The Trouble With Witches (7 page)

Who in their right mind would name a kid
Tink
?

"Did Brandi ever mention any of these people?" Abby asked.

"She talked about Jason, of course, and Juliet. She held Jason in awe, but seemed close to Juliet. And when she talked about this woman, Winnie, she made disparaging remarks. She didn't like her."

"What about the foster daughter?" I asked.
"This
Tink
?
Did she mention her?"

Joan smoothed her hands over the arms of her chair.
"Once or twice.
She described the girl as 'spooky.' "

"In what way?"

Joan lifted a hand. "I don't know. She never explained. Our phone conversations were always short. The group disapproved of contact with the members' families, so Brandi had to be careful about calling home."

Abby stood abruptly. "Do you have any other pictures of Brandi?"

Joan also stood.
"Of course.
The photo albums are in the den.
This way."

Abby and I followed her out of the living room and down the hall. She stopped in front of a set of double doors and swung them open.

"The albums are in here," she said.

Abby paused at the doorway and laid a hand on Joan's arm. "Would you mind if we looked at them alone?"

Joan's eyebrows knitted into a small frown. "No. They're all on the bottom row," she said, pointing to the bookcases lining the walls behind the desk.

"Thank you," Abby said, smiling at her.

Passing Joan, I followed Abby in. It was definitely her husband's room.
Very tweedy and masculine.
No frou-frou or flowers anywhere. And the air still carried the faint aroma of cigar smoke.

Abby and I each grabbed a photo album, sat down, placed them on the desk and opened them. Mine began with the first months of Brandi's life. As I flipped through the pages, I saw her change from a chubby-cheeked toddler to a little girl in pink dresses with matching ribbons in her hair. Her smile went from toothless to bright and innocent.

"Cute kid," I mumbled as I flipped through the pages showing Brandi as a gawky adolescent.

"What, dear?" Abby asked.

"I said 'cute kid.' It's hard to imagine these are pictures of the same girl as the one on the mantel.
The one with the orange hair."

"Take a look at these."

Abby pushed the album toward me and we switched albums. The photos on the first few pages were similar to those in the album I'd already seen. But about halfway through they began to change. Brandi wasn't a wide-eyed little tot
anymore,
or a young girl on the edge of womanhood. Her smile changed to a sullen grimace. The pink dresses had morphed into ripped black T-shirts and low-slung black jeans. An eyebrow ring hung above eyes ringed in black eyeliner. And the hair—in the last picture it looked like Brandi had used Easter egg dye to color it.
Strands the colors of candy pink, robin's-egg blue, and lime green stuck up in stiff spikes from her scalp.

I glanced at Abby. She stood, her head tipped back and her eyes closed as she ran her hand over the slick surface of the photos.

"Anything?"
I said, watching her.

"Umm?"

"Are you getting anything from her pictures?"

"A happy childhood, a close relationship with her mother, but the father is distant. Too busy pursuing a career to pay much attention to a little girl." Abby flipped to another page. "School is easy, but at the same time hard. She doesn't fit in. She sees the world in a different way than the other children—"

"Psychic?"
I interrupted.

"No, but highly intuitive.
Her intuition makes it hard to relate to her teachers and her classmates. She begins to spend more and more time by herself." Abby slid the album to the side and reached for the one I had been looking at. She opened it to the last page, to the one of Brandi with black-ringed eyes and Easter-egg-colored hair. Placing both hands on the photo, she lowered her head.

"Water, dark, lost, alone…" Abby's voice trailed off as her shoulders shook slightly.

I started to reach for her when she lifted her head and looked at me.

"We need to find this girl fast."

"You're sure she's still alive?"

Abby passed a hand over her forehead as if to rub the images away. "Yes, I am. But she's in danger and we must find her soon."

After leaving Joan, Rick offered to take Abby and me out to dinner. Still mulling over Abby's impressions, I almost missed the invitation, but Abby's quick response caught my attention.

I leaned forward from my place in the backseat.
"But Abby, what about
Queenie
and Lady?
I don't want to leave them cooped up too long in the room."

"They'll be fine," she said with a wave of her hand.

"Okay." I settled back in my seat.

Rick chose an Olive Garden not too far from our motel. Once seated, we all ordered the fettuccini, and over the breadsticks and salad, Rick kept the conversation going at a steady pace.

I let the talk buzz around me while I picked at my salad. So many thoughts bounced around in my head that I couldn't focus on one, let alone the subject Rick and Abby discussed. One observation did penetrate my busy brain. Rick hadn't lost any of the easy charm that had made him so popular in Summerset last fall.

I glanced over at him. He looked good tonight, looked every inch a successful reporter. He'd worn an ivory knit shirt with blue jeans that accentuated his summer tan. And his eyes—they'd been the first thing I noticed about him that day in the library when we met. They hadn't changed. They still had the same sparkle, the same hint of amusement lurking there. Last fall those eyes, in spite of my better judgment, seemed to reach out and pull me in.

I guess they still did.

Rooting around in my salad with my fork, I found a tomato and stabbed it.
Maybe a little harder than I needed to.

"What's bothering you, Ophelia?" Rick asked, switching his attention from Abby to me.

"Nothing's bothering me," I replied, and popped the tomato in my mouth.

"Oh yeah?
You nailed that tomato like you were trying to kill it."

"Did not," I muttered, with tomato tucked firmly in my cheek.

"Did, too," Rick shot back, his eyes twinkling.

"Children, children," Abby interjected with a look of amusement on her face. "Let's not bicker over dinner."

Rick winked at Abby. "She started it."

I chewed the tomato and gave Rick a tight smile. "You are
such
a suck-up," I said after swallowing.

"Only to women as lovely as your grandmother," he said with another wink at Abby.

"Did I also mention," I said sweetly, "that you're full of—"

"Ophelia!"
Abby's eyes drilled me with a stern look.

Chastised, I turned back toward Rick. "Okay, okay. I'll be nice."

Rick's eyes met mine and his mouth twisted in a crooked grin. "Sure it won't kill you?"

Pushing my plate to the side, I crossed my arms on the table and leaned forward. "You know, Delaney, no matter how hard…" My voice trailed off when Abby laid a hand on my arm. I looked up and saw the waiter standing next to me, holding a plate patiently in one hand. Scooting back in the booth, my eyes downcast, I placed my hands in my lap while he served each of us.

"Enjoy your dinner," he said brightly, and left.

Looking up, I saw Rick watching me with that stupid grin still on his face. The rat! After all this time, he still liked to tease me, still get under my skin. He thought the waiter overhearing our exchange was funny. I narrowed my eyes, a sharp retort forming on my tongue, but before I could deliver it, Abby spoke.

"As interesting as it may be to listen to the two of you argue, I think we have a more important matter at hand," she said, picking up her fork.

Rick's grin faded, and along with it, his teasing manner. "Brandi," he said shortly. "What happened when you were alone in the library?"

Abby twirled the fettuccini around her fork. "I feel she's still alive," she said, not really answering Rick's question.

A look of relief crossed his face. "She's okay?"

Abby tilted her head to the side. "I didn't say that…" She hesitated, stalling for time in order to decide how much information to give him. "She
is
in some kind of trouble."

"What kind of trouble?" Rick asked.

"It's not clear," Abby replied.

"Look, Rick," I interjected. "I told you these visions aren't very specific at times. We need more information about this 'cult.' "

"I think I told you, there are about ten people living at the compound—"

"Ha," I scoffed. "Doesn't sound like much of a 'cult' to
me.
Only ten people?
I thought cults were larger than that?"

Rick gave me a patient look. "I told you I don't know if you could call PSI a cult. They could just be a group of harmless New
Agers
. It depends—"

"On what?"
I broke in.

"On how much control Jason Finch has over the rest of the members."

"In what way?"

"Well…" Rick paused. "If he limits their access to the outside world, if he controls their behavior through criticism, if he demands their total obedience to his ideology, then I'd call PSI a cult."

"But you don't know?"

He shook his head. "No. Like I told you, the townspeople wouldn't talk about the group. Winnie and Juliet avoided me once they learned who I was. And the other members were like shadows. I know there were at least three other couples living at the compound, but they're rarely seen in town."

"So Jason could be controlling them?"

"Yes. And a smaller group makes it easier for the leader to
stay
in control."

"Any dissension is easily rooted out," I said thoughtfully.

"Exactly—"

"And from what Joan said, Brandi was unhappy, so she might have been causing a rift in the group."