Something Wicked

  Hale saw her look at the bag and asked, “You had dinner, right?”

  “Well . . . yes.”

  “I’ve got an untouched plate that Kristina refused. Chicken and artichoke linguine.”

  “She doesn’t want it?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Then, yes,” she said with feeling.

  He laughed, and Savannah was taken aback at how attractive he was without that layer of reserve. She’d always sort of felt Kristina had married him for his good looks and, well, money, but now she wondered if she’d been too narrow in her scope. There might be other reasons as well.

  “What would you like to drink?” he asked.

  “You have any sparkling water?”

  “Ummm . . .”

  “Or ice water?”

  “That I have.” He plucked a glass from the cupboard and took it to the refrigerator door, where he first held it under the ice-maker slot and pressed a button, then, after several cubes had clinked inside, slid it under the coldwater dispenser and filled the glass to just below the brim. “Kristina’s in bed.” He handed the ice water to Savannah.

  “She asked me to come by,” she said, surprised. “Is something wrong?”

  He picked up the glass of wine and took a swallow. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Have any ideas? She sounded urgent earlier.” Savannah watched as he pulled out a plate of pasta wrapped tightly with plastic wrap and placed it in the microwave.

  “She said . . .” He stopped himself and looked over to his left quickly. Kristina was suddenly standing in the aperture that led down the hall to the bedrooms. Her face was pale, and she wore a peach satin nightgown that accentuated her narrow shoulders and collarbones beneath the fall of her dark reddish hair.

  “Go on. Tell her what I said,” Kristina stated flatly. “I’d love to hear it.”

  Hale turned his attention back to the microwave, and they all waited for the ding that let them know the food was hot. “She said she didn’t feel like herself,” Hale added as he slid the plate in front of one of the stools that clustered around the bar, then turned his palm to it in a gesture that meant for Savannah to sit. “She said she did things she didn’t want to.”

  “That’s not exactly what I said,” Kristina protested half angrily.

  “Close enough.”

  As Savannah seated herself, Hale pulled out flatware and yanked a square of white paper towel from a stainless steel holder on the counter, then handed them to Savannah. Then, with a lift of his hand and a smile of good-bye that was more of a grimace, he strode out of the room and down the hall toward the bedrooms.

  Savannah gazed after him, realizing she’d lost her opportunity tonight to interview him about anything to do with Bankruptcy Bluff and the Donatella homicides. At some level she was almost relieved. Given her pregnancy and the fact that he was feeding her dinner, she didn’t really want to throw his hospitality in his face by jumping into an investigative interview. Better to do it in the light of day, she consoled herself. Tomorrow.

  “What did you say?” Savannah asked her sister when Kristina also continued to stare after Hale, her face a mixture of worry, anger, and what? Maybe fear?

  “Oh, I don’t know. It’s all so crazy. I just told him I feel out of control sometimes, like I’m . . .” She shook her head and made a face. “He really pissed me off. I told him I thought I was losing my mind, and I don’t think he gave a shit. Or he didn’t believe me. Or both.” She perched on the stool at the opposite end of the bar from Savannah and watched her lift the plastic wrap from her linguine. Steam lifted upward.

  “I believe this is really your dinner,” Savannah said.

  “I don’t want it. Please. I can’t eat anything.”

  “You look like you could use a good meal.”

  “Hale tells me I’m skin and bones, but what does he know?”

  “I’m looking at you, and I think he might be right.”

  Kristina shook her head. “When this is all over, then I can eat. It’ll all be all right.”

  “When what’s all over? The pregnancy?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Are you losing your mind?” Savannah asked, smiling to take the sting out of it.

  “No, I just have to get rid of . . . some baggage that I’ve spent way too much time on.”

  “What baggage?” Forking linguine into her mouth, Savannah had to force herself not to moan aloud. “Damn, but Gino’s is good. You really should have some.” She tried to push the plate her sister’s way, but Kristina was already on her feet, walking away.

  “I don’t feel hunger . . . for food,” she said.

  “Meaning?”

  She shook her head. “It’s just been weird, that’s all.”

  “Weird with Hale?”

  “Just weird. Sometimes I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience, staring at myself from a distance, like I’m a stranger. Ever feel that way?”

  “Umm . . .”

  “Of course not. You’re too squared away, as ever. It’s just your wacko older sister who has a problem.”

  “What’s the problem?” Savannah asked. “You and Hale are going to be parents soon, and I want everything to be as good as it can be when that day comes.”

  “I’m fine, Savvy. For God’s sakes, a baby! I mean, we’ve all been just dying for this day to get here, right? I’m making too much of this. My whole life’s going to change soon, and it’s good, it’s really good, but I am freaking the hell out. I don’t mean to be selfish. I mean, look at you. You’re huge!”

  “Thanks,” Savannah said dryly.

  “All I’m saying is, it shouldn’t be about me right now. You’re the one who’s pregnant. For me. I should just be eager and excited, and I am. It’s just . . .” She pressed her fingers to her eyes and shook her head. “God, can you believe it? I sound like such a bitch.”

  “You just sound kind of . . . rattled.” Savvy ate some more linguine and drank from her glass of water, sending Kristina a sidelong glance when her sister went quiet. After a moment, she asked, “Was there something more specific, or did you just want me to be here with you?”

  “I guess I just wanted you to be here.”

  “Okay.”

  Savannah finished up her plate, slightly alarmed at how much her food intake had grown. Kristina seemed lost in thought, and when Savannah set her fork down, she swung herself to her feet and took her plate, absentmindedly rinsing it off before putting it in the dishwasher. Then she leaned against the counter and faced her sister.

  “I asked Hale earlier if he believed in sorcery,” Kristina said. “You can imagine.”

  “Were you serious?”

  “Well, sort of.”

  She had a slight smile on her face, but even so, Savvy thought she looked worried. “Why did you ask him that?”

  She shrugged. “He’s just always so together, y’know. I just kinda wanted to get him, I guess. Everything is so rational in Hale’s world.”

  “That’s not why you did it.”

  Kristina’s pale blue eyes met hers for the space of two heartbeats, and then she looked away. “I’ve just been feeling so off.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing happened . . . nothing specific, anyway.”

  “Well, how did this start? This off feeling?”

  “It just . . .” She pushed away from the counter and paced to the sunroom door. “Maybe it’s just fear of the future. I mean, when this little guy gets here, everything’s going to be different. Up all night. Diapers. Formula. Total upheaval. Panic time, you know?”

  “You’re having second thoughts?”

  “No, no, no.” Kristina shot back to the kitchen again and said earnestly, “I can’t wait for this baby. I just can’t wait! Once he’s here, everything’s going to be okay. Maybe there is some panic in there, sure, but I so want this baby. I’ve just never been as good as you are about keeping a lid on my own craziness.”

  “I don’t know
about that.”

  “You know how put together you are. You’ve got a great governor on your emotions. You always have. Me? Not so much.” She ran her hands through her hair. “Never mind. I’m just tired and acting nutty. Forget everything I said.”

  Nope, this was definitely not the time to reinterview Kristina about the Donatellas, either. And contrary to all her protestations, Kristina was having second thoughts. Something sure as hell was going on. Savvy was really getting worried that Kristina and Hale’s marriage might be in serious trouble, and this little baby inside her, the one she was beginning to feel very protective of, wasn’t going to save it.

  She tried to draw more out of her sister, hoping to deduce exactly what was bothering her, what the “baggage” was, but it was as if Kristina had expended all her energy and had just kinda shut down, seating herself on one of the bar stools, not really offering up much more in conversation. Half an hour later Savannah was out the door and driving south to her home, no wiser to Kristina’s issues. Her sister was an enigma, plain and simple.

  The rain had turned to a fine mist, and it was dark as midnight. Savannah drove carefully as winds buffeted the SUV, making it shudder and feel loose on the road, and she let out a pent-up breath when she finally pulled into the driveway of the little gray ranch perched on the east side of 101, with a surprisingly spectacular view north to the Pacific. Tonight, however, the ocean was a black expanse, and as she hit the garage-door button, she was glad for the automatic light that came on as the door slid upward. Driving inside the garage, she shut the door with another push of the button, eased her shape out of the driver’s door and around the car, then trudged up the two wooden steps that led into the kitchen. Dropping her coat on a chair, she saw the plate that held traces of her earlier peanut butter and jelly sandwich. For one moment she debated about having another one, even though she’d just eaten Gino’s linguine.

  Better not, she decided regretfully and headed through the living room to her second bedroom, which functioned as a den. Her laptop lay open on the desktop, plugged in, its green light on. She woke it from hibernation and waited to connect to the Internet, annoyed that her mind was still on the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

  She sat for a moment, shrugging off her unsettling meeting with Kristina with an effort, concentrating instead on her earlier interview with Catherine. Thinking of Catherine sent her thoughts to Maggie/Cassandra, and she Googled “Cassandra” and “seer” and found scads of links to information about the mythical princess who could predict the future. She also learned that when Cassandra rejected the advances of the god Apollo, she was cursed to never have anyone believe her.

  Cassandra sees things, but they’re not always accurate....

  Was that the truth? Catherine’s body language had belied her words, but did that mean Maggie/Cassandra Rutledge . . . Beeman—or whatever the hell her name was—could actually see the future?

  “Bullshit.”

  Savannah decided to put thoughts of Catherine and Maggie/Cassandra aside as well, but first she checked out the story of the Hydra, a mythical beast whose heads grew back every time they were cut off. The Hydra was one of Hercules’s seven labors and was finally defeated after Hercules cut off one of its heads, then burned the neck right afterward, cauterizing the wound and thereby making the head unable to regrow.

  Burning. Fire. Had Maggie/Cassandra told that story because fire was all that would stop the man who was coming for them?

  She laid her hands on her stomach and said aloud, “Now, you’re just getting freaky.”

  Shutting down her computer, she considered the women of Siren Song with their gifts, some of them dark gifts. Hearing a floorboard squeak, she jerked around, her eyes searching the dark corners of the room.

  Nothing there.

  “Creepy,” she said, mad at herself for her attack of nerves. A moment later she decided she needed that peanut butter and jelly sandwich, after all.

  The following morning Savannah stopped off for a vanilla yogurt, a banana, and a cup of decaf coffee at the Sands of Thyme Bakery, where she collected her breakfast items, then grabbed a white mug from the pyramid stack next to the “serve yourself” thermoses. She poured her mug full, added a dash of cream, and picked up a spoon before finding a table at the far end of the room.

  Sipping her decaf, she peeled the banana and slowly ate it. She wasn’t that big of a banana fan, but it was loaded with potassium, and she’d been told it would be a good thing for her to eat as many as possible. So be it. She was a short timer, and she didn’t want to do anything to screw things up at this late date. Still, it was downright amazing how much food she could put away and how much she thought about eating.

  Her mind drifted back to Catherine and her bizarre lesson on genetics. She was still trying to figure out where the mistress of Siren Song’s head had been when she’d gone into her impromptu genetics lesson, what she’d really been thinking about and trying to tell Savvy. Clearly, she was pointing a finger at the Colony males. When Savvy had asked about them, however, Catherine had dismissed them, saying they’d been adopted out, as if that were the only course of action given their condensed power. But there was something more there as well.

  The Colony. Savannah couldn’t get the vision of a bee colony out of her head. She’d seen many documentaries that said bee colonies kicked out the males—the drones—in the fall, after the summer season was over and before hibernation. The worker bees were all female, and apparently, once the males had serviced the queen, they were persona non grata and were left to die outside the hive.

  Was that what had happened at Siren Song? Had the women, the worker bees, kicked out the males? Savvy rubbed her eyes, feeling like she was getting fanciful. Whatever the case, it kinda sucked for the boy children, being pushed out, though, unless you considered that maybe staying under Catherine’s roof and abiding by her rules wasn’t the greatest answer, either.

  Making a mental note to herself to follow up on the Colony’s male children, Savvy finished her banana and started in on her yogurt. What she really needed to do was get on the Donatella homicides before she herself was kicked out of the nest of the Tillamook County Sheriff’s Department. She chafed at the idea that they would be continuing without her, and she had a somewhat irrational fear that once she was gone, they wouldn’t really want her back.

  Twenty minutes later she was dashing through a light rain, then hurrying up the short flight of stairs that led to the department’s rear entrance. Shedding her coat, she was glad to see she was leaving fewer puddles on the tile floor today. May Johnson was at her desk, and she looked across the room and lifted a hand in greeting. Savannah nodded, then carried her coat over one arm as she turned toward the hallway that led to the working offices in the back of the department. She went to the break room and hung her coat on a rack, then opened a cupboard and pulled out some instant decaf crystals and heated her second cup of coffee in the microwave. By the time she got to her desk, she was one minute late, but there was no one else in sight. Locking her messenger bag in a bottom drawer, she then stared into space a moment, thinking about her sister. What the hell was going on there? Did she even want to know? Kristina had always been flightier than Savannah, but she was really walking the edge right now, which sorta pissed Savannah off.

  “Try really being pregnant,” she muttered aloud as Lang cruised in, crossed to the desk butting up to Savannah’s, and flopped himself into his chair.

  “You’re still here,” he said, smiling.

  “Pregnancy isn’t a disease.”

  “Uncalled for,” he said, his smile widening.

  Savannah nodded, half embarrassed. She thought about blaming her snippiness on her pregnancy, but then she would just be making his point. “I’m going to the Bancroft offices today to reinterview Hale St. Cloud—”

  “Your brother-in-law.”

  “And Declan Bancroft, his grandfather, among others.”

  Lang nodded. “I’m still chasing down
Kyle Furstenberg. I think he may be purposely unavailable.”

  “Think that’s an admission of guilt?” Savannah asked.

  “It’s an admission of being scared. Maybe an admission of being an asshole. Either way, he’s not returning my calls, and everybody around his apartment acts like they’ve never heard of him.”

  “Who’s around his apartment?”

  “Roommates in varying states of slacker-dom. A lot of blank stares, empty pizza boxes, beer cans, and Bic lighters. No cigarettes, though, so I’m guessing they are thinking about their overall health and might be smoking a little something else.”

  “That’s gotta be it,” she agreed.

  They shared a smile. “I am going to miss you, y’know. When you leave,” he said.

  “It’s only a temporary leave.”

  “Of course.” He inclined his head. “You’ll be back in time for the wedding.”

  “Long before. Long, long before,” she stressed. Lang and his fiancée, Claire Norris, were tying the knot sometime next spring, and it made Savannah’s heart clutch to even think he might believe she would still be gone.

  “Kidding,” he said, and Savannah narrowed her eyes at him, which turned the smile threatening his lips into a full-grown grin.

  “How are things going with Baby Bea?” she asked now, determined to get the spotlight off herself.

  “They’re going. Catherine didn’t say anything about it, huh?”

  Claire and Lang had been fighting to become adoptive parents to a little girl who had ties to the Colony and Catherine. Though Catherine seemed to approve of Lang and Claire as parents as a whole, she’d made noise about trying to adopt the baby herself. So far Beatrice was in Claire and Lang’s care, but it was anyone’s guess what Catherine would try to do, though at present, Savvy knew, she was wrapped up in some other mystery, which seemed to be absorbing her.

  She thought about the plastic bag inside her purse but wasn’t quite ready to pull it out yet. “What happened with Hillary Enders, the girlfriend?”

  “She’s coming in after work today, unless she chickens out. She was pretty anxious on the phone.”