Witches of East End (8 page)

chapter thirteen

Aftershocks

C
ome back here, woman,” Bran growled, pulling Freya back into bed.

“I’m late for work already, stop.” She laughed, trying to put her shoes on as he nuzzled her neck. His warm hands encircled her waist and she gave up, kicking off her sneakers and letting him pull her back under the covers.

She had refrained from his touch since that night by the fireplace, too shamed by her thoughts of Killian. She had faked headaches, begged off due to exhaustion. But she knew he would not be denied today. Bran was leaving again that afternoon. The separation would be brief—only a few days in Stockholm this time, for which Freya was glad. She didn’t think she had it in her to be a foundation widow, and although she understood the good work he was promoting around the globe, she missed him.

He pulled off her T-shirt and kissed the valley between her breasts, and she ran her fingers through his soft brown hair. “Don’t go,” she whispered, almost to herself.

Bran looked up at her worriedly. “I don’t want to, believe me. I’d rather be here with you.”

“I know. Don’t mind me.” She shook her head and looked away, toward the open window. Bran’s room faced north, and she could just glimpse the dock where the boats were anchored below.

Bran sighed and leaned down to lick a pink nipple. She dutifully whimpered and clutched his hair, pulling him closer, and with her other hand she reached for him, finding him hard and ready, and guided him inside. He entered her then, and she clung to him fiercely; and as they bucked and panted together, he covered her face with kisses and she sucked on his tongue as hard as he pounded into her. But for once Freya’s heart wasn’t in it. Maybe it was because she was despondent that he was leaving again, or because she was trying very hard to make sure her mind did not wander off somewhere it should not, but she couldn’t enjoy herself; she was just going through the motions. Killian had spoiled everything, but it wasn’t Bran’s fault, it was hers.

They dressed and left the house. As they were walking out the door, he stopped, almost tripping on the hallway rug. “I forgot something,” he said, running back up the stairs.

“Your passport?” Freya called. She found it resting on a side table. “It’s down here.”

“And my ring.” Bran nodded as he came back, holding up his gold crest ring and slipping it on his finger. He accepted his passport with a kiss.

“What’s up with you and that ring, anyway?” she teased.

“It was Father’s,” he said. “It means a lot to me. It’s the only thing I have left from him.” Freya nodded, abashed. She knew Bran and Killian had been orphaned in their youth.

He dropped her off at work, and she was bursting with excuses and apologies when she arrived at the North Inn, knowing the Saturday-night crowd would be keeping everyone on their toes. But instead of the usual mayhem she was surprised to find the music silent and everyone crowded in front of the tiny television.

“What happened?” she asked Sal, as she stowed her purse underneath the counter. She squinted up at the screen, which showed a helicopter view of the Atlantic coast. There had been some kind of explosion, deep beneath the sea, not too far from the shore. An earthquake maybe, experts weren’t sure yet, the local anchorwoman was saying. But now there were all these dead fish floating around, and some kind of silvery-gray gunk was seeping out into the water. Experts had ruled out an oil leak, as they were miles away from the nearest pipeline.

“Look at that,” someone said, as the camera pulled away to show a dense mass growing in the blue-gray waters of the Atlantic. “That can’t be good.”

Now a scientist being interviewed on the local news was saying it was some kind of natural disaster, most likely an underground volcanic explosion that had released an oil-like toxin into the sea. He warned that the gray, tarry substance would not only threaten the surrounding wildlife and their habitat, but that it wasn’t safe to fish or to eat fish or seafood of any kind that came from the North Hampton waters. Also, until further notice, no one should swim in any of the local beaches until the toxin was examined.

“Yikes,” Freya said, to no one in particular, while the crowd in the bar began to murmur nervously among themselves.

“What I’m wondering is . . .” She heard a clear voice next to her, and was surprised to find Killian Gardiner sitting on a bar stool, watching the television and sipping his beer. He didn’t seem to notice her either, as he only had eyes for the screen.

“You didn’t finish your sentence,” she prodded. It was the first time the two of them had spoken since the night of her engagement party, and she tried to keep her voice normal. She blushed to remember the other night—if he had truly seen her with Bran. And if he still thought about what had happened between them on Memorial Day.

“I’m wondering . . . how long has it been in the water?” He barely glanced at Freya as he gulped down the rest of his pint and left the bar without another word.

A
ll weekend the disaster was all everyone in town talked about, and on Monday morning even Ingrid and her staff at the library were feeling jumpy about it. While North Hampton had its share of hurricanes, it was a lucky kind of place: no brushfires in the summer like in Malibu, no flash floods; it wasn’t on a fault line. The underground earthquake and the resulting gray muck felt like an unlucky break, a jinx, a pox upon their little oasis. The library had one old television set in the back office, which they kept tuned to the news stations. They showed the grayish mass growing in the water, nearing the North Hampton shores. Whether the earthquake had kept clients away, Ingrid wasn’t sure, but for once she was able to take her lunch hour outside the library. A familiar face was waiting for her when she returned.

“We were just watching you on television!” Ingrid said, unlocking the door to the back office.

Corky Hutchinson gave her a wry smile. “I’m on a break. I don’t have to be back at the station until the four o’clock news this afternoon.” The mayor’s wife was a glamour girl, and her features were heavily made up and exaggerated for the camera. She looked out of place in the drab surroundings.

“Are you here for a consultation?” Ingrid asked. “I’m sorry but I have to ask you to return tomorrow, as I only do those between noon and one.”

“I know, your girl told me.” Corky sniffed. “But I’m hoping you could make an exception.”

Ingrid frowned. She knew this was going to happen eventually. There would always be people like Corky Hutchinson who thought they were too good to wait in line. She also didn’t like how Corky called Tabitha her “girl”; Tab wasn’t a secretary. But Ingrid knew that women like Corky Hutchinson, with their BlackBerrys and their overstuffed schedules, did not like taking “no” for an answer. “Just this once, I suppose. Come on in,” Ingrid said. “So do they know what that thing is yet?”

“They’re still not sure. It’s been sent to a couple of labs. There was a similar case out in the Pacific a few months ago, near the Sydney harbor. And the same thing happened in Greenland, apparently. The same symptoms: dead fish, some kind of poison in the water—decimated most of the local whale population. Underwater volcanic activity, but they weren’t sure.”

“Curious,” Ingrid said. She dimly recalled reading about it as well but had not paid much attention. “Anyway, I know you didn’t come in here to talk about that. How can I help you?” She knew a little about Corky. She and the mayor made quite the power couple. Their wedding had been the social event of the year, and when he was elected there was a five-page spread in a glossy magazine about their romance.

Corky hesitated then blurted, “I think Todd’s cheating on me.”

Ingrid wasn’t surprised. The sisters sometimes gossiped about the secrets they discovered about the people they knew, and Freya had told her that the mayor had been a lot more intimate with his computer than his wife lately. It didn’t make Ingrid feel any better to know salacious facts about her enemy, and in the past few weeks she had thought of Todd Hutchinson as nothing less than her greatest nemesis. The proposal to sell the library property to raise public funds would be voted on by the city council by the end of the summer. It was on the table, and as far as Blake Aland was concerned, it was already a done deal. He had come by with his assistants the other day, measuring exactly where the wrecking ball would hit.

Ingrid tried to appear neutral. No matter who Corky Hutchinson’s husband was, the woman was entitled to the same service from Ingrid as anyone else. “Why would you think that?” she asked.

“All the usual stuff. He works late. He comes home and smells like perfume. He doesn’t answer his cell phone when I call, and when I ask him about it he has all these excuses. He changed the passwords on all his e-mail accounts. His voice mail, too. I checked,” she said bitterly. “I was on camera all weekend because of this disaster and didn’t hear from him once.”

“What would you like me to do about it?” Ingrid asked.

“I don’t care about the affairs. I don’t want to confront him. I don’t really want to get into it. I just want—I just want him back. I want him home with me. I know I’ve been working a lot, not just this week, but all year. But still, I don’t deserve this. I love my husband. And I think he still loves me. I brought this.” She thrust a paper bag in Ingrid’s direction. “I heard you have to bring . . . hair . . . for the . . . whatever you do. The knots.” The mayor’s wife exhaled. “I mean, it’s probably just some kind of voodoo and I should really just deal with it myself but, whatever.”

Ingrid accepted the bag. For a moment she wanted to tell her to go away, that she couldn’t do anything to help her. She found it odd that a woman like Corky Hutchinson—glamorous, confident, aggressive—would decide to solve her husband’s infidelity by consulting a witch. Corky wasn’t the type. She was the type to throw her knowledge of her husband’s infidelity right in his face and have a screaming match. Followed by passionate makeup sex if they were lucky. Freya would know more about that.

She wasn’t sure helping her was the right thing to do, especially since Corky Hutchinson had used the
v
word—
voodoo
—which meant she thought very little of Ingrid’s talents. But she also knew that a go-getter like Corky would not leave Ingrid’s office until she got what she came for. What could it hurt? Maybe if the mayor’s home life was happy he would stop trying to sell the library from under her. Ingrid opened the bag and went to work, creating a little knot from Todd’s hair, weaving it together with a thread from his wife’s blouse that Ingrid had surreptitiously taken when she’d shaken her hand. She put the knot in a tiny velvet pouch and handed the little talisman to the mayor’s wife. “Put this under your mattress. It will keep him from straying, and you will have him all to yourself from now on. It will keep him home, like you want. But you’ve got to put in the time as well. If you’re not at home enough, the power of the knot will fade.”

Corky nodded. “How much?” she asked as she opened her pocketbook.

“I only ask for a donation to the library fund,” Ingrid said. “Whatever you think you can spare, we would very much appreciate.”

“Is that all?” Corky laughed as she wrote the check. “You don’t really know much about people, do you?”

Ingrid felt an instant dislike for the arrogant news anchor. She probably should not have helped her with the knot. Well, it would keep the mayor from straying but it wouldn’t keep him there for long if his wife did not do anything to help him stay. She thought of that lavish six-page spread on Todd and Corky Hutchinson’s fabulous new life in the local glossy. They had been bursting with happiness and love. People who were so shiny that Ingrid could not help but feel just a tiny bit jealous, the way the magazine wanted you to feel—that there were people in your midst who were living more glamorous and important lives than you could ever imagine. How funny that the truth was never quite that perfect. You never knew about people, she mused. Marriage was like the surface of an ocean, seemingly placid and serene above; yet if you weren’t careful, seething and raging with underground earthquakes below.

chapter fourteen

Friends with Benefits

T
his being North Hampton, the only appropriate response to a disaster was through prodigious fund-raising. “Fishing for a Cause,” as it was nicknamed, brought the community out in force. The party was held on the grounds in front of city hall, with Todd Hutchinson shaking hands and promising vigorous lobbying for federal and state funding to get the waters clean again. Yet there was still no official explanation as to what the mysterious oceanic substance was made of. None of the scientists could figure it out.

The Gardiners were the primary sponsors of the event. Bran was supposed to make an opening speech, but his flight was delayed, so Killian had played host instead.

“Thank you all for coming here today,” he said, waving to the assembled crowd. The younger Gardiner looked handsome and earnest under the spotlights. He cleared his throat. “North Hampton is a very special place, and we want to keep it that way. It means a lot to my family. I know we haven’t been back here in a long time, but even if I’ve been here only briefly, I consider this place my home.” He was very articulate and moving as he continued to speak about his family’s close historical connection to the area and how much they were putting into the rehabilitation of the coastal waters and helping those whose livelihoods depended on it.

Freya attended the event with her mother and sister. A disaster of this magnitude forced Ingrid out of her antisocial stance, and Joanna had pledged to help in any way she could. Freya knew her mother was itching to use her talents to restore the delicate ecological balance in the area, but the restriction kept her from doing so. She was impressed with Killian’s words, although she tried not to be. “What a pompous idiot,” she whispered to her sister.

Ingrid looked taken aback at her vehemence. “Jeez . . . I thought he gave a nice speech. What do you have against the guy? Every time his name comes up you look like this.” She made a sour face, imitating Freya’s grimace.

“Nothing,” Freya muttered. “Forget I said anything.” She didn’t really want to talk about Killian. Instead she took a lap around the room and chatted with the mayor, who looked a bit worse for wear, with dark circles under his eyes. “This thing keeping you up nights?” she asked him.

“Yeah. I’m having a hard time sleeping for some reason. My doctor prescribed some sleeping pills, but they don’t kick in.”

Freya regarded him keenly. She could see the traces of the spell, recognized it as a working of Ingrid’s. It was an infidelity charm, which kept his sexual history obscured, as each sister’s magic canceled out the other’s. Freya hoped his wife knew what she was doing. Those fidelity knots of her sister’s were no joke.

Freya continued to flit about the party, concerned with avoiding Killian at all costs. She really did not have anything to say to him, and she didn’t want to make their relationship any more awkward than it had to be. She hadn’t bumped into him since that day at the bar when the news broke out about the explosion. So when she found him standing next to her in the buffet line, she smiled politely, picked up a fruit skewer, and put it on her plate. Unfortunately, Killian had other plans. It turned out he had a lot to say to her this time. “I saw you,” he whispered in her ear. He was so close his breath made the hair on her skin prickle a little. “The other night. In front of the fireplace.”

So she was right. He
had
seen her. Freya felt her cheeks get hot.

“You were
amazing
.”

“Stop it,” Freya hissed. “Stop it.”

“I know you were thinking of me. I could feel it. That’s what brought me downstairs,” he said. “Tell me, were you thinking of me when you—”

“Killian. Please. Not here.”

“Where, then?” he asked quickly.

“Nowhere.” She shook her head and looked around to make sure no one had noticed the two of them together, talking like this. Ingrid was looking mournfully across the room at that handsome detective, Matt Noble, the only one who had questioned Freya’s ability to work at the North Inn bar, citing her high school graduation not too long ago (the trick on her driver’s license had not worked on him for some reason). He was talking to one of the young librarians who worked with Ingrid, an arm around her shoulders. Meanwhile Joanna was eating profiteroles at a nearby table, her face a mask of bliss. “I told you, like I told you that night. I can’t see you again,” Freya whispered.

“But you want to,” Killian insisted.

“No. No, I don’t.”

Yes, they had made love the night of her engagement party . . . no, they had
fucked
. The minute he had locked the door behind him she had practically thrown herself at him, had ripped his clothes off to be able to touch his body. It had taken every ounce of her willpower not to scream the moment his hand slipped between her legs. When he’d pinned her against the sink and had his way, she was open and hungry and afterward . . . afterward . . . she had looked into his beautiful face and wanted to cry. In response, he had kissed her again, and they had made love for the second time, slowly this time, savoring every moment, which made it even hotter than the first. . . .

But that was enough. After that she had regained her senses. She had told him under no circumstances could they ever do that again, as she had made a terrible mistake. She had fled the party and had not looked back, not once.

Freya was aware she wasn’t perfect, and she never claimed to be. But she would never do anything to hurt someone she loved so dearly. It was a slip, an accident, bridal jitters, her own commitment issues. After all, it had been a
very
long time since she’d had a husband . . . but now she was set and determined. She loved Bran and one moment (or two, really, if one was counting) of weakness with Killian did not change that. It did not change anything.

“Killian, I should have called you to talk about it. I’m sorry I didn’t. I meant what I said to you that night, I don’t know what I was doing, I was out of my mind, it was a horrid lapse of judgment.”

He placed a strawberry on her plate, ripe and luscious. “Call it what you want . . . but you know where to find me.” He slipped a key into her pocket. “This will get you into the
Dragon
, it’s docked on the far side of Gardiners Island. Don’t worry, Bran never goes there. I’ll be waiting for you every night this week. If you don’t come see me by Sunday night, I won’t bother you anymore.”

Before she could reply he stepped away suddenly and disappeared into the crowd.

“Sorry! What did I miss?” Bran asked, finally appearing by her side, looking tired and drained from his travels. “Has the silent auction started?” he asked, picking up the fruit skewer from her plate and taking a bite. “I’m starved! Is there any food left?”

“Let’s go see,” Freya said. She kissed her beloved on the cheek, the key heavy and hot in her pocket, an iron poker.