T*Witches: Building a Mystery (12 page)

Cade nodded yes. "I bring her money every month. Cash. No checks. She's back in school now. Prescott Newton Junior College, just outside Boston. Karen dropped out. She can't do anything. She's a basket case."

Jennifer Shepherd at Prescott Newton. Alex filed it away.

"Karen told me everything," Cade continued. "I didn't know what to do. So I came to the hospital. And I saw him. I recognized him. He's Vietnamese. His mom cooks for the people next door to us. Nguyen used to visit her on weekends. I let them use our pool. I guess he went swimming and was running back across the road, to the Bannister house, where his mom works. It's just a dirt road through the woods. You hardly ever see a car there—"

"And you've been giving her money, too—Nguyen's mother?" Alex said.

"For the hospital bills. Their insurance doesn't cover much."

Don't think of Sara, Alex warned herself. Stay focused.

"And for flowers, sometimes." Cade shrugged. "Mrs. Tung likes flowers. And we take turns talking to Nu, his mom and me and Karen—"

"Your sister's been here?"

"Yeah. A lot. And, believe it or not, she's as bummed about Eddie taking the blame as you are. And as I am," he confessed. "It's over. Karen and I are going to the police. I was just hoping Nu would improve. It'd make it easier. Karen's in such rotten shape. The only time she seems okay is when she's holding his hand and talking to him. Sometimes you can almost believe he hears her, and he's like, trying real hard to get better."

"You never know." Alex smiled at him. "That might make all the difference."

Cam stepped off the elevator in the lobby. Beth was waiting. Eagerly.

"They were here!" Leaping from her chair, she breathlessly repeated what she'd told Cam on the phone. "Shnorer and Madison. They both showed! I was going to call you a second before you called. Shnorer probably did his pen-throwing trick again, only whoever he tossed it at this time must've hurled it back. I don't know, but he came in clutching his paw and yowling about blood poisoning—even though there wasn't a scratch on him!"

"Where is he now?" Cam pressed.

Beth guessed he'd gone to the emergency room. She hadn't kept track because, like a minute later, she explained, Madison had appeared. The girl seemed not the least bit fazed to find Beth in the lobby. "I just came for my final checkup," Madison had said smoothly. "My fever's way down and I think—party-wise—I'm good to go!"

"How freaky-deaky is that?" Beth demanded. "I mean, two out of three of them showing up!"

"Try three out of three," Cam told her. "Cade's upstairs."

"Not even!" Beth was flabbergasted. "So, what are we going to do? Should I call my mom to pick us up or are we staying?"

The elevator dinged. They glanced at it as the doors opened and Alex charged out. "Beth, think your mom could drive us to Boston?" she asked, dashing toward them.

"Absolutely not," Beth replied. "Anyway, what
new
do-good mission would I tell her we're going on?"

Alex said, grinning wickedly, "This one's strictly a do-bad!"

Ileana gave up. That's what she told Karsh. "I give up. I just give up. I don't know how you ever kept track of them."

She had come knocking on his door. Naturally, she hadn't waited for him to answer it. She'd dashed in, cape swirling, thick makeup blotchy, the nappy white wig sitting crooked on her head.

What a fright she looked. Karsh's breath caught at the sight of her. Ileana, pale as death and dreadfully wrinkled. Was that how he looked?

She must have been in a great hurry to have returned to the island in this condition. A good sign, Karsh decided, as the shock of seeing her passed. Never before had Ileana's vanity permitted her to be in public looking less than perfectly beautiful.

"Come in, come in," he said, although she had already rushed past him and was pacing his book-lined parlor.

"First let me say that I was marvelous. Flawless. Camryn and Alexandra accepted me as you without question. I was fully, brilliantly disguised. And my voice was perfect!"

Oh, no, Karsh thought. Ileana was walking past the large gilt-framed mirror over his fireplace. He hoped she would not be disturbed by her image.

Another first, he marveled. She passed the mirror without a glance.

"After instructing the twins in proper healing procedure, I left them in the hospital room," she explained, "and I woke the nurse at the monitoring station so that she'd notice the boy was coming to. Then I spoke with his poor mother and explained that something wonderful had happened, that she should return to her son's room. There I was—thanks to your stubbornness, knowing only the basics of voice transmutation—wearing a wig, pounds of greasy makeup, and that depressingly shabby lab coat—"

Ileana strode back and forth across the oriental carpet—which had flown long ago, but being older than Karsh, was now grounded by age. "And then I felt the chill," she confided, whirling suddenly, "and I knew that Thantos's underling was near, somewhere in the hospital. AIEEEE!"

The hair-raising cry made Karsh clutch his heart.

"Look at me! Look!"

As Karsh had feared, his ward had caught sight of herself in the mirror.

"How could you let me wander around like this?" Ileana demanded, scrubbing her face with the hem of her cape.

Her scream had startled him so, he'd nearly lost sight of what was important. "You met the messenger?" he asked urgently.

"I felt its presence. And of course I raced to find the children. I ran back to the room where I'd left them. But they were gone. Gone! Can you imagine how terrified I was? With Thantos's evil minion roaming the hospital. And I... suffering, sick with worry, wondering, even as I searched, whether the messenger might already have found them. Confound it, Karsh!" She hurled the wig across the room. "Am I to be cursed with your pasty skin and penciled wrinkles the rest of my days?"

"Less, if you calm down. What did it look like?" Karsh insisted. "Did you recognize the person? Old, young, tall, stout, male, female? Was it even human? Tell me!"

"I've been thinking," Ileana responded with cruel casualness. She threw herself into Karsh's favorite easy chair and rested her legs on his beloved old hassock.

She kicked off his black velvet slippers, which had hung large and lopsided from her toes. "What if Thantos, who is, of course, a master of transmutation, really did decide to go after the girls himself? I know you said he would not. But... couldn't he have shape-shifted, turned himself into another creature, morphed into the messenger? The chill I felt was amazingly strong—as was the stench of evil that came with it."

"It's possible. But as I told you, Thantos is quite used to putting others to work, using them to carry out his orders," Karsh said, agitated, angry.

There it was again, Ileana noted, the strange change in Karsh's attitude when she suggested that Thantos might be the messenger.

Ileana sat up abruptly. "Great and venerable tracker, what are you saying?" she asked sweetly. "What terrible secret have you kept? What is it that you know and I may not?"

Now it was Karsh's turn to pace. "Only what I said," he answered roughly. "Lord Thantos has made a habit of shirking responsibility. Of letting others handle tasks he considers beneath him. A very bad habit. Tell me, did you find the twins, Ileana?"

"I did. When I last saw them, they were in the hospital lobby, trying to coax their freckle-faced friend into getting her mother to drive them to Boston."

"For what purpose?" Karsh wanted to know.

"I didn't stay to find out. I tried to track the messenger. But I lost the scent in the emergency room. There, so many other smells overpowered it. Alcohol, iodine, disinfectants—"

"Why would they want to go to Boston?" Karsh wondered aloud.

"Shopping, I suppose. Marble Bay is no Beverly Hills. Except compared to Coventry."

Karsh was thoughtful. At last he smiled. "You seem nearly recovered, Ileana. More yourself again. It's time, I think—"

"Time?" Ileana looked at him curiously.

"Time to prepare—"

"Karsh... Lord Karsh... Do you mean it?"

He nodded yes. "You've earned another lesson in transmutating. One you may be called upon to practice soon."

At lunchtime on Friday in the high-school cafeteria, Cam whispered to Alex, "We can't cut last period. And I'm not taking a bus to Boston. Not the day before my Halloween bash."

"I already told Emily we had some last-minute party shopping to do after school. I just didn't say where or how long it might take. Or..." Alex grinned at Beth. "How we'd get there."

"What's that supposed to be, your winning smile or something?" the willowy girl grumbled. "Does the phrase 'forget about it' work for you? How about, 'no way'?"

"Right," Cam said. "And how about, 'no bus—'"

"Spoiled much? Anyway, it's not like skipping
class
. It's just a safety-rules assembly. Marble Bay's fire chief is going to tell us not to play with matches, okay?"

"Hello?" Bree's fork, dangling a nibble of lettuce, stopped just short of her mouth. "What are you two plotting?"

"They're going to
college
," Beth sneered, doing a great imitation of Brianna, Cam thought, taken aback.

"Baaaap! You're out of the game show, Fish," Alex announced, "for not knowing the meaning of
secret
."

Surprised at her own outburst, Beth looked apologetically at Cam. "I'm sorry," she said softly. Aware again of Bree's gaze, she went back to her aloof act. "I thought you wanted me to go with you. I didn't realize it was just a chauffeur you needed and that my mom was the stooge of choice."

Bree cackled appreciatively. "You go, Fish."

"Go Fish. It's a card game!" Kristen giggled.

Amanda shook her red head sadly. "You guys, you're so negative. I mean, we're all working for a peaceful planet, aren't we? Just ignore them," she advised Alex.

"Yeah," Sukari said, "everyone else does."

"Well, here comes someone who won't." Bree began to wave frantically. "Jason, oh, Jason! Camryn's got a favor to ask you!"

"Bree, that's not funny," Beth scolded as Jason Weissman, the shy senior who everyone knew was into Cam, came toward them.

"Well, Cam and her clown--I mean clone—need a ride, don't they?" Brianna protested. "And who has a license and a pizza delivery truck?"

"Déjà vu," Alex whispered to her twin. Jason had bailed them out before, when they'd needed a lift to help rescue a pop star. "Hey, Jason." Alex smiled big at the tall, dark, and studly boy.

"Hey," Jason responded, his face turned to Cam.

"Want to cut assembly and drive us to Newton?" Alex asked him, just to see if he was still conscious. A handsome hottie, Jason became a major Moe around her sister.

"Sure," he answered, still not looking at Alex.

"You don't have to," Cam said, shooting Alex a dirty look.

"No problem," Jason said.

It was as simple as that. They didn't even have to ride in the PITS van. Jason's own wheels, an ancient but lovingly restored Volvo, was parked in the student lot. And Alex didn't mind stretching out in the backseat. In fact, it was an excellent place to jot down notes for a powerful hex.

"What rhymes with Shepherd?" she called out to Cam, who was chatting up their driver.

"Shepherd?"

"Jennifer Shepherd. She's the girl we're going to see."

"Oh." Cam scrunched up her face thoughtfully.

"How about peppered?" Jason asked.

"Cool!" Alex congratulated the boy.

Prescott Newton Junior College was a girls' school a few miles outside of Boston. Its ivy-covered brick buildings were decorated with smirking gargoyles sticking out their tongues.

Alex reciprocated the gesture as the Volvo stopped before the arched entrance to the school. Jason said he'd wait for them at the visitors' parking lot, and they promised to meet him there as soon as possible.

"The question of the day," Cam said as they headed for the administration building, "is what do we do if and when we find her?"

Alex passed her the pad on which she'd written the spell.

O, cheater of your roommate
You caused so many pain
Now accept your fate
And end your blackmail game.
Free Karen Richman,
O, Jennifer Shepherd,
Or you'll be assaulted...
And peppered.

Cam groaned. "Assaulted and peppered?"

"I thought it was cute," Alex said defensively, grabbing back her pad. "You know, like salt and pepper;
assault
and peppered."

A loud, shrill laugh distracted her. Alex turned toward the group of girls gathered on a nearby bench. One of them, a pretty brunette, was hysterically amused.

"I know that laugh. Is that her? Does she look like the girl in the BMW?"

Cam glanced at the same crew. "The one in the red sweater? Yes! That's exactly how she looked."

Alex trotted across the lawn to the bench, dragging Camryn with her.

"But we have no herbs, no crystals, no stones," Cam protested. "Just that... um,
thing
you wrote."

"It's not a thing. It's an incantation," Alex pointed out irritably. "And anyway, we also have your mojo and my mean streak."

Conversation on the bench grew hushed as Cam and Alex approached. The red-sweater girl looked them up and down, then burst out laughing again. "Just in time for Halloween," she erupted. "It's Cinderella—before and after."

"And what are you going as—a felon?" Cam questioned her.

"A... what?" one of the other girls said.

"What my sister means," Alex explained with a smile, "is that your friend Jennifer—"

"You are Jennifer Shepherd?" Cam asked her.

"The shepherd and her sheep." Alex took in the staring crowd. "You were in the car with Karen, weren't you? That would make you an accessory—"

"Oh, no, no," Cam insisted. "An accessory is something that brightens up a boring outfit."

The brunette stood up slowly. She seemed to be uncoiling rather than getting up. She was tall, way taller than Beth, Cam realized as the girl glared down at them.

"I don't know who you are or who sent you," she said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a handful of bills. "But why don't you take a dollar or two, and go play trick-or-treat on someone else."

Jennifer was a regular riot. At least her crowd thought so. Giggling and elbowing one another, they laughed at Cam and Alex.

But Alex's attention was on the crumpled bills in Jennifer's hand. She wondered if the careless heap of cash was money from Cade.

Cam was on the same page.
Dirty money
, Alex heard her thinking.

Blood money
, Alex silently amended. Which gave her a monster idea!

Golden,
Cam agreed, tuning into the plan.
But can we do it?

"Worth a try," Alex said aloud, handing her the incantation again.

Cam skimmed the work. "Got it," she said. "Now what?"

Alex took her hand. "Let's say it. I just hope our amulets don't act up again. My neck's still sore."

"O, cheater of your roommate,"
Cam began,
"who caused so many pain."

Jennifer's friends were giggling harder than ever now.

"Accept your fate, and end your blackmail game,"
Alex recited, to loud guffaws of laughter.

"Free Karen Richman, O, Jennifer Shepherd,"
Cam intoned, grateful that the final line was Alex's.

"Karen?" someone asked. "Wasn't she your roommate, Jen? The one who had the breakdown?"

"I really liked her," another girl offered. "I couldn't believe it when I heard she dropped out."

"Or you'll be assaulted,"
Alex vowed,
"and peppered!"

That did it. Although Jennifer had gone pale, the girls around her had totally lost it. Breaking up, they were bent over double with unrestrained hysteria.

But Alex was focused on the currency Jennifer was holding... which had begun to bleed.

"Hey, no fair. Wait for me," Cam grumbled, taking Alex's hand and shifting her own gaze to the bundle of bills.

"Ugh! That is so icky," one of the college girl's clever friends shrieked. They had all stopped laughing.

"Jennifer, your money. It's, like, all bloody!" another scholar chimed in.

Dirty money,
Cam was thinking.
Putrid. Filthy. Polluted.

"And it stinks!"

"It smells just like poop!"

The lot of them were prancing around, holding their noses and looking dangerously queasy. Then someone gasped. "Maggots!"

The bills in Jennifer's hands were suddenly seething with slimy white creatures that looked like writhing rice.

"Drop it! Let go!" her friends were hollering, even as they backed away from her, sickened.

Violently wagging her hand, Jennifer was trying desperately to do just that. But while the white worms that had begun to mass at her wrist flew every which way and the putrid stench also took wing, the bleeding money stayed stuck to her.

"Help me," she pleaded to Cam and Alex, who were the only ones still near her.

"No probs," Alex said. "Just come with us—"

"To the Marble Bay police station," Cam added.

"Anything!" the trembling, spooked-out girl promised. "Just get this money away from me!"