Wicked Tempest: A Kate Waters Mystery (Kate Waters Mysteries Book 2) (17 page)

“Nick brought me to the hospital?” Kate asked.

Wells nodded, and waited, as if for her to say more.

“I had just seen him earlier in the evening,” Kate said. “Given that it is still Friday night?”

“Almost Saturday morning,” Jack said.

Wells opened a folder in his lap and scratched at the side of his head. He was working on something, Kate thought.

“Kate,” he said. “It appears that you were struck by lightning recently.”

“I was?”

Another reel of memories flashed…the mark on the back of her neck she had discovered when she was at the pub with Nick, and then Thea’s visit. She touched the sore spot at the nape of her neck.

Wells watched her carefully. “Do you remember?”

Kate looked over at her dad, who appeared even more concerned.

“There was a storm a few days ago that ran through the parking lot where I work. A tree had been struck by lightning. I must have been closer to it than I thought.” While Kate explained this to Wells, he seemed to be picking her words apart and reshuffling them into a bigger picture.

“So you were fairly close to the lightning when it struck?”

Kate nodded.

“The doctor said you have Lichtenberg’s Flowers.” His eyes hardened on hers.

“Is that what those are?” she said, feigning bewilderment.

“Yes.” Wells continued to scrutinize her. “Would you mind if I had a look?”

Kate did mind, but she didn’t feel right telling Detective Wells that. “Sure.” She sat up, winced at the pain in her neck and head, and then pulled the smock down from her neckline. She wondered what he was looking for and if somehow he knew about the statue. Maybe he had gone to her house and found it, if her attacker hadn’t gotten to it first.

Wells examined the mark briefly. He sat back down and looked at her as though he had just caught her in a lie…as though the mark was more than Lichtenberg’s Flowers…or not Lichtenberg’s Flowers at all.

“Lichtenberg’s Flowers are a lot like snowflakes,” Wells said. “Not only is each one unique, but they occur on various parts of the body, are different sizes and colors. Voltage, clothing, height and weight, body mass, and the person’s distance from the bolt all affect the pattern. So each one should be completely unique.”

“Okay,” Kate said. She looked over at her dad.

He hadn’t broken his gaze from Wells, knowing too that Wells was getting at something. “What does it mean?” he asked.

“I find it strange that your marks are almost identical to the ones Brooke Jennings had on the back of her neck, and one other person, Jim Kelley. He was found at Rockaway Beach around the same time that Brooke Jennings had visited there. All of your marks are the same size, shape, and position on the body.”

Kate was at a loss for words. She hadn’t realized that someone else had died before Brooke. How many had died before him?

“So, do you think it’s something other than these Lich… Flowers?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know,” Wells said. “As far as we know, it’s an injury from a lightning strike.” Wells picked up his briefcase and set it down on his lap. “I have just one more thing to ask.”

Kate nodded. “Sure.”

“Would you mind if I took a swab from your mouth for DNA analysis? For investigative purposes.”

“That’s fine.”

Wells opened his briefcase and pulled out a plastic tube with a cotton swab inside. He opened it and swiped it inside Kate’s mouth. “Don’t worry, this is for your protection, not to incriminate you.”

“I know. Thanks.”

Another person had stepped into the room. It was Nick.

“Am I interrupting?” he asked, looking at Wells, her, and Jack.

“No,” Wells said. He turned to Kate. “Listen, call me if you think of anything or if you need anything. I’ll bug you later when you’re feeling better.”

“Thanks, Detective.”

Her dad stood too. “Nick said he would give you a ride home, unless you would like me to?”

“That’s okay, Dad. You go home and get some rest. Thanks for coming. I’ll call you soon.”

He patted her shoulder. “Okay. Take care.”

“I will.”

The two of them left, and Nick walked over to her bed and sat down where Jack had been sitting. His eyes explored the extent of her injuries.

Kate saw blood on his shirtsleeve, her blood. “Sorry about your shirt.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Thank you for helping me.”

He shook his head. “I’m going to have to start charging you, I mean I could make a lot of money trying to keep you safe.” His smile faded. “How are you feeling?”

“I’ve been better.”

“You scared me.”

“How did you know where I lived?”

“I found your address at your work a couple of days ago.” Nick fiddled with an empty paper cup in his hand. “If you don’t mind me asking, where is David?”

Kate rolled her head aside to look out the window. Rain pattered against it. Where was David? She didn’t want to have to explain things, the complications of jealousy and betrayal, and opted for the story that was supposed to be true. “He’s a paramedic, helping out with the hurricanes in Texas.”

“Noble man.”

Yeah, noble. It occurred to her that she hadn’t looked to see what color of pants and shoes Nick was wearing. She glanced down—blue jeans and brown shoes. Not black. She supposed he could have changed, but he hadn’t changed his shirt. Wouldn’t he have changed that too or would he have kept it for his story?

Nick laid his hand on her arm. “I only want to be your friend. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

Kate didn’t say anything. She knew that it didn’t take much to complicate a friendship between a man and woman. “I’m ready to go home if you still want to take me.”

“Of course,” he said.

His golden-brown eyes pulled her in again, and in all honesty, Kate was tempted to hug him, wanted to feel his tender touch, to be wrapped in another’s arms with the rest of the world falling away. She wanted to be held by David, but he was holding someone else. At that thought, Kate realized, her world was already falling away.

In the early morning hours at the hospital, the hallways were mainly empty. The occasional nurse or doctor in smocks passed by with barely a smile, and it surprised Wells they even managed to surface that much. He hated hospitals and couldn’t wait to get out, away from walls that seemed to be closing in on him.

He checked the new message on his phone, thankful to hear Officer Hanes on the other end. She updated him about a potential arrest on a fellow named Shane Steiner, the boy Julie and her friends had said was the one who had assaulted them. A rush of mixed emotions hit Wells, and he sighed a moment in relief. The anger still stewing inside him would have to work its way out over time.

He rounded the corner of the hallway and steered for the elevator door that had just dinged open, when he almost ran into another person leaving it. His startle warmed into delight upon seeing the person he had nearly run down, Thea. She hadn’t left his thoughts since their last encounter.

Wells put his briefcase on the ground and stepped back, regrettably increasing the distance between them. He moved forward just enough to touch her elbow. “Thea, I’m so sorry.”

“Detective,” she said, smiling.

Her hair was flat and wet, as though she’d been walking in the rain, and dampness wetted her cheeks, made them glow even more. It was raw and sexy, Wells thought, and the touch to his hand she gave him next heightened his pulse.

“Ms. Wright. I was hoping to see you.” Immediately, he wished he could retract his words—how honestly they had sprung forth—but Thea did that to him. She stretched the moment of silence out, as if hanging onto his sentence, savoring every naked truth in it.

“I mean, Kate was asking for you,” he said. She hadn’t, but again, words kept tumbling out of him.

“You were?” Thea said, ignoring the last part.

Wells cleared his throat.

“How’s she doing?” Thea asked.

“Better than expected. She’s one lucky girl, again.”

“Nine lives.” Thea shifted her stance and leaned in to him in order to see around the corner of the hallway. “Is her room down the hall there?”

“Yes. Room 503.” Wells had been holding his breath, forgetting what it was like to stand so close to another woman, one as smooth and attractive as Thea. But he had a job, and keeping the public safe always had to come first. “I need to ask you a few questions.”

“Here?”

“If you don’t mind. It’s about Kate.”

“Of course.”

She hadn’t stepped back since she’d leaned in to him. Wells could see the yellow specks in her green eyes.

Wells picked up his briefcase and walked with her to a window, away from the elevators. Although an indigo blue brightened along the horizon, it was still dark enough to catch their reflections in the window. “Do you know who could have done this to Kate?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

Wells turned to her. Something had crossed her face, as though she withheld information. “Sometimes the smallest clue can turn into the biggest lead.”

“I wish I could give that to you.”

“What about Andre?”

“Maybe,” she said, glancing out the window behind him.

Wells shortened the distance between them. “Talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

She returned her gaze to him, eyes deep and full of mystery. Wells wanted to explore every hidden truth in them, every buried secret, everything that had ever haunted her.  

“I think someone else is involved,” Thea said. “I just don’t have any proof, only a gut feeling.”

He could relate. “Any subtle vibes on who or why?”

Thea shrugged. “It doesn’t come to me in that way.”

Wells held that thought, taking in the idea that Thea trusted in an intuitive side like he did. He stepped even closer to her and propped his left hand on the trim between the windows. The yellow flecks in her green eyes emerged, like rays of sunshine. “Since you’re a good friend of Kate’s, I want you to be careful, until we know exactly what is going on.”

Thea pivoted her shoulders, pinning herself between Wells and the windowsill. “You care about my safety, Detective?” A warm smile sparkled in her eyes.

It was as if the air had thickened around him, and he breathed it in like a hot, August afternoon. The damp warmth of sweat gathered at his neck. The lights seemed to dim as his attention narrowed into Thea. He took chances in his job every day. Investigating criminals brought a wealth of danger. For some reason, taking a chance on love brought more chills to his spine than any dark alley he had ever explored. This time, he wanted to take that risk more than anything, to not let a second chance slip away. This time might not come around again for a while, if ever.

Wells leaned into Thea, almost to a kissing distance. “Yes, Ms. Wright. I believe I do.”

***

The rain had stopped and daylight emerged outside Kate’s hospital room window with a soft blue glow on the windows of the building across the street. The panes were too thick to hear the birds chirp, but she watched them awaken from their nests, soaring and dipping through the air. She longed to be one of them now, anticipating another day of a life spent flying across cloudy skies, not returning to an empty house filled with broken glass and spilled blood.

At least she had Nick. As of late, her safety had depended on him, and she was fortunate to have his help. She stood from the bed with his support. Dizziness spun her in circles again. Kate leaned on the rail of the bed until the walls leveled out again.

“You okay?” Nick asked.

“Yes. Just need a minute.”

The nurse put the release papers for Kate to sign on the tray. “Turn these in to the front desk before you go.”

“Thanks.” Kate reached for the folded pile of her clothes on the bed. “I’ll be a minute,” she said to Nick.

“Take your time,” he said. “I’ll be in the waiting area.”

“Thank you, for everything.”

Nick winked at her, and then left the room. Kate went into the bathroom to wash her face and check her body over, find out how damaged she was. At a first glance, she flinched at seeing herself in the mirror, having no idea she looked so bad. Her lip was swollen, explaining why it was hard to talk, and red bruising around her left temple and eye would later turn to a puffy, deep blue-purple-black. Even the nick on her cheek from when the shark had pushed her against the wall had worsened during the healing process. It appeared as though she had been to hell and back. Hell and back and still alive to tell about it.

A deep sense of intrusion infiltrated her. Someone had desecrated her body and home. She felt hollow, and dirty, as if her attacker’s hands had actually stolen parts of her. A tremble shook over her. She turned on the faucet and splashed warm water over her face. After towel-drying, she glanced in the mirror again and lifted her hair up from her neck. The mark looked the same. The curse. It remained, to be noticed and dealt with.

Kate didn’t want to put any more power into it, didn’t want to believe in curses, but like skeletons from the past, she couldn’t deny its force anymore. She knew life was more than what science or logic could sometimes explain, even though she had grown accustomed to thinking otherwise. Science and logic were her career. Everything could be explained by the natural laws of science…until she became involved in witchcraft and Thea. Since then, she had discovered a new world of natural law and order. Strange occurrences that coincidences and statistics alone couldn’t explain.

When she came out from behind the curtain, Thea was standing in the room. Her hair was oddly smoothed down and rain-soaked. Kate had a gathering thought that something had changed in her. Behind the “I told you so” expression in her eyes, something else burned bright.  

“Hello,” Kate said, looking away from her. She sat down on the bed to put her shoes on.

Thea stood still, seemingly to drink in Kate’s appearance. “I talked with Wells,” she said. Her voice was unusually soft.

Kate glanced over at her. “I didn’t say anything about the statue, if that’s what you want to know.”

“It was probably stolen anyway.”

By you?
Kate hadn’t said it, but knew her frown had asked it. “Why do you think that?” she replied instead.

Thea walked over to the chair, but didn’t sit down. She eyed the medical bags on the IV pole. “Why else would you have been attacked? It’s not rocket science…or in your case, rock science.”

Though witty, Thea’s words had an edge to them that cut into the vulnerable parts of Kate, not a hard thing to do at the moment when every part of her ached.

Thea’s eyes were like green glass, reflecting no sympathy for the physical and emotional injuries inflicted on her. Those were eyes beaming with wrath…Rán’s eyes, Kate thought. Then it snapped inside her mind like dry, brittle twigs underfoot. The uncanny resemblance, not just in her eyes, or her sodden appearance, but something about her presence.

Rán. Thea. Rán.

Mistrust clotted in Kate’s mind. “Or you took the statue back? You’ve lied to me once already.”

“You never actually asked me if I had stolen the statue, Kate, otherwise I would have confessed.”

“C’mon Thea, that’s just a play on words.” Kate walked over to the counter where her release forms lay. She wanted out of the hospital, out of this ongoing crazy-ass situation.

“I have reasons for the things I do, regardless of what others think,” Thea said. “I was doing it to protect those who don’t know how to protect themselves.”

Kate folded the papers and tucked them into her purse. She knew Thea hadn’t stolen it, or at least not by herself, because whoever had attacked her was definitely a male, but that wasn’t to say she and Andre weren’t working together. After all, he had come to her first, which might have been a distraction. Thea had plenty of them.

“Don’t be foolish, Kate.”

“If the statue is gone, and you didn’t take it, there is only one other person who could have, who suspected I had the statue in the first place.”

“Andre,” Thea said.

They both stared each other down. Kate saw it as a test between them, of friendship, rivalry, and personal might. Thea was one of the toughest and strangest women she had ever met. The power she held was palpable, as if she could reach out and grab you without moving or play with the inner workings of your mind like a ghost.

“The curse of Rán isn’t over,” Thea said. “I’m as sure as rain you don’t have the statue anymore, but that doesn’t mean you are free of the curse. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.”

“How so? What are you talking about?”

“There are other things worse than death. Since you stole the statue from me, a darkness has been following me.”

“What do you mean?” Kate couldn’t stand the slow leak of information, couldn’t hardly bear to listen how things might get worse.

“Like becoming that which you fear the most.” Thea turned and left the room before Kate could stop her.

“Thea? Thea?”

She had disappeared around the doorframe and down the hall. A heavy weight sank into Kate like a fresh bag of cement.
Becoming that which you fear the most.

What Thea had said pushed a sharp blade of dread into Kate’s chest. A piercing sensation that had been present since she had first stolen the statue, since the night she had tried to perform the protection ritual and fell in the bathroom. Yet, now it cut into her thoughts, cleaving them apart with paranoia. Kate envisioned Rán as clear as quartz in her mind’s eye. The woman who had loomed over her, pushed her down on the floor, and beyond, into cold, black water.

She repeated Thea’s words again, not wanting to forget them: Becoming that which you fear the most.

Which would be what? Likely, it was the woman in the bathroom. An absurd thought came to her. The woman… She hadn’t vanished into thin air. She had disappeared by charging at her. She had disappeared by rushing into her.

***

The elevator doors shut and that confined, suffocating sensation stole Keith’s breath. It wasn’t so much the tight space of the elevator, as it was the close quarters with other people. He could handle a plethora of other uncomfortable encounters, car chases, meth-heads, shipwreck diving…but rubbing up against stranger’s shoulders, shying away from their coughs, and sneezes, all the fucking perfume and cologne—it was more than he could handle. He stood firm, never glancing around, always looking forward. The elevator dinged and the doors opened. Keith squeezed his way out first, never mind elders, women, and children—he couldn’t fucking breathe.

The end of lunch hour, the busiest time in the police department, would provide him the natural cover of distraction he needed to figure out exactly what Detective Wells knew about Brooke Jennings, Jim Kelley, and Kate Waters. A few of the officers seemed familiar to him, but he knew none of them beyond casual acquaintance. Likewise, they would soon forget he was even cruising through the department today.

He rounded the corner to Wells’ office. Two convergent walls were nearly floor-to-ceiling glass, but at least mostly covered with blinds. He gave the doorknob a twist, surprised to find it wasn’t locked. Awfully trusting, Detective, he thought to himself. He let himself in and closed the blinds for security, hoping the detective did this often enough to not cause suspicion.