Dark Magic (Harbinger P.I. Book 3) (7 page)

“
S
herry had made
a connection between the church and the lake,” I told Felicity after ending the call with Wesley. “While she was investigating the church, she put the Apollo Stone on the island in the middle of the lake. Whitefish Island. Wesley watched her from the docks while she took a boat out there.”

She looked up from the scattered papers and photos. “So how do we play back what the stone recorded?”

“That’s going to be difficult,” I said. “The stone records onto the crystal, like a hard drive, but to read the recording requires a witch or a psychic who can pick up impressions from the crystal.”

Felicity sighed. “She should have used a camera.”

“Hey, it’s magic, not science. I don’t really want to go to the Blackwell sisters with the crystal. We don’t know what’s on it and I’m not ready to share it with anyone else.” I thought for a moment. “There is a way we can see the recording but it means getting hold of a particular artifact. They might have one at the Society headquarters in Bangor.”

“So let’s get our hands on it,” Felicity said. She seemed more gung-ho than usual and I wasn’t sure if that was because she was so eager to work the case or because she was in a “go get ‘em” mood.

“Make a call to the Bangor HQ tomorrow,” I said. “Tell someone there that I need them to send over a Crystal Reader. In the meantime, let’s go through all this stuff and see if we can piece together what Sherry was up to before the church massacre.”

Felicity held up a photo of a slender black woman in a leather jacket approaching a door that bore the words
WESTLAKE P.I.
in black lettering on frosted glass. I recognized the door. It was the one that now said
HARBINGER P.I.
and led to my office. “I assume this is Sherry,” Felicity said. “She’s in most of the photos and they look like they’ve been taken from a distance, probably with a zoom lens.”

I sat next to her on the floor and examined the other photos. Nearly all of them showed the same woman. In some, she was standing next to a blue Jeep. In others, she was simply walking along Main Street and I assumed Wesley had taken those pictures through his store window. There was one photo of Sherry standing at the edge of Dearmont Lake, looking out over the water toward Whitefish Island.

Felicity was poring over the handwritten and typed papers. “These are records of when and where Wesley saw Sherry.”

“Try to find any mention of the church or Clara,” I said. “And don’t forget the pizza.”

We each took a slice and began to eat while we went over Wesley’s notes. From what I read, it seemed like he’d decided to follow Sherry around every now and then to see if she would unknowingly lead him to material he could print in the
Observer
.

He wasn’t successful. Most of the time he followed Sherry, she managed to lose him. I wondered if she had known he was tailing her and had taken evasive action or if Wesley had just been bad at following her.

He did follow her to the lake a couple of times and on December 21st, he saw her hire a boat from the marina and sail out onto the lake. He did the same and followed her from a distance, watching through binoculars as she placed the Apollo Stone in the bushes on Whitefish Island. After she’d returned to the marina, he had gone to the island and found the stone but, not knowing what it was, had left it there after taking photos of it. Those photos were on the floor along with the ones of Sherry and a couple of snaps of the lake that included the island.

Wesley had also discovered that Sherry was visiting Clara but not through any detective skill of his own; someone in the grocery store had casually mentioned seeing Sherry’s Jeep heading to Clara and Wesley had overheard the conversation.

There was no mention of the church in his notes and no photographs of it, so I assumed he’d never made a connection between it and Sherry. Nor had he seemed to realize that Sherry was tailing Mary Cantrell for a while. But then Wesley’s own tailing skills were so bad that he probably hadn’t considered that the subject of his investigation was tailing someone herself.

The notes seemed to end on December 22nd, which must have been when Sherry warned Wesley off by threatening him.

By the time Felicity and I had read all of the material and studied the photos, the pizza was gone and we’d drunk a couple of beers each.

“Another beer?” I asked her as I put down the final piece of paper.

“Yes, please.” She was leaning back against the sofa surrounded by photos and papers.

I went to grab the beers from the fridge and realized how gloomy it was in the house. I opened the kitchen blinds to look outside. It was growing dark.

When I got back to the living room, Felicity had replaced everything except the Apollo Stone inside the cardboard box. She was still sitting on the floor, leaning back against the sofa, so I handed her a beer and joined her.

“Well that wasn’t very illuminating,” she said.

“All I learned is that Wesley would make a terrible detective,” I said.

She laughed softly. “Yes, I got the same impression.”

“Maybe the Apollo Stone will tell us more.”

“I’ll call the Bangor headquarters tomorrow and get them to send us a Crystal Reader,” she said, as if reminding herself.

I took a swig of beer and leaned back heavily against the sofa. I was beat. “How many hours have we spent going over this stuff?”

“Too many,” she said.

“Welcome to the exciting world of preternatural investigation.” I raised my bottle and Felicity clinked hers against it.

We both drank. “You hungry?” I asked her.

“After that pizza? God, no. You aren’t still hungry, are you?”

“No, not really. I just wanted to make sure I was being a good host.”

“You are a good host, Alec. You’re perfect.”

“You think this is good, you should see how I treat my dates.”

“I’d like to,” she said, and then added quickly. “I mean, I imagine you treat them very well.” She looked away, embarrassed.

Well, this wasn’t awkward. How had the conversation gotten onto the subject of dating?
Remember, she’s just broken up with her boyfriend
, I reminded myself.

“How did you get involved with the Society?” I asked her, bringing the conversation into safer territory. “Usually it’s a family connection but your parents didn’t do any work for the Society, did they?”

“No, not that I know of. They’re Egyptologists but their work is strictly academic, not practical. I think they’d die of shock if they knew that the magic of ancient Egypt was being used today. They’d be shocked if they knew it worked at all.

“I didn’t really find the Society, they found me. I was approached by a team of people who knew I was studying occult languages and wanted some help deciphering an Enochian text. It was a test. They were recruiting for the Society. They introduced me to some more people and I had to take more tests before I was told about the Society and given a job.”

“And your first job was to come work for me.”

She nodded. “And spy on you, as you found out within the first five seconds of meeting me.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” I said. “I’m usually good at reading people.”

She looked at me and arched an eyebrow. It made her look cute and…and I had to stop thinking like that.

“Can you read everyone you meet?” she asked.

“Hell, no. Most of my ex-girlfriends are still a mystery to me.” There I went again, blundering into topics that might be best avoided.

But Felicity seemed intrigued. “Tell me about them.”

“Who?”

“Your ex-girlfriends.”

I shrugged. “What’s to tell? As I said, they were a mystery to me. Of course, most of them thought that being a P.I. was just a way to get money out of gullible people. They didn’t believe in the supernatural world.”

“You didn’t try to convince them otherwise?”

“No, I’d never take away anyone’s ignorance of the supernatural.”

“You make it sound like ignorance is bliss.”

“Maybe it is.”

“Have you ever dated someone who did believe? Another investigator or someone who worked for the Society?” She leaned in a little closer and I could smell the enticing lotus flower perfume again. I found myself wondering where she’d applied it before coming over. Her neck, of course, and maybe lower. My eyes followed the graceful line of her neck and traveled down to where the plunging neckline of her black blouse revealed a lot of cleavage.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” I said, leaning my face closer to hers even as I said it.

“Perhaps not,” she whispered. I could feel her breath on my lips.

There was barely a fraction of an inch of space between our mouths and I took the plunge and crossed that gap, kissing Felicity softly. She returned the kiss, closing her eyes and murmuring a satisfied, “Mmm,” sound.

For a moment, I forgot everything—missing investigators, church massacres, and lake monsters. Kissing Felicity was the only thing that mattered.

Then she broke away and looked into my eyes, her own wide with surprise. “Oh, my God, that shouldn’t have happened.”

She was right, it shouldn’t. We were both emotionally raw right now: Felicity because of her recent breakup with Jason, and me because of Mallory’s sudden departure.

We shouldn’t have done it but that kiss had been amazing. It had felt so right even though it was wrong.

“I have to go,” she said, getting up off the floor.

“You don’t have to.” I clambered to my feet. “I mean, okay, we agree that we shouldn’t have kissed so let’s forget about it and not let it affect our friendship.”

She cringed when I said the word “kissed” and began toward the door. “I shouldn’t have come over tonight, Alec. I wanted…well, I don’t know what I wanted exactly but I should have stayed at home. I’m sorry.”

“It isn’t your fault,” I said. “I’m the one who kissed you.”

She opened the front door. Outside, the night was cool and dry. “We’ll forget all about it,” she said. “It never happened. Oh, God, I’m terrible at these things. I’m sorry, Alec.” She went outside and crossed the lawn, heading for her own at a record pace, not exactly running but not quite walking either.

“Felicity,” I called after her.

“See you tomorrow,” she said before fumbling her house keys out of her pocket and disappearing inside.

I closed the front door and then kicked it with my heel in frustration. What the hell had I been thinking? I’d even been telling Felicity how I thought that relationships between colleagues weren’t a good idea when I’d moved in for the kiss. And now, I’d ruined a valuable friendship. I was a fucking idiot.

I went back to the living room and sank onto the sofa, lying down on it and facing the ceiling. Maybe I should call Felicity and apologize, but that might make things worse. She had said she was terrible at these sorts of things, and so was I. Calling her now wasn’t a good idea. Maybe tomorrow, everything would go back to normal.

Who was I kidding? Things weren’t going to just go back to how they were before. I’d fucked up again. What was wrong with me? First, I’d had a physical relationship with Mallory that had masqueraded as therapy and now I’d kissed Felicity. What a jerk.

My phone buzzed on the coffee table. I grabbed it and checked the screen. It was Mallory.

“Hey, Mallory,” I said, trying to keep my tone light. She had enough problems of her own to deal with and mine paled in comparison.

“Hi, Alec. I got your message.” She sounded the same as she had when she’d left, upset and depressed. I couldn’t even hold on to the hope that in time she’d feel better. Time was something Mallory didn’t have anymore.

“I was wondering how you are,” I said. “And I wanted to say that if you ever need to come back here, the door is always open for you. You know that.”

“Yes, I do. Thanks. I appreciate it.”

There was an awkward pause, something that rarely occurred between Mallory and me. Then she said, “Alec, something’s happened.”

I sat up, wondering how Mallory could get herself into even more trouble than she was already in. It seemed to follow her through life ever since the Bloody Summer Night Massacre. “What is it?” I asked.

There was an even longer pause and then she said quietly, “Mister Scary.”

“What? Have you found him?”

“I found his trail. Is your TV on?”

“No, I was working...” I found the remote trapped between the sofa cushions and pointed it at the TV.

“The news channel,” Mallory said when the TV blared to life, showing a rerun of
Psych
. I found the news channel and stared in shock at the screen.

A blond reporter was talking to the camera while, behind her, ambulances and police vehicles sat in front of a large old house, their lights painting the scene blue and red and illuminating the grounds around the house, which seemed to be enclosed by a large wrought iron fence.

Police officers swarmed over the area, flashlight beams cutting the darkness. Yellow crime scene tape fluttered on the iron fence behind the reporter.

On the bottom of the screen, a caption read
Massacre in Abandoned House.
Scrolling beneath that were the words:
Killer attacks high school party. At least twenty dead. One female survivor.

The reporter was saying, “…much like the Bloody Summer Massacre five years ago, although police won’t confirm this. It is believed that the survivor managed to fend off the attacker and possibly kill him but when police arrived at the scene, he was gone.” She paused and put a finger to her earpiece as she was fed information. “I’m now being told that the survivor is believed to be Leah Carlyle, a fellow student of the people killed here tonight.”

A picture that looked like it had been taken from a high school yearbook appeared on the screen. It showed a dark-haired young woman smiling at the camera. The reporter’s voice said, “Leah Carlyle is already being dubbed a Final Girl by the media, just like Mallory Bronson, the only survivor of the Bloody Summer Night Massacre five years ago. Whether tonight’s atrocity was carried out by the same person, a man who referred to himself only as Mister Scary, remains to be seen.”