Grave Echoes: A Kate Waters Mystery (19 page)

Donna stepped closer, scrutinizing it. “Can’t say that I have.”

“Do you know anyone with the initials T.C.C?”

She thought for a moment. “No, I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right. Knowing Jev, she probably just found it and kept it around with all her other trinkets.” Kate put the key back in her shirt and turned to leave. Donna stopped her.

“Wait. I think you should take this.” She pulled a bracelet off her wrist and gave it to Kate, a pentacle bound to a black elastic band.

“Oh, I can’t,” Kate said kindly, hoping she would take it back.

“I think you should. It’s a protection bracelet.”

***

Leaves littered the sky, mapping the invisible path of autumn winds, as Kate made her way back to her jeep, relieved to be leaving the occult shop, but not with a pentacle bracelet snug at her wrist. Out of politeness, she had worn it, for Donna, until she could take it off in the car. The blackened neighborhood emanated a ghostly feeling with the transformer blown out. Kate searched for her keys in her purse as she headed toward the old warehouse where she’d parked her jeep. She noticed a truck had pulled up behind her a few spaces back. In the shadows of the unusually dark night, she couldn’t tell if anyone was inside. As soon as she reached the driver’s side of the jeep, Kate searched for her keys again, feeling the inside folds of the bag, when she noticed a large paper sack on the ground behind her jeep. She stepped over to it, and bent down to look inside. Just then, a bright light beamed at her, followed by an engine roaring to life.

Kate swung around, finding herself blinded by the bright lights of the truck. Startled, she shielded her eyes to see who was behind the wheel, but she could only make out a dark form—a dark stranger.

The driver gunned the engine again, keeping the truck steadily rumbling at a standstill. Fear kicked in her chest. What if the person inside the truck was the same person in her backyard, in Jev’s house, and now, here, with intent to harm, having cornered her between the truck and the back of her jeep? The truck shuddered from the throttling of both the gas and the brake pedals, as if the driver intended to terrorize her. Then, the truck’s high beams flicked on. Panic fired inside Kate. She dove back to the sidewalk. White spots clouded her vision. She couldn’t see anything but a fusion of bright darkness, and she tripped over the curb.

Blocking the brightness from the headlights with her hand, Kate glanced into the chrome grill of the truck. She tried to make out the license plate number. W… X … 4—she couldn’t read the rest against the blinding light. The truck roared again. Kate thought the driver was going to try to hit her. She scrambled away from the street, as the truck squealed its tires. It lurched from the road, straight toward Kate’s jeep, then turned at the last moment, and sped off down the street.

Kate stood to get a better look at the truck’s license plates. Unable to make out the rest of the number, she did see that it was a black Ford with blackened taillights. The truck raced around the corner. Unsure if he’d come back, Kate finally found her keys in her purse and hurried to her jeep. She started the engine and left the area almost as fast as the truck had. When she was sure she wasn’t being followed, she pulled over on the side of the road, her heart still pounding for hot breath. Kate thought about the paper sack behind her jeep. In hindsight, she knew it had been planted to lure her. The driver of the pickup had wanted her to walk behind her jeep so that she’d be in a vulnerable position. Easy prey.

Suddenly aware of an alien feeling around her wrist, Kate tugged at the pentacle bracelet. ‘You need to wear this,’ Donna had said. A thought troubled her…had the bracelet just saved her from danger? Or invited it?

She moved her hand to her chest, where she could feel the key. This wasn’t her first time with danger. Her troubles had actually started with the strange key. She yanked the chain over her head and threw the key toward the back of the jeep. It hit the passenger’s neck rest, whirled around, and landed at the foot of the passenger’s seat—exactly where she had seen it in her hallucinations.

The raspy voices at the house echoed through her mind again, He’s coming for you. Kate didn’t know what scared her more, the run-in with the truck or the fact that the voices she heard tonight had been right.

It was as if they didn’t know each other, or want to know each other. Kate had been sitting next to Sean reviewing gas emission reports on Mt. Hood for the last hour, and neither one of them had said a word. The tension around them attracted strange looks from Aaron, Bruce, and Nicole, who all worked quietly, an unusual occurrence, especially with the heightened activity of the mountain. Kate wondered if Sean had said something to them about what had happened between them on the mountain. She told Stewart why she left the expedition early, but never mentioned her fall on the mountain. She didn’t think Stewart would care anyway—he just wanted the satellite systems installed and functioning properly, which they’d succeeded in.

Kate turned in her seat to face Sean, hoping it would open the door for conversation. He responded by twisting his chair away, his back to her. Then, he continued flipping through printouts, fervently. If Kate needed something, he highlighted the areas or pointed to a print out, forcing her to interpret what he meant.

“You have every right to be angry with me,” Kate finally said.

She waited patiently for a response, even a grumble, but he ignored her. She eyed his clothes again, noticing his appearance had improved substantially: a striped collared, button-up shirt, green khaki pants, new belt, and leather shoes to match. But his attractive, boyish features still subsisted through his hard, corporate shell. The faint invigorating scent of cologne lingered, and Kate noticed he’d even put gel in his hair. She could understand Jev’s attraction to him. He was handsome in a style that was casual, intelligent, and confident.

Kate knew she had to transcend defensive emotions, even if it was only for Jev. “I’m not asking for your forgiveness Sean, but we can’t work together like this. We need to talk.”

“Talk or accuse?” he replied gruffly. His eyes met hers with vehemence, gold crescents surrounded by a blue blaze like a summer campfire. “See, I got a little visit from your detective friend last night. I’ve done all the talking I’m going to do.”

“It’s all procedural, Sean. Because there were no witnesses to Jev’s accident, they have to investigate all possibilities.”

“Possibilities that blame me,” he said scornfully, pointing a stiff finger in her direction.

“No, all possibilities, period. C’mon, you have to admit you’ve been acting different?”

“Different? My girlfriend just died!” He spun his chair to face her. “I know…, why don’t you tell me how to act, Kate? You tell me what’s appropriate.”

Before she could answer, he marched towards the back rooms to flee the peering eyes in the office. Nicole sat in the corner, her head peeping above the monitor just enough to spot curious eyes. Even Aaron had been glancing in their direction, before redirecting his attention back to his monitor. Bruce stood behind Kate, gawking with coffee in one hand and reports of seemingly little interest in the other. Luckily, Stewart answered phone calls in his office.

Kate shook her finger at Bruce as she walked past him, following Sean into the break room. She shut the door behind them. A large, gray oval table lay in the center with ten black chairs surrounding it like a modern-day knights’ table. In the center, instead of a marbled cross, was a projector aimed at a white screen on the wall and refreshment supplies were stocked in a small cabinet on the side.

Sean turned to face her. They both stood their ground, like bulldogs.

“I found your matches in Jev’s house. What was I supposed to think?” Kate started.

“Maybe you could have asked me about it first, instead of calling the police or accusing me of having something to do with Jev’s accident, especially while I tried to save your life!”

Kate glared. “Don’t bark at me. It was my sister who died!”

“Then tell me, why in the hell would you think I’d hurt Jev?” he demanded. “Just because you found a book of matches on the floor in her home? Matches that anybody could have dropped there, including Jev?”

“What about your fight with her on the very night she died?” Kate felt hot blood in her cheeks.

“I’ve already told you about that. The reason we fought in the first place was because she was going to do something I didn’t think was safe.” He grunted his breath. “I know you have to blame someone for Jev’s death, Kate; it’s hard to accept. But it was an accident and we have to move on, like you said.” Stepping around her, he moved to the door.

“Stop,” Kate said. It was time he knew everything.

Sean paused, his hand still gripped the doorknob, but he didn’t turn around.

“I wrongly accused you, I know that. But there are things you don’t know about. Things are not what they appear to be.”

He turned around, eyes dark, mouth curled. “What are you talking about?”

“Someone’s been following me.”

“So,” he retorted.

“So,” Kate repeated. “So, last night, I was almost run down.”

Sean crossed his arms. “Why would someone want to run you down?”

“I don’t know,” Kate lied, certain it had something to do with Jev’s witchcraft or the key lying on the passenger floor of her jeep, which she didn’t want to tell Sean about, just yet.

He narrowed his eyes. “You still don’t trust me.”

“I can’t trust anyone right now. Something bad happened to Jev before she died. I’m certain of it.”

“You’re going to have to trust someone, sooner or later,” he said. “How can you expect me to be honest with you when you stand there and tell me only half-truths?”

“And how do I know you’re telling me the truth?”

“Did the matches belong to Thea?”

Kate dropped her eyes to the floor. He had a point. She couldn’t expect any more from him when she was the one full of accusations and secrets. “I found a note in Jev’s handwriting. It mentioned a binding spell.”

Something sparkled in Sean’s eyes. Surprise? Then it vanished and anger bled through again. “What did it say?”

“See Donna for herb—protection—binding him.”

Sean was quiet for a moment. Kate saw something pass over his face, a twitch in his facial muscles, suggestive of a shifting thought.

“Whatever was wrong,” he said, “I’m sure Thea knows something about it.”

“I’ve talked with her. She doesn’t seem to know anything.”

“Well, she’s lying,” he said. “Somehow, Thea just knows things, like Jev did.”

Kate understood what he meant. Jev had a way of knowing about things she shouldn’t have, events that hadn’t happened yet. One time, she had asked Kate how her boyfriend, Ian, faired. Kate, not being aware that he was hurt, questioned Jev further, but Jev turned vague, and changed the subject. Five minutes later, Ian called, telling her that he’d broken his arm in a bicycling accident. Kate had rationalized the situation as just a strange coincidence, along with all the others.

“Maybe Thea just pays attention to things most people overlook,” she told Sean, “making it only seem like she knows more than the rest of us.”

He rolled his distant gaze back to her and started shaking his head. “It’s not like that. Thea knows things about me…things I’ve never told her, or Jev.”

A disturbing sensation blazed down Kate’s spine. She remembered what Thea had said to her at the wake, that something had scared her. How did she know? Kate thought…unless she’d been there to witness it.

***

When the sun peaked high, Wells and Ted had decided to come back to the scene of Jevanna Waters’ accident to investigate the area in daylight, especially since suspicious evidence had surfaced. The fingerprints found on the book of matches from Walter Biddy’s, which Kate claimed to have found in Jev’s locked-up house, were a perfect match to the fingerprints that were found on Jevanna Waters’ neck—a strong reason to investigate further.

What’s more, the deceased’s house key and cell phone were still missing. Wells suspected someone was trying to either hide something or find something, in which case the cell and house key would be valuable in doing so. Given her involvement in a coven and the occult supplies found in her car, witchcraft appeared to be another relevant factor.

Ted pulled the car to the right side of the road, across from the tree scarred by Jev’s Volvo wagon. After a week, the gouge still looked fresh with bright gold wood contrasting against the darker bark. Amber rivulets of sap started to ooze between the cracks.

“I’ll start by the tread we found earlier,” Ted said, pulling a pair of latex gloves from his pocket. Around his neck hung a camera retrieved from the forensic department, which he earned a certification for in his part-time position as a drug ops specialist, allowing him to take photographs of gathered evidence.

“I’ll scour the sides of the road where the accident occurred,” Wells said, walking down the street. He started where Jev’s steering problem had begun, and reenacted the scene in his mind like a movie. Walking along the path, he noticed the gouges in the asphalt where the car rolled before coming to a sudden stop at the tree. He looked side to side, scanning the ground for any other skid marks or debris that might have flown from the car—or dropped out of another. If someone had been following her, especially in a truck he thought, he or she would have had difficulty stopping in order to prevent colliding into the rolling Volvo. Some kind of skid mark should be present if that were the case, even in the rain…unless someone had anticipated the accident.

He spotted a tread in the dirt next to the road and walked over to it, noting it was the one Cain had taken impressions of the night of the accident. The report on the 1 ¾-inch-deep tread came back belonging to pick-up trucks, most notably a Ford or a Mercury, and that the tread was from the back right wheel. The tread lined up perpendicular to the road. Someone had turned around, he thought. Where were they going? Where had they come from? He looked down the street when he realized Walter Biddy’s was just up the hill. Coincidence? he thought, skeptically.

Wells moved to the other side of the road where the ravine backed up to the road. He skimmed over weeded dirt full of rocks, undeniably the best camouflage for anything small. Then he spotted an arc indented in the mud.

“I think I found another tread,” he called out to Ted. He waited for him to walk over, which didn’t take long with his giraffe-like strides. “Looks like the same set of tire marks.” Wells pointed to the other side of the road. “I think the truck stopped there to turn around and then the driver cornered here, right next to her car.”

“Looks damn similar to me,” Ted said. He took a couple of sets of photographs. “Probably should have forensics come back out and get some snaps of it.”

“That’ll take another week,” Wells replied.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t hold my breath,” Ted agreed. He looked through the pictures on the display. Wells scrutinized the ground, noticing the new tread lined up at the location where Cain had found the cigarette filters. He continued searching, hoping to find another clue, a footprint, or a receipt containing possible fingerprints, anything that might have fallen from the truck.

“I don’t think we’re going to find anything else,” Ted said, planting his hands deep in his pockets.

“I know I’m missing something.” Wells folded another piece of gum in his mouth.

Ted folded his arms. “This might be one of those cases where even though you have a gut feeling something else happened, and despite the countless nights and weeks you painstakingly hunt for another piece of evidence, it may never be found. Especially if someone doesn’t want it to be found.”

“You can’t give up so easily,” Wells argued.

Ted challenged his comment with a glare. “It’s not about giving up. It’s about working the other cases, the ones that can be worked.”

“I’m not making this personal,” Wells scoffed. Since his infinite hunt for his brother’s murderer, he’d been accused by someone on the force that every case he took, just became another endless search for justice. “That girl has unexplainable prints on her neck, and the sister believes she’s being followed.”

“Yeah, but Jevanna Waters still died because she lost control of her car. The injuries confirmed she was in the driver’s seat.” Ted walked up to him. “All I’m saying is sometimes you gotta let one go to catch another. So she had a jealous boyfriend and practiced witchcraft with a few unworthy friends on the weekend. Other cases are piling on our desk right now, packed with convicting evidence of people whose names we know. We have almost cornered Jeremy Mason, the worst methane dealer in Gresham. He is going to trip, and we need to be ready when he does. We can’t afford to get sidetracked right now.”

“We can’t afford to let a case like this get overlooked either. Something happened to that girl and it is our moral obligation to uncover whether or not her fate was accidental or deliberate.”

“All I know is that we have an opportunity to intercept Jeremy Mason’s operations.”

Wells stepped away, combing his hands through his dark hair. Wells thought Ted spent too much time with the officers in the drug and trafficking division, ignorant bulldogs he usually referred to them as, but he knew Ted was still one of the good guys, a partner he could trust. “If we don’t find anything substantial here today, I’ll make Mason’s case a priority.”

Ted nodded, then continued to search over by the tree.