A Barrel of Whiskey - (An Urban Fantasy Whiskey Witches Novel) (32 page)

“They said they didn’t want their group to be contaminated by my witchcraft.”

“Contaminated—” Well, that certainly brought a new light to the situation. “Wow. Are the kids going to be safe even going back to that school?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been looking into home schooling options. It’s so complicated.”

“Can’t be that complicated. People all over the country home school their kids. Like, one in three were homeschooled or something like that in Denver.”

“We’re not in Denver.”

“Oddly, Les, I did notice that.” Paige leaned back to view her computer. She turned it on, sitting down in the chair. A chair she couldn’t get used to. Two months. And then, hopefully, after those two months, she and Leah and Leslie and Mandy and Tyler and Tru and Kamden and Bobby and Alma and Dexx could all get the hell out of Texas. Thank goodness they didn’t have pets.

“What am I supposed to do—shit. Got another call.”

“Okay.”

“Police. Shit. I’ll call you back.”

Paige shook her head and set down her phone. “So, what am I supposed to do while I’m delegating all my work to other people?”

She opened the drawers. Aside from a few pencils and an odd array of pens left behind by the person who’d had the desk before her—oh, and a ridiculous stack of napkins—it was empty and ready for her to move into. The shelves behind her were bare. What was she supposed to put up there? She didn’t have trophies.

The phone rang again.

Paige picked it up before the word “gummy” could even be uttered. “That was fast.”

“I’m on the way to the hospital.” Leslie’s tone was urgent.

“What happened?” Paige slammed the drawer shut and sat up straight.

“Grandma and the girls were attacked at the library.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Grandma’s hurt. She was stabbed. They won’t tell me how she’s doing.”

“The girls?”

“I don’t know, Pea. Meet me there.”

“Highland Park ER?”

“You know of another one?”

Paige wasn’t going to answer that with the flippant remark she had handy on the tip of her tongue. “I’ll meet you there.” She hung up and ran out the door, her heart hammering. “Dexx, I need your keys.”

“Huh? No.” He stood. “What’s up?”

Chuck rose from the couch.

Paige stood close to Dexx and lowered her voice. “Grandma and the girls were attacked at the library just now. Grandma’s in the hospital.”

“Library?” King asked, her eyes narrowed.

What the fuck was she asking? “Highland’s Park Library.”

King tapped Wrick’s shoulder.

Oh. She’d been asking for a location. So, King wasn’t always a bitch. Awesome.

Wrick was already typing.

“How bad is Alma?” Dexx asked.

“Don’t know. Heading to the hospital now.”

Dexx nodded and pointed to King and Wrick. “You got this?”

Wrick leaned forward. “I got it. I’m in. When did this happen?”

“That was too fast,” Paige said, stepping up to his chair.

King moved out of her way. “There are times you want to ask questions and other times when you don’t.”

“Right.”

Wrick hit rewind.

“There, there,” Dexx said.

All they saw was a flurry of shadows. Shadow people were attacking each other, but Paige couldn’t tell much more than that.

“Any other angles?” Paige asked.

Wrick tapped on his keyboard. “Yeah. But it’s going to take some time.”

King looked up at Paige. “We’ve got this. You go see if your family’s okay.”

Paige nodded. “Call me if you hear anything.”

“Hey.” Gomez rose to her feet. “I’m coming with.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Your witchy grandmother was attacked and stabbed.” Gomez gave Paige a look that begged her to say something else stupid. “I’m just hanging out. Provide another set of eyes.”

King raised her eyebrows, sliding into her chair and tapping on her keyboard.

Paige released a tight breath. She hoped this was just some random attack.

It probably wasn’t, though.

Shit. Too close to home. Were they going to survive two months?

H
ighland Park was a thirty-five minute drive in good traffic. The standstill traffic clogging I-20 wasn’t helping Paige’s nerves. She wanted to claw at something. Yell. Scream. Hell, she wanted to get out of the damned car and run.

She turned to Dexx. “You could shift and run and get there faster than we’re driving right now.”

“No,” Gomez said from the back. “The first rule of the supernatural community is that we don’t do that shit in public.”

“But my daughter—”

“If she’s been injured, she’s in the hospital and being taken care of.” Her phone chirped. “Trust me. We’ll get there when we get there.”

Paige ground her teeth. “We should have taken a police car.”

“Lights and sirens?”

She nodded.

“Gomez,” she said from the back seat. “Yeah. What you got?”

“I could get those installed,” Dexx offered. “It’s pretty easy.”

Paige swallowed. She couldn’t concentrate on the conversation. She couldn’t concentrate on anything other than getting to her daughter. What did she have in her witchy bag of tricks that could help them? She could call up the wind? Clear them a path?

Yeah. Fuck. She had nothing.

“Shit,” Gomez said from the back seat. “Yeah. I’ll tell ‘em. Yeah. Thanks. See ya.”

Dexx stopped with a sigh as everyone else on the highway did the same. “What happened?”

“Your shifter case, my paranormal case, and your grandmother’s attack are all connected.”

Fuck. Dread filled her mouth with saliva. “Yeah?”

“My perp’s sister attacked your grandmother.”

Paige practically saw red. She was trying to stop a war from erupting and they had this to worry about, too? “You’re serious?”

“Yeah. Beth Galsbory. Sister to Dan Galsbory. Born here. Local. Stayed local. Beth owns a second-hand store in Highland Park.”

Paige cleared her throat. What were the odds?

“I know you want to go straight to the hospital,” Gomez said, “but I need to go to the crime scene.”

“Which one?” Paige asked. The gas station was out of their way, as was the library. The second was less out of the way than the gas station by about fifteen minutes. In traffic that actually moved. Blessed Mother. She wanted to scream.

“Library.”

“Why?” Paige said through clenched teeth.

“I could get a scent,” Dexx offered.

“We have their names.” They had their
names!
“We can follow their trail.”

“Trail’s cold,” Gomez said. “They don’t use credit cards. Their cell phone GPS is turned off and they’re not making any calls or even texting anyone.”

“She owns a fucking store.” Paige clenched her teeth to gain control over her emotions. She’d just gotten Leah back. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

“We can check on the store. This is the first time Beth’s done anything to get herself involved. But just in case, like Dexx said, I’d like to get their scent. I want more than just luck on our side.”

“More than just luck?” Paige wanted to laugh, but her lip curled through the anger flaring in her chest. “You’re a tree.”

“I’m aware of that, witch,” Gomez said curtly. “But did you know that plants have an excellent sense of smell? Did you also realize that we can communicate remotely? Or that I can take that scent I get from the scene and send that to my grove?”

Paige blinked, her anger cooling as she realized her ignorance. All of that would be rather helpful.

“Or did you know that my grove is spread out over a vast distance? We’re the ash tree. We can grow almost anywhere. We can hide in plain sight.”

Paige felt like a shit. “And you and your grove could find the Galsborys.”

“Long before facial recognition software can in the video cameras we’re not supposed to have access to.”

Paige swallowed. “Sorry. I’m just irritated.”

“Aware of that, sir. Now, then, can we take a short cut?”

Paige wasn’t aware of a short cut.

Gomez guided Dexx through side streets and main streets that looked as though they’d gone through a time warp into the past or something. The store fronts hadn’t been updated since they’d gone up sometime in the sixties.

They pulled up in front of the Highland Park Library. Only one police car sat in front of it. Crime scene tape closed off the entrance.

Paige got out of Jackie, her eyes glued to the cement. Where would she see her grandmother’s blood? Would it look different? No. Of course not. Witches bled the same red blood as everyone else. But would it feel different?

Her feet walked for her. She slipped under the crime scene tape, reaching for a badge she didn’t have.

A woman in the dark blue uniform of the Highland Park PD walked up to her. “Paige.”

Paige raised her gaze from the cement. “Sarah.” She cleared her throat. “Sheriff Ansley. This is Detective Gomez and my consultant, Dexx Colt.”

Sarah nodded, her lips curled in a smile. “I’m not surprised to see you, but I thought you’d be at the hospital.”

“We’re on our way, but we got the call, so we decided to stop here first.”

“You got the call?”

Gomez stepped out in front of Paige. “We’ve been tracking the Galsborys for a while now. They attacked another woman just last night. She’s in critical condition.”

“Beth and Dan?” Sarah narrowed her eyes. “I don’t understand.”

“Sarah,” Paige said, squaring off with the sheriff, “do you know if they expressed any hate for us?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Normally, she’d tiptoe around this issue, dance around the topic, but she just didn’t have time. “You go to the same church they do.”

“Well, no.” Sarah put her hand on her utility belt, her expression shifting into stone. “They moved churches and me and Ron haven’t been going for a while. Got way too political in my faith lately.”

“Right.” Paige paced away, then came back. She needed to watch what she said, how she said it. She couldn’t afford to make enemies of friends. “Did they express any ‘political religion’ to you?”

“What is this about, Paige? Is this about you and your family being supposed witches?”

Paige met Sarah’s gaze and didn’t drop it.

“But that was just a thing while we were growing up. It was a high school joke.”

“It wasn’t a joke, Sarah. We are witches.”

“Oh.” All compassion left her expression, leaving only a wide expression of dumbfoundedness.

“Now? Can you think of anything they might have said that would lead you to believe they’re capable of something like this?”

Sarah licked her lips. “I can’t believe anyone would be capable of this. She stabbed your grandmother, Paige.”

“And Leah?”

“Fine. Her and Mandy both. I promise.”

Paige breathed a sigh of relief, closing her eyes. Though, why Leslie hadn’t said as much earlier was beyond Paige.

Actually, no. It wasn’t. In the heat of extreme emotional situations, the brain didn’t always work the way it should and the things that should be said weren’t.

“This is why you need to get out of Texas, Pea,” Dexx said quietly behind her.

“We’re not all like that, Mr. Colt,” Sarah said, her expression filled with hurt and amazed sickened wonder.

“No,” Dexx agreed, “but it’s that one percent of the populace that concerns me because it looks like they’re trying to kill people I care about.”

“Beth wasn’t trying to kill Alma.”

“Then, what would you call it?” Dexx asked. “A friendly knife stabbing to gently remind her to follow the straight and narrow?”

Paige sucked air through her teeth. This wasn’t going to get them anywhere. Most people were good people. It was the one in every thousand or so that turned society into a fear mongering herd. Though, she had to stop and call a turd a turd.
She
was turning into a fear mongering herd, only her herd was her family and she was fearing anyone who “believed” in God. Yeah. She needed to shut that shit up.

“Where did all this happen?” Gomez asked.

Sarah gestured for them to follow.

Gomez stopped Paige with her hand. “No. Dexx and I will go handle this. You stay here. We’ll be on our way to the hospital as soon as we can.”

Paige nearly told the woman to fuck off, but kept herself restrained. Gomez was right and she was just doing her job, which was something Paige should be doing.

But she just couldn’t think with this much rage and fear beating through her brain. She wanted to see for herself that her daughter and niece were okay, and she needed to know how Alma was. She pulled out her phone and texted her sister.
Status?

Paige knew from past cases that cell phone usage was prohibited in the ER. Not that many people followed that rule, but there was also the fact that Leslie might have her hands full. She might not be paying attention to her phone and might not appreciate the interruption. So, a phone call might be out of the question.

Her phone whistled, letting her know she had a message.
GMA going into surgery. Checking on girls. R U comin?

Paige’s breath shook as she expelled it. She nodded, biting her lip and texted.
At library getting scent. Will explain when I get there. Be there soon. Where are you?