What's a Witch to Do?: A Midnight Magic Mystery (33 page)

I glance at Collins, who rolls her eyes. “Why sweetie?”

“It’s not going to work. It’s not. He’s too good for me!”

“Where did this come from?” I chuckle.

“He—he was flirting with Becca tonight, so—so I kissed this guy,” she sobs.

I look at Collins for confirmation. “We all went out for drinks, and she obviously got plastered. She barely touched his lips, then busted into tears and insisted I bring her here.”

I mouth, “I’m sorry,” and Collins shrugs. I rub my sister’s back and shush her. “Calm down, sweetie, calm down. It’s okay.”

“I’m a horrible person,” she sobs. “How could I do this to him? I don’t love him. I mean, I mustn’t to have done this! I have to cancel the wedding. I have to!”

Ugh. I pull away, and hold her by the shoulders. “Deborah Jean McGregor, you stop all this right now! You are not a horrible person, you are not canceling your wedding, and that is final. You are scared, you are drunk, you are being inconsiderate, and I will not stand for it. You know you love Greg, and he loves you. Your feet are just a little chilly right now. It’s normal. You are going to have a wonderful life together, and that life begins tomorrow. If you sober up and still don’t want to go through with the wedding, then so be it. But you better be a hundred thousand percent sure, otherwise you will have wrecked the best thing that ever happened to you. Got me?” She nods. “Good. Now, march your drunk butt upstairs to my bedroom and get into bed. You’re bunking with me tonight. Go! March!” Sniffling and with her head hung, my baby sister obeys. When I hear the door shut I flop down on the couch next to Collins. “Oh goddess, give me strength.”

“Kaylee brought a bottle of rum, and they started drinking it around three,” Collins says.

“She’ll be fine. Tamara acted the same way. All three times.” We both laugh and shake our heads. “And how are you doing?”

“Alright … and I feel bad about it. Right now I’m just focused on the wedding. I figure I’ll have a breakdown right after.”

“You and me both, hon.” I shake my head. “You’re a strong girl. You will be amazed what you can survive.”

She’s quiet for a few seconds. “She was my sister,” she whispers sadly. “She wasn’t all bad. She was just lost. She had no purpose in life. That’s not a way to live.”

“How’s Maxine?”

“She won’t talk to me,” she says, voice cracking.

“Oh, honey,” I say, hugging her. “She just needs time.”

“Meemaw and Debbie are all I have,” she cries as she clings to me. “Now Debbie’s getting married, and Meemaw hates me. All I ever wanted was for her to be proud of me. I’ve done everything I could, and now it’s all ruined.”

“No, it’s not. I’m sure she’s real proud of you. How could she not be? You’re beautiful, smart, a hard worker. Hell, you spend your days saving people.”

“I hate that job so much,” she cries. “I only became a nurse because Meemaw said I should. I hate my life! Nothing ever works out.”

I rub her back. “I know it feels that way sometimes, honey, but take it from me, life can turn on a dime. You just need to have faith.”

She sniffles and pulls away. “Oh hell,” she says, wiping her face, “I hate crying in front of people. I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for. We’re family.” I smile. “You want to stay here tonight?”

“That’d be great, thank you. I don’t want to be alone.”

I squeeze her hand. “You’re not alone.” With a smile, I stand. “Okay, I’m gonna check on everyone. Why don’t you find some sappy movie we can watch and bawl our eyes out to?”

“Sounds great.”

“Be right back.” I walk upstairs and check on the girls first. They’re pretending to sleep. “Goodnight. I love you.” Inside my bedroom, Debbie lies on her side sniffling. “Hey,” I say, shutting the door. I walk to the bathroom to get her aspirin and water. “Sit up and take these.”

She does. “I’m being a brat, aren’t I?”

“Yes, but you’re my brat, and I love you nonetheless.”

“I don’t know what’s the matter with me. You and Collins are going through all this crap, and you’re both taking care of me. I am a horrible person.”

“You’ll make it up to us,” I say with a smile.

“I really don’t know what’s the matter with me. I love Greg, I do. It’s just … this is forever. How do I know he’s, you know, the one and only?”

“Is he your best friend?”

She thinks. “Don’t tell Collins, but yes. He is.”

“Has he been a good partner to you? Being there when you need him to be?”

“He’s been great.”

“I know you want babies. Will he be a good father?”

“Oh yeah. No question.”

“This is the biggie. Can you honestly picture sitting across the breakfast table every day from him for the rest of your lives?”

She considers it. “Yeah.”

“Then you got nothing to worry about, I guarantee it.”

“Thank you,” she whispers. “I love you.”

“Love you too.” The telephone rings. Now what? “I gotta get this. You try to sleep. Big day tomorrow.” I pick up the portable and walk into the hallway. “Hello?”

“Mona?” George asks.

“Hi, George,” I say as I walk to the attic for privacy. “What can I do for you?”

“You disappeared after the summit. Is everything okay?”

“Personal stuff. It’ll work itself out. What’d you want to talk to me about?” The attic is stuffy and cluttered with boxes on top of boxes, so I sit at the top of the attic stairs.

“I was hoping you could clear up some inconsistencies so we can close the case.”

“Try my best.”

I hear the rustling of papers on the other end. “You said the demon was summoned early Tuesday morning, correct? Well, we spoke to a Bruce Nettles, and he said Cheyenne arrived at his apartment around one, and Adam Blue alibied her prior to that.”

“Couldn’t she have slipped out after Bruce was asleep?”

“That is possible, yes. There is something else though. There were three sets of prints on the notebook: yours, Cheyenne’s, and her sister Collins’s.”

“So? We looked through the book.”

“One of the fingerprints was in blood. Animal blood. It wasn’t Cheyenne’s, it was Collins’s. We thought maybe she cut herself, but tests just confirmed the blood was from a dog. Also, though the handwriting is very similar, we compared samples from Cheyenne’s to the notebook. It wasn’t a match.”

If I wasn’t sitting, I’d fall down. No.
No way.
Not her. That doesn’t, it doesn’t make sense. She loves me. She saved my life. Cheyenne was going to shoot me. If Collins wanted me dead, she would have let her.
“You …
you
did this!”
Cheyenne sounded so surprised. Collins was standing right behind me. What if Cheyenne wasn’t aiming for me? What if …

I stand up and walk farther into the attic. All that she has in the world is her grandmother and Debbie. She wants respect. Me dead accomplishes that. She’s the obvious choice for Priestess since Erica would never take the job. And the wedding. That’s why it had to be this week. There’s no way they’d go through with it so soon after my death, and who would be there to comfort Debbie? Her best friend. I’m a fucking idiot. “George, get over here. She’s—”

“Hang up the phone, Mona.” I spin around with a gasp. Collins stands at the door with her finger outstretched, all business. It’s the finger that killed her sister yesterday. My heart rate doubles.
“Now.”

My shaking finger presses the button. “Oh, Collins.”

“You know, I knew the second I heard you say his name in the hall I was screwed. Just knew it.” She clucks her tongue. “I all but gift-wrapped Cheyenne for them. I thought they had the notebooks, they had her trying to kill you, that’d be it. You always made the F.R.E.A.K.S. seem like all they did was containment. Killing preters. She’s dead, end of case. They’d go, I’d kill you a month from now some other way. Car accident, maybe. Best laid plans, huh? I swear, I have the worst fucking luck on the planet. Just
once,
why can’t something go my way?”

“You framed Cheyenne.”

“Well duh! I had to do something. You weren’t supposed to know you were in danger, but that fucking werewolf ruined everything. Then Ale got caught, and I had to move to Plan B.”

“How long have you been planning this?”

“Around two months, I guess. Knew I needed help though. I wanted no ties to me, but I don’t know many killers. I was at Croatoan and ‘accidently’ ran into Ale. Introduced myself. You mentioned him a few times. We found out we had a lot in common.”

“There were no records of you being at the club,” I say.

“I insisted on secrecy for obvious reasons. After that first night, I knew he could help me get rid of you, and I could help him too. That’s what the co-op’s for, right?” she asks with a smile. “Cooperation?”

“Not exactly. So he died, and you moved to Plan B. The demon.”

She takes a step toward me. “I knew you’d found out when you offered to make me your heir and were asking about Richmond. It was kind of obvious, you know. Even Cheyenne would have seen through it,” she says with a scoff. “I played it well, don’t you think? Telling you Cheyenne wanted the position was really inspired.”

“Convinced me.”

“I know.” She shakes her head and clicks her tongue. “Then my luck turned again. Lilith was just supposed to drive over and suck the life out of you from a safe distance without anyone ever knowing she was here. Let me tell you, there wasn’t any indication in a single damn book I read that her presence would wake up the whole damn town. I knew we could feel her evil up close, but not a trillion feet away. So there you were, ahead of me again. At least my plan to frame my bitch sister went better. You bought everything—the demon at her house, my performance at the country club, my frantic phone call—hook, line, and sinker.”

“Cheyenne believe you too?”

“I told her you were threatening Meemaw and acting crazy when I called. I even sounded scared. Then things went sideways again,” she says, shaking her head. “It was my fault. I had to gloat, and for the first time in her life, she got a clue. She was supposed to shoot you, then me being the brave hero, I’d kill her. Then she aimed the gun at me, and I had no choice.”

“But I don’t understand.
Why?
Why would you do this to me? You’re like my sister. I love you!”

She scoffs. “I was never your sister. If I was, you’d have let me stay here like you’d promised. You had the room.”

I think for a second, then remember ten years ago when she had to go back to her parents again. “I was twenty-five, Collins. My grandmother had just died, my grandfather was a walking ghost, I was head of the coven and guardian to a teenager. I’m sorry, okay?”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “You
promised.
After the last time my daddy got arrested, you sat me on that porch and promised I would always have a safe haven here. You lied to me, you bitch. You know what happened the night you sent me home? He raped me. If it wasn’t for Meemaw taking us in again, he would have kept at it until one of us was dead.”

I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I am so sorry. I had no idea he was—”

“You’re
supposed to take care of us,” she says, snarling at me. “That is your job, and you failed.
I
could do a better job. I couldn’t stand it another day. You acting all mighty and people bowing to you. I knew it should have been me. The shop, the house, the
respect.
It isn’t fair they look up to you and down on me just because Meemaw wasn’t the favored daughter. She was going to get her rightful respect, her birthright, and to see me become the most powerful witch in the country. But now … it’s all ruined,” she says with a sad chuckle. “My life is over.”

“It doesn’t have to be. I—I can talk to the squad.”

“Oh shut up Mona. Don’t insult me. I see right through you.” She squares her shoulders. “At least I can accomplish what I set out to do.
Ex—”

I toss the phone at her head, smashing it right into her temple, while at the same time saying,
“Calx!”
She stands petrified like stone. Not bad for my first time using it. I run through the mess to the door. The spell only lasts five seconds. Just as I take the last stair down, she points that finger. I barely have time to step into the hall before she shouts the death curse. Its evil stains the hallway a scorched black.

Debbie pokes her head out. “What—”

“Lock the door!”

I lose precious seconds making sure she does. Collins moves into the hall, fury practically making her skin glow. A gust of wind barrels down the hall like a bullet, knocking me back onto the stairs. I grab the banister in time and only fall two steps onto my butt but smack my head too. The world becomes a little fuzzy. Collins runs toward me, finger out again, but I’m still recovering. Part of me knows I need to do something, but I can’t get my body to listen. She’s gonna kill me, and the almost feral smile on her face is the last thing I’m going to see.

“Bitch,” she says.

“
Lapsus
!” a voice yells.

Triumph becomes shock as something invisible grips Collins and tosses her thin body over the banister. She falls the story, screaming all the way until her body hits the hardwood below with a thump. Hell’s bells.

“Aunt Mona!” Sophie says as she runs toward me. “Are you okay?”

I mange to sit up just as Cora and Debbie step into the hallway, both terrified. We all gaze down at Collins’s lifeless form when they join us. She lies on her stomach with her left leg at an odd angle. “Oh goddess! Collins!” Debbie shouts. “What—”

“It was her. She framed Cheyenne. She wanted to kill me.” I look at Sophie. “Where did you learn that spell?”

“Mommy. She used it on the demon Papa summoned.”

I pet her hair. “You’ll have to teach it to me sometime.” I kiss her cheek. “But if you ever do anything that stupid again, I will tan your hide.” She nods. “Good. Come here.” I groan and pull both girls into a hug, holding tight for a few seconds. “Debbie, help me up.” I release the girls, and the crying Debbie gets me off the floor. The world tilts a little but rights itself a second later. I take one step at a time, my eyes never leaving Collins.