The Hexed

  He started to get out of bed, then looked down at her and rejoined her.

  He touched her face gently, smiled slowly. Then he bent and kissed her, and when she rose to meet him she felt the hardness of his arousal.

  “I guess you’re happy,” she murmured.

  “Waking up with you makes me happy,” he said.

  She smiled. “I like that.”

  “I’m glad.”

  They made love again. Devin wondered what it would be like to have a day—just one day―to rise when they chose, make love, wander the streets, listen to music....

  Not today, though.

  He rose regretfully at last and headed for the shower. She made a point of not following him. When he was done, she showered and dressed, then joined him at the table, where he was drinking coffee and speaking on the phone.

  “I’m heading to the station,” he said when he finished his call. “I’m going to do whatever I can to clear Jack, but I promise you, I won’t let myself think that it’s impossible for him to be involved, even if he is a dedicated police officer. Sad to say, he wouldn’t be the first. Sam and Jenna are heading to Danvers—old Salem Village—to show Hermione’s picture around.”

  He got up, stood behind Devin and put his hands on her shoulders. “What we need now is more knowledge about your ancestor—Margaret Nottingham. Why does she come to see you? To warn you? To help you? Because she’s worried about you? Is she connected to the murders themselves in some way, or only to you?”

  A knock at the door stopped him from theorizing any further. He looked through the peephole before opening it to the rest of his teammates, who were standing in the hallway.

  “Ready to roll, if Devin is set,” Angela said.

  “Jenna and I are taking the team rental to the lab to find out if anything pertinent was discovered about the pentagram,” Sam said.

  “Angela, Jane, and Devin are going to do more research and get Hermione’s picture out on the street, ask people if they saw her,” Rocky told him. “I’m going to meet up with Jack at the station.”

  “And we’ll all spread the word around town that you and Devin are going to stay at the cottage tonight,” Angela assured him.

  “Good plan. Everyone keep in touch,” Rocky said.

  “We will,” Angela promised.

  * * *

  Rocky met Jack at the station, and they started going through case files again, hoping something would miraculously jump out at them, something they’d somehow managed to overlook a dozen times before.

  Jack leaned back in his chair. “Okay, we know that Vince has an alibi. We couldn’t find a thing on Brent Corbin. We believe the killer was tall, which means we’re not looking at Renee—though I suppose she could have been an accomplice, which...I’m not seeing it.” He paused, staring at Rocky. “You would make a good suspect—except you were in California when Carly Henderson was murdered. So let’s be up front here. It has to have occurred to you that it might have been me.”

  Rocky looked at him with a steady gaze. “Yes.”

  “I’ve got an alibi,” Jack said. “Though I admit that Haley and I are collectors, and we own several athames we’ve picked up over the years. I’ve never owned a pentagram necklace, but I’ll bet Haley has at some time.”

  “Just to cover all bases, let’s trace your movements,” Rocky said.

  “I’m either on the job or I’m at home, with Haley.” Jack laughed without any real humor. “Next thing I know, you’ll tell me she’s a suspect, too. She’s tall enough. Hell, maybe she and I are in it together. Or maybe all of us take turns.”

  “When we were kids, any one of us could have lured Melissa into the woods. Haley was in great shape, tall and athletic. We were all big kids—you, me and Vince. The three of us didn’t get together until she’d already been dead for several hours.”

  “And you found her,” Jack reminded him.

  Rocky nodded. “Don’t worry. I’d suspect me, too.”

  Jack thought for a moment, then said, “It’s possible the current killer’s a copycat—someone who saw Melissa’s body. But that brings us back to you, me and Vince. And none of us fit. I mean, the cops, the M.E., they saw her, too, but...”

  “You’re forgetting someone,” Rocky said. “The murderer.”

  “Or murderers,” Jack said. “Except,” he added with a note of disgust in his voice, “it’s hard enough for one person not to leave a scrap of trace evidence. Two?”

  Rocky was thoughtful. “Maybe one person gets the victim out there and the other one does the killing.”

  Rocky pushed a folder forward. “Theo Hastings,” he said.

  “He wasn’t here when Melissa was murdered,” Jack said.

  “We don’t know that,” Rocky said. “My team discovered that he’s really from here, he just moved to the Midwest for a while.”

  “Let’s bring him in, see what he has to say,” Jack said.

  * * *

  They started with the shops and restaurants on Derby and Essex streets, splitting up, with Jane taking one side of the road and Angela and Devin taking the other. For the most part, people were eager to help, but despite that, no one recognized Hermione Robicheaux.

  Eventually, though, Devin and Angela found a busy waitress who started when she saw the picture, then put down her tray to take it from them. “Yeah, I saw her—she was in here a couple weeks ago. She sat at the table by the window there. She was telling me that it was her first trip here, and she was really excited. She said that she could trace her roots back before the witchcraft trials.” The woman paused. “Me, I can’t trace my family back past my mom and dad. Well, I think my grandparents on my dad’s came from Cleveland, but that’s about it. Cool to know where you came from the way she did, huh?”

  “Not always,” Devin murmured.

  “She didn’t happen to mention any of her plans, did she?” Angela asked.

  “Oh, she had lots of them,” the waitress told them. “She was heading out to Danvers to visit the Nurse homestead, and she was going to do all the museums and take a ghost tour. She said she might take a couple, even if they all told the same stories.”

  Devin and Angela glanced at each other, thanked the waitress and left the coffee shop. Outside, they saw that Jane had just left a shop across the street and waved her over.

  “Ghost tour,” Angela said.

  Devin looked at her watch. “I’m sure that Brent’s opened the store by now. Let’s go ask him if he saw her. Of course, he might lie.”

  “But he might not be a very good liar,” Jane said. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  They were standing on a playground in the midst of two dozen two-, three-and four-year-olds at the Salem Prep Preschool when Rocky’s phone rang. Sam.

  He excused himself, certain that Jack had indeed proved his point. They’d gone to the principal’s office and confirmed that on the night Carly Henderson had been killed, Jack had been running the school carnival. He could account for his every movement from 5:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m. Going by the M.E.’s time line, that meant that Jack Grail couldn’t possibly have killed Carly.

  Rocky was relieved—and vindicated. Even though he knew he’d had to consider the possibility, it had still been all but impossible to believe that Jack could be their killer.

  Sam was at the lab. “We have a report on the necklace found with the bones of the woman we presume to be Margaret Nottingham. It’s as much as eight hundred years old, and the experts found some crisscrossing marks on the underside that might be a signature of sorts. One of the lab techs is into all kinds of pagan stuff, and he says a medallion like this one wouldn’t have been considered evil by the maker. The pentagram goes back thousands of years, and it’s only relatively recently that it’s taken on its demonic reputation. Anyway, according to him, it was probably some kind of family heirloom that made its way to the New World when the colony was settled. It wouldn’t have been a common piece of jewelry, and no one during the time of the witch
trials would have worn one. The association between paganism and Satan was strong among the Puritans, as you know, and the pentagram was considered a mark of the devil by then. Who knows? Maybe her killer held to the old beliefs and thought it was a way of protecting her in death, or perhaps he thought it was a way to show she was marked for the devil.”

  “Eight hundred years old, huh?” Rocky said.

  “Uh-huh. The composition of the silver matches that used by certain silversmiths in the Mediterranean during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The medallion might have been acquired by a knight or one of his retinue during the last Crusade and brought back to England, then given to someone as a trinket—way before the whole witchcraft craze swept Europe. I suspect it would have been a family talisman of some kind.”

  “Thanks, Sam.”

  “My pleasure,” Sam told him. “Hey, what’s going on there? Sounds like Custer’s Last Stand.”

  Rocky laughed. “Nope, just a preschool. I’ll explain later. Thank the lab guys for me.”

  “Will do,” Sam said.

  “Everything good?” Jack asked him when Rocky rejoined him.

  “Fine,” Rocky said. “Ready to go?”

  “I just said goodbye to Jackie, so let’s hit the road. Where are we heading?”

  “Essex Street. We’re going to do a little silver shopping,” Rocky said.

  * * *

  Devin was surprised that Beth wasn’t behind the counter when they entered the shop. It had been strange enough to get to Brent’s store and find it closed and him not even answering his cell, but she’d figured he was just upset about being questioned and was hiding out to lick his metaphorical wounds. Beth’s shop had been a logical next stop, since she might have seen him or at least have an idea where he might be. So where was she?

  Beth didn’t do readings herself. She’d told Devin once that understanding the tarot was hard work, and she preferred buying and selling, plus she had Gayle and Theo, who not only read the tarot but palms, as well, and could even interpret tea leaves.

  Today Gayle was behind the counter, talking on the phone. She looked distressed, and lifted a finger to ask them to wait. A few moments later she hung up without having said a word and turned to them.

  “Sorry, but I’m a little bit worried. Beth hasn’t come in. I can’t get hold of her, and it isn’t like her not to show up.”

  Devin instantly felt a cold rivulet of fear snake up her spine. “I thought she was staying with you?”

  “Yes, but she left ahead of me this morning,” Gayle said. “She said she was going to stop and grab coffee and a breakfast sandwich, and drop a few things off at the cleaners, but...she should have been here by now.”

  “Was she walking?” Angela asked.

  “Yes—I’m less than a mile away,” Gayle said.

  “Can you show me the route?” Angela asked.

  “Well, actually, there are a few.”

  “Any with woods?” Devin asked.

  Gayle went white. “Um, yes, just a block behind Darby, toward the old jail. Not real woods, but a patch of trees.”

  Theo came out of the back room just then, saying goodbye to a client—an older woman who still had curlers hidden beneath a scarf.

  “Not yet?” he asked Gayle anxiously.

  Gayle shook her head.

  Devin fumbled for her phone, about to call Rocky, but Angela was already calling. But just as she started to speak, Rocky and Jack entered the shop.

  “Beth is missing!” Devin said frantically.

  Rocky hurried forward and calmly told them not to panic. After Gayle filled him in, he pointed out that Beth’s errands might simply have taken longer than she’d expected, and she could have accidentally left her phone somewhere. But, he said, they weren’t going to take any chances, so they were going to go out looking for her.

  He directed Jane to take one route, Jack and Angela another, and told Devin to come with him and they would check out the route past the cemetery and the trees. He took her hand, telling Gayle to call him the second she heard from Beth and promised that he would call her, too, if they found her.

  Devin was truly frightened. Her best friend was missing.

  “You think something’s wrong, don’t you?” she asked Rocky.

  “I think something’s off, yes,” he said. “But this doesn’t fit our killer’s MO. He seems to like dusk and dark, times when his victims aren’t expected anywhere and it will take longer for them to be found.”

  He was walking fast, though, and she was nearly running to keep up with him. That seemed pretty worried to her.

  They neared the Howard Street Cemetery, and he slowed, looking down an alley. There were houses on both sides—and a tiny stand of brush and trees that lined the alleyway by one old house.

  He headed down the alley and pushed into the trees, then stopped so short that Devin nearly collided with him.

  She moved up next to him and followed his gaze. A woman was sprawled facedown on the ground near the bushes.

  They’d found Beth.

  18

  Rocky was certain Beth was dead.

  Dammit! Why had he brought Devin with him?

  Before he could stop her, she was down on her knees beside the body, and in seconds he joined her.

  He started to warn Devin not to disturb the body, and then Beth let out a moan. Relief filled him.

  She was alive.

  “Beth!” Devin gasped.

  Rocky had his cell out, calling for an ambulance, as Devin set a hand gently on Beth’s shoulder and helped ease her onto her back.

  Beth blinked and coughed and looked up at them with dazed eyes. She was clearly disoriented, with no idea where she was.

  “Beth, it’s okay, you’re going to be all right,” Devin assured her, then looked at Rocky, the anguish in her eyes asking for assurance from him.

  “Ambulance is on the way,” he said. “Devin, watch what you touch. Beth...can you talk? Can you tell us what happened?”

  “What happened?” Beth repeated.

  “Yes, what happened?”

  Beth almost smiled. “No...I was asking you...what happened?”

  “You didn’t show up for work. Gayle was worried,” Devin said.

  “Work, right,” Beth said, frowning. She tried to sit up, then went, “Whoa...” and lay down again.

  “Do you remember anything?” Rocky asked.

  “Um, yes...walking. And then...now I’m here.”

  He could hear the sound of an ambulance, and he felt frustrated. He needed more information, and that meant he needed more time. But her health came first; she needed to get to the hospital.

  When the ambulance arrived, the EMTs set to work immediately, and Rocky and Devin were pushed back. He quickly called Jane, Jack and then Beth’s shop, telling Gayle that Beth was going to be fine but she’d had an accident and was on her way to the hospital.

  “What part of don’t go anywhere alone did those two miss?” he muttered after he hung up.

  “Rocky, it’s hard to think that in broad daylight—with tourists everywhere—you’re going to get attacked on your way to work.”

  “Stay together, I told people to stay together,” he said, aggravated.

  She didn’t reply, because Beth was calling to her and Gayle was running down the alley toward them. Rocky went to intercept her just as Jack and the rest of the Krewe members arrived.

  “I’ve got patrol coming to cordon off the area,” Jack said.

  “Agent Rockwell, we’re going to take Miss Fullway now,” one of the EMTs called to him. “Is anyone riding with her?”

  “Please, someone, come with me,” Beth said pathetically.

  “I’ll go,” Gayle said.

  “Devin?” Beth asked.

  “Only one in the back,” the EMT told Rocky.

  “Beth, Devin and I will be right behind you,” Rocky said. He looked at Jack.

  “I’ll handle the scene. We might get lucky and find something.”
br />   Rocky nodded and turned to Devin. “Let’s go get the car,” he said, and took her hand. She clutched his tightly, and they hurried toward the garage where he’d left his car.

  * * *

  Beth was going to be all right; the doctors gave her the thumbs-up after a thorough examination. Nothing was broken, though she’d sustained some bruising. They were keeping her overnight, though, just in case of concussion.

  By late that afternoon Devin knew it was fine for her to leave. Gayle was sitting by Beth’s side, holding her hand. Theo was there, too, after making an executive decision to close the store for the day. Beth was in good hands and didn’t need her there, too.

  She’d been gone a long time, she thought. Theo and Gayle were closer to Beth now than she was.

  She also wanted to rejoin Rocky, who she knew was feeling both puzzled and frustrated.

  Beth hadn’t been robbed, and the only injury her attacker had inflicted was the blow to the head that had knocked her out and sent her into the foliage. She’d been unable to tell Rocky anything except that the attack had happened around 9:30 a.m. as she’d been on her way to get the store ready for her usual 10:00 a.m. opening.

  That was it. She’d been walking along and hadn’t noticed anyone behind her. She hadn’t even heard her attacker come up from behind.

  That was all she could remember.

  He’d pressed hard, until she’d started to look upset. Devin had stopped him then, and suggested quietly that maybe he could try again later, and he’d left the room to pace restlessly in the hall until Devin was ready to go.

  When she joined him, he stuck his head into the room and told them to keep in contact, then started walking quickly toward the hospital garage.

  Devin followed and kept silent. Clearly his mind was elsewhere.

  “I don’t understand it,” he finally said when they were in the car. “She fits the profile of our killer’s victims, but nothing about the attack fits, other than the nearby trees.”

  “Rocky, there is a possibility she was just attacked by a random mugger,” Devin said.

  “Except her purse was there, her cell phone... Not a lot of cash, but it didn’t look as if the attacker even dug through her bag. He just knocked her out.”