Convicted Witch: Jagged Grove Book 1 (7 page)

My new office is tucked in between a barbershop and what looks to be a tattoo parlor. It has a stately-looking white front door, and I notice that my name has already been stenciled into place with a slightly curly font.

“It’s cute,” I say, looking up. The building is three stories, clean, and inviting. “A few plants to soften all this brick and we’ll be set. Except for the part where I might accidentally kill somebody.”

I look over to see him smiling at me.

“What?”

“Maybe you should cut yourself some slack and have fun with it,” he says.

“Seriously? Have fun with maybe murdering people while I’m trying to help them?”

“You know what I mean - maybe you’ll make more mistakes by being uptight about it than you normally would. If you just relax, you might find that you step into this thing like a pro.”

I sigh. “OK, so just relax. I can try, I guess.”

“I’ve seen you in action. You’re going to be just fine. Let me show you inside.” He digs a key from his pocket and takes hold of the handle, but it turns inward easily without his using it. “Huh, that’s weird.”

“What?”

He shakes his head. “Never mind. Maggie must be here already. I told her we’d be in this morning.”

Then he pushes the door open and lets us into the dark foyer. The only light, once he closes the door behind us, comes from the door’s sidelights and a small window at the back of the building. It illuminates a small waiting room with lots of flowers sitting around. I look to see that one of them says
Welcome, Trinket Banks!
In fancy letters. “These are for me?” I look up at Angelo in surprise.

“They townspeople are excited to have a new healer in their midst, and Maggie is excited to learn.”

“That’s sweet.”

“It’s necessary, too. This town is quiet and mostly drama-free, but there are still plenty of incidents to keep you and Maggie busy.”

I nod and look at more of the flowers. They are mostly wildflowers, daisies and lilies, and they are perched in vases and water glasses on every surface. It gives the room a crowded feel, but the colors are pretty against the dark-paneled walls.

Directly in front of me is the receptionist area, and behind it is the drape-covered window. I walk around to push open the curtains and that’s when I notice the odd smell. It tickles my nose at first, and then becomes stronger.

“What is that?” I ask as I part the drapes and turn back to Angelo.

“What?” he asks.

“It’s a smell - sort of acidic. Weird.”

“Some of the flowers? Those roses are a little strong.”

I shake my head. “No, this is more like a chemical. Come here.”

He comes to stand beside me and notices it, too. “Strange. Maybe Maggie is doing something in the back.” He walks around the waist-high desk and goes toward a door off to our left that has Exam Room on it. I take one more sniff, wrinkle my nose, and then follow him.

I’m walking through the door when I feel an odd tightening sensation in my hands. When I look down I see that my life-line is sort of...fluttering. My hands have never done this before. The odd glow distracts me and I bounce off the wooden door frame with my shoulder right as Angelo says, “Oh, hell.”

“What?” I look up, rubbing my shoulder to see that he’s gone completely. Bewildered, I look around. “Angelo?”

“Come here, quick,” I hear him say, and realize that he’s behind an exam table in the austere room.

“What is it?”

“Come here, Trinket.”

I go around the table to see him kneeling beside a young woman who looks very, very dead.

“O
h, no!” For a second I can’t breathe. “Is this...?”

“Maggie.” He looks up at me with a grim expression on his face. “She’s dead. Is it too late to...?”

I nod, because that’s obvious. My lifeline is going nuts, though. I look down at my hands to keep from freaking out at the body. It seems rude.

She’s lying face down, staring at the doorway we just entered. Her green eyes are wide open, and her skin is starting to turn an odd shade of...orange? That’s weird. She’s wearing a thigh-length white dress that looks like a tennis outfit and lots of makeup. Her hair is dark and curly. In life, it would have fallen well past her shoulders.

“What’s wrong with your hands?” Angelo stands up and comes to look at them, too.

“I’m not sure. I’ve never seen them do this before.”

“And it doesn’t mean you can still save her?”

I shake my head. “No. I can’t feel any of her life energy at all. What kind of supernatural was she?”

“A witch, like you. Young, though.” He looks distressed. “She was really eager to learn from you.”

“I’m sorry. What happened to her?” I didn’t see blood or any sort of wound.

“I don’t know.”

“Could it have been a heart attack? Or maybe an aneurysm?” I say that out loud, but a different thought is poking into my mental reasoning.

“I don’t know.”

“Angelo?”

“Yeah?” He’s pulling out a small radio. It’s no bigger than an mp3 player and has three buttons on it. He presses one and speaks into it, calling for help with the situation.

My mind is thinking back. “A minute ago we smelled something strange. Could that have something to do with this?”

He’s shaking his head, but I can tell he’s thinking about it, too. “I don’t see how.”

I shrug, still not looking at the body. “A poisoned gas of some sort?”

“Wouldn’t it have killed us, too?”

“Probably. Maybe? I have no idea, Angelo. I’m not a doctor.”

“You sort of are.”

“No. Not really. My magic can fix broken things, but not diagnose or revive dead things - or people.” That sounded really disrespectful. “You know what I mean.”

He doesn’t bother answering. He’s too busy staring at Maggie again. The room suddenly feels very small. “I’m going to get some fresh air,” I say. “I’ll let your guys in when they get here.”

He’s checking for a pulse again when I stumble outside into the sunshine.

The town suddenly doesn’t feel very welcoming at all, and I shiver as I look toward the dock for Angelo’s people. I wish they’d hurry, but that’s because I feel sad and scared and helpless all at once and I want somebody to do something, even though there is nothing left to do for the woman in my new office. I press my back against the wall, feel the edges of the brick bite in, and wait.

There seems to be more people around now than there was when we went in, and that’s kind of freaking me out, too. Doesn’t the murderer always come back to the scene of the crime?

I’m thinking about going back inside and out of sight when I remind myself that she probably wasn’t even murdered. Angelo is right - she probably just died for some perfectly normal reason, and I’m getting all worked up over nothing. That said, why does it feel like everyone in the vicinity is looking right at me?

Probably because they are, but it’s not something sinister. I know how small towns work, and everyone will want to get a look at the newcomer, especially if she’s going to be their only healer, too.

Healer. The title doesn’t feel like it fits me very well, especially considering the circumstances.

Angelo’s men are here within minutes, brushing past me when I wordlessly point toward the door. Two of them are carrying a folded gurney of some sort, and the other two are carrying black cases in their hands. Their grim expressions and tight shoulders don’t make me feel any better at all.

Angelo comes to find me a couple of minutes later. “They need you inside,” he says quietly.

I look into his eyes, and he smiles reassuringly. “Just a few questions. We have to treat this with proper protocol.”

I nod and follow him back in.

The man who sits down to talk with me in the receptionist area is named Ronnie. He’s around thirty, with kind eyes and a thin mustache, and he’s wearing a navy uniform of some sort. He smiles at me and reaches to pat my hand after he pulls up a seat. “I’ll make this quick, because you obviously have nothing to do with it.”

“OK. Thank you.” Something pops into my head. “By the way, do you smell that?”

The odor from earlier is fading, but I can still smell it. He sniffs the air and then looks at me. “I do. What is it?”

“I don’t know. It was really strong when we first came in, but it’s not as bad now.”

He bends his head and writes something down on a pad that he’s balanced on his knee, but doesn’t say anything else about it. Then he walks me through the scenario from when we came in. It’s fairly cut and dried, and I start to calm down a little as I listen to his soothing voice.

The whole process takes less than thirty minutes, even though I stop talking altogether when I see them take Maggie’s now-covered body out on the gurney, covered with heavy sheets. As the men go by with their sad cargo, I catch a stronger whiff of that same strange chemical odor. When I look at Ronnie to mention it, he nods - he’s noticed it, too.

Another thing I notice is that my lifeline has stopped blinking at me.

“We’ll do a tox screen,” he assures me as he stands up to go. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Banks. Sorry it has to be under such terrible circumstances.” Then Angelo comes up behind me and Ronnie nods to him. “Let me know if you think of anything else,” he says to both of us.

When everyone is gone again, the office feels cold and spooky. “Can we come back tomorrow? Or later?” I ask Angelo. “I don’t want to be here right now.”

He nods. “Me neither. How about I buy you a drink before we meet Blakely and Bilda for supper?”

“That sounds wonderful.”

“Let’s go. Oh, and Trinket? Will you do me a favor and not mention this to anyone until we figure out what happened?”

“Of course.” If I know anything about small towns, everybody already knows anyway.

When we step outside again, I notice that town seems less quaint and more menacing than it did on the walk over. It feels like there are more shadows and dark alleys than I noticed before. I also notice that everyone is staring, and it’s not my imagination. “Will they think I killed her?” I ask.

Angelo looks down at me like I’m a little bit crazy, but then he takes my hand, and squeezes it. “You’ve only been in town for two hours. How could you have? Don’t worry.”

He takes me to the Salty Hog, which looks exactly like the kind of place that Blakely described. It’s at the very end of one of the streets in town, out of the way of most traffic. I probably wouldn’t have found it for weeks if Angelo hadn’t brought me here. A gravel lot leads to a porch and entrance made of rough cut lumber, lit up here and there with neon lights that advertise the beer selections on tap. I can hear laughter and music coming from inside, punctuated by an indecipherable shout now and then.

When I shoot Angelo a questioning look, he grins. “It’s not that bad. It’s just a bar. Surely you’ve been in a bar before.”

Actually... “Do clubs count?”

“What’s the difference?” he asks, ushering me in ahead of him.

I look around the surprisingly well lit room to see dead things staring back at me. The dead things are deer and what looks like a black, shaggy bison head. I see fish and squirrels, too, all mounted on wooden plaques that hang around the room. “A lack of wildlife?”

He laughs, takes my hand, and leads me through the crowd to the bar. My simple jeans and blouse fit well here, at least.

“Didn’t Blakely say the other place was better?” I ask, trying to follow him without bumping into any tables.

“The other place doesn’t serve alcohol.”

“Oh. Ok, never mind.” I definitely need a
drink
drink, so this is the spot.

No one seems to notice us at first, which is a plus.

Angelo leads us directly to the shiny copper-trimmed bar and pulls out a stool for me.

“Angelo!” The bartender is a slender, blonde witch in a white half-apron whose eyes lit up when she sees us. Well, when she sees him. Then she sees me and some of the luster dies.

I glance at Angelo to see if he’s noticed, but no - he’s laughing and talking to some guy - a shifter - that just came up behind him, leaving me and Miss Bartender to stare at each other.

“Hello,” I say, rubbing my suddenly clammy palms on my jeans. I have to fit in here, might as well try to make some friends. “Could I get a shot of Hennessey? Er, two, actually?”

She looks from Angelo to me, nods once - that smile is a little tight - and turns to the hundreds of bottles behind her and selects two. Then she lines three shot glasses on the bar in front of me, fills two with whiskey and pours some greenish concoction from the third bottle.

I watch as it bubbles. “What’s this?” I ask.

She nods toward Angelo. Not really a talker, this one. “For Angelo.”

“Oh, OK.” I clear my throat, suck back my first drink. Then I wait for the warmth to kick in, moan appreciatively, and hold out my hand to her. “Hi, I’m Trinket.”

She wipes one hand slowly on the apron and shakes, but I can tell she’d rather not. It isn’t that she’s not friendly - I get the feeling that she is, in general. It’s more that she’s uncertain about why I’m here with Angelo. Her eyes keep shifting to his back, where he’s still leaning into a conversation with the shifter.

I want to put her mind at ease, but I don’t know how.
Hi, I’m Trinket and I’m not sleeping with the big Italian next to me
. Instead I ask, “What’s your name?”

“Portia. You new here?”

She looks like a Portia. I nod. “Yes. We got here this afternoon. Angelo was just showing me around and we decided to stop in for a drink before he showed me where I’m going to live.”

“Nice of him. He hates this part, and he used to have Rachel do it.”

“Oh.” I have no idea who Rachel is, and Portia doesn’t seem to want to explain. In fact, she turns her back on me completely and goes to lean against the bar and talk to somebody further down. I’ve been dismissed.

I poke Angelo in the back with one clear-coated fingernail. When he turns around I say, “Who’s Rachel?”

Instead of answering right away, he motions toward the shifter. “Trinket, this is Flux. He’s our fire chief here in Jagged Grove.”

I smile. He’s a good-looking guy and fit, as most shifters are. Forty years old, give or take, and dressed in blue jeans and a flannel shirt. Thick blond curls lay over his forehead. “Nice to meet you.”