Black-Eyed Moon (A Guinan Jones Paranormal Mystery #1) (15 page)

Two hours of daylight left.

On the way to Jepson's Point, I called Zeke's cell. No answer. I left a message asking him to meet me there. I called the family's landline and got Tessa.

"I don't know why he's not answering," she said. "He went to the baseball diamond. He said he needed to release some tension
, whatever that means."

The memory of his reaction to my date with Dean made my stomach clench. I cleared my throat. "Will you ask him to call me? I need his help with something."

"Are you at home?"

"I'm just out and about. You must be relieved that the murders are
pretty much solved. Will Tim go back to work?"

I expected an upbeat response. All she said was, "I don't know."

I changed the subject and told her of my concern for Tamzen.

"Well," she said. "That's another topic for another day."

After we talked about the twins, we hung up. I parked on the side of Monsoon Road and stared at the trees. All roads lead to Jepson's Point.

I got out of the c
ar and walked across the field. When I reached the creek, I looked up and down the tall oak tree with the carvings. The police had dug what looked like a two-feet-wide trench around the base and hadn't bothered to fill it back in. I walked around the tree, peering into the dirt. I had no idea what I was looking for or even if there was anything to look for.

I stood straight, st
retched my back, and looked up at the tree canopy. My gaze moved across the woods. My family's land. I used to dream of building a house out here. That someone had been killed on this spot definitely soured the dream. Would it ever be the same again?

I put my hand on the
oak and felt the rough bark against my palm. My eyes traveled from the tree's base to the top where the branches swayed in the slight breeze.
Go ahead. Climb it.
I ended up with a bruised backside last time. But I wanted to be high enough to see if I could detect more freshly turned ground.

Zeke's voice echoed in my head.
Is the Nancy Drew thing over now
?

I went back to my car and retrieved
Granddad's binoculars. I returned to the tree, shoved the keys into my pocket, hung the binoculars around my neck, and slowly climbed. The branches were sturdy and solid under my sneakers. I stopped when I figured I was about twenty-five feet high. With my left arm hooked around a branch, I held the binoculars to my eyes. The dull ache in my right arm reminded me that maybe this wasn't such a good idea. I ignored the twinges and scanned the ground to my left. Nothing. I scanned the right side, but thick foliage blocked my view. I adjusted my feet on a branch, and bent slightly until the view was unobstructed. Even with binoculars, I didn't see anything unusual.

I maneuvered to the opposite side of the tree and scanned the ground. I was about to move on when I stopped. I
steadied the binoculars and squinted.

A cluster of marigolds.

I didn't know much about flowers, but I knew the deep golden and orange color of these. I looked around to find others, but they bunched together in that one spot.

Is that...no, it couldn't be. Not here.

I climbed down, distracted by the puzzle pieces swirling in my head. I should have seen the picture before. Zeke was right. The answer was inside my head all along.

I gasped when m
y foot caught on a gnarled branch. A surge of adrenaline pulsed through me. Memories of my earlier fall flooded my mind. Back then, I'd fallen five feet. Now, I was fifteen feet from the ground. In my panic, I twisted my body and lost my footing on the branch. I tried to cling to another, but my injured arm wouldn't cooperate.

It happened fast. I slipped backward and
opened my mouth to scream. Nothing came out. I landed hard on my back. A grunt. Wind rushing out of my lungs. I felt my head bounced off the ground. The trees blurred.

***

Strangling...

My fingers scrabbled at the
hands around my neck. But there were no hands. Just a cord. The binoculars. I lay still and tried to remember where I was. I opened my eyes to the waning light. In contrast to how I felt, the effect was almost peaceful. If I stood up and peered through the trees, I'd see the full moon.

Full moon. I
tried to sit up, and sharp pains exploded through my whole body. My breath caught, and tears stung my eyes. My head weighed a hundred pounds. I reached in my pocket for my cell. Empty.

I squeezed my eyes
shut. Of all the dumb luck. I took a deep breath, gritted my teeth against the pain, and rolled over on my left side. I pressed a hand against my head to relieve the throbbing. I didn't know whether to widened my eyes in the dark or squint them to search for my cell. There must be messages waiting for me, my family frantic. Maybe Zeke, too.

He
knew I was out here.

I positioned my left elbow underneath me and struggled to prop myself up. A familiar sound momentarily lifted my spirits. My cell phone buzzed somewhere
behind me. It took me what seemed like an hour to stand. I felt for the cell with my feet.

"Where are you? Oh, forget it."

I'd look for it in the morning. I needed to get home. I reached into my pocket for my car keys. Those were gone, too. Hot tears rolled down my face. I wanted to lie down on the ground again. I'd just have to get to the road and walk to the nearest house. Before I could make a decision either way, I heard footfalls in the distance. I cocked my head.

"Zeke, is that you?"

No answer. No footfalls.

Why was I standing here in the
growing dark? I pressed a hand against my back and started walking toward the path that would lead me to the road.

Fresh pain exploded in the middle of
my back, and my knees slammed against ground. Someone had shoved me. I looked up at a figure in black.

"Eric?" My voice shook. I couldn
't swallow. No way was he out of jail.

The figure receded into
the trees amid a soft crackle of leaves. I froze.

Walking in the woods on a balmy, midsummer's night felt good. The air tasted sweet.

The sound of the babbling creek seemed to grow louder.

I looked at the moon, a heavy, floating white ball. As soon as I focused on it, it seemed to brighten, illuminating my surroundings.

Reality was different from the dream. I'd changed things, but not the thing that counted.

I gasped, stumbled to my feet, and
ran blindly.

"Help. Someone's trying to kill me!"

It sounded almost comical, but I kept running and shouting. I heard the bat before I felt it. Turning my head at the last minute seemed preordained. The wood landed just above my right ear with a nauseating pop, and I went down.

Burning, inside and out.
I clutched my head, fingers tangling in soggy hair, and I writhed on the ground. I might have been crying. I couldn't tell. My head felt broken. I pulled my body into a fetal position. I tasted dirt on my tongue and felt grainy dirt embedded in my cheek and palms. I had to get up.

I thought I heard the bat whistling through the air again, and I flinched. I tried to crawl away, but a foot in my back thrust me down. I felt small, almost gentle hands, turn me over. My lips trembled, and
I had an urge to call out to my mother, even though she wouldn't hear me. I blinked to focus, and two figures appeared above me. No, not two. I was seeing double.

I squinted. A ski mask covered the head. Too small to be Eric's.

"Tamzen?" I don't know what made me say it. I knew it wasn't her.

A
n unnaturally pale hand tugged at the ski mask, lifting it above the eyes. I saw now that the hand was covered with a latex glove.

"Hello, Guinan."

Tessa grinned in the moonlight.

A chill ran up my aching spine. Nothing I'd ever experienced had prepared me for this moment. Me on my back with a bloody head. The woman I'd considered a second mother standing above me in camouflage, poised to kill me. Murder me.

"I don't have much time," she said. "Zeke could be here any minute. Or maybe not. He's very angry with you.

My mouth agape,
I said the only thing I could. "Why?"

She
seemed to consider for a moment and glanced at the sky. "Let's just say the stars were aligned. When you called for Zeke, I saw you here. You'd discovered the marigolds. My marigolds."

I avoided eye contact and feigned confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"I saw you," she said. The vicious sound in her voice didn't match her pleasant expression. "And you just wouldn't let it go. What do you care about Kate Mansfield and Skeeter Watson?"

"Care about them?" I said,
really confused now. "I care about someone getting away with murder."

She held the bat loosely in one hand.

"Kate was just a stupid teenager," I said, struggling to control my rising panic. "Tim had stopped seeing her. And you risked being sent away from your children for the rest of their lives?"

I expected
her to soften at the mention of her children. Instead, she sneered.

"Kate was a woman in every sense of the word. My husband thought long and hard about leaving me." She shook her head. "He actually had to
think
about it."

"He chose to stay."

She set her jaw and gripped the bat with both hands. "Barely."

She'd been acting the whole time. Acting like a friend, a mentor. Acting like a loving wife and mother. All along, she was crazy. I couldn't wrap my mind around it. It was too extreme.

She either read my emotions or my expression. She laughed. "I know. Shocking. Killing someone, particularly bashing them over the head. It's a bit much." She took a deep breath. "But it was cathartic. Once I did it, I felt a whole lot better about things."

I tried to ignore pain radiating from every part of body
and focus on getting out of this. I could keep her talking, then lunge at her. Take the bat, hit her with it, and run. Even while lying on the ground facing death, the idea of hitting Tessa repulsed me.

I'd better get over it. Soon. She obviously had no problem getting rid of inconvenient people. Like Skeeter.

"Did Skeeter see you kill her?"

She s
neered again and took a few steps back. "He didn't see me do anything. He said he recognized the sound of my car leaving the area. Like a dog. He walked right up to me the next day and told me. And left it at that. I knew he'd start asking for something, and I wasn't in the mood to tolerate anymore threats to my family."

Of all the things I could think about
at this moment, my mind turned to something Eric said. Tessa was among the group of women who'd come to his house.

"You took those bats from Eric's house.
The one you planted on him and the one in your hand." My body slackened, and my energy ebbed. I longed to lay my head on the ground and sleep. I drew in a breath, forced myself upright, and looked Tessa in the eye. "Are you really going to kill Tilda Jepson's granddaughter?"

My grandmother's name had the intended effect.

She spoke quickly. "I hadn't planned this. But I saw you out here and knew you'd put two and two together." She pulled off the woolen hat, cursed, then put it back on. "You never would have stopped asking questions, trying to open the puzzle box."

Her serene expression was gone. Now she looked remorseful.
I squeezed my eyes shut, commanding the pain to ease up so I could think straight.

"You know I can't read minds," I said, hating
the whiny sound in my voice. "I never would have—"

"Your clairvoyance had less to do with it than your nosiness. Besides, you'd end up as perceptive as your grandmother. She had me pegged."

Trembling, I sat up straighter. "I bet she did."

Her crazy-woman smile looked like
a grimace.

"Then again, your mother has those journals. She obviously hasn't read them. If she had, she would have..." She trailed off.

Had she hurt my grandmother? Would she hurt my mother after she killed me?

Something in me swel
led like a wave, and my senses sharpened. I scrambled to my feet and made to grab the bat. Tessa did exactly as expected—jerk backward. I used her momentum to push myself on top of her.

She
looked at me, her eyes wide, and laughed. Her grip on the bat was like steel. I swung a fist at her face and connected with skin. My survival instinct overcame any hesitation to hurt her. I raked my fingernails across her cheek, and she cried out. She clipped me hard on the chin with her fist.

I stumbled to my feet to run, but she tripped me. I hit the ground again, landing on my tender right arm.

Anger replaced fear. "Why don't you just shoot me and get it over with!"

She
took several steps back and touched the spot where I'd scratched her. "Great. DNA. Now I'm going to have to cut off your hand. Damn it"

I actually laugh
ed out loud. "I don't know why I didn't see it before," I said, goading her. "You're the one who should have been in a nut house."

She stayed calm, raised the bat, and stared at it.
"You stole Tamzen's boyfriend. She lost control and, well, you can imagine what she'd do. I took two bats for just such an eventuality."

I raised myself to a sitting position. "You're a freakin' psycho.
"

"What about the hand? Let's see...in a rage, Tamzen cut off both your hands because...oh, it doesn't matter."

"You really think you can murder people, incriminate people, and get away with it?"

"I've thought about that," she said.
Her calm tone set my nerves on edge. "Maybe I won't get away with it. Who knows. But I'm the long-suffering wife. Mother of two babies. Why would anyone suspect me of being involved in all this drama?"

This isn't a dream, Guinan. It's
really happening.

My mother, grandfather, and Zeke had to be lo
oking for me. Keep her talking. "Zeke will figure it out. He'll find out what you've done and hate you for it."

"Now why would he suspect his own mother?"

"I don't know how you've gotten away with it so far, but—"

"Want to know how I did it?"

"No."

She ignored
the answer. "I knew Zeke wanted to spend the night with his slut girlfriend, and I hinted my approval. Once I knew he'd be out of the house, the rest was simple. Sleeping pills in Tim's wine, and children's allergy medication for the twins." Her tone was conversational, as if we were discussing it over tea. "I used a prepaid cell to lure Kate out here. Killed her with Eric's special bat."

She paused,
waiting for my reaction. I didn't give her one.

"Dealing with Skeeter was even simpler. I didn't have to
lure him anywhere. I checked his bedroom window and waited for him to pass out."

Crazy bitch, evil eyes.
Skeeter must have seen her at the window before he passed out. I didn't want to hear anymore.

"My mother and grandfather know where I am."

She looked at me with pity. "Given your habit of slipping out of the house, I doubt it."

"You were like...like a mother to me." I
covered my mouth to stop my lips from trembling.

"I'm not your mother, though I would have been a better one to you than Saundra."

Mothers. Babies. "You saw that tree carving, didn't you? The one with Tim plus Kate equals BH."

Tessa's expression softened. "BH stands for Bethany Hicks. My baby."

Trying to figure my way out of this and process the new information made my thoughts foggy. "But that's a name Kate liked."

"She was taunting me. That was the name of the baby I miscarried. It was her way of letting me know that she and Tim shared more than sex." She lowered her head as though in
prayer. "But that's all over now."

"No, Tessa. It'll never be over. For the rest of your life you'll wonder and worry about the truth coming out."

"Perhaps. But for now, I'm in control, the same way I blocked you from reading me. We share this curse, you and I." She rubbed her temple. I glanced at the bat. "You'll never know what it feels like to sense your husband's desire for another woman when he's making love to you. It's evil."

"More evil than murdering people?"

Without warning, Tessa raised the bat. I didn't have time to think. I rolled away and avoided it by inches. She cursed. I covered my head with my arms and flinched, not knowing when the fatal blow would come.

"No!"

I heard feet shuffling in the dirt, and I raised myself on all fours. In a blur, Zeke tackled his mother, and the bat went flying into the darkness. She landed on her back, with him on top of her. She didn't move again.

He stood up,
out of breath.

"Your phone," I croaked. "Did you—"

"I already called the police," he said. He walked over to me and kneeled beside me. Words teemed in my head, but they were stuck there.

"I...I..."

He pulled me to him and cradled me. "Just relax," he said, his voice strained. "You're safe now."

"How did you know?"

He swiped a hand across his eyes but didn't speak.

I closed my mine
.

Safe.

Sirens screamed in the distance.