Be Careful What You Witch For (A Family Fortune Mystery) (11 page)

A cold drop of rain hit me right between the eyes. Of course. I had a brief moment to hope for a light drizzle before a full-on autumn rain began in earnest. We were soaked within two minutes. I couldn’t wipe the water out of my eyes because I was busy clutching the side of the house, trying not to shift my weight for fear of sliding off the roof.

How long were they going to search the attic? There was nothing up there.

“Clyde?” Seth whispered.

I turned my head in his direction.

“I really have to pee.”

I looked heavenward and got a few huge raindrops in my eyes.

“You’ll have to wait, obviously,” I hissed at him.

“The rain is really not helping. I think I can climb off the side and drop onto the first-floor roof.” He began to sidle toward the edge.

“Seth! Come back here,” I whispered, loudly.

He slipped and grabbed my hand. I took a moment to convince my heart to stop racing and realized I couldn’t hear Mac and the other officers inside anymore. I leaned over to peek through the window and almost lost my balance when I saw Mac’s face peering back at me. He rolled his eyes and shoved the window open.

“Come on. I wondered how long you would stay out there.” He put his hand out through the window. I took it and he pulled me inside. So glad to be safe and not sliding down the roof, I clung to him for a moment. I also thought that would remind him of how he really didn’t want to arrest me. I hoped the guys were safe—that he hadn’t seen them—but then he pushed me away and stuck his head out the window again.

“You guys coming or are you enjoying the weather?”

Seth and Alex climbed back into the attic and waited, casting nervous glances from me to Mac and back again. Their clothes dripped quietly onto the floor, and they stood as still as possible. They both knew better than to say anything.

Mac crossed his arms. Seth shuffled his feet and continued to study the floor. Alex pushed his hands in his back pockets and looked at the ceiling.

“How did you know we were out there?” I said.

“Your Jeep is easy to spot and there’s this.” Mac passed his phone to me—there was a picture taken from the backyard of the three of us standing on the roof before it started raining.

I handed it back. “Charla?”

Mac nodded. “
She
was smart enough to come in when the rain started.” He left the rest of that statement alone.

I waited. I knew Mac wouldn’t be able to hold off for very long.

“What are you doing here? How did you get in? I should be taking you all down to the station.”

“I think we’ll leave you two alone,” Alex said and snagged Seth’s sleeve. They both raced down the ladder to the floor below.

Mac turned slowly to face me.

“We had a key so, technically, we didn’t break in,” I began.

Mac pinched the bridge of his nose.

“We wanted to help Dylan. He
couldn’t
have hurt Rafe. We were just looking for some other reason why someone would want Rafe dead.”

Mac nodded and then shook his head. He took a deep breath and I sensed he was maybe counting to one thousand.

“I can’t do this again,” he said. “You and your gang of amateur operatives have to back off and let me do my job.”

“But—”

“No. I almost lost you last summer. Seth could have been killed. Do I have to remind you of the danger?”

I shook my head.

“If I have to put all of you in a jail cell to keep you protected, I will. Fortunately, I think Dylan
is
the murderer and he’s already in prison so you’re safe for now.” He put his hand up to stop me from interrupting. “If that changes and I sense any risk to any of you . . .” he dropped his hand. “Help me out here, Clyde.”

I didn’t want to see him so worried and harassed. But he didn’t ever listen. Once his mind was made up, he was like Aunt Vi with a mission—unstoppable. I nodded, indicating acquiescence that I didn’t feel.

18

Seth, Alex, and I left Rafe’s house under Mac’s watchful eye.

The rain had slowed and we walked to the car, where we were greeted by the wagging and woofing dogs. Baxter ran the length of the backseat, causing the vehicle to rock. So much for subtlety. We climbed in and I started the Jeep and put it in gear. Before I had a chance to pull away from the curb, a black Tahoe barreled past.

“Hey! That was Skye!” Seth said from the backseat. “What’s she doing here?”

I turned to look at him. “Are you sure?”

He nodded.

I suppressed a grin. Seth had mentioned Skye at every opportunity since he met her, but he did have a good point. What
was
she doing in Rafe’s neighborhood? I couldn’t imagine that she had been involved in his death, but she might have insight into what was happening in his life just before he died. I pulled out to follow her.

I wasn’t sure whether this was a good idea. Mac had just extracted a promise that I wouldn’t involve myself. But how dangerous could a teenage girl be? We caught up to her at a stoplight and Seth jumped out of the Jeep before I could stop him. He knocked on the passenger window and gestured to a parking lot up ahead. He jogged back to the Jeep and climbed in.

“She’s gonna pull over in that gas station.”

We parked the Jeep right behind Skye’s Tahoe and got out, to the loud objections of the dogs. Tuffy jumped into the front seat and put his front paws on the dash, barking the whole time. Baxter sat more calmly in the back and volunteered a low woof whenever Tuffy stopped to take a breath.

Skye climbed slowly out of the driver’s side. Faith hopped out of the passenger seat and zipped around to where we stood. Skye gave us a dazzling smile.

“Hey,” Seth said with the air of someone passing in the hall.

“Hi, Seth. Hi, Clyde.” Skye put out her hand to Alex and introduced herself.

The preliminaries out of the way, I was searching for a way to ask her what she was doing in Rafe’s neighborhood.

“We saw you drive past us just outside of Rafe’s house. What were you doing there?” Seth asked.

Her smile faltered. She stole a glance at Faith, who was busy watching the dogs in the Jeep. “Promise you won’t tell my mom?”

Alex and I exchanged a glance and nodded.

“Mom doesn’t trust anyone these days, including me. Ever since I told her I had joined the coven, she’s been on edge. It’s not really what she wanted for me.”

Faith snorted. “I would say it’s not something she ever imagined.”

Skye glared at her little sister. “She’ll get used to it.”

“Yeah, when hell—”

“Anyway,” Skye interrupted, “I’m supposed to be picking Faith up from school and going straight home. But I left a flash drive at Rafe’s house and I wanted to get it back.”

“Do you have a key?” I asked.

She shook her head. “He leaves one over his door. I thought I could just zip in there, get the drive, and get out. But there were police all over the place. What’s going on?”

“The police are investigating Rafe’s death. They think maybe it wasn’t an accident,” I said.

Both girls drew in breath at the same time.

“Oh, no,” Skye said.

“Diana said you were working on a special project with him. Is that what the flash drive was for?”

Skye’s face became pink, which made her even prettier. She fidgeted with a bracelet. “I don’t know if I should talk about that.”

“Skye, Rafe is dead. Diana’s brother has been arrested for murder. If there’s anything you can tell us about what Rafe was doing in the time before he died, it might help us figure out what happened to him.”

Skye looked at her sister, who met her gaze and nodded once. “I was helping Rafe with a genealogy project. We’d been talking at a coven meeting a few months ago and I told him how it was kind of a hobby of mine. There’s all this great stuff now on the Internet and you can trace your family back for generations.”

“What was the project?” Alex asked.

“That was the weird part. It wasn’t his family, the Godwins, that Rafe wanted me to research. It was Neila Whittle.”

Seth’s eyes snapped up from whatever he was doing on his phone. Even
he
had heard of Neila Whittle.

“Neila Whittle? Why?” I said.

“I don’t know.” Skye shrugged. “He told me not to tell anyone, that’s why I wanted to get the flash drive back. But, I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Do you have the information you found?”

She nodded. “It’s all on my computer. I can e-mail it to you if you want. There’re quite a few files.”

“That would be great,” I said. “Can you tell us anything about the night Rafe died? Did you see anything unusual? Was he acting differently?”

“I don’t remember anything unusual.” Skye leaned against her SUV and stared at a point over my head. “He had a little fight with Lucan Reed but, believe me, that wasn’t unusual. I was surprised that the EpiPen didn’t work. He had told me that it was a lifesaver. But then, I’d never seen him use it.”

“Is there anything else?” I asked.

Skye shook her head.

Faith said, “Why don’t you tell them about Daddy and what he thought you were really doing over at Rafe’s house?”

Skye shot a dirty look at her sister.

“My father followed me to Rafe’s one time about a month ago,” Skye said. “He didn’t like that I was spending so much time with Rafe.”

“He thought Rafe was a dirty old man,” Faith piped in.

“Shut up, Faith.” She turned back to look at me. “He wasn’t.”

“Your father thought there was something going on with you and Rafe?” I said.

Skye wrinkled her nose and nodded. “He was being superparanoid and ridiculous. As if I’d ever get involved with someone . . . ancient.”

“We should get back, Skye.” Faith held her phone out for Skye to see. “Mom is wondering where we are.”

Seth, Alex, and I returned to the Jeep and climbed inside to the excited greetings of the dogs. I pulled back out into traffic, realizing we were no closer to figuring out what happened than before we began this covert operation.

19

I pulled into my driveway thinking about a hot shower and some tea when I noticed someone sitting on my front porch. It was Tom.

Seth hopped out of the Jeep with the dogs trailing behind. He went inside, raising his hand in greeting as he passed Tom. So much for a relaxing shower and a few moments to myself. I heard Seth inside talking to the dogs and then the back door slammed.

Alex and I climbed the steps slowly. Tom stood as we approached.

“I have the accident report,” he said. He followed us into the living room, where Alex flopped into the side chair and ran his hands through his damp hair. “What happened to you two?” Tom asked.

“Just a monsoon, an angry cop, and a low-speed car chase,” Alex said. “Oh, and don’t forget climbing around on a roof.”

Tom looked at me. “Was Mac the angry cop?”

I nodded.

“Glad I was in Bailey Harbor all day.”

“I need some tea,” I said and waved them into the kitchen.

Seth was there with the dogs, passing out treats and munching on a bag of chips. I went to the stove and filled the kettle, taking a moment to get lost in the ritual of making tea. Alex and Tom were trying to get the bag of chips away from Seth. I got a box of cookies out of the pantry—they pounced on that instead. After the water boiled and I set the tea to steep I sat at the table with the hungry horde.

“What have you got?” I asked Tom.

He slid the report across the table to me. “It looks like a cut-and-dried accident. It was wet, they took the turn too fast, and the car rolled.” I shivered, thinking of my own similar accident last summer.

“Did they check the car to be sure there was nothing wrong with it?”

Tom nodded. “The brakes were intact, the tires were fine. They couldn’t find any reason why the car would have rolled except driver error. You know that turn. It comes up quickly and even in good weather I’ve seen cars go off onto the shoulder. There are enough skid marks to indicate it’s a dangerous turn if you’re going too fast. They put up a guardrail after the Wards’ accident, but there was nothing to stop them that night.”

I got up to get my tea. Tom’s description of the accident was just as I remembered it and just as I had seen it in my dream. A car going too fast, a scream of brakes, and the car rolling, rolling. I had tried to warn Diana’s parents without actually telling them I had seen their deaths in a dream. A shiver went up my spine. I’d never been able to stop the premonitions from coming true and sometimes I misunderstood the visions. I had spent so much effort trying to avoid them that I had never perfected interpretation. Was it fair to have the individuals living in fear for the last months of their lives? I had yet to answer that question.

“No chance that Rafe could have had anything to do with it?” I said.

Tom shook his head. “Not according to the report. It looks like they were very thorough. If Rafe set up the crash, he did a fantastic job of making it look like an accident.”

Alex put his head in his hands. “We’re not getting anywhere. Even if Rafe did set up the accident that would just make the case against Dylan even stronger. We need to find out who would have wanted Rafe dead, besides Dylan.”

Alex was right. Regardless of what had happened between Rafe and the Wards, we needed to find someone who was angry enough with Rafe that he or she would want him dead. I had hoped to clear up any remaining mystery about the Wards’ death because I knew it was killing Diana to think that Rafe had done anything to harm them. But, right now, we needed more information on Rafe.

“It doesn’t matter what the report says,” Tom said. “Dylan believes Rafe was responsible for his parents’ death. It’s all he talked about for months afterward. Now I know why he never got anywhere. There was no evidence.” Tom flipped the pages of the report over as if the answer would jump out at him.

“Did Dylan ever say
how
he thought Rafe had caused the accident?” I asked. I set the tea mug in front of me and wrapped my hands around it for warmth.

Tom shook his head. “No. He was obsessed with figuring out what was in the grimoire that would have caused the fight between Rafe and Elliot. He used to pore over that thing, writing out the spells, comparing them to other books. There were several that dealt with power and he thought Rafe just wanted a spell. It wasn’t until recently that he figured out Rafe wanted to
hide
the book, not use it.

“Where’s the book now?” Alex asked.

“I think Diana has it. Dylan showed her the family tree in the back—she must still have it,” I said.

“Oh, I just remembered,” Seth said and headed toward the front door.

I shrugged when Alex looked at me for an explanation.

Seth returned, reached under his sweatshirt, and pulled out the book he had found at Rafe’s place. “What are we going to do with this?”

I jumped up and hugged him. I’d assumed it had been left behind. Alex and I looked quickly to Tom, but he didn’t even react to a stolen grimoire.

“Let me see it,” I said.

Seth handed the book to me and went back to his snacking. The grimoire was made of thick black leather with a pentagram embossed on the front. When I touched it, I got that creepy feeling in my gut that told me I didn’t want to know what was in the book. I flipped it open and immediately knew I would need some help. There were symbols and foreign-sounding words, lists of ingredients, and recommended moon phases. I would need Diana to interpret.

I pushed the book over to Alex and Tom; they both seemed to have the same reaction I did. They turned the pages gingerly and finally gave up with a shrug.

“I’ll call Diana.” Alex pulled out his phone.

Seth’s phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket. His eyebrows shot up when he saw who the text was from, then he quickly recovered and his thumbs got to work.

Alex walked into the living room to talk to Diana. Tom flipped through the accident report again, probably hoping he missed something the first ten times.

“I’m going up to change into some dry clothes,” I said. Tom and Seth nodded without looking up from their tasks.

Alex clicked his phone off when I entered the living room. “She’ll be here in about an hour,” he said. “I need to go get some new clothes.”

I tossed him the keys to my Jeep and he said he’d be back before Diana came over.

I grabbed some comfy yoga pants and an Ann Arbor Police Department sweatshirt and turned on the shower. The water felt great as I started to feel warm again. My brain always went into a different mode in the shower. Instead of being linear and controlled, it wandered and picked up pieces of information and sensations that I would normally ignore. This time it focused on who would want to kill Rafe. I came up with a longer list than I would have expected only a couple of days previously. Morgan Lavelle was a possibility. She and Rafe had fought and she seemed capable of just about anything. Lucan Reed had also been arguing with Rafe over the coven politics. Was that enough to kill for? Dylan hated Rafe and blamed him for his parents’ death. But I didn’t want to focus there. I thought of Skye and her battle with her parents over joining a coven. But she didn’t have any reason to kill Rafe. Who was I missing? I realized I had been showering too long when the water started to get cool. The hot water heater in this older home was not large enough to solve the mystery.

Just as I finished drying my hair I heard the doorbell ring and the uproar of protective dog barking. I heard Seth shushing the dogs and then Diana’s voice floated up from below.

*   *   *

I walked down
the stairs and hesitated near the bottom when I saw what Diana had in her hand. She clutched her bulging, clanking tote bag that always contained trouble.

She raised it and said, “I know you don’t like it, but I have to do something to help Dylan and this is all I know how to do.”

I felt my shoulders slump at the same time I saw Seth’s face light up. I’d avoided Diana’s spell-casting once I realized that her spells invariably brought on the dreams that I tried so hard to block. Seth on the other hand loved anything to do with psychics, séances, or on a slow night, witchcraft. Alex walked in from the kitchen, holding a slice of pizza, and noticed the bag as well. His posture echoed mine. Both of us had been dragged into Diana’s spell-casting many times over the years. Alex usually needed a couple of shots of whiskey to participate.

“Maybe we can try one of the spells in Rafe’s book,” Seth said.

“What book?” Diana asked.

“The one we found at his house,” Seth said. “It’s got cool symbols and stuff inside.”

Diana glanced in my direction. “Can I see it?”

Seth bounded off to get it from the kitchen. Tom had followed Alex into the living room and we sat on the couches after evicting the dogs with some difficulty. Baxter was not pleased that his normal routine had been disrupted by all the visitors. Late afternoon was his prime napping-on-the-couch time.

While we finished the pizza Alex had brought, Alex and I told Diana the tale of Rafe’s house. She laughed a bit too hard at the part about being stuck on the roof but I figured she needed it. Seth handed her the book and she placed it carefully in her lap. She ran her hand over the cover and I saw her brows come together. She flipped it open and scanned the spells. She was about halfway through the book when she slapped it shut.

“I’ll have to take some time with this.” Her voice shook on the last word.

“What is it?” Alex asked.

She shook her head. “Just too much to take in all at once.”

But I knew what she had felt. There was evil in that book and the fact that it had belonged to Rafe Godwin had to be upsetting for her.

“I think we should get started,” Diana said.

Alex shifted in his seat and stole a look toward the kitchen, where I kept the alcohol. Tom cleared a place on the coffee table, as if this was a common occurrence. Seth’s eyes were bright and he asked Diana what she needed.

Diana smiled at him and said she brought everything in the bag.

Realizing this was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not, I took the chair farthest from the coffee table and waited for her to set up her supplies.

She pulled out a piece of paper with Dylan’s name on it, and set up five white candles in the shape of a star.

“This is perfect. There are five of us and if we each light a candle it will make the spell more powerful than if I do this alone.” Diana got up to turn out the lights. It was past six o’clock and fully dark outside, but a gray-silver light slipped in through the windows from the streetlights.

“I call on the powers to the north.” Diana walked to the north side of the room. She continued calling on the powers until she had cast the circle just as she had done in the woods. When she was finished, she sat on the couch between Alex and Tom and took their hands. She nodded to Seth and me to scoot closer and complete the circle. That left Seth and Tom holding hands, which was something I never thought I would see. Seth looked only briefly pained and then he turned his attention back to the candles.

I held Alex’s hand on one side and Seth’s on the other. When Diana told us to close our eyes they both squeezed a little tighter. I felt a stiffness begin in the back of my neck. I rolled my shoulders to stretch it out. She again called on the powers of air, fire, earth, and water and we lowered our hands and opened our eyes. She struck a match and touched it to the candle closest to her seat. She passed the box over to Tom, who did the same, and then handed the container to Seth. Seth had to strike the match a couple of times to get a flame and then he passed them to me. Once all the candles were lit, Diana said her incantation.

O Goddess, we ask for protection of Dylan in his time of need.

Protect him from word and deed

From harm and from all we fear.

For all that we hold dear,

I thank the Goddess for helping me.

I trust in Her aid

So mote it be!

Diana nodded that we should each blow out our candles in the order that we lit them. I breathed out and felt myself relax.

“Is that it?” Seth asked.

“What were you expecting?” Diana said with a smile.

“Maybe some lightning, howling winds, or at least flickering candles. . . .”

Diana shook her head. “It’s not quite as exciting as it is in the movies. It’s more about sending good intentions into the world.”

Alex was up and had moved away from the candles. Everyone stood and milled about for a few minutes waiting for an opening to change the subject. Seth took the leashes from the hook and Alex grabbed Baxter’s, not trying to hide his desire to get out of the house for a few minutes.

Tom announced he had to get home and said his good-byes as the leashes were snapped on to the exuberant dogs.

When they had left, I turned to Diana.

“What do you think of the grimoire?”

She looked down at her lap, where the book had sat. “I think I’m about to learn more than I want to know about Rafe.”