to have that in bed.”

I lifted the baby out. She stopped crying and peered at me through red-rimmed eyes. A hiccup, as if she remembered me. Then a wail. I wasn’t a stranger, but I wasn’t her mother.

I motioned the older girl to the rocking chair and settled the baby in her lap as Bruyn headed down the hall. Seeing us, he stopped. The older officer, right on his heels, almost ran into him.

Bruyn stared at the girls for a second, winced, then turned toward the front door and yelled, “Mom?”

His mother hurried into the baby’s room, clucking and calling the girls by name. I slipped out to follow Bruyn. Adam came up behind me and squeezed my hand. We headed into the master bedroom.

“She’s dead,” I murmured when I was sure the girls couldn’t hear. “I didn’t tell her daughters—”

“Good.” Bruyn checked for a pulse. “Doc’s on the way. We’ll tell them she’s sick until their dad gets here. I’ve called him, but he’s not answering. Probably sees my number and figures I’m just harassing him.” Bruyn straightened and looked at me. “You seem to find a lot of dead bodies, don’t you?”

Adam stepped forward, ready to snap something.

I cut him off. “We just got here. You saw us coming up the road. I had an appointment. The girls got here right after we knocked. We didn’t go in before them. You can ask the neighbor.”

Bruyn picked up a needle that lay beside an open Bible.

So Tiffany Radu had killed herself ... right after I’d threatened her.

“Did you move anything?” Bruyn said.

I shook my head. Adam slipped out as I recited my steps. As I did my gaze kept going to that Bible. Its edges were so perfect it looked as if this was the first time it had been cracked open.

I glanced down at the page. Exodus 22. Something about that twanged a memory. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d been to church, but I knew that chapter. Why?

“Looking for comfort,” Bruyn said, following my gaze. “She wasn’t a churchgoing woman, but people do that at the end, wanting proof they’re going someplace else. Someplace better.”

When the doctor arrived, I went to find Adam. He was looking around the house. As we passed the baby’s room, I glanced in. My gaze went to that pillow on the floor, the one the oldest girl had thrown out of the crib. I paused, staring at it like I’d stared at the Bible, not quite knowing why. Adam didn’t say a word until we were halfway to the Jeep.

“You had nothing to do with Tiffany Radu’s death,” he said.

“Never said I did.”

“But you’re thinking it. That woman didn’t kill herself because of any threat from you, Savannah.”

“So it’s just a coincidence that she came home after a fight with me and committed suicide?”

“She didn’t commit suicide. She was murdered.”

I glanced over sharply. “What’d you see?”

“Not a damn thing. Whoever did it was careful.”

“If you’re trying to make me feel better—”

“I wouldn’t lie to do it.” He took my arm and steered me around a pile of dog shit on the sidewalk, then motioned to the scratches on my forearm. “This woman confronted you in the middle of Main Street yesterday. Told you to stay away from her family and clawed you good. This morning she lured you into an empty building and knocked you flying down the stairs. Does that strike you as someone who’d run off and kill herself?”

“She wanted to protect her family.”

“By tooth and by claw, not by lying down and dying for them.” He unlocked the Jeep’s passenger door and opened it for me. “She was lying on her right side, with her left arm on top of the covers. When the coroner gives his report, he’ll say the injection site was on her left arm.”

“So someone snuck in and injected her while she napped?”

He climbed into the driver’s seat, keys in hand, and turned to face me. “The yard is fenced. There’s a doghouse, but no sign of a dog. No bowls, nothing. My guess is that it died recently. Maybe not a natural death. There’s a vacant house behind theirs, with tall hedges. The killer enters there, hops the fence, picks the lock, and comes in when they know she’ll be alone and asleep. Her daughter said she always napped when the baby did. Someone knew that. Someone who knew her. Like her lover, who wasn’t at home when we got to his place.”

“Alastair.”

“That’s where I’m laying my money, but I’m not ruling out Cody either. Whoever killed Tiffany killed the others, too. She figured out that he killed Ginny, Brandi, and Claire and he realized she had to go-but quietly, so no one would connect the dots.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But Cody could have found out that
she
was the killer, and killed her quietly before she brought them all down. Or Tiffany’s killer could be the person who has been stalking both of us, related or unrelated to the other deaths.” I sighed and leaned back in the seat. “Aren’t clues supposed to
eliminate
suspects?”

“So you agree that Tiffany was murdered, then?” he said, finally putting the key in the ignition.

I hesitated. It made sense, but I wanted it to make sense.

“I’ll wait to hear the coroner’s report,” I said. “But it’s a possibility ...” When I trailed off, he glanced over.

“The pillow,” I said. “There was a pillow in the crib. The oldest girl said it didn’t belong there. I just remembered why. When Logan and Kate were little, Elena wouldn’t put pillows or stuffed animals in their cribs. They’re smothering hazards. Tiffany’s baby is a little old for that, but I didn’t notice anything else in the crib. Even if Tiffany did decide to start giving her pillows, that one was for decoration, not sleeping on.”

“So someone put a pillow in the crib—Shit.”

He didn’t say what he was thinking. I already knew. I could picture it, the killer standing over the crib, looking down at the screaming baby, pillow in hand, thinking the unthinkable ...

As we waited to turn onto Main Street, a tow truck drove by. Hoisted on the back was a black BMW. My gut seized, and I stared after it as it disappeared from sight.

“That Michael’s car?” Adam asked quietly.

I nodded.

“Okay, we’re getting you back to the motel. That’s enough for one day. Time for rest, dinner—”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I want to be,” I said, softly enough that I didn’t think he’d hear, but he reached over and squeezed my hand.

“I know,” he said. “But let’s take a break from toughing it out, okay? We’ve done a lot this afternoon. Time to back up, give it time to gel, and plan our next move.”

I couldn’t argue with that. A car honked behind us and Adam pulled onto Main Street.

J
esse was on his way back to the motel when I called to tell him about Tiffany. He grabbed takeout from the diner and as we ate, we talked about Tiffany. As with Michael’s death, he wasn’t convinced it was murder. If Tiffany found out her husband was the killer, it made sense to him that she’d end her own life rather than face the consequences.

“Look at her,” he said. “Typical middle-class housewife. Appearances are everything. She couldn’t handle it.”

I disagreed, but didn’t say so. After arguing that Michael had been murdered, I hated to sound paranoid.

Jesse’s druid friend had gotten back to him. He was sure the ritual wasn’t druidic. So no movement on that front. What he did have was a lead on Cody’s illegal activities, but he wasn’t ready to share.

“If I’m right, it’s the same one Detective Kennedy was following,” he said. “Which means I want to tread carefully. I’m pretty sure there’s a supernatural link, even if Cody isn’t it. I bet that’s what his wife was talking about—she was using her powers to protect or promote the business. Anyway, it’s pretty vague and you guys have enough to work on, right?”

“Right.”

“Then I’ll take this, and when I have something, I’ll let you know.”

I WALKED JESSE back to his room and we chatted a bit. When I returned, Adam was stretched out on my bed, working on his laptop. He had a box of cookies beside him. Paige’s cookies and the commune ones. Paige’s were gone. I snatched up the others before he finished those, too.

“You got your own box,” I said.

“Yours was open. And I earned them. I found your druidic ritual.” He turned the laptop toward me.

“Seriously?”

“Yep. There’s a reason Jesse’s friend didn’t recognize it.”

He motioned at the screen, which showed a scanned page from our personal database. I checked it out.

“It’s definitely the same ritual,” I said. “Everything fits, including the sacrifice of a woman between her twentieth and thirtieth year.”

He pointed to the label at the top.

“A hunting ritual?” I said.

“Yep. For boar hunting with spears. You dip the tips into the sacrificial victim’s blood and they’ll strike the boar in the heart. Not a lot of call for that these days.”

“So it’s fake,” I said.

“It looks real enough ...”

“No, I mean it’s a red herring. Whoever killed those women wanted it to look like a real supernatural ritual. They dug up something so old that any supernatural investigating would know it was real, but would probably never ID it.”

“Or a human could have dug it up from an old book and decided it’d be away to throw investigators off the trail.”

“Sure, but my explanation is way more interesting. And speaking of interesting, I’ve been thinking about what Ginny Thompson was doing up at the cookie cult ...”

MY THEORY? BLACKMAIL. Someone might have commented on a resemblance between her and Alastair Koppel. She’d found out when he’d left town and put two and two together.

Then she looked at that big farm on the hill and to her, it would seem palatial. Her daddy, who’d never paid a dime in child support, now living the high life with a harem of young women. He owed her, and she was going to collect, and if he didn’t like that, she’d tell his secret to the world.

Or Brandi had pushed her into it. From what I heard of their relationship, that seemed more likely. It was Brandi’s idea, so she’d gone with Ginny to make sure she carried through.

Blackmail was a good motive for Alastair not to call the cops. And a good motive for Alastair—or Megan—to kill the blackmailers.

Adam had come to the same conclusion about why the young women went there. He wasn’t as convinced that it led to Ginny and Brandi’s deaths, but agreed there was enough of a possibility that we should get off our asses and head back up to that house for a chat with Megan.

WE STOPPED AT the police station first. Adam went in alone to properly introduce himself to Bruyn, chat him up, put him at ease ... Somehow he thought he could do that last part better without me. Go figure.

When he came out, he said, “Tiffany was injected in the left arm. And it was the back of her arm, which would be easy for someone else to do, but awkward to do yourself.”

“They think it’s murder then?”

He shook his head. “No, but when I raised the possibility, Bruyn jumped like a starving mutt at a hot dog. He smells Cody all over this ” one.

“Good. That’ll keep Cody busy while Jesse investigates his angle.”

I WAS PERFECTLY willing to throw Adam to the guy-starved girls as a distraction, but he was having none of it. He wanted to snoop around the property on his own, so we switched seats and I dropped him off at the base of the hill.

Once the girls realized I was alone, they were happy to leave me to Megan. And Megan was happy to chat. I think she found me interesting—more of a distraction to her than a cute guy.

And I think the words
Ginny Thompson’s late-night visit
helped her decide she’d better talk to me.

“We have an informant, I take it,” she said as we sat at the picnic table in the backyard. Her tone was light, amused even. I searched her face for any signs she was covering a sudden panic attack, but she was cool as ice cream. Glass-shard-laced ice cream. Sweet and smooth and deadly.

“Multiple ones,” I said, not wanting Vee to bear the brunt of it. “Seems some of your girls aren’t too comfortable with the lies they’re hearing, like the one where Alastair told me he never met Ginny or Brandi.”

“Yes, they were snooping around the property. Yes, I lied and I’m sure Alastair did, too. We caught them ransacking our outbuildings, looking for our secret drug stash. A few weeks later, they turn up dead. Do you really think we were going to share that information?”

“So why not call the cops when you actually caught them?”

“We didn’t need that kind of attention.”

“From what I heard, it was Alastair who said no cops.”

She paused, then said, “Do you know where I grew up, Ms. Levine?”

“No idea.”

She smiled. “Liar. I’m sure you did your research. What it didn’t tell you, though, is the
kind
of neighborhood I grew up in. I saw a lot of Ginnys and Brandis there. I had some for friends. And one thing they all had in common? No one would ever call the cops on them. People told themselves they were doing those girls a favor, giving them a second chance. They weren’t. They were just teaching them what they could get away with. So, yes, I wanted to call the police. Alastair persuaded me not to.”

“Because it would call undue attention to the group.”

“Particularly so considering what they were looking for. People expect to find two things at a place like this: sex and drugs. But the locals have met the girls and they know we aren’t keeping sex slaves. So Ginny and Brandi figured we must have drugs. If those suspicions got out, it would plant a new seed in the townspeople’s minds—one that’ll worry them more than group sex.”

Her explanation made sense. It didn’t mean it was the truth, of course. Megan wanted to protect her investment here. She knew exactly what to say.

“I know why Alastair didn’t want to call the police,” I said. “He was protecting Ginny.”

“Maybe.” A twist of a smile. “His faith in humanity extends a bit too far sometimes.”

“No, I mean Ginny specifically. I know about their connection.”

“Connection?” Her confusion seemed genuine.

“He used to live in Columbus.”

“I know. That’s why he chose it. He knows the town and they know him—at least the older folks do.” She paused. “Do you mean he knows her family?”

I said yes, that was it, and she said he hadn’t mentioned that to her. I looked hard for some sign of dissembling, but found none. Alastair hadn’t told her Ginny was his daughter.

I saw Adam peeking out from behind the barn, so I said my good-byes, and motioned to Adam that I’d meet him at the bottom of the hill.

I PULLED THE Jeep over to the side of the gravel road. Adam climbed into the passenger seat.

“Find anything?” I asked.

“Nope.” He started doing up his seat belt as I pulled off the shoulder. “Got into the shed with the Santeria stuff, but they’ve taken off the lock and cleared out the back room. Filled it with rakes and—”

The Jeep jumped forward. I slammed against my seat belt. Adam hit the dashboard.

“Shit,” he said. “Can you pop the clutch
after
I’m belted in?”

“That wasn’t—”

A crunch and another jolt, this one making the Jeep rock. I twisted to look over my shoulder just in time to see the front end of an SUV hit us again, wrenching my neck hard. I caught the grill in the rearview mirror and recognized the emblem.

“Cody Radu,” I said.

“Drive,” Adam said.

“Like hell.”

Cody had pulled back and was idling, waiting. I reached for the door handle. Beside me, Adam cursed as he tried to get his open. The rear impact damaged the frame, making the doors stick. Mine came free first. Cody was driving up alongside the Jeep, moving fast. Making a break for it. An energy bolt in his back tire would stop that.

I started opening the door.

“Savannah!” Adam yelled. “Watch—”

Cody swung the SUV into the side of the Jeep. The door crunched shut, metal squealing as the SUV sheered along it.

“Goddamn it!” I said. “God-fucking-damn it. What the hell is he—?”

“Put it in reverse and go,” Adam said. When I didn’t answer, he grabbed my shoulder. “Go, Savannah, or I’ll yank you over here and do it myself.”

“I’m not running away,” I said as Cody did a three-point turn in front of us.

“I didn’t say that, did I? Drive in there.”

Adam pointed down two ruts that led into a field. “You want to get him? You can’t do it here where anyone can drive by. He’s got a four-by-four. He’ll follow.”

I nodded and turned the ignition key. The Jeep clunked as we started forward, but still ran. I turned onto the makeshift road just as Cody roared up.

I hit the gas. The Jeep flew along the path. Jarred a few of my fillings loose, but I kept my foot down, hitting the ruts and sailing over them like a Jet Ski going against the tide.

When I tried to look in the rearview mirror, Adam said, “Eyes on the road. I’ve got it.”

“Can I get a play-by-play?”

“You’re winning.”

The track crossed a field and continued toward a patch of forest.

“Head in there,” Adam said as if reading my thoughts.

“And Cody?”

“Trying valiantly to keep up, and battering the shit out of his fancy SUV.”

I smiled.

“I don’t think he has the four-wheel drive engaged,” Adam said. “If he even knows how to engage it.”

I floored it when we hit an open patch. We sailed over a streambed and came down with a crunch that made Adam clasp the grab bars.

I eased off the gas as we hit the forest—a spotty stand of trees with another field visible on the far side. Branches scraped the Jeep and Adam winced, but said nothing.

“I’ll cover the damage,” I said. “Even throw in a new top.”

He didn’t smile at that, just kept his gaze on the path behind us. “It’s not the Jeep I’m worried about.”

“You think I should have gone back to town?”

“And let him think he’s spooked you? No. Whatever his problem is, it ends here.” He glanced in the mirror. “And it ends now, apparently. Stop the Jeep. He’s stuck.”

I looked behind me. Cody’s SUV was caught in that streambed we’d shot over.

“I’m guessing you want to take lead on this?” Adam said.

“Please.”

“Just watch out,” he said. “His truck could come free at any second.”

I twisted in my seat and cast my internal fireball, igniting it under the Lexus’s hood. A bang. The tires stopped spinning. Smoke curled from the grill.

Adam chuckled. “Or maybe not.”

I got out. At first, Cody had his head down as he tried to get the engine running again. I was a few feet away when he saw me.

He threw open his door. I slowed, knockback spell at the ready. He slammed the door and I saw that his hands were empty. I relaxed the spell, but stayed on alert.

“Where’s your boyfriend?” he called as he advanced on me.

“Unconscious, thanks to that little stunt of yours.”

Cody peered past me. When he didn’t see Adam, he gave a humor-less smile. “He needs to be a little faster getting his seat belt on.”

“Go to hell. If he’s hurt—”

“Then that’s his own damn fault for having a murdering bitch of a girlfriend. I hope he is hurt.” He advanced on me as I stood my ground. “In fact, I hope he’s dead. That won’t bring Tiffany back, but it’ll make me feel better. So will this.”

He swung so fast I didn’t see it coming until the last second. I tried to twist but his fist connected with my shoulder. I fell back, gasping in shock more than pain. Rage filled me and I lashed out with an energy bolt. As the last words left my mouth, I thought, Oh, shit!

I looked down at my fingertips, expecting to see the bolt flying from them. But they were just outstretched toward Cody, nothing happening. Launching that spell against a human had been reckless—I must have subconsciously sabotaged it.

“You want me to stop?” Cody said, looking at my outstretched fingers.

Adam had slipped through the trees, out of Cody’s sight. Now he rounded the rear of the SUV, his eyes blazing. I waved him back before Cody saw him. Cody swung again. I dodged and lifted my fingers in a knockback, but he charged and kicked my leg out from under me. As I went down, he kneed me in the stomach. Adam rushed forward.

“No,” I said, wheezing and shaking my head.

Adam hesitated. I met his gaze and he pulled back behind the SUV, hovering there, waiting.

“No?” Cody said. “You don’t like—”

Finally I was able to smack him with a knockback. He stumbled against the SUV.

“Getting clumsy?” I said.

He lunged forward. I hit him again, this one hard enough to knock him to the ground.

“I don’t know what you’re on,” I said. “But it’s powerful stuff, Cody. You can barely stand up. Now, what’s this about me being a murdering bitch? You think I killed Tiffany? There’s a commune full of girls who can testify that I was with them when it happened, so don’t—”