Grave Echoes: A Kate Waters Mystery (20 page)

Wells squeezed the back of his neck where stiffness kinked. He stretched his head backwards, looking at the large limbs of a Douglas fir stretched over him. Something glinted, catching his eye. He shifted his head around. A black band with a silver pentacle on it dangled from a limb.

“What’s that?” Wells pointed up at the tree.

Ted walked over to him. “Looks like a bracelet.”

Wells frowned. “Did you know that Jevanna Waters belonged to a coven?”

Ted pulled a limb down until he could reach it with his gloved hand. “What does that have to do with her car accident?” Ted handed him the bracelet

“I wonder which coven member is missing their bracelet.”

“Jevanna Waters probably,” Ted replied.

“And if it’s not hers?” Wells recollected Jev’s protection note and decided it was about time he questioned her friend, Donna, the herbal alchemist.

***

Dusk descended with a sinking sun that broke through gangly firs, splintering rays of sunlight off the windshields of cars in the parking lot. The large shingled rooftop of Walter Biddy’s sloped down to decorative support beams hoisted at the corners and peaks. The name “Walter Biddy’s” arched above the entrance, painted black against a red board—just like the matches.

Kate picked up the Celtic key from the floor of the passenger’s side and stuffed it into her pocket, just in case. Then she crossed the parking lot, preparing herself for another tense encounter with Thea. After the conversations with Sean and Donna, it seemed obvious to her that not only did the matches belong to Thea, but that she knew more about what had happened to Jev the night of her accident. What had she been looking for? A simple question with a simple answer. Thea might have been Jev’s best friend, but she was her sister—there was no stronger bond than blood.

Kate pulled open the door to the tavern and slipped inside. Brick accents, smoky mirrors, and red light sconces dimmed the atmosphere. Kate spotted Thea immediately, behind the rope lighting circling the bar. It was hard not to. Her thick, reddish-brown hair had been straightened and pulled back into a ponytail that swept the bottom of her shoulders. Her slimming blouse revealed curves that probably swayed men in the bar to tip a little extra. When she saw Kate, her burgundy lips curved into a satisfied smile, as if she’d been expecting her. Ignoring inquisitive glances from regular customers, Kate sat down at the bar. She didn’t think she looked out of place in her jeans and hooded T-shirt, but imagined unease was painted across her forehead in black, bold letters.

“Let me guess?” Thea said. “A red, dry.”

“Are you as good at judging character?”

Thea smiled. “Aren’t bartenders really just underpaid psychologists?”

“I imagine you’d have to be,” she replied. “Make it an IPA instead.”

Thea poured a pint and set it down on a napkin in front of Kate. Her deep eyes seemed softer tonight. “I’ve been expecting you.”

“Why is that?”

“I felt bad for intruding the other day,” Thea said, wiping the counter with a washcloth. “I shouldn’t have done that to you.”

Kate studied her and then took a drink of the cold draft. “Did you ever find the book you were looking for?”

“Actually, I was talking about what scares you.”

Kate set her glass down, taken aback by her comment. She realized it wasn’t going be easy steering this conversation. “I’ve talked with a few people,” she said, “and they seem to think you know something about Jev’s troubles before her accident.”

“So who do you trust?” Thea gave her a discerning eye.

“I don’t trust anyone,” Kate replied.

“Street smart, unlike your sister.” Thea raised her brow at Kate before waiting on another customer. She drained a bottle of Jack Daniels into a tumbler like a fountain of gold and then winked at him. He watched her walk back toward Kate.

“I found a book of matches in the middle of Jev’s room a few days ago that hadn’t been there before,” Kate said. “They appeared out of nowhere, like magic.”

Thea brushed back long bangs. “Magic, ah yes.”

“Even more peculiar is that they are from Walter Biddy’s.”

“I know about the matches,” Thea said. “Detective Wells came here last night.”

“So you don’t have Jev’s house key?”

“No. What about Sean?”

“He doesn’t have them.”

Thea frowned. “Why did you assume it was me? Because of the matches or because of what others have said about me?”

“Actually, catching you rummaging through my sister’s bedroom seemed convincing enough.” Kate leaned back on her stool. “C’mon Thea. I can see it in your eyes. You’re hiding something.”

Thea leaned over the bar. “So is your sister’s boyfriend.”

“Well, I’m convinced he isn’t.”

“Convinced?” She glowered at Kate. “That didn’t take long.”

Thea’s swift remarks and frivolous jabs intimidated Kate, deviating the conversation cleverly by distracting her with riddled questions and misleading probabilities. She took another drink of her beer. “Look, I won’t press charges if you’ll just tell me why you broke into Jev’s house? What were you looking for?”

“I didn’t break into Jev’s home—I do have morals.” Thea flashed Kate another fierce look. “I’m looking for the same thing you are, Kate, answers to Jev’s whereabouts the night of her accident. We both suspect something bad happened, right?”

Kate studied Thea, wondering if she were bluffing.

Thea lowered her voice. “I had a vision...like you.”

“I don’t know what you’re taking about,” Kate said. “I don’t have visions. I don’t believe in magic.”

Thea looked down at Kate’s wrist. “Then why are you wearing a protection bracelet?”

Kate had forgotten about the bracelet. She picked at it, then shrugged. “Donna gave it to me. I just forgot to take it off.”

“Donna gave it to you? So has it helped you escape the danger you’re running from?” Before Kate could respond, Thea spoke again. “I have something for you.”

“I don’t want it,” Kate said.

“You don’t even know what it is.”

“I know enough already.”

Thea moved behind the bar and came around with a book in her hand. She set it down on the counter. The book was titled, The Protective Circle, and on the cover was a circle of black ravens on the beach, with a woman in the center. Her arms were outstretched toward a rose-colored sky.

“Did you get that from my sister’s room?”

“Yes,” Thea admitted.

“So you did break into Jev’s house,” Kate stammered.

“No, I stole it during the wake.” Thea seemed unbothered by Kate’s hard look. “I’m giving it back,” she quickly added.

“Why do I need this book?”

“I had a dream I gave you this book,” Thea said. “I believe there’s a message in it for you.”

“A message?” Kate handed the book back to Thea.

“You would be wise to take the book,” Thea warned.

Kate shook her head, but obliged, and tucked it into her purse.

“In my dream,” Thea began, her voice grave, “there were iron doors, tall and skinny like church doors, except there was this symbol on them, like a Celtic knot.”

Kate felt heat rush to her belly. “Like this?” She pulled the key from her pocket.

Thea looked at it and then at Kate. She didn’t have to answer—Kate knew it was the same knot.

Thea took a deep breath, “And there was a man wearing a thick, silver-braided chain around his neck.”

Although Kate had never believed in premonitions, ghosts, and magic, bizarre incidents and explanations besieged her, and she found herself running out of rational explanations.

Manicured hedges and a seven-foot, iron-rod fencing lined the Cherrywood Park Condominiums, a gated apartment complex equipped with a carefully positioned camera on the security keypad outside the front doors. A fountain splashed somewhere inside the community courtyard. Careful not to cross the surveillance path, he stood watch next to the brick building by the bus stop, smoking, and drinking one of those energy drinks in a black can, playing the part of a bus rider waiting for the next stop. Caffeine was so much more sophisticated now, he thought, taking in the sweet bitter elixir in giant gulps. Holding his cigarette between his thumb and index finger, he took a long drag and exhaled into the night air, watching it spray out into a billowing, toxic cloud.

Last night, after glimpsing Kate changing through a small opening in the window where the curtain hadn’t been drawn, he discovered the chain and key were missing from her neck. Assuming she’d given his key to the girl at the occult shop, Donna Reynolds, he’d followed her home, discovering where she lived, banked, and shopped for groceries. Even though her apartment complex was secured, it always amazed him what kind of information one could gather carrying a dozen roses. Everybody wanted to make sure the recipient received such a caring gesture, supplying him with more help than he even needed.

“It won’t be long,” he whispered to himself, exhaling smoke into the night sky.

The gate to the complex swung open and a tenant left the building. Patiently, he waited, looking for a distraction, while he stood next to the bus stop sign. Eventually, one came. A woman, arms full of grocery bags, walked up to the building. She fidgeted with her bags and the key pad. He turned around and backed up, knocking into her groceries, as if by mistake. Vitamins, a box of granola bars, and tissue spilled to the ground.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” he said, bending down to pick up the items.

“It’s okay.” She sighed hard and set the bags down to help him. “I’m obviously carrying too much.”

“I’m going inside too…Can I at least help you in the doorway?” He picked up her grocery bags for her, his best smile dazzling. She wasn’t unattractive, but seemed caught off guard by his warm gesture, and smiled shyly.

“That would be nice. Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” Smile still big and warm.

She keyed in a code and opened the door. He walked in after her, his face perfectly hidden from the camera behind the bag of groceries. The plan worked better than he’d predicted. Helping her to the elevator, he politely said good night. “Maybe I’ll see you around,” he said. She blushed and batted her eyes. “Thank you again, Mr…?”

“Johnson,” he replied, having noticed several of them on the address board when he’d delivered the flowers earlier today. The elevators shut conveniently, and he headed to the stairwell. From his investigation earlier, he knew that on each floor, there was a camera positioned aimed down the hallway, so he switched his reversible jacket to black and tossed the hood on, easily becoming someone else.

He climbed the stairs steadily, as raw adrenaline drummed through his body. Attached to his waist was a long Spyder knife. Women were much more afraid of knives than they were guns, he’d learned one night talking with a bunch of worthless thugs in a strip bar in downtown L.A. It seemed their imagination about how they would use the knife was worse than its actual intent. Tonight, he would put that theory to the test.

He reached the end of the stairwell, the ninth floor, and followed the numbers to her apartment door at the other end of the hallway. A cubby area next to the opposite stairwell housed a storage room, providing perfect cover while he spied on the hallway, concealing himself behind a stack of boxes. He cinched his hood, shielding his eyes, and waited. The elevator dinged soon enough.

He reached behind his jacket and pulled out the knife. The girl stopped in front of her door and fiddled with her keys, a leather Converse bag with a pentacle on the front sidled over her shoulder. Just when the door clicked open, he made his move and rushed up behind her, shoving her into the apartment. She cried out, until she spotted the knife in his hand—seemingly silenced by fear. He couldn’t believe those strip thugs were right.

Quietly, he shut the door, holding the blade up to his own mouth to coerce her into keeping hers shut. “This can be easy…,” he said, pausing for dramatic effect, as he waved the knife slowly in front of him, “…or messy. You have something of mine. I want it back.”

Donna’s fearful look suddenly washed out with a puzzled expression. “Whatever it is, you can have it,” she blurted. Her arms started to shake.

“The key. Where is it?” His voice sounded deep and calm.

“What key? I don’t know what you’re talking about. The one to my apartment?”

Her cluelessness enraged him. He kicked the bottom of her bag. A sack of beads showered around them, fueling his anger even more. Donna gasped and fell back into a chair near the window. He snatched her purse from her hand and slopped the contents on the floor, scattering her belongings with his foot; the key wasn’t among them. He spun his fury back to her, broadening his smile with wild eyes. The blade of the knife swerved back and forth in front of her like a pendulum, ticking away the seconds before he decided to slash into her. Donna drew her knees in close to protect herself. She reached inside her shirt. His key? He thought excitedly. Instead, she grasped a large brown stone in her fist.

He sniggered. “I don’t think your stone is going to bring you any luck tonight, dear.”

“Honestly, mister, I don’t know what key you’re…talking…about.” Her voice quivered.

It excited him. “Oh, yes you do.” He swiped the blade in front of her face again, tracing it down the side of her cheek and looping it into the hoop of her earring.

“Please, I beg you,” Donna pleaded.

“Beg, yes.” Then he yanked on the blade, ripping the earring through her lobe. She screamed until he brought the blade up to the other side of her face.

“You won’t get away with this,” she cried.

“You’ll never know, because you’ll be dead.” He leaned back, holding the knife over his shoulder. “Apparently, this is going to be messy.”

Just as he was about to stab her, Donna’s arm swung toward him, suddenly holding a corked bottle of wine. He jerked, managing to block her blow, but it crashed into a lamp on the table and knocked over an oil candle. Glass and sparks erupted, and in an instant, flames engulfed the curtain in a bright golden blaze of fire.

Donna lurched back and shoved him with the heel of her foot. He lost his balance, but recovered quickly and lunged at her, slashing her arm. He grabbed her by the neck and wrestled her from the chair, slamming her face to the ground.

“You stupid bitch.” Blood spilled from her split lip.

A fire wasn’t part of his plan, but if he made all the right moves, maybe it could still work to his favor. The flames surged to the ceiling. He rolled her over.

“You have one last chance to tell me what Kate did with my key!”

Donna coughed up blood from her mouth. “I don’t have it,” she sputtered.

A blasting alarm blared in the room, followed by a shower of cold water from sprinkler heads installed above. He tried to remain calm, as water sprayed over the two of them. Donna started to fight back. He held her throat down and stabbed the tip of his knife into the other loop of her earring, pinning her to the ground. “Did Kate give you the fucking key or not?” he shouted over the alarms.

Donna cried, unable to talk. He’d scared her too much. But he was too far involved now to turn back. Her death would also have to look like an unfortunate accident.

The fire swelled across the ceiling to the other wall. Pictures, curtains, and the chair Donna had been sitting in earlier—all fueled its velocity. Any moment, the fire department would arrive, spilling fire fighters from trucks like army ants from the Queen’s nest. He could blend in with the other shocked tenants if he could escape—without Donna.

“C’mon, get up!” he shouted, pulling her by the hair.

She stood on wobbly legs, and they both bustled to the door. He cracked it open, making sure everyone on the floor had already exited. One nervous tenant ran past the door, failing to knock on anyone else’s door to make sure they’d escaped. He knew that selfishness persisted behind most people’s mannerly facade.

The fire alarm tripped safety lights along the hallway, flashing emergency exits in the dim tunnel of brown Berber carpet and striped wallpaper. He tugged Donna to the stairwell and then he grabbed her arm, jerking her to a stop. She turned around to face him, fear and confusion splayed across her face.

“Sorry,” he said. “You won’t be leaving with me.” Then, seizing her by both shoulders, he thrust her as hard as he could down the stairs.

***

Kate left Walter Biddy’s with more questions than answers. The coincidences between her hallucinations of the key and Thea’s vision troubled her. Premonitions weren’t real and she’d told Thea so.

“Not everything is coincidence,” Thea had said. “Sometimes it is magic.”

Still, Kate trusted in the statistics of science over science fiction.

She sped up the wipers and turned onto her street. Even in the obscurity of night rain, she could see a police car parked in front of her house and three figures in black slickers and hats standing in the driveway. It cued her memory, surfacing details of the man in the dark raincoat she’d seen smoking in her yard a few nights ago. Had he come back?

Eager to find out what happened, Kate parked across the street and hopped from her jeep. Icy raindrops found their way into the crevices of her jacket as she approached the front yard. Mr. Burton’s hunched silhouette was distinguishable, but she couldn’t tell who the other two people were, though one of them wore law enforcement raingear. Must be Wells, she assumed, hoping he’d come with good news—but since they had been waiting outside her house for her, enduring the cold rain, she had her doubts.

Kate left her car on the street and ran up to the three individuals, who turned toward her. As she got closer, she recognized Wells on the right. The other man must be an officer too, she guessed.

“Detective, what are you doing here?”

“I have some things to discuss with you regarding your sister, Kate.” Rivulets of rain streaked down Wells’ face. “Maybe we could go inside?”

“Of course, please, come in.” Mr. Burton wandered back over to his house, and Wells and the other officer followed Kate to the door. Anxiety tingled in her fingertips as she considered the likelihood of bad news.

She held the door open for the two men.

“Good evening, Ms. Waters,” the other officer said, extending his hand to her. “I’m Officer Ted Johnson. I’m assisting Detective Wells in your sister’s case.”

Kate accepted his strong handshake. “Nice to meet you.” She looked over to Wells. “Why don’t we talk in the kitchen? I’ll get some tea started.”

“Thank you,” they replied, shedding their wet jackets on the coat rack.

In the kitchen, Kate saw a note on the kitchen counter and picked it up. Let’s talk. I love you. David. She checked the clock, 10:11 pm. He wouldn’t be home for another couple of hours. She folded the note and put it in her purse, feeling guilty for leaving last night, especially since she’d missed him this morning after going to work so early. But she’d needed some straight answers then, and now, she imagined Wells and Ted were about to give them to her.

They both took a seat on the barstools at the counter. Kate toiled in the kitchen, preparing hot water for tea. “So, you’ve come here for questions or with new information?” she asked, pouring water into a kettle and setting it on the stove. It felt odd to entertain guests who were the bearers of bad news. She could see it all over their forlorn faces and in the way they sat authoritatively, as if falling back on conduct codes would protect them from her developing nightmare. Shouldn’t they be the ones making her tea?

Wells looked over at her, his face absent of emotions, like it had been at the hospital when he’d told her about her sister’s accident.

“I know you have bad news,” she said, placing the empty mugs in front of them.

He nodded his head. “Yes, we do. I’m sorry Kate.” He looked over to Ted and then back to her. “I have more information on your sister’s accident.”

Kate stood firm, waiting for the wave to crash.

Ted spoke next. “We received test results back from the fingerprints on your sister’s neck and the ones on the matches found in her house.”

“They match, don’t they?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.

“Yes, they do, with a 99.8 percent result,” Wells said.

“Do you know who they belong to?”

“The computer didn’t pull up any records,” Ted said, pausing as he exchanged a glance with Wells.

Kate noticed an exchanged look of concern between them. “There’s more?”

“We’ve been looking into Jev’s case more,” Wells began. “Officer Johnson prepared some of the reports at the scene of your sister’s accident. He noticed a tread mark, which we originally thought came from another unrelated vehicle, but upon further inspection, we have reason to suspect there was another car involved in your sister’s accident.”

Kate felt her stomach flip. “What do you mean? Like someone ran her off the road?”