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

Keith spit overboard. He sat on the backbench seat, kicking his feet up on the side of the boat. “I’ve already explained to my department that we had a diving accident, which was all it was.”

Nick took another drink from his beer. “Pretty sure there’s a fine line between accident and involuntary manslaughter.”

Barry puffed out a cloud of smoke. “Nobody killed anybody. Jim drowned, simple as that.”

“We’re talking about a man losing his life,” Nick said. “That’s not a simple matter.”

Keith sat up. “Well, you keep acting like we killed him and you’re right, it won’t be a simple matter.” Keith hit Nick with a glare, challenging him. “Besides, I am on the force. You keep forgetting that.”

Keith had been a longtime friend, but Nick believed his position as a homicide officer for the Beaverton Police Department had further inflated his mammoth of an ego and worked as a convenient tool to manipulate others.

“I don’t need to remember,” Nick said. “You’ll always remind me.” He guzzled half of his beer, his unease storming inside him now like the dark clouds on the horizon.

Keith stood and walked over to Nick. His muscled frame caused his arms to bow out. “He found the statue,” he said in low voice.

“You don’t know that,” Nick said. The statue was practically a legend and probably didn’t even exist, but if it did, Nick thought again, then why not the curse too?

“I read the report,” Keith said. “They speculated whether Jim had had a GPS tracker on him because his hand was frozen in a grip, as if he’d been holding something.”

“Even if he did find the statue,” Nick said, “it’s gone anyway, buried once again at the bottom of the ocean. We’ll never find it.”

“Or someone stole it,” Barry said. His right brow crooked up. “Whoever reported his body might have taken the statue.”

Nick rolled his eyes, not believing that Jim could have found the statue of Rán and held it in his dead hand all the way to shore. “His hand probably froze in a fuck-you gesture.”

Keith laughed. “Glad you still have your sense of humor, Nick.” He smacked him on the shoulder.

Nick peered across the Pacific’s turbulent waves, imagining what Jim’s last moments must have been like. It filled him with a stomach-clenching terror knowing his friend had been left alone and helpless in those huge ocean waves. The deep cold of regret and guilt washed into him. He finished his beer and tossed it into a nearby bucket.

“If he did find the statue,” Barry said, exhaling a spicy, sweet cloud of smoke, "just think what else is down there.”

“Riches beyond our comprehension,” Keith added. He glanced over at Nick like a hungry wolf.

Nick shook his head. “No way. I’m done.”

Keith propped his foot up on the side of the bow and leaned over on one knee. “Is that what you’re going to tell Matt when he asks if you can afford another operation?”

Nick jammed a finger toward Keith. “Fuck you.”

Barry stood up, as if to back up Keith, who for obvious reasons didn’t need any help.

“I’ve done everything I can to help my son,” Nick said. He stepped over to the other side of the boat, his back turned to them. “All of this, it’s always been about him,” but another wave of guilt plummeted inside Nick and threatened to pull him under, into the cold ocean of regret.

Keith held his hands up, feigning surrender. “All right, all right. I’m just saying, with a few hundred-grand, you could do so much more for him. Maybe even make it look like he’d never played with fireworks at all.”

The hurricane brewing in Nick’s mind touched ground and blasted him in the chest. The remorse was more than he could bear. He hated himself for not being there, for not watching over Matt and his friends last year on the 4th
of July. He shouldn’t have given him the money to buy the fireworks in the first place.

Nick turned around, anger clenched tight in his jaw. “One more time,” he said. “If we don’t find anything, that’s it. You’ll have to find your own boat.”

Little pit marks dented into the sides of Barry’s cheeks as he smiled. “Keith and I will be able to buy our own boat once we find that statue.”

***

Streetlights outside Brooke’s house blinked and flickered on. Kate leaned over the porch railing with a heavy breath, working to subdue the stir of emotions thickening in her mind. The sight of Brooke’s dead body had brought forth too many painful memories of Jev. Memories that still brought tears to her eyes and an ache in her heart. She missed her terribly, and now, someone else was about to confront a similar loss.

Somehow, Thea knew. Kate questioned her reasoning for Brooke’s safety. While Thea may have helped Kate deal with her sister’s death and investigation, she couldn’t forget her involvement in the occult. Thea wasn’t just a witch, she was the priestess of the Blue Moon Coven, the one Jev had secretly belonged to. Jev had never told Kate about her witchcraft, for whatever reasons, so consequently, every now and then, the teeth of jealousy bit down on her, and they did so again today. At times, it seemed Thea knew more about Jev than anyone had, even her own sister.

Kate also recalled what others in the coven had told her regarding Thea’s dark side, which presently, Kate wasn’t so sure it excluded murder. Brooke’s death and Thea’s dreams were too coincidental, almost alibi-ish, she thought. She couldn’t trust her, not alone with Brooke, so reluctantly, she went back inside. Thea was busy searching through Brooke’s things, opening dressers, drawers, and checking under furniture and cushions.

“What are you doing?” Kate avoided looking into the kitchen so she didn’t have to see the ghostly, vacant stare in Brooke’s eyes again. The image of her twisted legs was difficult enough.

“I know what you’re thinking, but I had nothing to do with this, Kate.”

“‘I’d curse the little bitch if I could get away with it.’ Isn’t that what you said?”

Thea blinked her eyes. “It’s more complicated than that.”

“I don’t think it’s complicated at all. Either it’s an accident or it’s not.”

“Or it’s a curse.”

“A curse.” Kate shook her head, not wanting another one of Thea’s odd dilemmas to disrupt her attempts at a peaceful, normal life. “Aren’t you the least bit upset that Brooke is dead?”

“Of course I am. She was a coven sister.”

“Then what happened? If you knew she was going to die, I would think you’d also know how.”

Thea stepped over to the living room window and stared out at a darkening sky that deepened the shadows inside the house. Kate thought about turning some of the lights on but didn’t want to touch anything.  

Thea turned around, her eyes reflecting the same gloom as the weather. “In my dream, I saw Brooke, screaming here in her house. A bright light flashed in the sky, and then I saw Brooke run from her bedroom, trip, and fall to the ground. She was trying to get away from something.” Thea glanced down the hall. “Something was after her.”

“Something? You mean someone.”

Thea shook her head. “No. Something.”

Kate studied Thea, not liking the graveness in her voice or the ambiguity that hinted of the supernatural. “I think your
dream
makes a great alibi.”  

Thea scowled at her. “Don’t make this look like something it’s not. My reasons for disliking Brooke are irrelevant, but the dream is not. It came to me as a warning, and after everything you saw with your sister’s death, everything you experienced in that house out in the country, I’m surprised you’re not taking this more seriously.”

At one point last year, Kate had thought she had seen ghosts in the house where she and David had first lived, but after incorporating logic and reason back into her rationale, she realized it was all a result of her medical condition, narcolepsy, which commonly produced vivid hallucinations. That is all they were, she had convinced herself, despite Thea’s opinions and even those of David (little did she know he also believed in the supernatural, though thankfully not to the extremes Thea did).

“Oh, I am taking this seriously,” Kate said. “Just not the same way as you.”

“Good.” Thea stepped into the kitchen. “Because this was no accident.” She pointed at the refrigerator where shards of glass refracted off the canister lighting. “It looks like there was a struggle.”

Kate’s heart kicked against her ribs as she considered the possibility that they themselves might be in danger.

Detective Wells turned down the volume on the police scanner so he could concentrate. A recent rain added sheen to the pavement, causing daylight to reflect a charged brightness across the windshield of his sedan. He took the exit to St. Vincent’s Hospital where his daughter, Julie, had been admitted. Sexual assault. He was loaded with red, hot anger and clenched his fists around the steering wheel, vowing to catch the punk who had violated his daughter. He had worked sexual assault cases before, but it had never touched him personally. Now he understood the reddened madness he had always seen in the parent’s eyes…grasped exactly what was building behind them.

To add more fuel to the fire, Shelia, his ex-wife, would be there. He hadn’t seen her in months, not since she had served him divorce papers. Though they had remained friendly toward one another, the pain of jealousy still stung whenever he saw her. She had left him for his accountant, Pete Sullivan.

Still, he knew he shouldn’t blame Shelia for leaving him. He had neglected their relationship in his relentless search for his brother’s murder, a case still unsolved after eleven years. He had shuffled the file into the unsolved cases cabinet two years ago. One day, when he had the strength, he would return to it. The case had cost him everything, and Shelia deserved more attention than he could give her. But seeing her again brought too many feelings to the surface, and his heart ached all over again.

The sun began to dip behind a wall of evergreens bordering the hospital and pushed tall shadows across the parking lot. Wells parked his patrol car in a spot reserved for official personnel. He entered through double doors that slid open and showed his badge to the girl at the front desk.

“I’m here to see Julie Wells.”

“She is in Room 411.”

“Thank you.”

Wells rounded the corner and pressed on down the hall, taking deep breaths. The bright lights intruded on his dark thoughts. Strong, vaporous clouds of alcohol and iodine permeated the air. He searched for Julie’s room number. His hands felt pasty and his pulse drummed faster with each step. So many different emotions tangled inside him, he didn’t know what he was going to say to Julie, if he could say anything at all. What mattered was that she was okay, and that’s where he tried to keep his focus.

He heard doctors talking and passed by a room he thought was Julie’s. Three physicians stood around a man with no shirt on, his back to the door. Wells paused long enough to notice strange marks covering most of the man’s back.

“Lichtenberg’s Flowers,” one of the doctors said. “See the offshoot lines from the center here.” He pointed at the middle of a red patch the size of a small fist. Branches that resembled dark pink scars spanned out from the center like tree limbs. “That’s where the lightning passed through.” One of the doctors turned to look at Wells. Wells smiled and quickly turned away, moving on. He found Julie’s room two doors down and took another deep breath to soothe his anxiety before knocking gently. The door cracked open. A nurse popped her head out.

“I’m Julie’s father,” Wells said.

“They’re in the middle of testing. It will be just a minute. You can have a seat down at the end of the hall in the waiting room.” The nurse pointed to a glass-enclosed room.

Wells walked into the waiting room, equipped with sofas, end tables, soda dispenser, and a television in the upper corner of the room. He fed a dollar into the slot of the soda machine and tapped on the 7-Up button. It clanked and tumbled a can to the bottom tray. He snapped the top and took a sip when a woman came around the corner. Sparks zipped through his chest at the sight of her, cropped, blonde hair, thin frame, and blue eyes—Shelia. She noticed him immediately too, pausing just before she entered the doorway. Her eyes softened when she came into the room. Wells could tell she had been crying.

She walked over to him. “Thank you for coming, Orwin.”

Shelia had always called him by his first name, so much more formal than his middle name, Jay. She used to say that she liked the way Orwin rolled from her tongue.

“You shaved off your mustache.”

Wells rubbed the new stubble that had formed at his upper lip and jaw line. “Change is good, right?” Change had been the key topic in their divorce, with Wells not wanting it and Shelia needing it.

Shelia smiled and nodded. “You look nice.”

Wells crossed his arms. “So, how’s she doing?”

“She’s doing okay.” Shelia bit her lip. It seemed she wanted to say more, but maybe didn’t know how or was afraid to.

Wells set his soda on the end table. “They’re performing a vaginal swab on her, aren’t they?”

Shelia broke into tears. He reached out his hand and Shelia quickly took it, burying herself in his arms. As Wells held her, a thousand memories crashed into him, as if they had happened yesterday. He let go of her, needing space from the surge of old feelings. Shelia wiped at her eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Wells let out a hard sigh. “Julie is strong, and she has two parents who love her. She will get through this. She will be all right.”

“I know,” Shelia replied. “It’s just…underneath all the hurt, there’s all this anger. I mean, I’m having some dark thoughts about the person who did this to her. I’ve never felt like this before.”

That is what I deal with every day, he wanted to tell her. All the unsolved murders that had kept him working late and pushed her away because she didn’t understand…couldn’t understand what he was going through. Since the divorce, he had chosen to avoid that path, one he had already taken and failed at. “You’re not alone,” he replied instead.

Shelia straightened her posture. “Julie won’t comment on who the boy was.”

That didn’t surprise him. Most girls didn’t, out of fear.

“Maybe you can talk her into it,” Shelia said.

“Maybe. Julie is a grown woman now. I haven’t had much influence over her for a while now.” Or any other woman.

“You have more than you think. I know Julie admires you, Orwin. She’s just afraid, and you’re her dad; she doesn’t want you to be involved.”

A sense of powerlessness beat at Wells. Julie didn’t want him to take charge and fix her world. She had told him that before. “But how could I not be involved in this?”

“She needs her dad, not a detective,” Shelia said.

Her comment dug up a familiar pain, one he had heard from Julie before. His phone rang and he checked the display. Kate Waters? He remembered Kate well, having just closed the case on her sister’s homicide. He turned to Shelia. “I’m sorry. I have to take this one.”

She nodded and he headed out of the waiting room and into the hall. “This is Wells.”

“Detective Wells, this is Kate. Kate Waters.”

“Hello Kate. I’m sorry to say you’ve kind of caught me at a bad time.”

“This is very important.”

He could only imagine what she was about to tell him, and feared more witchcraft-related trouble.

“What is it?”

“I found a girl, dead in her home.”

Shit. He hadn’t expected that. “Okay, give me a minute. I’ll call you right back.” He hung up and went back into the waiting room.

“I have to go.” He knew what was coming next, Shelia’s look of disappointment and shame, and it punched into him harder than ever before.

“But it’s your daughter this time.”

“At least she is still alive, unlike someone else’s daughter at the moment.” Wells thought she should at least think about that. Her world wasn’t always the worst or even the most important, but Shelia never understood.

“Can you at least say good-bye to her?”

Wells tucked his phone back into his jacket. He walked to the waiting room doorway and turned to Shelia. “I can be her dad too.”

***

The rainstorm softened to a steady drizzle, but it was still a cold curtain wrapping itself around Kate. The patterned rug on Brooke’s porch became a dark labyrinth for her wandering thoughts, trapping them into confusion, anxiety, and horrors of the past. A slew of questions kept knocking at her mind. How did Brooke die? Was she murdered? Like her sister Jev? Did Thea have anything to do with it? Was she in danger herself?

She waited outside with Thea, who leaned against the side of the house, maybe questioning all she had seen too. Death had bled a thick stillness between the two of them. There was something beneath Thea’s usual quiet exterior, and it shouted of warning, as if she not only believed in the curse she spoke of, but feared it as well.  

Looking into the window next to her, Kate could see the corner of the island in Brooke’s kitchen. Just two feet from there, Brooke lay in the twisted angle of death. She was so young. Like Jev.

A shiver seized Kate’s shoulders as she thought about the girl’s death, a somber reminder of Jev’s, how she used to imagine her car crash, the man who had left her to die, and all the secrets of Jev’s she had uncovered afterwards. She assumed Brooke had her share of secrets too, especially if she was in the Blue Moon Coven.

Kate shook back the chill of those memories and checked her phone display to see if her boyfriend, David, had called her. He wasn’t answering their home phone or his cell. Though often unavailable—David was a paramedic for Providence Medical Center—his timing sometimes couldn’t be worse.

“What’s taking him so long?” Thea said, referring to Detective Wells. She paced in small circles next to the front door.

“I called him at a bad time, so he said. I imagine he’s dealing with his own problems.”

Thea stopped and turned to Kate. “I know you think I’m crazy, but something harrowing is coming.” Her fingers kneaded the tops of her knuckles.

“I think it has already arrived,” Kate said, gesturing to the kitchen where Brooke was.

“No, there’ll be more.” Thea went back to pacing. “The storms are intensifying, the ground has been shaking, the—”

“The ground is always shaking,” Kate said. “You’re reading in too many things. I think you’re just being overly paranoid.”

Thea swung around with a sharpness in her eyes that Kate had come to expect. “You should be too. A vengeful goddess is coming, and she will kill anyone who steps in her path.”

“A vengeful goddess?”

Thea’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t say I never warned you.”

It felt to Kate more like a threat than a warning. Her stomach tightened despite the ridiculousness of it. Thea could be very persuasive when she wanted to be.

The sound of a car approached, and then Wells’ black sedan pulled up at the curb. Kate let out a sigh of relief. She straightened and went to the stairs on the porch, eager to be in the company of Detective Wells.

“Don’t get too excited,” Thea said, stepping up behind her. “After all, we’ll be the first suspects.”  

Kate’s breath stuck in her throat. She hadn’t thought of that, and the idea that Thea had unnerved her even more. Maybe Thea had something to hide. Kate just wasn’t sure if the intentions behind it were for better or not.

Two patrol cars parked behind Wells’ car, and three officers stepped out and drew their guns. They jogged up the grassy slope to Brooke’s house in military fashion. They each went in different directions to the backside of the house. Kate and Thea shared a troubled glance. Wells stepped up the porch stairs and approached them with a grave seriousness that reinforced Thea’s last comment. He looked more handsome than the last time she had seen him, having shaved off his mustache revealing perfectly shaped lips and teeth, and maybe even having slimmed down.

“We need to make sure the area is secure first,” he said. Wells’ gaze slid over to Thea. Thea shifted toward him, a brightness flashing in her eyes. Kate imagined she was attempting to charm her way out of what she wouldn’t be able to explain.

“Of course,” Kate replied. “She’s in the kitchen.”

Wells glanced in the window before going back down the porch steps to the left side of the house.

Kate and Thea waited on the porch, arms crossed and eyes wary. Neither one of them spoke. There would be plenty of time for that later. Wells came back around the opposite side of the house from where he had disappeared. He holstered his gun beneath his blazer and walked up the porch steps.

“You remember Thea?” Kate said to him.

“Yes, I do,” he replied. He extended his hand to Thea and shook it gently with a slight dip of his head. When he spoke again, his tone deepened. “Did you touch or move the deceased in any way?”

Thea shook her head. “Definitely not.”

Wells eyed her. The two of them silently questioned each other or it was something else, Kate thought, some kind of tension brought up from the past.

“We weren’t in her house for more than a minute,” Kate said. “Right, Thea?”

Thea broke her stare from Wells first. “Right.” She glanced back at him, nodding with approval.

“You didn’t see anyone coming or going?” Wells looked to both of them.

“No,” Thea said, turning to Kate.

“Not that we were aware—” Kate began to say.

“But Brooke’s front door was open,” Thea said.

“Wide open? Will you show me, without touching the door so we can fingerprint it?”