The Scariest Tail (A Wonder Cats Mystery Book 4) (4 page)

M
y car was
a ten-year-old, teal-colored Dodge Neon. The muffler was starting to fall off, and the window on the passenger’s side couldn’t be rolled down without coming off the track. A couple of empty Tasty Burger sacks were crumpled up in the back seat, along with a jacket I had tossed in the back when the weather had been hot for one day before plunging back into the fifty-degree range. I wasn’t the neatest person, especially compared with Bea, who had a neat streak a mile wide.

“A clean car runs better,” she often insisted.

“A new car runs even better than that,” I would always say back.

So I hopped in my old Neon and headed off in the direction of the Prestwick neighborhood to see what was going on. I had no idea where the Roys lived, but I knew where Darla lived. Blake had said they were at opposite ends of the of the development, so I thought I would start at Darla’s.

Crossing over to Prestwick from the normal part of town was like slipping into another dimension. There was a beautiful sign as I entered the area that was a little over four feet high, five feet thick, and seven feet wide. It was made of solid oak and had the word Prestwick carved into it in elegant, rolling script. The reason I knew it was solid oak was because if I ever encountered anyone who lived in Prestwick, they told me the story about the sign.

Some old geezer by the name of Ignace Gigot had decided he wanted the area for himself and his thoroughbred horses, so he named the place after his most prized filly, Prestwick. On his property were some huge oak trees, and during a particularly bad storm, one of the older trees was uprooted and fell. Sure, it would keep him in firewood throughout the next three winters, but he had a vision
.

He chopped the wood with his own two hands. He dragged the wood to the workshop he had in his barn. He sanded, smoothed, and lovingly carved the name of his favorite horse into the giant block of tree trunk. Then, with his own bare hands, he loaded the behemoth onto his cart, which was being pulled by Prestwick herself, and carried it to the edge of the property, where it still remained.

Of course, they never mentioned that Prestwick died under the strain of pulling such a heavy load all by herself.
No, I’m just kidding. I like to add that just to mess with some of the neighborhood Prestwickans when I hear them telling that story.

Mr. Gigot did all of the work with his own bare hands. After more and more people began to settle in and around Prestwick, the land belonging to Mr. Gigot was sold off in pieces. But residents kept the name and the history that came with it.

I pulled into Prestwick and couldn’t help but notice the immediate rainbow of fall colors that arched over the streets as I drove in. Someone somewhere in their city planning committee must have made sure certain types of trees were planted in order to make one neighborhood more beautiful than another.

I came to Darla’s house. It was up on a hill, of course, so that at any time day or night, she could look out any window and look down on everyone else around her. It was a beautiful home. The fact that she still got to live in it after the crimes she’d committed was a thorn in my side.

Anyway, I quickly averted my eyes as if I were in fear of turning to stone. I headed down another street in the hopes it might bring me to my destination, the Roy residence.

The roads snaked all around, and I was pretty sure I would have a hard time finding my way back to the main road. I hadn’t thought to leave a mystic trail so I could find my way back. Luckily, I wasn’t in any kind of danger. I was just gathering intelligence. I wasn’t planning on doing battle on my own with any beasties from another dimension. Plus, even using a little of my magic would have drained my body just enough to have kept me yawning throughout the day. Staying sharp and conserving resources were more important, and who knew what Bea might need after she had stayed up the whole night tending to Jake.

But as the road began winding further and further into the neighborhood, I was startled to realize how big that part of town was. The deeper I drove, the houses became bigger and more beautiful. They made Darla’s house look like a Lincoln Log set. I had to admit that gave me some level of satisfaction.

I turned onto Butternut Drive and thought I saw a street that would cut through the middle of the current subdivision I was in. As I turned onto it, I realized it wasn’t a street but a driveway. The asphalt turned into beautiful, old cobblestone that looked amazing but was in bad need of repair. The shocks on my car were gone, and I felt every bump as I rolled over them.

I came to a rusted gate that blocked the drive and was joined on either side by a wrought iron fence. There were several no trespassing signs. The gate was bound shut by what looked like yards and yards of rusted chain and a padlock the size of a baseball mitt.

As I made a three-point turn that would have made any driver’s ed teacher proud, I saw a sad and weather-worn For Sale sign. I wondered what was at the end of such an elaborate driveway and gate.

I made my way back down to the street and continued my search for the Roy residence. As I went back the way I had come, it was only pure chance that I came upon a house that had several cars parked in the driveway and along the street in front of the house.

Had it been me, I would have called my immediate family and closest friends for support during such a horrible tragedy. I wouldn’t have wanted to be alone, and I assumed Mrs. Roy was no different. Slowly, I inched up to the mailbox and saw what I was looking for. R-O-Y. I was right.

As quietly as I could get my car to go, I passed the house completely and turned left down the nearest side street. After a quick U-turn, I was in a position to observe but not be observed. It was early, and when I shut off the car engine, I could hear the songs of the birds waking up in all the colorful trees. I looked around, hoping no one would notice me. My car stood out like a sore thumb. The cheapest ride in the Prestwick neighborhood was probably last year’s BMW.

Still, I didn’t want to just give up. Not yet. So I turned the heat up a bit and cracked the window, smelling the cool autumn air and the smoky smell of wood burning in a fireplace.

When I looked toward the Roys’ house, I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary right off the bat. I tried to see if they had any pets in the house like a dog or a bird. But I didn’t get any reply to my telepathic inquiries except from a nosy pug dog across the street that seemed to know the German Shepherd on the next block was in heat.

The window from which John Roy had jumped was boarded up with plywood. It looked like a scab on an otherwise perfect face.

I was about to get out of the car and take a walk past the house to get a better look and try to see if there was any kind of mystical residue left when an all-too-familiar car came around the corner.

“
Y
ou’ve got
to be kidding me,” I mumbled.

Blake Samberg’s car was slowly pulling down the street I had just come from. Oh, my gosh. What if he had been behind me the whole time, and he knew I was snooping around?

As soon as the driver’s head turned in my direction, I ducked down in my seat. This was mortifying. I held my breath as if that might help him not see me. Had I been thinking on my feet, I might have used a camouflage spell. But that required a huge output of energy, especially if I were going to conceal my car, which I would have to do. And a spell would have tipped off any thug spirits that someone was investigating. I wasn’t all that keen on putting such a big target on my back so early in the game. I was just trying to collect intel. I wasn’t looking for a fight.

So as I sat all scrunched down in the driver’s seat, I studied the fabric of my car seats and realized they were very stained. A Jujyfruits candy box peeked out from underneath the passenger seat, and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember having eaten them. I wasn’t even sure I liked them.

I had a layer of dust on my console, and the leaves on the floor could have very well been there since last fall. How could I have been riding in such filth?

I leaned over and sniffed the fabric of the seat, fearing I might be accosted by some foul odor I had long since grown immune to. That was when I realized I didn’t hear a car driving by. Maybe Blake was too busy looking at the Roy house to have seen me.

After I scooted up in my seat, I looked around and didn’t see him. I let out a big sigh and stretched my neck to look up in the rearview mirror. Blake’s car was right behind mine.

“Son of a b…”

Knock. Knock.

I looked at my passenger window and saw Blake staring right back at me. I never saw him smile, but I swear he had a devious glint in his eye that made it clear he was enjoying my embarrassment.

Without asking, he opened the door and climbed in. I really hoped my car didn’t smell.

For a second, I didn’t say anything as my mind raced for a plausible explanation for why I was in Prestwick a few houses down and around the corner from the Roys’ house. I got lost? I was in the neighborhood?

“Funny seeing you here,” Blake said.

“Yeah, well, I felt bad.” It wasn’t a complete lie. I did feel bad for Lisa Roy. How did a person make that phone call to her parents or to his parents and tell them what had happened? How did she put into words that the person she loved with all her heart was in such a dark, lonely place that he took his own life? And worse than that, how did she admit she hadn’t seen it coming?

There wasn’t a person alive who wouldn’t somehow find a way to blame herself for this kind of tragedy.

Lisa Roy would be permanently crippled from then on, and no doctor, not even Bea, would be able to fix it. That kind of injury never healed.

I felt tears sting my eyes, and as I looked at Blake, my cheeks turned red. I rolled my eyes as if to say I knew my excuse sounded corny, but for a second, I saw compassion in his eyes.

Clearing my throat, I looked back at the Roy house. “So, what are you doing here? Follow-up questions?” I asked, mentally pulling myself together.

Blake looked at the house through the windshield for a moment. “Sort of. I had a gut feeling that I should stop by and just observe.” He looked back at me. “I didn’t think I’d have a partner to pass the time.”

Okay, yes, I felt a little jitter in my stomach when he said that, and it was impossible to stop the corners of my lips from curling up at the edges.

To keep it light, I told Blake that Jake was a bit under the weather, careful not to tell him that his partner had fallen into the house after nearly having his head torn apart from the inside out.

He looked worried. “Maybe I should check up on him. I’ll follow you to your aunt’s house.”

“Oh, no.” I said, waving my hands in front of me. “It was probably something he ate. My taco salad or something.” I chuckled nervously. “Bea will take good care of him.”

“Yeah, well, all the same, I think—”

Before Blake could finish his sentence, a strange truck pulled into the Roy driveway. It was an old, rusty blue pickup that belonged in the neighborhood about as much as my Dodge Neon. And when the man hopped out of the cab, he didn’t act as if he were a concerned member of the family. He began marching toward the front door as if he were heading off to war.

But before he could make it to the middle of the driveway, the front door opened. An older man in his late fifties, wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants, stood there holding a shotgun. He didn’t aim it or even cock it, but he just stood there.

“Oh my gosh,” I whispered.

Blake and I sat there frozen just like the man in the driveway had frozen.

“I just want to talk to Lisa!” the man shouted. His blond hair was messy, and he was wearing a black T-shirt and blue jeans.

“She’s got nothing to say to you!” the older man shouted back. “Now you just get in your car and get out of here!”

The blond man hesitated for a moment. I saw out of the corner of my eye that Blake was slowly reaching for the door handle with one hand and his sidearm with the other.

Thankfully, the man in the driveway thought better of whatever it was he’d been planning. He took two steps backward then turned and got back into his truck. With a loud rev of his engine and squealing of his tires, the man peeled out of the Roys’ driveway and headed in our direction.

Both Blake and I immediately ducked down in our seats, our faces nearly colliding as we hovered over the gearshift between the seats.

I held my breath, sure I smelled like stale coffee. I looked at Blake, who at first was looking over my head and out the window. His eyes were a really pretty brown that looked like carved wood. Not hard but… deep. But when they met mine, I quickly looked away as though I were a spazzy teenager.
Smooth, Cath. Real smooth.

Finally, those few seconds, which seemed more like ten uncomfortable minutes, passed by along with the noisy truck, and Blake and I both sat up.

“Well, what the heck was that all about?” I asked. I got no answer.

Blake pulled his notebook from his pocket and began to scribble some things down.

“What are you writing?”

Still no reply.

“Let me guess. Official police business, ma’am. Nothing to see here,” I said in as deep and as serious a voice as I could muster.

Surprisingly, Blake smirked. “Make and model of the car, license plate number, and description of the driver.” His voice had dropped a level lower. I guess that was his serious detective voice.

I nodded. Looking out the front windshield, I saw the front door of the Roy home was again closed tight. The entire street was quiet once more.

“I’m going to run this through the criminal database and see if we have any information on our truck-driving friend.” Blake folded his notebook up and tucked it back into his inside jacket pocket. “Perhaps Mrs. Roy left out a few details.”

I didn’t say anything as Blake climbed out of my car. But I wondered what he would have thought of me if I’d told him the truth about my life. People kept secrets for all kinds of reasons, and not all of them were sinister. Sometimes a lie by omission was just easier.

Before shutting the door, he leaned back inside. “Tell Jake I’ll call him and fill him in on what I find.” Without waiting for a response, he slammed the door shut and got into his own car. Turning over the engine, he slowly and quietly drove away in the same direction the truck had gone.

“Okay, Mr. Bossy Britches,” I mumbled. I went in the opposite direction, heading back the way I came, and thankfully I only got turned around one time on the way out of Prestwick. It seemed as if it were a lot easier to get out of that neighborhood than it was to get in.