Be Careful What You Witch For (A Family Fortune Mystery) (24 page)

41

If
I blacked out, and that is debatable, it didn’t last long. The next thing I knew, Bea had her hands tied and Morgan pushed her along the balustrade toward me. Seth walked carefully just in front of them. He came toward me with a look of concern and gratitude.

“Clyde, are you okay?” he said.

I nodded and grabbed his hand.

“Are
you
all right?” I asked.

He nodded.

Morgan waited and seemed to be on our side, so I inched my way back toward where I thought I had left the ladder. I kept a tight grip on Seth. Before I knew it, and much faster than it had taken me to get up there, I found myself back down on the stone floor of the bell tower. Seth quickly followed. Then Bea made her way carefully down the ladder, her hands still tied in front of her. Morgan waited until we had a good grip on Bea, and then began climbing. High-heeled black boots stepped on the rungs while the dark fabric billowed in the wind. Once on the ground, she pulled the hood off and there she was, in all her menacing makeup and leather.

All the air that I had finally been able to pull into my lungs after my experience outside rushed out of me and I felt light-headed again.

I instinctively pulled Seth behind me and took a step away from her. She saw this and her red lips curled into her now familiar smirk.

“I’m here to help you, not hurt you,” she said.

Bea took a step away from Morgan. Morgan grabbed her by the upper arm and pulled her close.

“Untie me this instant!” Bea glared at Morgan and held out her hands.

Morgan turned her look of disdain onto Bea.

“I don’t think so, Mrs. Paxton,” she said. “You’ve been very busy and I just witnessed you trying to kill these people.”

Bea shook her head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. They dragged me up here and threatened me.”

“You pulled a gun on me!” Seth said.

“Gun? I don’t see a gun,” Bea said. “It’s your word against mine. I’m a respected member of this congregation and when I found vandals climbing around inside the bell tower, I did what I had to do to protect the church.”

Morgan crossed her arms and tapped her foot. “This is ridiculous. Let’s just get you to the police station and you can lie to them. I’m done here.” She tightened her grip on Bea and pulled her toward the staircase.

“You can’t take me anywhere,” Bea said. “That’s kidnapping or something. I refuse to go with you. These people are my witnesses.”

Seth and I stepped back. I didn’t trust either one of them. I had a thousand questions for Seth whizzing through my brain but this was not the time.

“I’m going to call the police and they can take you in,” I said. I glanced at Morgan and she nodded once to agree.

My cell phone had no bars. I showed Seth. He shrugged and gestured at Bea.

“She’s got my phone,” he said.

“How did she get your phone?” I turned to him.

“She asked to borrow it and then kept it,” he said. “She had a gun.”

“We can play story time later,” Morgan said. “We’ll use the phone downstairs in the office. The storm must have knocked out a cell tower.”

We trooped slowly down the stairs, Morgan pushing Bea in front, with Seth and me taking up the rear. Now that Seth was safe and we were off the roof, I felt outraged at what Bea had done and it was lucky for Bea that Morgan stood between us. And that we were on a twisty staircase.

When we arrived downstairs, Bea refused to tell us how to unlock the office, so Morgan pulled out a credit card and slid it along the side of the doorframe. I let her make the call. Even though I knew Mac wouldn’t actually answer the phone, I was still nervous about his reaction to Seth and me confronting a lunatic
again.

The storm had slowed, but my mind raced with unanswered questions.

*   *   *

Just as she
hung up the phone, we heard pounding on the door outside.

Morgan’s eyes grew wide. “That’s a quick response,” she said.

“Seth! Clyde!” It was Mac and he sounded frantic.

I rushed to the door to let him in.

A wet gust of wind blew Mac, Skye, and Faith into the vestibule. Tom Andrews followed after tripping over the doorstep.

Mac rushed to me and crushed me in a hug. “You’re okay,” he said.

Seth was enduring his own hugs from Skye and Faith.

Tom ducked his head and took out his handcuffs. He handed them to Morgan, who rolled her eyes and clicked them onto Bea’s wrists.

A furor of sound exploded in the small entryway as everyone asked questions at once.

Mac put his fingers to his mouth and blew a shrill whistle.

“Everyone quiet!” he shouted. “We’re all going back to the station and sort this out.” He nodded at Tom, who took Bea’s arm and led her out into the storm.

“Are you okay to drive?” he asked me.

I nodded and put my arm around Seth. He’d been inching in the direction of the girls. Probably thinking he could catch a ride with them and avoid being in a closed vehicle with a livid aunt. I understood how he felt but that didn’t sway me.

“I’ll take the girls and meet you there,” Morgan said.

Seth hung his head and walked in front of me out to the Jeep.

42

As soon as we slammed the doors of the Jeep I handed Seth my phone.

“Call your mother and tell her you’re safe,” I said.

My hands shook as I put the key in the ignition. An adrenaline dump from the heights panic and the following drama had left me feeling shaky and wired.

“There still aren’t any bars,” Seth said.

I turned to him without starting the engine.

“Seth, what happened? How did you get up there with Bea Paxton?”

He hung his head and didn’t look at me.

“It’s a long story,” he said.

I sat back in my seat and crossed my arms. “I’ve got time.”

“Mac said we should go straight to the station,” he said.

I narrowed my eyes even though he wasn’t looking at me.

“Okay. Mrs. Paxton came to the house and told me that Faith and Skye were at the mall. She said she’d drop me off there on her way to the church.”

“Had you heard from Skye or Faith?”

He nodded. “I’d gotten a text just a few minutes before she showed up, but now I know that she’d taken Faith’s phone. She made me write a note—did you get it?”

“Yeah, that’s when I got suspicious,” I said.

He clenched his fists on his knees. “Anyway, she claimed her phone battery was dead and asked to see mine. Then she took it! She started lecturing me about Faith and how we were too young to be dating. Which we are absolutely not. Dating, I mean.” Seth glanced at me from beneath his bangs. “We drove around for a while looking for Faith. Mrs. Paxton was furious that she couldn’t find her. And before I knew it we were here.”

“How did she get you into the church?”

“She started saying crazy things about how Faith talks too much and now we’re both in trouble and she pulled out a gun. I didn’t know what to do so I went into the church with her.” Seth had started shivering and I reached out to put an arm around him.

I turned on the engine and cranked up the heat.

“What did she mean, about Faith?”

Seth sighed. “Faith found a bottle of cold-pressed peanut oil in the back of the pantry. She’s allergic to peanuts, just like Rafe was. She convinced herself that her mother was going to kill her because she was getting bad grades this term.”

“What?”

Seth nodded. “I know, it’s nuts. But that house is sketchy. Mrs. Paxton is always quoting the Bible and telling Faith that she better not turn out like Skye. The dad gets mad if he sees her even looking at a boy and won’t let her go to any school dances or games.”

I had to bring this story back around. “So, Mrs. Paxton thought you knew what the oil meant?”

Seth shrugged. “I guess. I told Faith in a text that it was probably cold-pressed oil that killed Rafe and then Faith went off on how her mother is probably a murderer. It was all on her phone. Mrs. Paxton told me she checks Faith’s phone whenever she can and she found all those messages.”

I had heard enough to piece the rest together. I put the Jeep in gear and pulled out onto the highway to head to Crystal Haven.

When we were a couple of miles outside of the city limits, my phone started buzzing and vibrating on the dash. Seth said there were forty unread texts, most from Vi, but a few from Grace.

Seth called Grace. The rain had settled into a steady mist and I listened to Seth reassuring his mother over the sound of the beating windshield wipers.

He checked the texts on my phone, which were more and more frantic pleas for information about Seth’s and my safety.

We pulled up in front of the police station and my chest squeezed at the sight of the orange smart car parked outside. I went around to the lot and parked. Seth and I both took a moment to steel ourselves.

I had never seen the police station so packed. It seemed the whole town was there.

Vi rushed over to us before we even got in the door and inspected Seth for injury. Mom burst into tears and hugged us both. Dad stood awkwardly to the side, waiting for her to release us. Diana, Dylan, and Alex were there, lobbing questions in our direction.

Mac appeared with a bullhorn. He set off the alarm button and the noise stopped all conversation. Once he had everyone’s attention, he directed Seth and me toward the interview rooms and the rest he sent away, grumbling and protesting.

It took a couple of hours to sort out exactly what had happened. Faith had discovered her phone was missing and panicked at the thought that her mother had read all the messages she sent to Seth. The landline wasn’t working, no one was home in her immediate neighborhood, and by the time she found someone who would let her use their phone, Skye was at the police station.

The girls and Mac quickly figured out what must have happened and tried to reach Seth and then me. Grace got nervous when she couldn’t reach me and called my family, who called Tom, and the address to the church was passed along.

“But how did Morgan end up there?” I asked Mac.

“She claims she saw you at the mall and you looked frantic. She planned to follow you and then she got a text from Skye telling her that Bea was missing and might be dangerous. She followed you to the church and up into the tower.”

Mac had confiscated both phones from Bea and the story Seth had told was all true. He’d checked all the texts from Faith.

“Velma and Shaggy had it all figured out,” Mac said.

“How did you get into my phone?” Seth asked. “I have a password!”

Mac smiled. “0731?”

Seth’s mouth dropped open. “Yeah.”

“How did you know that?” I asked. I never would have guessed a random set of numbers.

“It’s Harry Potter’s birthday,” Mac said. “We’ll have to keep this for a couple of days.” He slipped the phone into an envelope.

“A couple
days
?” Seth looked panicked for the first time since entering the station. “Aw, man.”

43

I knew there would be no chance for peace when I turned the corner and saw the row of cars outside my house. Seth and I exchanged a grimace, got out of the Jeep, and walked slowly up the steps.

Vi pulled open the door the moment our feet hit the porch.

“What took you so long? We’ve been waiting for hours.”

The smell of something delicious hit me the moment we crossed the threshold and I realized Mom had been working off her stress in her usual way. She and Alex were in the kitchen, jostling for space as she pulled cookies out of the oven and he stirred chicken soup on the stove.

When we were all seated around the table, the questions began. Seth and I did our best to keep up with them, but I felt a bit like a celebrity in the midst of a scandal. Only flashing cameras were missing.

As best as we could, we told the story of Bea and her plan to rescue Skye from the Wiccans. She and her husband thought that if Rafe was out of the picture, Skye would return to them. Bea was well versed in peanut allergy and what to avoid so she made a plan to purposely expose Rafe to peanuts and disable his medication. The setting of the ceremony was perfect. It was dark, everyone was free to walk around, and no one noticed Bea rummaging among the robes.

Morgan
had
been there that night to continue an argument she’d had with Rafe earlier in the day. She had figured out that Rafe was adopted from talking to Skye and by doing her own investigating. She wanted him to give her the house and land in Traverse City so that she could start her own coven with Bronwyn and Ember. She knew that she could sue him and fight the will. But she wanted to resolve the issue without revealing him to his own coven.

After speaking with Skye, Mac assumed that Rafe was trying to research his biological family tree to see if he would still have claim to a legacy of witchcraft if Morgan did decide to expose him.

Faith and Seth got caught in the middle.

“What about Lucan?” Diana asked. “Why would Bea try to hurt him?”

Vi and I exchanged a glance. “We saw Bea spying on Skye. Lucan met Skye out at Message Circle and the encounter was . . . suspicious. Bea thought that Skye had moved on to another Wiccan in the coven and decided to get rid of him as well.”

“But he . . . he’s not involved with Skye. Is he?” she looked at Seth.

He shook his head. “No, she met with Lucan to plan the memorial service. She told me she might get back together with Owen. Apparently, drunken spectacles go over big with some people.” Seth’s expression summed up his low opinion of Owen.

Tom and Dylan had been silent.

“You said Rafe had cast a spell on the Wards?” Tom asked.

I nodded. “That’s what Morgan told me. Rafe believed he’d killed them.” I glanced at Dylan, who had become very still. “He felt guilty about it, but apparently, it also made him even more certain that he had special powers.”

I decided to talk to Dylan later about Rafe’s recent discovery about his birth mother. I wasn’t quite ready to discuss Neila in front of my mom.

Mom sat very close to Seth and plied him with cookies while he assured her he was fine. “Seth, we were so worried when you went missing.” She leaned around him to look at me. “Clyde, I’m surprised you had to use a computer to find him. You used to be so good at finding lost items.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “That’s more of a parlor trick, Mom. I didn’t have time to mess around with psychic location services.”

Mom harrumphed and muttered to herself about wasted talents. I caught Vi watching me with a calculating gleam in her eye.