Pecan Pies and Homicides (21 page)

“What about this morning? I thought you might want company at the police station.”

She turned and resumed slicing the cucumber. “You work so hard, Hugh. I wasn't going to ruin your day off by having you sit on one of those uncomfortable chairs in the station's lobby.” She scooped the cucumbers into a bowl and started cutting a tomato into wedges. “I wasn't nervous at all about talking with Hardy. He and I have come to know each other by now. And you're right. He won't rest until he nails this guy.”

Hugh opened the front door and called the dogs. Once he'd petted and praised them both, Hugh began to talk about the underwater search. Ella Mae really wanted to ask if his regulator hose had malfunctioned, but she couldn't do so without revealing that Reba had spied on him. She also knew that this wasn't the time to determine whether her boyfriend was a water elemental or not. She had a fire elemental to deal with first.

The oven beeped and Ella Mae took out the hot pie and set it on a heart-shaped trivet. The scent of melted butter and roasted turkey wafted through the room. Hugh leaned over the pie, inhaled, and grinned. “That smells like Thanksgiving.”

“I hope you're hungry. I nibbled on stuff while I was making dough at the pie shop, so I'm sticking to salad.”

“Sure, fatten me up like my name was Hansel.” Hugh tapped on the nearest wall. “Nope. Not gingerbread.” He kissed her cheek. “And you're far too beautiful to be a witch.”

I wouldn't count on that,
Ella Mae thought ruefully and served Hugh his supper.

As they ate, Hugh told her about a particularly rowdy Dalmatian who'd been enrolled at Canine to Five on Friday. “I think he just needs attention.” He went on to describe the dog's personality in detail, and though Ella Mae tried to listen, her thoughts kept flitting between the missing pages in her purse and the wall of photographs featuring Rand Dockery.

Ella Mae wondered if she'd done the right thing by bargaining with Loralyn. She didn't trust any of the Gaynors, but she'd had to get those pages. It wasn't as if she could march into the police station and tell Officer Hardy to arrest Rand. She had no concrete evidence that he'd been involved in either Eira's or Barric's deaths. She'd made a wild assumption, which, based on Loralyn's reaction, turned out to be correct, but the police couldn't arrest a man based on hearsay. And there was something else to consider. Anyone, being of a magical nature or not, who tried to put handcuffs on a fire elemental could be seriously injured. Or killed.

As Hugh cut himself another wedge of pie, Ella Mae considered the likelihood of Rand Dockery surrendering to the authorities. It was all too easy to envision him packing a bag in preparation to start a new life elsewhere. Ella Mae's stomach knotted with anxiety at the thought. And if he wasn't busy buying plane tickets, was he still watching her? Had he seen her talking with Loralyn? While she enjoyed Hugh's company, was Rand planning to punish her by burning the grove and murdering her mother?

Hugh put down his fork and yawned. “Sorry,” he said, his voice sounding thick and groggy. “It's so nice and warm in here. And I'm really full.” He leaned back in his chair, his shoulders drooping. His entire body relaxed and he gave Ella Mae a drowsy, boyish smile that she found completely endearing.

If you knew what I've done, you wouldn't look at me that way,
she thought and put an arm around his back. “Come on. Let's move this party to the sofa.”

She'd barely gotten Hugh settled before his head lolled back on the throw pillow and he closed his eyes. “So tired,” he murmured as Ella Mae pulled off his boots. She helped him stretch out and then covered him with a blanket. Chewy hopped onto the sofa and curled into a tight ball by Hugh's feet while Dante flopped down on the hearthrug. It wasn't long before Hugh's snores mingled with the steady breathing of the two contented dogs.

Hoping that Hugh had eaten enough pie to keep him in dreamland for several hours, Ella Mae ran upstairs and packed a tote bag with two beach towels, her heaviest wool sweater, and a pair of thick cotton sweatpants. She then scooped Hugh's key ring off the coffee table, bundled up in her coat and hat, and left.

As soon as the lights of Partridge Hill vanished in her rearview mirror, she called Suzy. “I got the missing pages. Were you able to pinpoint the deepest part of Lake Havenwood?”

“Yes. I found a free database on the world's lakes. You'll need to dive about one hundred and fifty feet down. And from a very useful geological database, I discovered that the exact spot is really close to the island in the middle of the lake. It's like the world just falls away from the island's southern shore.”

Ella Mae felt her heart lift. “Reba and I can row our boat there. Our dock points right at the island.”

“Back up a second,” Suzy said. “What do the pages say about the creature?”

“I don't know yet. I'll stop over and we can read them together. But as soon as we're done I'll need to run. I fed Hugh an enchanted pie and he's sleeping like a coma patient, but I don't know if I'll have all night to do what I need to do.”

“Which is what?” Suzy said. “Don't tell me you're going after the Flower of Life
tonight
!” She groaned. “Actually don't answer that. Just hurry up and get here, okay?”

Ella Mae did as Suzy requested, and ten minutes later, the two friends were bent over the pages from Rupert Gaynor's book.

“Oh, here's the part about the creature!” Suzy exclaimed, but Ella Mae was a sentence ahead of her and her throat had turned so dry that she was unable to speak.

Legend speaks of a guardian bearing a resemblance to a Nile crocodile,
Gaynor had written.
However, this predator has flippers in lieu of legs, allowing it to move with astonishing speed.

Ella Mae recalled a television documentary she'd seen showcasing the world's fiercest reptiles. The show had featured a clip of a Nile crocodile attacking a wildebeest. The wildebeest had been wading in the shallows when the massive croc struck without warning, dragging the doomed animal into the water. She remembered the froth of churning water and the shrill, wrenching noises of panic and pain the wildebeest had made as it struggled in the croc's viselike jaws.

I'm going to face something even deadlier,
she thought fearfully. According to Gaynor, Lake Havenwood's monster was more agile, and twice as long as a Nile crocodile.

“This thing sounds like a
Liopleurodon
,” Suzy said, her voice quavering. “An aquatic dinosaur from the Jurassic period. I remember a particularly frightening illustration in a book called
Top Prehistoric Predators
.” Reaching for her laptop, she hit a few keys and then pointed at the screen. “That's a
Liopleurodon
. Kind of looks like a croc with a dolphin's body and a turtle's flippers.”

“I like those last two animals, but if the creature in Lake Havenwood has teeth like this dinosaur's . . .” Ella Mae trailed off.

“How can you possibly fight this thing?” Suzy asked. “I'm not doubting your courage. Not for a second. But you're not trained for combat. Even Reba would be powerless against such a creature. You'll be entering its domain in a dry suit, sucking on oxygen, and leaving a bubble trail a mile long. You'll be blind and slow and completely at its mercy.” She gripped Ella Mae's arm. “You aren't prepared for this kind of battle. You need to find someone who is.”

“It has to be me and you know it,” Ella Mae said. “Everything we've read about the Flower of Life makes it clear that the person in need of the flower must go after it themselves. It's my quest, Suzy. No one can stand in for me. At least I'm going down there armed with the most important thing.”

Suzy nodded, smoothing the loose book pages. “Purity of heart. No one seeking the flower can succeed without it. You aren't interested in personal gain. You'll use the flower to break the spell cast on your mother while establishing a permanent source of magic for our grove. You're willing to risk your life for the greater good.” Suzy tightened her hold on Ella Mae's arm. “Okay, yes, you pass the greatest test before dipping a toe in the water. But
that
thing will still be waiting for you!” She gestured wildly at the screen. “You could die.” Her eyes filled with tears. “There must be some other way.”

Ella Mae took her friend's hands in hers. “You know there isn't.”

Suzy stepped back, grabbed a tissue from the counter, wiped her nose and eyes, and then resolutely squared her shoulders. “All right. I can see that I can't talk you out of this madness. So how do you plan to arm yourself?”

“I'm going to ask for Aiden's help.” Ella Mae stared at the blood-chilling image of the
Liopleurodon
. “If I ever hope to return to the surface with the flower, I need to kill this thing with one strike. In this case, I'm thinking of a lightning strike.”

“Underwater?” Suzy asked doubtfully.

“Yes. My best chance is to hit the monster with an incredibly powerful jolt of electricity,” Ella Mae said.

Suzy's eyes widened. “Like a shark prod?”

“Exactly. I have no idea why, but Reba owns a cattle prod. If Aiden can supercharge the thing, then it won't matter if it gets wet. I'm hoping that a high dose of magical electricity will be enough to fry this fish.”

Suzy was aghast. “You're going to put your life in
Aiden's
hands? The man is—”

“Not an elemental. Nor did he start the Oak Knoll fire.” Ella Mae watched as comprehension, followed by relief and happiness flooded Suzy's face. “He's innocent of any wrongdoing and he definitely has feelings for you.”

The corners of Suzy's mouth turned up, but she refused to allow the smile to form. “Well, he'd better do everything in his power to help you or he'll have to answer to me.”

“I haven't even asked him yet. I was hoping you'd do that.” She held out Hugh's keys and shook them until they jingled. “As for me, I'll be borrowing scuba gear from the Havenwood Fire Department.”

Reba was correct in saying that most of Ella Mae's dive experience had been acquired in relatively shallow Caribbean water. However, her last scuba trip had taken her to a depth of one hundred and thirty feet. The shipwreck dive had required a specialized training course that both Ella Mae and her then-husband, Sloane, had passed with flying colors. Because it was their first deep dive, the couple hadn't been allowed to spend much time on the wreck, but the dive had gone smoothly and Ella Mae wasn't afraid to dive down another twenty feet tonight. She had something else to fear.

Ella Mae knew she'd have to follow the same meticulous procedures that she'd learned in her deep-water course, including the addition of multiple decompression stops during her ascent. The thought of stopping to eliminate nitrogen from her system while being hunted by a giant crocodile was more than a little unsettling, but getting the bends or losing consciousness would be fatal, so Ella Mae calculated her stops and then checked the equipment she'd taken from the fire station for the third time.

After loading everything into her Jeep, she headed back to Partridge Hill. “Now for the weapon,” she said grimly, wishing Chewy sat in his usual spot on the seat, smearing the window with his nose and leaving white fur all over the dash.

Chewy wasn't waiting for her at her mother's house, but everyone else was. She'd expected to find Aiden, Jenny, Reba, and Suzy there, but her aunts had caught wind of her plans and were also gathered, pinched-faced and silent, in the kitchen.

“This is madness!” Verena cried the moment Ella Mae entered the room.

“Probably,” Ella Mae agreed and then turned to Aiden. “Did Suzy explain what I needed?”

He nodded and pointed at the cattle prod on the stovetop. It was glowing with a bright yellow light. “It's charged. Press the button and enough juice will come out of there to sink a battleship. It'll stay lit the whole time you're under water too. I figure it would be better than your going down holding a dive light. I'd rather you kept two hands on your weapon.”

Ella Mae could tell that Aiden had poured as much power as he could into the prod. He looked completely drained. “Thank you, Aiden.”

Jenny took a step forward. “I want to give you an advantage too. After you're changed into your dry suit, let me give you a megadose of energy. It'll help you swim faster and be more alert. Your reflexes will be quicker and you'll be less likely to get dizzy or confused at the bottom on your way back to the surface.”

“A magical cure against the bends.” Ella Mae smiled. She felt a surreal sense of calm. Ever since her mother had volunteered to be the Lady of the Ash, Ella Mae had known that her destiny had forever been changed. And now that the moment of trial had arrived, she was ready to prove that she could be as brave as her mother.

As if sensing Ella Mae's thought, Sissy put her hands over her heart and said, “You've never reminded me
so
much of Adelaide as you do right now.”

Dee reached into the front pocket of her overalls and drew forth a necklace. “I made this for you a while ago. I'm not giving to it you now because you need luck. You don't.” Her voice was a soft whisper. “This is my way of being with you down there. Another light in the darkness.” She took Ella Mae's hand and let the necklace coil onto her palm. The pendant, a silver four-leaf clover, came to rest on top of Ella Mae's clover-shaped burn scar.

“Thank you.” Ella Mae hugged each of her aunts. “Don't worry, okay?” She gazed from one familiar face to another. “Just knowing you're all here together gives me the strength I need. Now it's time for me to go. I can feel it.”

Reba zipped up her parka, donned a fur-lined hat, and grabbed the cattle prod. “I'll get the boat ready and load your tank and flippers. You get your gear on and meet me at the dock.”

When Reba left, Miss Lulu started barking from somewhere upstairs. “I thought I'd better lock her in my room,” Jenny said. “If she got outside, she'd run right over to your place to see if Chewy wanted to play. I figured the sound of three barking dogs might wake Hugh.”

Ella Mae had put Hugh out of her mind, and the image of him sleeping on her sofa with Chewy nestled on his lap nearly undid her. Part of her wanted to curl up beside him and forget about the Flower of Life, and the lake, and the creature waiting for her where the land fell away into deep, cold darkness. No one would blame her for turning away from such a perilous quest, but Ella Mae's love for her mother and her desire to protect her people won over the temptation. She gave Jenny a nod of gratitude and went into the bathroom to change into her dry suit.

Once dressed, she went out through the back door without saying good-bye. Jenny followed close behind and the two women walked across the lawn in hurried strides. It was another frigid night and they were both shivering by the time they reached the dock.

Drawing to a stop alongside the boat where Reba waited, Jenny put her hands on Ella Mae's neck and closed her eyes. “I'm going to give you all I've got,” she said. “Ready?”

Ella Mae didn't even have the chance to nod before her body began to shudder. Jenny's gift shot through her muscles like a flaming arrow, electrifying her blood, and heightening her senses. “I feel like a superhero. Thank you.” She hugged Jenny and then bent down to unwrap the dinghy's stern line from the cleat.

She handed the rope to Reba and boarded. Reba waited for her to get settled in the bow before raising and lowering her battery-powered lantern three times. She then picked up the oars and started to row, her eyes fixed on the island in the middle of the lake.

As the small craft moved away from shore, someone began to turn on all the lights in Partridge Hill. Ella Mae watched as, one by one, each window filled with rectangles of soft yellow. The house blazed bright as a moon, a beacon of love and safety shining across the black water.

Neither Reba nor Ella Mae spoke. Ella Mae kept herself occupied by checking her gauges and reviewing the digital dive computer she'd taken from the fire station. The dive computer would help Ella Mae keep an eye on her depth, direction, pressure, dive time, and gas mixes. During her ascent, she'd use the timer to regulate her compression stops.

“Your mama wouldn't like me sittin' in this boat while you go in alone. Divers are supposed to have partners,” Reba said.

“My mother would know that you're not slacking off as my protector,” Ella Mae said. “And, yes, divers need partners, but this quest has its own rules, remember? I have to go alone. Every legend about the flower says that same thing.”

Reba didn't reply, and for a few minutes, both women listened to the sound of the oars cutting through the water.

“I realize that it's probably going to be harder for you to wait in this boat than it is for me to get in the water and face a monster, but knowing you're here is what'll keep me going when things get bad.” Ella Mae glanced behind her. The shadowy shape of the island was coming up fast. “And it's going to get bad. We both know that. If it were easy, someone would have picked the flower by now. You're my life buoy, Reba. If I can get the flower, shock the beast, and point my face toward the light of your lantern, then you can take me back to Partridge Hill.”

Reba's eyes filled with tears. “I'll be up here shinin' like the brightest damn sun you've even seen. You just swim to my light, baby. Get that flower and swim on home to me.”

Ella Mae's throat tightened. She soaked in Reba's tender gaze before finally shrugging off her coat and strapping her tank onto her back. She then took another few seconds to steady her racing heart by fixing her eyes on the lights of Partridge Hill. The water lapped at the side of the boat, rocking it gently. Ella Mae had been playing in the lake since she could walk. She'd swum and raced boats with other children from one dock to another for years. It was not her enemy. Even though there was no sun now—just a sliver of moon glaring down at her from a starless sky—the lake was as much a part of her as the rest of Havenwood. The only thing she had to fear was the creature guarding the flower. And it was time to enter its world.

Ella Mae watched her breath plume into the air once more before drawing her hood and mask on. With gloved hands, she placed her regulator in her mouth and positioned herself on the gunwale with her back to the water. Turning her diver's headlight on, she took a firm hold of the charged prod. She then winked at Reba and went over the side and into the lake.

The shock of entering the water robbed Ella Mae of her senses. For several seconds, she forgot all she knew of scuba diving. She frantically turned her head to the right and left, the beam of her headlight searing the darkness, and tried to think, but everything looked and felt so alien.

You're sinking,
she told herself and glanced at the dive computer readout.

That small movement allowed her to regain control. She angled her body downward and started to kick her feet. Her heart rate slowed a little, though its beats were far from normal. Every cell in her body was firing with adrenaline, fear, and Jenny's magical energy. Ella Mae knew that staying as calm as possible for the entire dive would be a challenge.

That, and facing a monster,
she thought and continued to sink.

As she descended, she performed an exercise she'd learned years ago to equalize the pressure in her ears. While she worked to open her Eustachian tubes, she considered how her immersion into this world had all the subtly of an alarm gong. Her trail of bubbles, her noisy breathing, the ripples from her fins, the glow of her headlight, the hum of the electrified prod—all sent a signal to the lake's occupants that an unfamiliar creature had entered their territory.

And yet she hadn't seen a single fish. It was as if the underwater domain were holding its collective breath.

Ella Mae didn't trust the stillness.

Glancing at her dive computer, she realized that she was only twenty feet from the bottom. She pivoted her right arm so the light from her prod covered a greater area, but all she saw was darkness. Somehow, she felt there was no need to brace for an attack from the guardian until she actually tried to take the Flower of Life. However, she never considered the possibility that she wouldn't be able to locate the flower in the first place. In Suzy's Gilgamesh storybook, the magical plant had radiated so much light that the hero had had no difficulty swimming directly to it. Ella Mae feared that she wasn't going to be that lucky.

I've come to claim the Flower of Life,
she shouted in her mind. This was how she communicated with her mother, and Ella Mae hoped it worked on all things in the magical realm.
I seek the flower for my people. To preserve and protect their magic. I offer all I have—all that I am—if you would reveal yourself to me!

She looked at her depth reading. Five feet from the bottom. There was nothing here. Nothing but the lumpy shadows of rocks.

Fighting despair, Ella Mae's left hand went to the outline of the clover pendant tucked beneath the dry suit. And suddenly, she knew what to do.

Planting her finned feet on a patch of gooey silt, Ella Mae thrust out both arms.
I am the Clover Queen! I have come for the Flower of Life. I am worthy to claim you!

A flash of blinding white light erupted in the darkness. It was so powerful that Ella Mae was forced to close her eyes against it. When she dared open them again, she saw a dome several feet away. As Ella Mae swam toward it, she could felt a hum of energy moving through the water. It was a song with no words and no melody, but a song nonetheless. And somehow, it was familiar. Deep in her bones, she knew that she had passed the test. An ancient magic had examined her heart and was inviting her to take what she'd come for.

The dome looked as if it were made of glass. It was covered with an oily film of rainbows and yet was still completely transparent. Beneath the dome, looking small, fragile, and heartbreakingly beautiful was the Flower of Life.

The white flower was a single stalk growing from a tangle of roots in a pristine circle of sand. If a star fell to earth and merged with a rare orchid, the result would be this flower. It seemed hardy and healthy and nearly crackled with life. But it was also delicate and ephemeral, like a snowflake on one's palm.

Without hesitating, Ella Mae thrust her arm through the dome. It separated as if it were made of gelatin. The humming in the water increased and Ella Mae sensed the flower was calling to her. Recognizing her. Granting her permission.

She cupped her left hand under its root ball and paused. What would happen once she took the flower from this place? Would it begin to die and shrivel the moment it was separated from its web of enchanted roots? And would the guardian immediately emerge from the dark with its mouth open wide, its daggerlike teeth ready to strike?

Ella Mae took a shallow breath and tugged. The flower floated into her hand, its light undiminished. She glanced at it for a brief moment of joyous wonder before tucking it into the thigh pocket of her dry suit.