Wicked Tempest: A Kate Waters Mystery (Kate Waters Mysteries Book 2) (10 page)

The day keeps getting better, Kate thought. Anxiety knotted in her chest like a thick cord twisted into a bowline. She envisioned where she had placed the statue, in the top shelf cupboard above the refrigerator. That probably didn’t fall within the boundaries of “proper measures of protection.”

“So because you took proper measures to protect yourself from the curse, you won’t be affected by her wrath?” Kate asked.

“Yes and no. I’m still vulnerable, just not powerless against her. Brooke didn’t take precautions. She underestimated the curse and overestimated herself.”

“How do you know that Brooke stole the statue?”

“I don’t know how she got a hold of it, but a statue like that doesn’t just show up in your mailbox.”

Kate heard Stewart and Bruce laugh above and wished she were with them, enjoying the gold spray of sunset on the water, not worrying about curses and death looming.

  “Look,” Thea continued. “The night before last, I found a dead snake in my yard. I heard the same thing happened to Brooke. Another sign of the curse is the loss of electricity in the house. The first night I had the statue, the power went out in our neighborhood, just as it did with Brooke. Rán is coming. For me, and whoever took the statue.”

The knot in Kate’s chest tightened even more, cinching like a strap around her lungs. She took a deep breath and focused on the dark clouds rolling across the expanse of ocean. Her mind circled back to yesterday, to when they had lost power at work. Only a coincidence, she thought, brought on by the storms, storms caused by Mother Nature, not Rán.

“Thea, there are storms all over Portland. Everyone is losing power, hardly an anomaly.”

“I’m aware of that, but coincidences keep adding up, and at some point, it is perilous to think otherwise. Just be careful, Kate. You have had contact with both Brooke and me. The Goddess Rán is a ruthless predator. She will strike down anyone who comes near the statue.”

The word “predator” lingered in Kate’s mind for a moment as she thought about the shark attack, and then she kicked it aside. “Thanks for the warning. I have to go now.” She hung up the phone.

Stewart poked his head down the stairs. “Hey, you all right?”

Kate fought the frantic pulse in her chest, fear distending her thoughts in the off-chance Thea was right. “Yup. Everything is cool.”

Wasn’t it?

***

Night fell quickly in the backdrop of the Cascades, shadows that brought a sense of more than just darkness. The quaint lights of Newberg couldn’t dispel it. It wasn’t Thea’s phone call about curses and Rán, or her encounter with the shark, but something deeper, Kate thought. A fragment of a forgotten nightmare or a broken dream. Difficult to pinpoint, and so she assumed it was a leftover form of grief. It made her want home, blankets, a couch with
Conan
and
CSI
, and a hearty mug of peppermint tea, but a salmon burger dinner with beer and colleagues would have to do. They needed to discuss their next steps for data collection in the transmissions of the seismometers they had placed.

Barry’s quick departure during their meal reinforced Kate’s belief that the trouble between him and Nick was more than just a small quarrel over cave exploring. A few times, she caught a heated glance from one of them, and Barry’s transparent and leisurely pretense to leave his check with Nick drove Nick into a moment of silence.

Nick shook Kate’s hand before they departed. It was warm and gentle, and the feeling that he wanted something more than friendship gleamed in his eye, but Kate made sure not to reciprocate any intimate gestures. She had only one man on her mind.

During the two-hour drive home, Kate tried calling David again. He would never believe her encounter with the shark. When he didn’t answer the phone, disappointment soured her hopes. She left him a message, mentioning nothing about the shark. Or the statue. Or Nick. She wished him well and hung up.

The forces of the day wrapped a cold weight around her as they drove home. While the curse of the statue seemed like foolish talk, it wasn’t so long ago after Jev’s death that Kate had encountered what she’d thought were ghosts in the house. Looking back on it, the encounters seemed more likely a product of hallucinations from her narcolepsy, not the supernatural.

Kate said her goodbyes to Stewart and Bruce and promised to be at the office in the morning. She drove home. The chill against her skin was more than just the cool breeze in the air, and it prompted her to stop at a store on her way home to purchase black candles and incense just in case the stock Thea had given her was low.

The oblong moon rose high over her neighborhood, glimmering silver light through the crack in her windshield from the limb that blew toward her the other night leaving Thea’s work. Only a product of the storms, she told herself as she pulled into her driveway. Before she stepped out of the car, she noticed something on the porch. It appeared to be another limb from the storm, she thought, eyeing other twigs strewn in the yard. When she opened the car door, a breeze carried the sweet, sour smell of death, a scent that kicked up saliva in the back of her throat. She waved the air in front of her nose and slammed the car door shut. Nearing the porch, she realized the limb had scales. No, not a tree limb, a snake. A dead snake.

The cold weight that had wrapped around Kate earlier was now choking the air from her lungs. Her mind lurched…the dead snake outside of Brooke’s house…and Thea’s. Now hers.

Someone was messing with her, someone who knew she had stolen the statue. Thea. That’s why she had called her.

Kate crept to the door, keeping watchful. A soured, swamp-like stench filled the air. Insects buzzed over the top of the rotting snake. Its mouth had frozen open, fangs still gleamed, and its yellow eyes continued to glow, seemingly locked directly on her. She skirted around the snake and fumbled with her keys at the door. Once inside, she headed straight for the kitchen, certain the statue was gone. She moved a chair over and stepped up to reach the shelf above the refrigerator. It was still there, wrapped in the paper sack just as she had left it.

Kate went back outside and tiptoed around the rotting the snake. She swished the insects away with her hands. A rustle of brush along the hedge at the side of the house stopped her cold. She peered into the dark yard, but couldn’t see anybody. When she moved out of the porch light, she could see better. A bird hopped between the puzzle of branches and leaves.

Sighing, she turned back to the snake. Why would Thea do this? Had she done it to Brooke too, and then pretended someone had done it to her? Andre came to mind too. His threatening visit to the house seemed less like a warning and more like a promise for revenge.

She glanced one more time at the hedge. Nothing moved but the chill against her neck. This wasn’t the supernatural, wasn’t a curse, but someone wanted everyone to think so.

"Gymir's wet-cold Spae-Wife
Wiles the Bear of Twisted Cables
Oft into Ægir's wide jaws,
Where the angry billow breaketh.
And the Sea-Peak's Sleipnir slitteth
The stormy breast rain-driven,
The wave, with red stain running
Out of white Rán's mouth."

—
the skald
Refr,
quoted by
Snorri
Sturluson

Nick was at home, barefoot in sweat shorts, pouring himself a second IPA when a knock pounded at his door. Before he could answer it, the door opened and Keith walked in. By the frown on his face and the swagger in his stride, Nick knew he wasn’t happy and presumed Barry had told him about their underwater dispute during the last dive. The team at the PNGS didn’t know that the landslide had nearly swallowed one of the most valuable ships in the Pacific Ocean, the
El Oro Señora
, and Nick had wanted to keep it that way. Barry’s foolish attempt to search the vessel could have jeopardized their entire operation.

Keith strolled past Nick with a silent, beady glare and into the kitchen. He helped himself to a bottle of Scotch on the counter, grabbing a glass from the cupboard. He filled it halfway.

“That’s nice of you to stop by, but as you can see,” Nick said, gesturing to a laptop on the table and an opened book on underwater sensor networks, “I’m a little busy.”

“What are you doing?” Keith replied, turning around to face him.

Nick sat down at the table and took a long pull from his beer. “I want you and Barry to start using your goddamn brains. We can’t collect valuables on a dive expedition with the fucking PNGS. Barry risked exposing us.”

Keith reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a pre-cut cigar. “Barry’s not the smoothest cigar in the shop, I’ll give you that, but I don’t see anything wrong with a few side explorations.”

“One of the team members followed us. She almost saw the ship.”

“But she didn’t, right?” He used a Zippo to light the end of it, puffing with hollowed cheeks until the tip burned fireball-red.

Nick set his beer down on the table. “That’s not the point.”

“Then why don’t you explain to me exactly what your point is. What, you want more of the cut? Is that what you want?”

“I want to stop. We’ve found enough treasures.” Nick crossed his arms and sized Keith up. Even though Keith was good at intimidating others in order to control them, Nick had known him before his brass days, when he was just a pimple-cheeked teen. He had always trusted their history together would keep Keith from turning on him as he had done with others. Of late though, it didn’t seem to be the case. Like the
El Oro Señora,
Nick’s trust in Keith was crumbling, and their friendship skidded further down into dark, unknown territories.

“But we haven’t found
the
treasure,” Keith said, pointing his cigar at Nick. “And I’m not stopping until we do.”

“What about Jim? How many people will have to risk their lives for your dream?”

Keith’s eyes darkened. “We all knew the risks, and we were all game for it.”

“Risks that weren’t supposed to actually include death.”

A smirk tugged at the corner of Keith’s mouth. He shook his head and sat down at the table across from Nick. “Barry said he found another entrance into the ship, one that he was going to show you until you went chickenshit on him.”

“I couldn’t risk being seen by the other divers.”

“From what I hear, the other divers already had their hands full.”

“So now you’re listening to Barry?” A sting of jealousy worked its way through Nick’s chest. Barry was just some chum Keith had met up with a few years ago at the sailing docks. A liking for beer and tits were about all they had in common, but Barry was impressionable, and Nick gathered that therein lay the break in their friendship. Keith couldn’t bend and mold him anymore.

“I’d listen to you if you had half of Barry’s grit,” Keith replied.

“Grit. Yeah, that’s what I’m missing.” Nick finished his beer.

Keith downed the rest of his Scotch and smacked his lips. “Look, I know things haven’t gone as planned, but we found the ship, and I have a strong reason to believe Jim found the statue.”

“With what evidence?”

“I’m still researching it.”

“No matter. I’m done.” Nick stood, grabbed the bottle of Scotch, and took a swig. “I don’t want anything to do with the expedition anymore.”

“Matt isn’t a quitter.”

The burn of that comment heated Nick faster than the Scotch on his tongue. “Matt isn’t a thief either. Unlike you, he still has his heart.”

A smile spread over Keith’s face as he puffed on his cigar. “So, tell me about this girl, what’s her name…Kate—”

Nick held up his hand. “Don’t go there.”

“I hear she’s pretty cute.”

“She fights with sharks, hardly your caliber.”

A burst of laughter escaped Keith’s mouth, but then his demeanor darkened. He rolled the cigar between his thumb and index finger. “Don’t get sidetracked,” he said, with eyes that were as hard and dirty as the criminals he busted. “I don’t need you fallin’ for some gal right now.”

Nick scowled back at him, having had the same thought in his head before Keith barged in on him. He had been telling himself the same thing, that he should keep his distance from Kate Waters, but it was already too late.

***

An arc of sunlight shot from the horizon and shone like gold off the windows of Walter Biddy’s. Wells pulled down the bottom of his jacket to cover the .9 mm at his side. He didn’t need it for this meeting, but he also couldn’t forget that it was here where Jev’s killer used to hang out, someone who had almost succeeded in killing four people, including Thea.

Wells flipped through a mental rehearsal of the questions he needed to ask Thea. He had to be at the top of his game with her. She was smarter than most women, a quiet observer with an uncanny ability to read others. He thought about how she had noticed the dime stuck to the zipper of Brooke’s pants. Only a keen eye took in such details. If he wasn’t prepared in his questioning, Thea could easily steer the conversation and his thoughts, as if she didn’t do that already.

Wells took a deep breath and pushed through the doors to the bar. The weight of unease pressed down on his shoulders when Thea looked up from the counter at him. He smiled and walked over to the counter, taking a seat at the bar.

Thea placed a bourbon on the rocks in front him, just as he had ordered from her not so long ago. She had remembered, and it meant something to him. Feelings he hadn’t had in a long time surfaced through him with a shiver, and he struggled to keep it hidden and under control.

“Detective Wells, what a pleasure it is to see you.”

“You remembered my drink.”

Light danced in Thea’s eyes, and she tilted her head slightly to the right, seemingly trying to read his thoughts again. “It’s not every day that a detective of the law comes in to flirt with me.”

Wells worked to stave off another smile. Her bold directness was a quality he admired, a quality he had never realized he might like in a woman. “It’s not every day that I get to question an attractive woman such as you.” She paused with a look that made him attuned to his own pulse.

“What can I do for you tonight?”

Wells took a swallow from his glass, considering how to confront her about Brooke. It was a delicate matter from multiple angles. “I spoke with Suzanne yesterday,” he started. “She told me Brooke was distressed just before she died.” Thea listened quietly, her attention absorbed in his words. “I understand that someone harassed her, leaving a dead snake at her doorstep.” Thea’s eyes skipped around the bar. “Please tell me you don’t know anything about that?”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

“Thea…”

She leaned into him. Her hair smelled of mint and her breath like vanilla and coconut. “Honestly. But I will tell you that I do know Brooke wasn’t without enemies.”

“Are you one of them? Suzanne mentioned you had wanted to curse Brooke.”

“Brooke made choices I didn’t agree with.”

Wells locked his eyes on her, though not to challenge.

“If there’s one thing you should know about me, Detective, it is that I don’t lie.”

He already knew that. A woman like Thea didn’t need to lie. “What else should I know about you?” he asked, unexpectedly, and much too late to take it back.

Thea shifted back with a glimmer in her smile. She straightened a pile of coasters next to him. “It might be good to know that I can make a mean pot of spaghetti?”

Wells downed the last of his bourbon. “That is good to know.”

Two girls came up to the register. Thea walked over to help them. Wells disappeared before she had a chance to look back at him.

He stepped out the backdoor and into a breeze-filled dusk. He felt alive. Young.

Happy.

***

Thunder rumbled like boulders down the side of a mountain, sending Lucy bounding like a deer across the lawn for shelter in the house, scurrying almost faster than the bolt of lightning that broke across the sky. Vaporous metal and dampness filled the air. Kate stood on the porch, having just thrown the snake in the garbage, and shuddered from both the weather and someone’s malicious intent. The same thing had happened to Brooke just before she died. The question forming in Kate’s thoughts was would she be next?

She considered calling David, but what would she tell him? He couldn’t come home to be with her, and even so, she didn’t want to chase him away even more than he already seemed to be. She had to confront her own problems, on her own.

She glanced around the yard once more to make sure nobody lurked. She didn’t see anybody, but that didn’t necessarily mean no one was there. Another graveled rumble of thunder rolled overheard. Another storm.

The Goddess will kill again.

Thea’s words about the curse, the statue of the Goddess Rán, currently wrapped in a paper sack atop her refrigerator, continued to haunt her. It was just a statue, the curse only theory…but Brooke was dead. That much was real, along with the snake on her doorstep. She could still smell its briny, soured stench. If only for peace of mind, Kate decided to do a protection spell.

She shut and locked the front door, hoping to keep out unexpected company, and then headed for the kitchen to “properly” secure the statue in her closet as Thea had done.

The hardwoods creaked as she stepped down the hallway, one spot in particular had a gap between the grooves. A little putty would probably take care of it. She missed the weekends when she and David had worked together on the house or the yard, sleeping in late, lounging in pajama bottoms, drinking Bloody Mary’s at noon. It seemed anymore, one of them had to work a weekend shift or had some other obligation to fulfill.

Kate sighed off the disappointments and went into the spare bedroom. She didn’t want the statue in the same room she slept in. She removed the shoes, boxes, and clothes from the closet and into the garage temporarily. Cool air wafted around her as though a window were open, but it was early March, and she hadn’t opened a window since the day they had moved in. Still, she found herself checking the windows, mostly to make sure she had locked them all.

Kate directed her attention back to the statue…or rather it pulled at her. There was something different about it. It wasn’t just a statue, but a mythical entity. She unwrapped the statue from the paper sack, careful not to touch it directly. Less contact, the better. The weight of it in her hand was surprising for its size. She turned it around, absorbing all of its intricate details, the staff and snake coiled around the Goddess’ waist, the exquisite jewels, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and the large smoke-colored diamond at the tip of the staff. There was no doubt in her mind it was worth a lot of money. Thousands of dollars. Enough to kill for?

The statue pulled at her again, this time more like a strong hand at her back. Her chest tightened and her heart beat with a heavy pulse in her ears. Was it the curse, the dark power of Rán reaching out for her? No, magic doesn’t exist, Kate said to herself. It was only an object, incapable of causing her harm unless she batted it against her own head, but that is exactly when a vision struck her, a quick flash like a fragmented memory, one she didn’t remember living.

She was submerged in the dark…in water? She blinked her eyes, dropped the statue on the bed, and moved back from it. The vision flashed again, and this time, she saw herself thrashing about in black water. She could feel the burn of cold water up her nose. Fear seized her mind as if her life were in danger…and someone else was there, whether to help or hurt her, she couldn’t tell.

Kate gasped and pushed herself against the spare room wall. Her breath returned with thoughts of the shark attack. Nick had been there. That’s all it was, residual stress from the shark attack. Stress sometimes brought on her narcoleptic hallucinations, something she had struggled with after Jev’s death. Maybe it was time to increase the dosage of her medication.

In her dresser, she gathered some of Jev’s witchcraft supplies. Besides the simple house-cleansing spell Thea had given to her when she and David moved, she had never performed a real spell on her own. The poppet doll she had buried in the cemetery after Jev’s death was Jev’s spell, one she did in honor for her, but she had never performed her own and didn’t even know how to start. Thinking back to the one she and Thea had performed in the circle of trees, she remembered Thea started out with a meditational chant, but the rest was as vague as an old dream.