Spun by Sorcery (14 page)

“Extra mayo?” Chloe asked.

Janice offered a tired smile. “Is there any other way?”

“We’ve been sitting in the car all day,” Chloe said. “A walk in the fresh air would do you good.”

Janice shook her head. “I’m fine. I’ll watch some bad TV and keep an eye on Penny.”

Chloe shot me a look that I don’t think was lost on Janice. “Luke, don’t you think Janice should come with us?”

Looking at the deep sadness in Janice’s eyes, the utter exhaustion, I couldn’t push the issue.

“I think she’ll be okay,” I said after a moment.

“No,” Chloe said. “Seriously. We don’t know what we’re facing in this town. We can’t leave her here alone.” Her eyes were flashing all kinds of
help me
warnings at me.

“I’m not going to do anything crazy,” Janice said, “if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m worried about,” Chloe said, not missing a beat. “I’m afraid you’re going to leave us.”

“Not until I get my lobster roll,” Janice said and I laughed out loud with her. “I’m going to veg out with the television and maybe try blueflaming Lynette or the kids. I don’t expect an answer but—” Her shrug said it all.

“Come on,” I said, taking Chloe’s hand. “If we’re going to get those lobster rolls before everything shuts down for the night, we’d better get started.”

“You’ll be here when we get back?” Chloe asked Janice.

“I swear on Cookie A,” Janice said and Chloe grinned.

“Knitting joke?” I asked Chloe as we stepped out into the cool, salty evening air.

“Not if you’ve ever knitted a pair of Cookie A’s socks,” she said, squeezing my hand. “They’re a religion.”

We walked in silence through the parking lot and down the driveway. The air was cool and smelled like home to me.

“I’m going to check out a tour operator tomorrow,” I said as we waited for traffic to slow down enough for us to cross the narrow highway.

Chloe looked at me like I’d lost a few screws. “You’re going to book a three-hour tour, Professor?”

I ignored the Gilligan reference. “One of the brochures I picked up in the lobby looked pretty interesting.” The tour operator specialized in the hidden history of the town without all of the commercial trappings. “It might point us in a direction we hadn’t thought about.”

“No stone unturned?”

I grinned. “Something like that.” You never knew where the next great idea would come from. I was involved once in a murder investigation that swung our way because a detective made a left-hand turn rather than a right one day and stumbled onto the clue that broke the case wide.

Fisherman’s Catch had a take-out window so we ordered five lobster rolls, cole slaw, and coffees then started back to the motel.

Every now and then Chloe cast a look over her shoulder or a quick glance to the left or right.

“You okay?” I asked as we walked along.

“Yes,” she said then looked at me. “It just all seems so ordinary. I thought everything would make sense when we got here.” She fumbled around for words. “I thought there’d be some kind of buzz in the air, some kind of awareness that there was more going on than met the eye.”

“Like in Sugar Maple,” I said.

“Exactly, but there’s nothing. This place is as ordinary, as . . . human as it can get.”

The Chloe I met and fell in love with didn’t get depressed. She got sad. She got angry. She got happy. But not depressed.

And never defeated.

“We’ve been up for over twenty-four hours,” I reminded her. “A hell of a lot has happened. A good meal and some sleep and it’ll all start to make sense.”

“You believe that?” she asked.

“No,” I said, “but I was hoping maybe you would.”

Back at the motel we tapped on the door that connected our room to Janice’s then unlocked the bolt on our side.

“Lobster rolls,” Chloe called out. “Come on over.”

We heard the answering click of her lock and then her door swung open and a beaming Janice Meany burst into our room.

“You won’t believe what I’ve found!”

“The blueflame worked!” Chloe exclaimed. “You managed to contact someone from Sugar Maple!”

A flicker of disappointment moved across Janice’s face.

“No, but we have Web TV in our rooms with high-speed Internet access. The big storm back home was on all the weather reports. They say our area will be inaccessible for at least another three days.” She glanced down at the stack of motel stationery in her hand. “Luke, you’d better make a few phone calls and calm things down. One of the stories mentioned that the state was getting worried because they haven’t heard from anyone in Sugar Maple.”

With all the obstacles we’d encountered on our way to Salem, I’d totally dropped the ball on maintaining communications with the powers that be. If we were going to continue to pull off this ruse, we would need to keep concerns about our safety to a minimum.

“Great job, Janice,” I said. “If you ever decide to hang up your blow-dryer, I could use you on the force.”

I didn’t blame either Janice or Chloe for laughing. A one-man police force deserved a few laughs. But the gratitude was real. Janice had put us back on track.

We divvied up the food and set about reconnecting with the outside world. We all phoned our voice-mail boxes to check for messages and were equally swamped.

“We’d better get our stories straight,” I said. We were in Janice’s room, which had the extra bed and a fair-sized desk.

“Big storm, bad roads,” Janice said with a slight grin.

“No immediate danger,” I said. “Plenty of supplies to see our citizens through the next few days. No need for state assistance at this time.”

“Chronically ill residents of Sugar Maple Assisted Living were relocated before the bridge went down and the roads became impassable,” Chloe offered. “And all classes and workshops at Sticks & Strings will be rescheduled to a later date.”

It was all bullshit but I had to admit it was damn good bullshit. If we didn’t contradict each other, we could buy at least two more days before reality came calling on what used to be Sugar Maple.

Janice had also discovered a Hobbs Popcorn in the phone book but an online search convinced her there was no link with the Hobbs line to which Chloe belonged. I’ll admit I was seeing Salem through different eyes as I watched Chloe’s and Janice’s reactions to the town their ancestors fled all those years ago.

On the downside, Janice didn’t have any luck blueflaming her family or Lynette, which reminded me that there was more at stake than a random collection of quaint shops and picturesque vistas.

Penny the cat was sound asleep on Janice’s extra bed and Janice seemed eager for the company so Chloe set up the litter box and bowls of food and water, then we all said good night. It was a little after ten by the time Chloe and I returned to our adjoining room.

“They have one of those hot water thingies in the bathroom,” she said, “and some packets of cocoa. Want some?”

“No whiskey?”

She shook her head. “No whiskey.”

“I’ll pass.”

She disappeared into the bathroom to do whatever she did before bed. I was about to settle back with some Red Sox action on TV when my cell phone vibrated against my hip. I’d left at least a dozen call-back pages. Too bad letting it flip to voice mail wasn’t an option tonight.

“You’re dating Uma Frickin’ Thurman?”

I leaned back against the headboard. “Frannie must’ve called you the second she got home.”

“She called me from the car,” Ronnie said with a good-natured laugh. “This was too good to wait.” I heard him tapping computer keys. “So who is she and when do we get to meet her?”

“Her name’s Chloe. She owns a shop up in Vermont. And soon.”

“That’s all you’re giving me?”

“That’s all I’ve got.”

“Fran says she’s a ringer for Thurman.”

“She hears that a lot.”

“Fran also says you looked tired.”

“Yeah?” I pushed down a yawn. “Lots of meetings, not much time. You know how it goes.”

“We’ve all been worried about you.” He paused. My brother wasn’t any better at the emotional stuff than I was. “You should’ve told us you were thinking about moving up to Ben & Jerry country. Ma called your office number one day and they said you’d left. Hell of a way to find out.”

The guilt bomb. Where would families be without it? “It all happened fast,” I said, which was true. “They had a murder on their hands and needed a chief of police. I was sworn in the day after I got the call.”

“They told Ma it was temporary.”

“Not anymore.”

“You’re staying up there?” He sounded surprised.

“Looks like.” I heard the sound of keys tapping again. “Who are you messaging?”

“Meghan. She said to tell you she says hi.”

Meghan was my second youngest sister and probably my favorite. “Tell Meggie I want my
White Album
back.”

More keys tapping. Ronnie’s laugh was deep and real, same as he was. “You don’t wanna know what she says.” A beat pause. “How about breakfast tomorrow? We can grab something in town. Give me a chance to meet Uma.”

“Chloe.”

“I know,” he said. “Glad you’re back on track, buddy. It’s time.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It is.”

“So how about breakfast? If that’s no good, the two of you can come to the house for dinner. Denise would love to see you, and the kids would go nuts.”

“Gonna have to take a rain check, Ronnie. Wall-to-wall meetings all day.”

“You still have to eat.”

“Booked straight through until ten P.M.”

I hated lying to him. I hated the fact that he knew I was lying even more. There aren’t many good guys in this world and he was one of them. Good guys deserved better.

“You’re a busy guy, Chief,” Ronnie said lightly. “No problem. We’ll catch up some other time.”

“Say hi to Deni and the girls for me.”

“Will do. Miss you, buddy,” he said then disconnected before I could say good-bye.

Usually I’m a shower kind of girl but the motel tub was white, deep, and sparkling clean and I couldn’t resist it. I filled it as high as possible with water at a temperature just shy of painful and sank gratefully into its depths.

Luke’s voice rumbled pleasantly through the paper-thin wall that separated the bedroom from the bathroom as he fielded phone call after phone call. So far my only call-back was from a seriously annoyed knitter from Long Island who held me personally responsible for the twenty-six inches and counting of snow that had blocked her visit to Sticks & Strings.

I couldn’t help but wonder what she would say if she knew I really was personally responsible for the storm.

So far Salem was turning out to be a total waste of time. For a town with a reputation for otherworldly connections, it felt relentlessly mortal to me. I had always wondered if anyone had stayed behind when Aerynn led the nonhumans to safety in the Indian town of Sinzibukwud.

I was pretty sure we were going to come up empty tomorrow.

I didn’t want to think about the future. I had always known I would live my life in Sugar Maple. That had never been in doubt. I was a descendant of Aerynn and Sugar Maple was my responsibility, same as it had been for the Hobbs women who came before me.

The realization that I might be the one who failed the town and its inhabitants weighed heavily on my heart.

The water was warm and soothing and I felt safe for the first time since Luke and I stepped into the clearing and found out Sugar Maple was gone. I knew safety was relative when you were dealing with the supernatural, but at that moment it was all I had.

My eyes felt heavy and a deep exhaustion pressed me lower into the tub until I was submerged up to my chin. The sound of Luke’s voice was as rhythmic and soothing as a lullaby. Sleep was irresistible and I drifted into that delicious state between dreams and wakefulness.

“So that’s the girl.” The voice was light and feminine with an accent that sounded vaguely British.

“She looks like she needs a good meal.” This voice was female also but flatter, harder.

I shifted around in the tub and sank down a little deeper in search of more pleasing dream companions. Where was my herd-of-cashmere-goats fantasy hiding? Now would be a nice time for a command performance.

“I’m not terribly impressed,” the feminine voice declared. “She hasn’t her mother’s beauty.”

“Envious as always, Tabitha,” the flatter, harder voice chided. “She is the spit of Aerynn and that’s no lie.”

An uneasy chill moved across my exposed skin and I shivered but didn’t awaken.

“A fitting end, Dorcas,” the feminine voice said. “Here is where she is at last and here is where she’ll stay if I have anything to say about it.”

Suddenly a pair of weather-roughened hands grabbed my head and pushed it beneath the water. This was exactly the kind of practical joke Janice loved and I despised. I used an old self-defense move from a Jackie Chan film and broke the hold with an upward thrust of my arms and sat straight up, gasping for air.