Wicked Tempest: A Kate Waters Mystery (Kate Waters Mysteries Book 2) (28 page)

Maybe Thea was right after all. Maybe there really was a curse. Freak deaths, identical Lichtenberg’s Flowers, two witches dead. If it was real, Thea was at the heart of it, which meant she could be next.

Kate stood in front of her bedroom window, her mind heavy on Suzanne. A small bird hopped in the branches of a dogwood. Its head darted side-to-side. It was keenly aware of its surroundings and the dangerous world around it. The bird was tiny, so delicate and breakable, like Suzanne. The way she had tucked herself into the corner of her bedroom emphasized the same frailty and vulnerability.

Kate struggled to make sense of the loss, of who could have done such a thing to her, killed her in such a way. Wells hadn’t given her many details other than she had lost a lot of blood. Her death didn’t seem connected to the curse, Kate thought. That kind of violence was human, an act brimming with heated jealousy or soured hate, and poor Suzanne had stood directly in front of it, same as Jev and her mother to cancer. Caught in the headlights of death.

David’s footsteps startled her and pulled her up from the downward spiral of dark ruminations. He came up behind her. “Hey, you all right?”

Kate sighed. “Yeah, just feeling a little edgy.” On the nightstand in front of her, she picked up the necklace David had bought her and jingled it in her palm.

David saw what she held. “I noticed you weren’t wearing that.”

“I took it off when I found out you were in California.” Kate turned around, looked up at him, and found herself warming beneath his hazel-green eyes.

“I understand.” He reached for the chain and unclasped it. Kate let him loop the necklace around her neck. His lips brushed against the side of her cheek as he did. His warm breath on her skin sent a shiver down her back. Her anger dissipated with it, and it felt good to touch him again.

David ran his hand along the nape of her neck and then down her arm, keeping his lips against the side of her cheek. “I know I hurt you, and I’m deeply sorry. You are the one I want to be with. It sounds corny, but you are special to me, Kate. You’re the first person I think of when something good has happened, and the first one I want to talk to when something has gone wrong. I love you.”

Kate wanted to say she loved him too, but couldn’t. The emotions were there, a rapid beat in her heart, but she couldn’t speak the words.

David sensed this and pulled back slightly. “I know it’s going to take time, but I’m willing to invest it. I know we belong.…” He stopped, his eyes drawn to the window behind her.

“What is it?” Kate swung around. She stared out the window at ribbons of light curling across a darkened sky. A wave of green and pink rippled like streamers.

“What in the hell?” David walked out of the room and headed for the front door.

Kate followed him into the yard. Above them, the sky came alive with currents of colors and light. “I don’t believe it.”

“Is that what I think it is?” he asked.

“The aurora borealis, here, in Portland, Oregon!” Kate’s phone rang in her pocket. It was Stewart.

“Do you see what I see?” he asked when she answered.

“I’m looking at it right now,” Kate replied.

“The poles are switching,” he said with excitement. “The disturbance in the magnetic field is changing the extent of the aurora zone. Kate, we are witnessing something no one has ever seen before. It’s spectacular! I mean, a pole reversal in our lifetime is like finding the first tyrannosaurus-rex bone in your backyard! Light in the sky, blood on the land.”

A memory pounded inside Kate’s head. “What did you say?”

“What? Light in the sky, blood on the land? You’ve never heard that before?”

“Yes, actually Nick said that the other day. Did you get it from him?”

“Uh…I don’t know, maybe. It’s an old proverb, something to do with Greek gods and mythology.”

Light in the sky, blood on the land…so similar to
Light in her eye, blood on her hands
. Kate looked up into the sky, at the curling ribbons of light.
Blood on her hands
…

The first time she had heard the whisper was at McKell’s in the bathroom…when she was with Nick.

“Stewart, is Nick around?” David turned his gaze to Kate at the mention of Nick’s name.

“No, but if you get hold of him, tell him to call me.”

“Sure.” Kate hung up. She was almost positive now that the message wasn’t about Thea, as she had originally thought. It was a warning for Nick. He was the one who had been with her at every dangerous turn of events.

Kate turned to David. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

“To Nick’s?”

“Something’s come up. I have to talk to him. It’s important, and I can’t explain it right now, but I will.”

David reached for Kate’s hands and drew her close. “Kate…” he said with a pause, seeming to want to say more.

“You don’t have to worry about Nick. Nothing ever happened between us.”

“He saved your life, more than once. A lot has already happened between the two of you.”

“Well, when you put it like that,” Kate said. “But that’s not what this is about.” She leaned in to kiss him. David returned her kiss, and then pulled back just enough to look into her eyes.

“But he’s got a nice boat.”

Kate laughed. “How do you know that?”

“Oh, I have ways of finding out things too.” He gripped her hand tight in his. “The same goes for me and Robyn. It wasn’t like that either. We don’t have those kinds of feelings for each other anymore. Truth is, I don’t think we ever did.”

Kate kissed him again and then let go of his hand. “Thank you.” She went into the house to get her purse. When she came back out, David had his cell phone positioned at the sky, filming a video of the aurora borealis.

“I won’t be long,” Kate said to him.

He waved to her. “Good. I’ll be making fajitas.”

Kate held his smile for a moment before getting into her car. She felt better than she had in a long time, like things were finally going to change for the better.

***

Kate found Nick’s address in the glove box of her car. She drove to northeast Portland, across the industrial section of the river, and found the white Alameda bungalow Nick lived in. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was going to tell him. Blurting it out like Thea might, “Nick, I think you’re going to die,” wasn’t a tactic she considered using, but after what happened to Suzanne, she had to do something. Nick didn’t have the statue, but Thea had said even the people around those who’d had it, could receive backlash from the curse, and Nick certainly had been around her during the moments she swore it was Rán’s hand at her neck.

The aurora borealis continued to wave through the sky like a giant dragon’s tail, although the colors had faded from a brilliant pink and gold to a light green. Even though she had hoped to see Nick’s white pickup truck in front of his house, she was surprised to see it was, figuring he would have taken it in for repair after the tree smashed the hood. With the switching of the poles, she also thought he would have been out on the Dawn Maiden checking his navigational instruments. She parked out front at the curb and went to his door. Minimal landscape and overgrown rhododendrons out front hinted at his disinterest in gardening.

Kate knocked twice at his door. Silence filled the house. She waited a few more seconds, then rang the doorbell. He must be asleep, she thought. A flash of Brooke on her kitchen floor surged through her thoughts, then another of creeping through Suzanne’s house. She tried the door. It was unlocked, so she let herself in, shivering with the cold touch of déjà vu all over again.  

“Hello? Nick?”

The house was in disarray. At first glimpse, it looked as though there had been a struggle or a mafia raid. Books, clothes, and dishes were scattered everywhere, but on closer inspection, nothing had been knocked over or broken. Just messy. Diving equipment piled high into a heap in a chair near the door. Unusual art, tribal faces, abstract nudity, and various pictures of temples around the world covered the walls and collectibles cluttered the shelves. It looked like the bachelor pad of a zealous world explorer. Kate thought, more or less, that was what Nick was.

She stepped over the clothes and books, and headed toward what looked like the kitchen with green-and-white-tiled flooring. Her heart kicked against her chest as she moved closer to the room, fearing another image she was already struggling to submerge. After seeing no body on the floor, she did a quick scan of the countertop. A large bottle of vodka sat next to a half-empty jug of spicy V-8. Next to that was a stack of business cards. Kate picked one up. The card listed Nick’s name, phone number, and the address to the Riverplace Marina downtown, where he offered boat tours on the Dawn Maiden.

She slipped one in her pocket when, across the kitchen, she noticed a solid door cracked open. It led downstairs to a cellar. A light shone from inside. She walked over and peered inside. The dimness from the basement cast heavy shadows at the bottom onto concrete flooring.

“Nick?”

Kate paused at the top stair, unease coursing through her. She heard a faint shuffle at the bottom, then a click. Believing it was Nick, she grabbed the railing and stepped down the steep, wooden staircase. The air cooled as she descended, becoming cold, dank, and earthy. When she reached the bottom, she found the space bigger than she had expected. A light bulb, strung up to painted plank board, hung from a wire over a table with two bags on it.

Kate turned around, searching for Nick. Behind her, two big holes in the back of one wall exposed dirt that trickled water on the floor and into a drain in the center of the room. More worldly artifacts and antiques muddled a row of shelves at the foot of the stairs. Kate looked closer at one shelf in particular and saw bones. Breath caught in her throat. Human skulls. Lots of them. Black hollow eyes and grinning jaws of jagged, broken teeth.

A creak from behind jerked her around. A person emerged from the shadows in the corner. It was Nick. He stepped toward her, slowly, as though filled with uncertainty. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I’m sorry. I called for you… I wanted to make sure everything was okay.” Kate’s gaze drifted back to the skulls on the shelf. “You have a lot of interesting collections in here.” She worked to move her eyes from the skull to other objects, not wanting to show the anxiousness that gripped her.

“I like to bring back souvenirs from places I’ve traveled to.” He didn’t say anything else.

His distant demeanor filled Kate with the same damp chill as the cellar. She tried to warm the air between them. “Did you see the aurora borealis in the sky? It’s beautiful.”

He nodded. “How’s David?”

Kate swallowed, but her mouth had gone too dry. “Fine.”

“Everything’s okay between the two of you then?”

She nodded. “I thought you’d be a little more excited about the pole reversal. How come you’re not on the Dawn Maiden?”

Nick moved to the large table in the center of the space with the two bags. “I’m actually headed there now.” He gestured to the bags. “Just needed to empty some bags and get some more dive equipment and supplies.”

Kate looked around the basement, still amazed at all the peculiar treasures Nick had collected over time. “How did you get all of this stuff?”

He followed her gaze. “I find sunken ships with the Dawn Maiden’s depth sonar and dive for lost artifacts and collectables. Some I’ve bought, others I’ve traded.”

“Is the diving legal?”

Nick stopped unzipping one of the bags. “For the most part.”

One of the shelves behind him held small figurines and immediately reminded Kate of the statue of Rán. Her eyes slid back to Nick’s; his had narrowed as though trying to penetrate her thoughts.

“Do you know anything about a statue of the Goddess Rán?” Her voice cracked underneath her apprehension to hear his answer, but she had to ask. She had to know.

“I know that it was stolen from you.”

A shudder raked across Kate’s shoulders, and without conscious thought, she stepped back until the stairway railing stopped her.

“What did you say?”

She wasn’t even sure she’d heard him right. A bombardment of emotions stormed into her: fear, confusion, worry, and betrayal, all balled up into a scream she bit down on. Nick didn’t say anything, didn’t try to offer her any consolation. He just stared at her instead.

“How do you know that?” she managed to ask.

Above, the ceiling creaked beneath footsteps. Someone walked across the kitchen, and Kate knew that Nick had heard her just the same when she had come in even though he had said he hadn’t. She met his eyes, and for a moment, he seemed like a complete stranger. Not the one who had saved her from the shark, the storm, and lifted her broken body from the floor and drove her to the hospital. There was something in his eyes, hurt or rage? The way the shadows fell over his brow, she couldn’t tell.

Another man came down the stairs, holding a white and blue leather duffle bag. Kate moved aside and bumped into a shelf behind her. The items rocked, but remained put. When she turned back around, she saw Nick’s friend, the police officer, Keith.

“Hello, Kate,” Keith said, when he reached the bottom step.

Kate had lost her voice again, still in shock after what Nick had told her, and now struggling to put together all the unfolding facts in her mind…what had happened to Suzanne, what Thea had said to her about there being a “someone else.” Was it Keith?