After the Summerland (The Witches of Spring Hill Book 1) (16 page)

“Okay, now what the
hell was she doing out there?” Liam asks, thinking out loud.

“I wonder if somehow
she found out that GG Peter is digging into her life,” Kaiden suggests.

Liam takes his eyes
from the road, looks at Kaiden and realizes that he is probably right, making the
911 call from his grandfather’s house even more
serious than he first thought. He steps on the gas and blows through a red
light when he sees no oncoming traffic.

His phone chirps and he
grabs it without seeing who’s calling.

“Liam, it’s Dad,”
Marcus says.

“Thank God,” Liam says
before asking, “Have you talked to Gramps today?”

Marcus indicates that
he hasn’t but he got the message from the station. “I’m on my way there now,” Marcus says. “I just wanted to check in and make sure you
know where the kids are. It’s time to circle the wagons.”

“They’re fine, Dad.
They’re with me now,” Liam responds.

“What? Why are they
with you now, Liam? We don’t know what we are going to find up there…”

“They were with me when
I got the call,” Liam replies, looking back at Chloe in the rearview mirror,
“and they wouldn’t take no for an answer.” Liam fills Marcus in on what
happened with the kids on the way home and they both agree that whatever they
find, it may be time to talk to Selene Silvan.

“Dad, I’m pulling in now.
How far out are you?” Liam asks.

“I’m right behind you,
son.” Marcus replies. Liam looks in the rearview mirror and sees Marcus pull in
right behind him. Liam tells the kids to stay in the car until he tells them
it’s okay to get out. “I mean it, Chloe, Kaiden, and Rowan. Stay. Put.”

He locks the jeep doors
and waits for Marcus to get out of his truck before heading up the sidewalk.
They agree to do a quick walk around the property before going in. Everything
seems secure from the outside and when Marcus looks in the back windows, he
doesn’t see anything suspicious. The only thing out of the ordinary is the
front window curtain, which is closed. Peter
always
leaves the curtains open.

Marcus twists the door
handle and finds it locked. “Same as the back and side doors,” he says to Liam.
He takes out his key and unlocks the door. They draw their weapons, prepared
for anything, and push the door in slowly.

As soon as they walk in,
they see Peter snoring in his recliner with a basketball game playing in the
background. Marcus and Liam look at each other quickly, then
Marcus walks over and shakes his dad awake. Liam opens the front curtains to
let in more light, and once open, he looks around the room.

“What? What the hell?”
Peter says, as he is startled awake. “What the hell are you two doing? Are you
trying to kill me? Liam, why do you have your gun drawn? What the hell is going
on?”

“Dad, are you okay?”
Marcus asks.

“I
was
okay, but now my damn heart is pounding out of my chest. What
the hell are you two doing here?”

Liam explains that they
received a 911 call from the house and since they weren’t getting an answer
when they called, they came here to check on him.

“Dad, I’m going to have
a quick look around,” Marcus says as he walks toward the back of the house. Peter
attempts to stand up and quickly falls back into his recliner. “Whew… I
feel a little dizzy.”

Liam walks over to the
recliner and checks his grandfather’s pulse. “It’s a little fast, but that’s
probably from the scare we gave you. Other than feeling dizzy, do you feel
anything else?”

He nods and says, “A
little nauseated too, but that could be from the beer I had at the start of the
game.” He looks at the TV and says, “How long was I asleep? Is it halftime yet?”

“Gramps, what game were
you watching?” Liam asks, checking him for disorientation. “Duke and UNC,”
Peter replies, annoyed at the line of questioning. “Alright, alright, I’m just
making sure. There’s about three minutes left in the second half.”

“Damn! I missed the
whole damn game,” Peter says.

Marcus walks back into
the room carrying a piece of paper.

“What have you got?”
Liam asks, straightening up. “

It looks like you’ve had some company, Dad,”
Marcus answers and holds out the paper to Liam and Peter. They read:

You have something of mine — I want it
back.

Peter pales when he
reads the words. She knows, he thinks to himself, and hopes that Liam and
Marcus didn’t notice his reaction.

“It had to be Selene,”
Liam says, “seeing as how she was already snooping around the property.” Peter surprised that Liam has already made the connection,
blanches.

“Why would
she call 911?” Marcus asks. “Why would she want us all to
be here to find this note together? What do we have of hers?”

Of course she wanted
Marcus and Peter to see the note, Peter thinks. It was meant for them, not him.
If he were the only one to see it, it wouldn’t cause nearly as much trouble as
both of them reading it would. She wanted to make sure they saw it so they
would start asking him questions. Questions he does not want to answer.

“I’m pretty
sure she put a spell on Gramps,” Liam says. “And I’m concerned that the only
reason she didn’t do it last night was because we were all here, which means
she’s probably been watching the house. Did you notice anything unusual, Gramps?”

“No,
nothing at all,” Peter replies, but then he thinks about it more and asks, “How
would she have gotten in? I keep the door locked all the time. Was it locked when
you got here just now?”

Liam and
Marcus both nod and they all look at each other trying to make sense of something
that doesn’t make any sense at all.

“She
must have used some kind of magic to put you into a trance so that you wouldn’t
remember opening the door to her. Think harder, Dad.” Marcus pushes.

Before Peter has a chance to reply, they hear a car pull into the driveway.

“The kids!” Liam yells as he and Marcus run to the door.

The
Subaru Forester pulls up behind Marcus’s truck and before Liam can register the
strangeness of the situation, the Silvan kids jump out of the car.

“What the hell?” Liam says as he pushes past his dad.

Chloe
is the first one out of the jeep when she sees the car pull into the driveway.
She looks in the pocket of her backpack for the keys and of course, discovers
that they aren’t there.

“How did…” Rowan starts, but doesn’t finish when she sees their dad charge down
the driveway toward the Silvans.

“Was
all of this part of the plan?” he asks aggressively, focusing on Xavier. “Trick
my kids into meeting you at the library so you can steal the car and see your
aunt’s handiwork?” He stops just in front of Xavier and asks, “What’s the
matter, kid? You hate that you got busted?”

Xavier
grits his teeth and says, “They invited us to the library — not the other way
around.”

Chloe
runs over to Liam, “Dad! Stop! Why are you flipping out? What happened to GG
Peter?”

Liam,
not taking his eyes off of Xavier, answers, “He’s fine, Chloe. Just a little
shaken up by the spell put on him.”

Brianna
inhales sharply, “No!” she says.

Liam
looks away from Xavier to Brianna who is clearly shocked at what he said. He
realizes that maybe they really don’t have any idea of what their aunt has been
up to. With this realization comes the knowledge that he has a unique
opportunity to find out what he can about Selene Silvan, from the people closest
to her.

Backing
away from Xavier, Liam says, “Okay, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. So,
what
are you doing here and
why
are you driving our car?”

Xavier
holds out the keys to Liam, who ignores him. “We found these in the conference
room after you guys left. We found the address on the insurance papers in the
glove box and figured this would be the best place to drop off the car.”

Liam thinks for a
minute and asks, “Why wouldn’t you just turn the keys in at lost and found at
the library?”

Xavier shrugs his shoulders
and Cian steps up and says, “Look, we know our Aunt Selene is somehow involved
in whatever happened here and we thought it would be best if we came here to tell
you that whatever is going on has nothing to do with us.”

Xavier looks away,
avoiding eye contact with Liam.

Liam sees truth in what
Cian says, but instead of replying he waits to hear more. When Cian doesn’t
offer anything else, Liam asks, “Okay, so how did you plan to get home from here?
It’s an awfully long walk back to town…”

“We hadn’t thought that
far ahead,” Cian replies without breaking eye contact with Liam.

After a minute, Liam grabs
the keys from Xavier and says, “I’ll give you a ride back into town.” To Marcus,
he says, “Dad, I think Gramps should stay with one of us for awhile. I don’t want
him to be alone out here and I definitely don’t want the kids driving alone
either. Once Gramps gets his stuff together, will you follow them back to the
house? When I get home we can figure out what’s what…”

Marcus nods and to Rowan,
Kaiden, and Chloe, he says, “C’mon you three, let’s help GG pack some things so
we can get out of here.”

Liam glances around, looking
for Selene Silvan. He’s sure she’s somewhere nearby watching all of this
unfold. No way she would set up such an elaborate scheme and not watch the
pieces fall. He wonders what she thought when she saw her niece and nephews
show up here.

Liam hands Chloe the
keys as she walks past and rather than looking at him, Chloe turns to Cian and
Xavier and says, “Thank you.”

The Silvans climb into
the jeep and before they put on their seatbelts Liam asks, “So where’s your
aunt now?”

Xavier stops, and too
quickly, responds, “We have no idea.”

Liam knows the kid is
lying. Rather than push the issue, he puts his own seatbelt on and starts up
the jeep. He maneuvers around the cars parked behind him and heads for town.
“Safe to assume you want me to drop you off at the library and not your house?
Wouldn’t want to cause any trouble on the home front…”

Xavier nods and as he
looks out the window, he sees the white Mercedes parked on
the side of the road. It’s clear that Selene has used some kind of magic to hide
the car because Liam didn’t notice it parked there. Just as he wonders if Cian
and Brianna saw the car, he hears Brianna gasp audibly.

Cian clears his throat
and says, “Chief Alexander, umm… you need to know something, but you can’t
do anything about it right now…” Xavier twists around in his seat, glares
at his brother and shakes his head.

Not to be deterred, Cian
continues, “My aunt is parked at the side of the road at the end of the
driveway, but, don’t stop!”

Liam takes his foot off
the gas and looks in the rearview mirror.

“Please! Don’t stop!”
Brianna repeats. “She can’t know that you know. We didn’t see her when we were
pulling up, her magic must have disguised the car, but somehow she is visible
to us now. Please, she doesn’t know we saw her so we have to be very careful,”
Brianna says.

Liam continues
searching the rearview mirror and still not seeing anything he asks, “Is my
family safe?”

Cian replies, “For now,
they are. She won’t do anything else today, especially with both Marcus and
Peter there, but you have to know this spell is only the beginning.”

Liam asks, “Do you know
why she was here? What she wanted?”

Cian admits truthfully
that he does not know what she wants from Peter or why she was at the house,
but stops at telling him that she wants Liam’s house and land. Even though he
wants and needs Liam to trust him, he can’t see far enough into the future to
know what will happen if he tells him everything. Cian hopes when the time is
right, that he will get a sign and will be able to tell Liam what he needs to
know to protect his family.

As if reading his mind,
Liam says, “Thanks for being honest, Cian and Brianna. Let me ask you this,
Xavier. What do you have to gain from lying to me that these two don’t? They
seem to be consistently honest with me, so why aren’t you?”

Xavier looks out the
side window and lets out a sigh, “It’s complicated, Chief Alexander… It’s
complicated.”

Liam drops them off at
the entrance to the library and decides to stick around to make sure their aunt
shows up. He parks across the street at City Hall and waits.

For Selene, the last 24
hours have been exhilarating. Last night she stood at the side door of Peter
Alexander’s house about to cast a spell when the jeep pulled into the
driveway. She quickly hid in the only place she could find, behind the garbage
can, and watched Liam and the kids go into the house. She sat crouched for
about ten minutes before realizing the ridiculousness of the situation.

Finally
she decided she would have to wait for another opportunity. She was frustrated
that her plans had to be put on hold and, yet, relieved that she hadn’t already
been in the house when they arrived. She made her way down the side yard to her
car parked in the woods. Her initial plan was to have the 911 call dispatched
in the middle of the night, in order to wreak maximum havoc on the family.
Instead, she would just have to wait for tomorrow when Liam was on duty.

Just as she was about
to climb into her car, she heard the front door close and watched the three
kids walk down the driveway and climb into the old Subaru. She smiled and
thanked her dark Goddess for providing her with an excellent opportunity.

She waited a good five
minutes after the kids left before pulling out after them. She wanted to be
sure that Liam was staying put for a while longer, since her quick plan
required time, and did not include him pulling up behind her. She didn’t have
what she needed to cast a disguise spell and she knew she was taking a big
risk, but opportunities like this didn’t come along everyday. If all went
according to her plan there would be no survivors to tell anyone what they saw anyway.