A Charming Crime (22 page)

Eloise wrung her
hands as she paced back and forth. “I don’t like this idea.” She picked at her
short red hair.

“I need some of
that truth serum that you and Darla gave Izzy that time.” If I could give some
to the killer, which had to be one of the council members, including Oscar,
they’d sing like one of the Singling Pettles and confess to everything.

The heavy
leashes that shadowed her cheeks flew up. “How did you know about that?”

“Darla’s
journal.” I patted my bag.

“I don’t think
that would be a good idea. You never know what someone is going to say.” She
looked away.

Madame Torres’
head went from one end of the globe to the other trying to keep up with our
conversation.

“Eloise, I need
you just like Darla needed you.” I pleaded with her. She was a crucial part to
ending this madness. “I have to hear them confess to murdering Ann and why. I
fear that the answers to the death of my parents relies on the confession.”

“I don’t know.”
She spread her arms out in front of her and sprinkled hot pink dust into the
air. The rows of plants bloomed to their fullest. The colors lit up the garden
like a rainbow.

I took my phone
out of my bag. “It’s eleven o’clock. I have one hour until I meet Jordan.”

“They are going
to have my head if this backfires.” She drew her arms in and pointed towards
Whispering Falls. “They will come after me with burning torches.”

“No. No they
won’t.” This was going to work. If I was going to rely on my intuition like
Darla told me to, everything was going to work out if everyone did what they
were supposed to do.

Eloise’s cloak
swooshed around her as she drew her hands into the air. A clap of thunder rang
out, but the stars in the sky were as bright as the day.

She rushed
through the garden picking several different plants and flowers. She gathered
them in her palm over the top of the cauldron. With one blow from her lips, the
flowers turned into a pile of dust. She brushed them into the cauldron and
stirred until it bubbled over.

“Hand me a
bottle.” She pointed toward the gazebo windowsill. “Anyone will be fine.”

I grabbed the
purple one with the star cap. It seemed the most appropriate.

Eloise took it
from my hand and scooped up the overflow of the cauldron. She cast her eyes on
me. “Use this with
extreme
caution. I suggest you take a bottle of water
and add a couple of drops. Only a couple of drops.” She wiggled her finger back
and forth. She repeated, “Only a couple of drops.”

Carefully I
placed the bottle in my bag and grabbed a bottle of water from the table.

“Mr. Prince
Charming, you stay here with Eloise and Madame Torres.” I didn’t want him to
see if anything happened to me. I knew that Eloise would take care of him.
“Please return Madame Torres if something goes wrong.”

“No you won’t.
I’m not going back in some glass case or dark closet.” The ball lit up bright
red.

Eloise grabbed
me by the shoulders and drew me close to her. “Keep safe sweet, sweet, June.”

I held onto her
words as I made my way into the dark night, through the woods and around the
rock. I could see the lake as clear as day.

Chapter
Twenty-Three

My heartbeat
echoed so loudly that I was sure it could be heard all over Whispering Falls.
Patiently I waited in the woods for Jordan’s signal. I sat down in the grass
and reached into my bag to get Darla’s journal and my phone. I used the phone’s
keypad light to read a page in the journal.

“
I thought
Otto’s job as a police officer was getting to him after he told me about the
people that have come to visit him. He said someone was sitting next to June,
but I didn’t see anyone. I told Eloise about it and she didn’t make me feel any
better. She believes that Otto is a medium, which means that he’s a Fairiwick.
That would be devastating to him. He loves Whispering Falls and couldn’t
imagine being banned.”

“Medium?” I
whispered. Wasn’t that when people saw dead people? Did my dad die because
someone found out he was a Fairiwick?

What about me?
Did that mean. . .I drew back and threw the journal in my bag. Had the
mysterious shadow been a spirit? Was I part medium? Did the killer only want to
kill off the Fairiwicks and found out who I was?

Freight and
share agony pierced my soul. I was living someone’s life, but not mine. . . not
the one I knew. I grabbed my phone and stood up. It was ten after midnight and
I hadn’t seen Jordan’s flashlight signal. Just when I was about to put my phone
in my bag it vibrated.

“
June, where
are you?”
The text from Oscar had a big red exclamation on it as though it
was urgent.
“We need to talk.”

Talk? At
midnight? Either they had the council meeting and he was going to put me in
jail or he was looking for me because he was the killer.

I didn’t
respond. Either way, he’d find out where I was soon enough.

I’d give Jordan
another ten minutes.

I unscrewed the
cap off the bottle of water. I used the light from my phone so I could see what
I was doing. Carefully I held it between my legs and took out the potion.

One, two.
I counted the
drips of the serum as it went into the water. I replaced the cap on the water
and shook it up.

Off in the
distance I saw a quick two flashes. Jordan was here. It was time. I wished I
had a few more seconds so I could eat a Ding Dong. It might be the last time I
tasted the delicious goodness.

Instead, I stood
up with the water bottle in my hand and putting one foot carefully in front of
the other, I walked towards the lake.

The ground
became mushy the closer I got to the edge of the water. I couldn’t help but
wonder if this was how Ann felt before she took her last breath.

The lake was
still, the water didn’t move. It lay like glass. The moonbeams shone off the
water into the clearing. The silence rang in my ears and the only thing I could
feel was the beating of my heart.

I looked around
to see if I could see anything. The fireflies played in the distance. They
seemed to chase each other in circles and then in a straight line. Suddenly
they darted into the night.

“We’ve been out
here for about an hour.” Jordan whispered.

“You scared me.”
I dropped the bottle. “Go back and hide. Let’s give it a little while.”

“Maybe you
didn’t see your nightmare right.” He picked up the bottle.

I looked out
onto the lake. I shook my head and recalled the vivid images from my nightmare.
“No. It was my bracelet, I’m sure of it.” I turned back around. “NO!” I
screamed and smacked the water bottle from his lips.

“What? I’m
thirsty.” Jordan’s eyes grew dark and he stepped backwards. “I think you are
losing your mind.”

Just like a spotlight,
the moon shone down on the ground between us, exposing Jordan’s footsteps in
the soggy mud. It was the same shoe print I found where Ann was killed and
under my window sill from the Cape Cod.

“Oh, no.” I drew
in my breath and put my hands up to my mouth. My intuition nagged me. “You
killed Ann?”

“What? What did
you say?” He ran toward me. His hand reached out as I tried to run.

The mud was like
quicksand. I couldn’t move. The harder I tried the more my feet dug into the
marsh.

“Where do you
think you are going, June?” He smiled, the evil showed in his eyes. He picked
up the bottle and drank the rest of it before he crushed it in his grip.
“Killing someone always makes me thirsty. But none of the others brought me a
drink. Thank you.” He threw the bottle in the lake.

None of the
others?
I
only knew about Ann.

Like the water
rippled from the effect, chills rippled throughout my body with each word that
escaped from his lips. I tried to pull up a foot, but I was already buried to
my calves.

“You psychics
are all like. You think you can rule the world. Especially the Fairiwicks.” He
paced back and forth, not getting too close. He knew I was stuck. “Do you know
what it’s like being the outcast in a family, June?”

I shook my head.
He drew a gun from underneath his shirt and waved it at me.

“My brother, my
parent’s, we were part of a village out west. We were all banned because I
didn’t have any powers. I was the runt.” He jabbed himself with his gun. “Do
you know what animals do with runts, June?”

“They get rid of
them?” My voice quivered.

“Yes, June. They
get rid of them. And that is what the
village
did to me. They got rid of
me
, making my family hate me. Shun me.” He swayed the gun towards
Whispering Falls. “And now I’m going to get rid of all of them.”

“But Oscar and I
love you.” It was worth trying every emotional tactic I could to get him to let
me go.

“You did, until
you found out the truth.” He plopped down in the grass with the gun pointed
straight at me. “Your father heard I left the village out west from my brother
and his crazy fairy wife. They came looking for me and I used my best magic on
them.” He held his gun up and dropped his head between his legs. “This gun is
my magic.”

A tear fell down
my cheek. He had killed my father.

I reached down
while he wasn’t looking, dug in the mud and untied my shoes. The truth serum
was setting in. He was spilling his guts. I slipped my hand into my bag and
turned on the record button. He might kill me, but there was a chance that
someone could find my phone.

I slipped the
phone into the grass right before he looked up.

“It was
priceless. They all came ‘to talk,’ but I knew better. They wanted to kill me.”
He stood up and came closer. He held the gun to his chest. The mole between his
thumb and finger was exactly like the one from my nightmare. I knew what fate
had in store for me.

“The fat one,
Ann, she was Oscar’s nanny. She ran and I couldn’t find her. I had no idea
where Whispering Falls was until dear sweet Oscar wanted to move here.”

“Did you kill my
mother?” I had to ask before he killed me. She was so young to die of a heart
attack.

“Darla.
Beautiful Darla.” His fists clinched. “I had no idea who she was when you moved
into Locust Grove. By the time she moved in, Oscar was settled. He had so much
promise.”

“What do you
mean?”

“I thought he
was like me. You know. . .the runt.”

“I had no
intentions of hurting anyone else until Darla found my little box of voodoo
dolls.”

I gasped. All
this time I thought it was Oscar who made them.

“What? Do you
think I could let her live after she knew exactly what they were?” He threw his
head back and laughed. “I let her live until you were older, then you could
take care of yourself. So I watched you mix all those remedies, only you could
never get them right. I figured you could live because you weren’t a crazy one.
And Oscar is too dumb to be a police officer so when he wanted to move here, I
let him.”

“Seeing Ann was
icing on the cake. So I stole your charm bracelet because we both know you
sleep heavy when you are dreaming and after I killed her, I put your bracelet
in her hand.”

“It was all too
easy. I made sure everything was done at night so no one saw me.”

He was wrong! My
eyes darted back and forth looking for the fireflies. Of all nights the
teenagers decided to go to bed early? They were nowhere to be found.

“That smudging
thing with Gerald was priceless.” His laughter rang out. “I didn’t have a hand in
that, but that was great.”

“I’m glad you
find it amusing.” The adrenaline rushed through my body. I tapped my leg with
my fingertips. There had to be a good time to run. “Why me? What did I do to
you? Are you going to kill Oscar?”

His breathing
deepened. His jaw line flexed and became rigid, as he chose his words
carefully. “Oscar is dumb. If he did have powers, which he doesn’t, he would
screw it up. You…” he pointed the gun towards me again, “you are a smart one.
Without you around, I can keep Oscar. He won’t last long here. Especially after
I pick them off one-by-one.”

He was crazy if
he didn’t think one of the spiritualists was going to figure out it was him.
And to think that I thought Gerald or Oscar had something to do with this.

Jordan put his
gun back in the waist of his pants and slowly walked towards me. “It’s time,
June. Now you be a good girl.”

I jumped out of my
shoes and ran. His footsteps were thunderous behind me.

“Help! Help me!”
I screamed into the night air. I felt his hands grab at me. I flung my wrist
when I felt his touch. My bracelet snapped and flew into the lake. Without
hesitation I ran faster, but not fast enough.

Ouch!
I crumbled to
the ground as Jordan grabbed a handful of my hair. He thrust my helpless body
to the edge of the lake and in one swoop he had my head under water just like
my nightmare, only this time I was
living it
.