Halfway Hexed (5 page)

“Okay, go help her.”

“It’s not that simple. I need to stay with her. You’ll have to mail the locket.”

“Mail the locket! To where? What if it gets lost?” Edie’s soul had been attached to an antique family heirloom since she’d died, and the locket had to stay in the possession of someone in the family for her to come out of it safely.

“It’s either mail the locket or take it to London yourself.”

London
, I thought with a thrill. Wouldn’t I love to go there? Absolutely. Too bad I had to face the Conclave with Bryn.

“I can’t go right now.”

“Then you’ll have to send it. You’ll have to bind the locket with a spell. I won’t come out until it’s lifted. When you mail it, you’ll need to insure it, of course. Take every precaution.”

“I will, but why didn’t Aunt Mel call me? I want to talk to her.”

“Everything shorts out. She’s not staying in a place that’s magically grounded, so doing the power spells leaves phone and computer services out of order a great deal of the time.”

“Oh, right. Well, where do I mail it to?”

“It’ll be in her letter. She’s sending you several packages. I told her about your powers. She’s very excited. Her letters will arrive separately to protect us from discovery, in case the packages should be opened before they get to you.”

“The brooch? My gosh, I almost forgot. Who’s the girl in the vision attached to the brooch? Am I supposed to help her?”

Edie cocked her head. “I don’t know about a brooch, but then my conversation with Melanie was really focused on other things.”

“Could you ask her to call and let me know? Or to write I guess. In the meantime, it can’t hurt for me to try to see a little more of the premonition attached to the brooch. What’s the best spell for divination?”

“I never did that type of spell. Lenore saw more than enough for both of us. I know flame-gazing is supposed to work well for some witches.”

“And you’re sure you don’t remember anything about why the Lyons family is on the List of Nine?”

“I’ve told you a dozen times, I can’t remember. Lenore had hundreds of premonitions. The only ones I paid attention to were the ones that had to do with me.”

I pulled my right ankle loose of the tape and shook it triumphantly. “Free!” I whispered fiercely.

“Yes, rather nicely done, but there is still the small matter of you being trapped in a trunk.”

“Not really,” I said, lifting the glow-in-the-dark piece of plastic that showed a person leaping from a trunk. “There’s a getunkidnapped cord.”

“My stars. The gangsters must be so annoyed with the car manufacturers.”

I pulled the tab and the trunk released, afternoon light pouring in. I laughed. “At the next stop sign, we’re out of here. DeeDAW be damned.”

“Who?”

The car slowed and out I hopped. I kept my body low, pleased that they were chatting and hadn’t even noticed the trunk open. I darted into some bushes. Chuckling and giddy, I watched them drive away.

Edie appeared for a moment. “I’m fading, biscuit, so I’ll have to see you later.” She pressed a phantom kiss to my cheek. “Don’t forget to get tons of insurance when you mail the locket! I don’t want to end up somewhere besides London. Like Hell. Or Liverpool.”

Chapter 5

It took me almost an hour to walk back to the bakery. As I’d suspected, DeeDAW hadn’t locked the front door. Very inconsiderate kidnappers! Luckily, everything seemed to be in order. I quickly cleaned up the mess I’d created while working. I needed to head back to Bryn’s to fill him in and do some more Conclave prep work.

The front door chime made me stiffen. If the felonious prayer group was back, they were going to be sorry. This time, by Hershey, there would be bloody noses. I cracked my knuckles and straightened my spine before I walked to the front.

The stranger stood just inside the door. His hooked nose and the jagged scar along his right cheek made him seem sinister, but looks, of course, are one thing we don’t have control over, so I wasn’t going to jump to any conclusions about his personality.

He looked to be in his midforties. His dark brown hair was clipped short, his tailored black trousers and charcoal overcoat proclaiming him wealthy and powerful in the human kind of way.

“Hello,” I said with a smile. “Welcome to Duvall, Texas. And to Cookie’s Bakery. What can I get for you?”

He pointed behind me. I couldn’t imagine what he saw in the back room that he wanted. I’d cleared the table except for the sculpture. I turned to be sure that there wasn’t a stack of brownies or something that I’d forgotten.

It was only a pinprick at first. Then pain blossomed into a stabbing sensation. I jerked my head to look at my backside. A stainless steel dart was sticking out of the seat of my pants.

“But? What?” I mumbled as wooziness washed over me.

I looked at him through my lashes. He wasn’t watching me. He was locking the front door and putting the Closed sign in place.

Considerish—considerate Tammy-napper
, I thought blearily as I crumpled to the floor.

There was a rushing sound in my ears, and my head felt three times its normal size when I woke. The head congestion might have had something to do with the tranquilizer dart the stranger shot me with or it might have had something to do with the fact that I was hanging upside down.

Are you freaking kidding me!

I raised my head to look up at my bound ankles. They were shackled together, the chain between the cuffs looped over a thick metal hook stabbed into the ceiling. “I am not a side of beef!” I muttered to myself.

Where was the guy? Was he from WAM? But no, pretty sure if he was, he would’ve introduced himself before he shot me. The WAM guys I’d met were all about following rules and protocols—right up until the time they tried to kill you.

My head pounded and my stomach muscles bunched as I continued to hold myself in a half-crunched position in order to look around. It was a cellar workroom. A nearby bench had tools scattered on it. All of a sudden, I thought of those serial killers who built lairs to keep their victims captive in, and my heart hammered a major protest.

The walls and floor were solid concrete. If I screamed would anyone even hear me? I pictured a nice family of four living upstairs, not even knowing the psycho dad had yours truly hanging from a hook downstairs.

Nope. No possible way am I staying here!

I looked at my cuffed wrists and frowned. I could still feel the sticky duct tape residue from earlier. Too bad I couldn’t gnaw through metal.

I tipped my chin forward, looking up the line of my body. Yep, more circus performer acrobatics were going to be necessary. But if Scarface thought I wasn’t up to it, he was sadly mistaken. Or at least that’s what I told myself to get in a positive frame of mind.

I bent my elbows and brought my forearms against my chest. If I’d been my ex-husband, Zach, I’d already have been standing. Zach could do like two hundred hanging-upside-down sit-ups. That’s why Zach was in a training program for human champion superathletes. Me, on the other hand, I had maybe one or two dangling-from-a-hook sit-ups in me—at most.

Get ready. Get set. Go!

I jerked upward at the waist, getting to ninety degrees.

Gravity pushed down on me like twenty tons. I fought hard, thrusting my hands out to grab my pant legs. I held on tight, panting with exertion, bending my chest toward my knees. The muscles in the backs of my legs screamed a protest. About not being flexible, Edie had a little bit of a point.

I bent my knees and clenched all my muscles. Almost there! With grasping pulls I walked my hands up. God bless American denim for being stronger than gravity. My fingers got to the hook.
Ha!

I gripped it with sweaty hands and pushed my feet up. With some jerking, bending, and arching, the chain popped over the hook’s curve, leaving only my slippery hands holding the entire weight of my body—which didn’t work out all that well.

I crash-landed on the floor with a thud and a weary groan. Being an action hero . . . I can’t say I really understand the appeal.

I stretched out my aching muscles and let my breathing return to normal for a few seconds. Then I heard quick footsteps on stairs.

Damn it! I am not going back on that hook!

I scrambled up, my eyes darting around the room. No keys to free myself, but standing in front of a fireplace, there was a set of pokers.

I tried to run to them, but my stride-length was only a few inches with the shackles on, so I tripped and landed with another bitter thud. Adrenaline poured through my veins.

Hurry up!

I pressed up and crawled, swinging both my legs forward as one.

He’s almost here!

I grabbed a poker. There wasn’t time to get behind the door. I moved quickly from the fireplace and lay down on my belly, concealing the poker under me. The door banged open.

I ordered my muscles to relax, playing possum. I was under the hook so I hoped it would look like I’d knocked myself out during the fall.

Okay, you jerk. Come roll me over. I dare you.

I tried to keep my breathing slow and steady.

I felt his hands. One on my left shoulder, the other on my left hip.

That’s it. And over we go.

Crack!

I’d given the swing my all, and his look of shock wasn’t even complete before he crumpled into a heap. “Mark McGwire, eat your heart out,” I mumbled. I shoved Scarface off and got on my knees. I dug through his pockets.

There’s a God, and contrary to what DeeDAW has to say, He loves me,
I thought as I held the keys aloft and dropped onto my sore butt. I unhooked my ankles, but froze momentarily when Scarface moved. I lurched forward and grabbed his hair. I lifted his head and then banged it on the floor. I winced. “If you’re not a serial killer, I’m sure sorry about that. But you did start this.”

Getting the key in the lock of the cuffs seemed to take forever. Isn’t that just the way when you need to hurry and escape?! I finally managed it, eyeing Scarface.

He stirred.

“Stay unconscious, darn you!” I snapped, worrying that if I ran outside, he might chase and catch me. I wasn’t going to be
that girl
. The one in the scary movies who only gets away for a couple minutes. I glanced at the cuffs, my eyes narrowing.

Now you’re talking.

I grabbed him and hauled him onto his stomach. I closed the shackles around his ankles and pulled them toward his butt. I fed the handcuffs’ chain underneath the chain that connected the leg shackles, so the two chains made a cross. Then, with some effort, I dragged his hands down and cuffed them one-by-one. He was on his belly with no way to get his hands more than a few inches from his feet.

Sweat dripped from my temples and my muscles ached, but I was pleased with myself. Now, I’d just call the police. Actually, since he hadn’t serial killed me, this was still only a kidnapping, which fell under the FBI’s jurisdiction. But I didn’t know their phone number. Whatever it was, it was nowhere near as famous as “nine-one-one.”

I jogged upstairs. The house was a butcher’s dream. Cowhide border paper, and deer and elk heads protruded from the walls. Would I have been his first human trophy? I shuddered.

“Where the Sam Houston do kidnappers hide their phones?” I searched for about five minutes, but when I finally found one tucked under a stack of magazines, it turned out not to have a dial tone.

“Darn you, Scarface!” I snapped, stamping my foot, but then I calmed myself. He wasn’t going anywhere. Sooner or later, I’d find a phone. Or a sheriff ’s deputy.

I marched out of the house, keeping a close eye in case he had any accomplices. I didn’t see anyone. Behind the house, I found a black pickup truck with no license plates. Nothing says criminal quite like a lack of license plates. Well, except for hanging unsuspecting pastry chefs from hooks.

There were keys in the ignition.

“Now we’re talking.”

I hopped in the driver’s seat and started it up. As I drove away, I was careful to take note of the address and the road signs I passed. Had to be sure that I could give the police good directions.