4 Cupids Curse (15 page)

To say that I didn’t sleep well would indicate that I slept at all, and the truth of the matter was I didn’t sleep that night. I got up, as was my routine, and went into work, but after one look at me, Jeremy sent me home. I’d tried to talk to my mom last night, but she’d feigned fatigue and told me that she was turning in early. She hadn’t come down by the time I left for work, and Zak had reminded me to give her the space she needed.

When I got back to Zak’s
, he was gone. Mom was up and informed me that he had a meeting with Moses to discuss a possible defense for Kevin if we weren’t able to discover the real killer. All I really wanted to do was go upstairs and sleep for a year, but the table I’d so carefully set the previous evening was still covered with dishes; unused, but still best put away. I began gathering the linen napkins I’d so carefully ironed the previous day. I dropped one, and when I bent down to retrieve it, I noticed several sheets of paper on the floor under the table Zak had been using as a desk.

I picked them up and was preparing to place them on top of the computer when I noticed Blythe’s name. I realized that I held the background check Zak
had left running when we’d gone to the store the day we’d found out about Kevin’s arrest. I’d forgotten all about it, and I bet Zak had as well. The computer Zak used for work was located in his office upstairs, and he had a laptop that he kept locked in his truck. I doubted he’d even come back to the computer we’d used on that Sunday afternoon. I looked at the report and tried to decide what I was looking at.

As we’d discovered before
, Blythe had married Tim Ravenwood in 2010. Tim had died of a heart attack in 2011. Prior to that, she had been married to a man by the name of Peter Spalding. They’d married in 2007 and Peter died as a result of an allergic reaction to peanuts in 2008. This much we’d uncovered before the search. Zak had been trying to find out about Blythe Bonham prior to her marriage to Spalding. I scanned the sheet. As odd as it may seem, it appeared Blythe Fox had married William Bonham in November 2004, and he’d died in 2005.

“What are you doing?” Mom asked as she joined me from upstairs.

“Looking over the report Zak ran on Sunday.”

“I’d forgotten all about that.”

“Me too. Look at this. Blythe was married to someone named William Bonham before Peter Spalding.”

“Three marriages? Seems like a lot
, but I suppose not unheard of in this day and age.”

“Make that four,” I continued to read. “Blythe Brenner married Owen Fox in November 2001.”

“I guess Blythe had commitment issues, with that many divorces under her belt.”

I got a terrified sinking feeling in my stomach as the facts before me began to sink in. “All four men died,” I informed her.

“Wow, what are the odds?”

“Astronomical,” I supposed. “Owen Fox
fell off the roof, William Bonham was killed in a single-car accident, Peter Spalding died from an allergic reaction to peanuts, and Tim Ravenwood died from a heart attack. Oh God.”

“What?”

I looked at Mom. “Blythe married all the men in November and all of them died three months later.” I took a deep breath and tried to calm my nerves. “They all died on Valentine’s Day.”

“Hank!”

“I have to warn him.” I ran for my truck keys.

“But your dad isn’t married to Blythe.”

“I know, but all the deaths are exactly three years apart, and the last death was in 2011. Call Zak and tell him what’s going on. Tell him to meet me at Dad’s.”

“Maybe you should just call the sheriff
,” Mom suggested.

“Dad cou
ld be dead before I convinced Salinger we have a real situation. I’m going.” I hugged my mom.

“Be careful,” Mom
said, hugging me back. “Maybe you should take the dogs.”

“No
. Blythe knows I know she doesn’t like the dogs. I’m hoping she won’t suspect I’m onto her until after I manage to neutralize her.”

I’m sure I broke every traffic law on the books as I sped toward my dad’s. I prayed the entire time that I wouldn’t be too late. I slowed down as I got to
Dad’s street so as not to alert her. I got out of the truck and casually made my way up to the front door. I knocked, but no one answered. After what seemed like hours but was probably less than a minute, Blythe came to the door.

“Zoe
, what are you doing here?”

“I just came to talk to my dad.”

Blythe paused as she tried to make up her mind about something. “He’s in the den. You can go on back.”

I walked down the hall with Blythe behind me. The door was closed
, so I opened it. I gasped as I saw my dad lying on the floor, blood dripping from his forehead.

“Don’t worry, he’s alive. For now,” Blythe said
from her position behind me.

I turned
, and for the first time I noticed the gun in her hand.

“What did you do?” I accused.

“I tried to get him to go down into the basement. He resisted, fell, and hit his head. If you don’t want me to shoot both of you, you’ll wake him up and get him to go with you.”

“So you can kill us like you killed the others?” I grabbed some tissue and held it to my dad’s head.

“Found out about that, did you? You certainly are a nosy little thing.”

“Why
Dad? You aren’t even married.”

“Yes
, that is unfortunate. It really is upsetting to me that the pattern has been altered. I was engaged to a man by the name of Vernon Claven. We were to be married in November. I married them all in November, on the eighth. The idiot had to go and get himself killed in a climbing accident last September. It totally messed up my timeline.”

“Why move to Ashton Falls?”

“I ran into a friend of the family who told me about the place.”

“And why my dad?”

“I just happened to run into him. He seemed vulnerable. It seems your mom had recently left, and he was open to moving things along at a brisk pace. I might have gotten him to marry me if it hadn’t been for you. I didn’t plan to kill you as well, but I find I’m looking forward to it quite a lot. Now wake up your dad and get downstairs.”

I didn’t know why Blythe didn’t kill us right then
, but given the fact that she was a raving psychopath, I assumed she had some sort of twisted ritual she needed to perform first. I gently nudged Dad, and thankfully, he opened his eyes.

“Zoe, what are you doing here?”

“Just stopped by to chat,” I said, trying for a light tone. “It seems your demon girlfriend wants us to go down into the basement.”

Dad looked confused. I was pretty sure he was suffering from shock and blood loss. He allowed me to help him up and
I escorted him down the stairs. I could hear Stepwitch lock the door behind us. I reached for my phone but realized it must have fallen out of my pocket as I helped Dad.

“What’s going on?” Dad asked as he faded in and out of consciousness.

“Blythe locked us in the basement.”

“Why
?”

I shrugged. “I guess she’s in a playful mood today.” I figured it wouldn’t do me any good to tell
Dad that his girlfriend planned to kill us. Dad looked confused before he closed his eyes and passed out. I doubted he’d even remember the conversation.

I looked around the room. There was a small window
at the very top of the wall to which my dad had added bars years ago. The room was below the surface of the ground, and soundproof as well. When I was in high school, I was a member of a garage band, and Dad had soundproofed the basement so we’d have a place to practice without disturbing the neighbors. I tried the lights, which didn’t work
.
Psychowitch must have flipped the breaker. I figured we had two hours of light left and then we’d be locked in a totally dark room.

I sat down on top of an old trunk and tried to keep myself from panicking. My dad remained unconscious
, and it occurred to me that you were supposed to keep people with head injuries awake, but if the devil woman upstairs was just going to kill us anyway, why put him through the agony? On the other hand, if we somehow managed to escape, I would have wished I’d kept him awake.

“Dad.” I gently shook his shoulder. “Wake up
, Dad.” I brushed his blood-soaked hair from his head. “Please, I need you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Dad stirred but didn’t open his eyes.

“Please, Dad, I love you.”

“Zoe?”

I helped Dad sit up. “You have a head injury; you need to stay awake.”

“Blythe?”

“Locked us in the basement. She’s planning to kill us.”

“Kill us?”

“She’s killed at least four other men. All on Valentines’ Day. All three years apart. I was coming to rescue you, but I guess that didn’t work out as well as I planned.”

Dad looked confused
, but luckily he didn’t panic. He had started to shiver, so I began sorting through trunks, looking for blankets or old clothes to wrap him in. I’d forgotten all this stuff was down here. I found a trunk with blankets, propped my dad up against a wall, and made him as comfortable as possible.

“Your mom gave me this blanket.” Dad smiled weakly. “It was shortly after we met. Before we found out about you. She told me it was to keep me warm when she couldn’t be there.
I slept with this blanket every night for the longest time. Even after she left. It made me feel close to her. ”

I bit my lip to keep from crying. “I’m sorry about last night. I handled it poorly.”

Dad patted the ground next to him. I sat down and rested my head on his shoulder.

“I’m the one who
’s sorry. I don’t know why I reacted the way I did. I was in shock, I guess. Never in a million years did I expect your mom to be there, and I certainly had no idea about the pregnancy. There was just that one time.”

“Apparently
, just one time is all it takes,” I teased.

“A baby
,” Dad whispered.

“A girl. Harper. My idea,” I informed him. “I combined the
Har
from Harold and the
Per
from Perletta. I thought it would be nice for her to have something from each of her parents.”

Tears began
to stream down Dad’s face.

“We can change it if you don’t like it.”

“I love it.” He squeezed my hand.

“Don’t worry
; we’ll get out of here,” I assured him. “Mom called Zak. The guy is a genius. He’ll figure something out. He always does.”

“You love him.”

“I do.”

“Any wedding bells in the future?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. But not now. The only thing I want to do right now is get out of here so I can be alive to meet my baby sister.”

I looked around the basement. I hadn’t been down here in ages. When
I was a child, I played in the basement using the old furniture and boxes of mementos as props for a fantasyland in which only I existed. I had a lot of friends, but there has always been a part of me that likes to spend time alone with no one for company except my imagination.

“Remember when I was ten
and we had that big fight about whether or not I could go to that party Jillian Prescott was having?” I knew it was important to keep Dad talking so he didn’t drift off again.

“Jillian was thirteen. You had no business going to a middle
-school party.”

“I know that now
, but at the time all I knew was that I had been invited to the biggest party of the year and there was no way I was going to miss it. I was so mad when you said I couldn’t go. I came down here and hid.”

Dad smiled. “I looked everywhere for you. I thought you had run away. I even called the
sheriff.”

“I know. I was so scared. It
was like my tantrum got away from me. At first I was happy that you were worried about me. I figured it would teach you to think twice before saying no to me. And then I saw the sheriff pull up out front and I got so scared. I thought he was going to arrest me.”

“I’m pretty sure your little stunt drained a good five years off my life.”

I hugged Dad’s arm. “When I finally worked up the courage to come upstairs, you were so happy to see me that you weren’t even mad. At first,” I qualified. “I do seem to remember a month-long grounding once your relief wore off.”

“There
’s nothing worse as a parent than to have a missing child. For all I knew, you were injured or kidnapped.”

Dad began to shiver
again, so I got up to look for additional blankets while we continued to chat.

“And then there was that time you helped me build that princess castle in my bedroom. You built a frame
, and Grandma made a drape to put over it. I slept on the floor in that castle for at least a year.”