Wiccan, A Witchy Young Adult Paranormal Romance (14 page)

“
You are all vicious, vapid,
elitist vipers and I’m sick of hearing your mouth! I wish Jake
would’ve killed every one of you instead of just stopping with
Lisa. You make me sick! Sick, sick, sick!” she wailed vehemently.
As she leaned in closer and closer to Trinity, Trinity edged her
way backward, fear etching every line of her puffy red
face.

Just then, two campus security officers
and one of the campus nurses arrived. As the security officers
separated Trinity and the coffee slinger, the nurse bent to tend to
the two unconscious girls.

In short order, the nurse had Zoe and
Char up and heading to one security vehicle parked outside, while
the two security officers rode with Trinity and her
assailant.

Slowly, activity began to resume inside
Ruger’s. Everyone was talking about what had just happened. They
murmured and whispered. Some even snickered. I assumed they were
ones that had issues with Trinity and her friends, too.

Though I didn’t approve of the kinds of
things that the troublesome trio was saying, I would never condone
such violence against them. The way they acted and the things they
said made me sick, too, but I’d never—

I stopped mid-thought when
something occurred to me. What if I’d
caused
the attack?

I felt the blood rush from my face and,
with it, my equilibrium. The room started to spin and sway and I
felt unsteady on my feet. I reached out to grab the counter and I
leaned heavily on it, closing my eyes until I felt the room slowly
return to rights.

“
Sit down and put your head
between your legs,” someone was saying from beside me.

I opened my eyes a crack to see the
concerned face of one of the baristas as she eyed me from across
the counter. “It’s ok. I’m feeling better. Just got a little
lightheaded, that’s all.” I tried to smile, but I got the feeling
that I failed miserably. The girl’s frown just seemed to
deepen.

“
I would’ve, too, if I
thought I was about to be attacked. You’re lucky she didn’t turn on
you.”

Guilt rose inside me. Yeah, right.
Lucky. I just smiled, pushed myself away from the counter and
slowly made my way from Ruger’s out into the sunshine and fresh air
so I could breathe.

I plopped down on one of the benches
and took several slow, deep breaths. My inordinate anger was just
now tailing off, replaced by mounting guilt over what could
conceivably have been my fault.

As I thought back to what happened, it
seemed that the girl had taken the fury right out of my head, as
well as some of the things she did and said. I was actually
thinking about flinging a cup of hot coffee in Trinity’s face,
imagining how satisfying it would be to see the shocked look on her
face. And I even thought the word “sick”, just like the girl had
said over and over again.

Could my internal musings have somehow
infected that girl? Now that I thought about it, about how happy
she’d seemed only moments before, it seemed as though she’d almost
been poisoned. And the venomous rage inside me had been the
toxin.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I was on my way home from school,
moping about what had happened, when I heard my cell phone ringing
from inside my messenger bag. I fished it out and the display
declared that it was Detective Grayson.

My belly did a little flip despite my
inner turmoil. I schooled my voice to a cool, casual tone when I
answered.

“
Hello?”

“
Mercy?” I must’ve schooled
it so much it didn’t even sound like me.

“
Det- Grayson,” I said with
a smile, catching myself before I finished the word.

“
Hi,” he greeted softly, his
tone completely changing.

Last night’s kisses were all wrapped
up, warm and sweet, in that one word. I could feel it almost as
much as I could hear it. It quivered like a tiny flame flickering
to life in my chest.

“
Hi,” I returned, feeling
like a giddy kindergartner.

“
Were you able to go back to
sleep?”

“
Actually I was. Slept like
a baby.” I left him to unravel the reason why. “I bet you’re tired,
though. How’d it go?”

He sighed, confirming that he was,
indeed, very tired. “Well, you were right. I searched the internet
for local hotels and motels with those letters in the names. Only
three hits. It turned out to be the second one I visited, the
Harbor Hotel.

“
Obviously I couldn’t get a
search warrant on the word of a psychic, but I had the night clerk
call the owner and he was more than happy to let me knock on each
door. She was in room 209.”

“
Then what?”

“
I called the crime in to
dispatch and we’ve been working the scene all day.”

“
We?”

He sighed again. “Yeah. DeCarlo’s
homicide team showed up earlier. I’m still working that out with
the captain.”

“
Who’s DeCarlo?”

“
He’s the homicide team
leader.”

“
You don’t sound too happy
about that.”

“
I’m not. This is
my
case. He thinks just
because this one turned out to be a serial, he can jump in and take
it. But not on my watch,” he growled angrily.

“
Is the captain going to let
you keep working it?” I didn’t want to examine or admit the alarm
that the notion of him being off the case incited in me.

“
I think so.”

“
What’s DeCarlo’s problem
anyway?”

“
Ah, he thinks I’m too young
and that the only reason I got this job is because of who my father
was,” he sneered bitterly.

“
Too young? How old are
you?”

“
Twenty-four.”

“
Why would he say that about
your father? Who was he?”

“
He was a cop, too. He and
Mayor Epps were partners back in the day. My father was killed by a
shot that was meant for Epps. So, as a favor to my father, Epps
made sure DeCarlo couldn’t pull any strings to keep me off the
homicide team when I came up through the ranks. He said as long as
I proved that I could be an asset to the team, he had no problem
with my age.”

I thought about the man that had
“given” my case to Grayson the day I’d gone to the
station.

“
Is DeCarlo the tall one
that was there the day I came to the station? The one that was
holding down the coffee pot with the other two guys?”

“
Yep. That’s the one.” As I
thought about him, I remembered DeCarlo laughing and snickering
with the Disher and the other two. Then pieces started to fall into
place. “He gave my case to you as like a joke or a prank, didn’t
he? He thought you’d end up having to babysit some crackpot,
huh?”

Grayson’s silence was all the
confirmation that I needed.

My insides started to boil and I was
suddenly furious, not only that they’d viewed me in that derogatory
light, like some kind of booby prize, but that they were purposely
mean to Grayson like that.

Before I was even aware I
was thinking about it, I had visions of a
real
crackpot finding her way into
the station. I could just see DeCarlo leaning back with one foot
propped up against the wall, talking to his buddies, nursing a cup
of coffee when she walked in. They’d dismiss her immediately
because of her clothes, which were tattered and worn. She’d walk
right up to him and ask if she could have a word. He’d exchange
insulting glances with his buddies, but he’d do as she
asked.

Then she’d pull out her gun, aim it at
his chest and pull the trigger. I could even see the shocked look
on his face when the force of the bullet pushed him
backward.

Grayson’s voice shook me out of my
imaginings, leaving me with a panicky sort of feeling that I’d let
my thoughts get that far out of hand and not even
notice.

“
DeCarlo doesn’t matter. At
least he’s gone for the moment. Plus, I’m pretty sure the captain
will see this from my perspective. I’ve already established a good
relationship with you and they can’t argue your importance to these
cases. I mean, you were the one who called to tip me off. And as
long as your alibis hold up, there’s nothing they can say.” I could
hear some commotion in the background and he muttered, “Hang
on.”

I listened to the muffled sounds,
unable to make out any words, until Grayson came back on. He
sounded a little harried. “I’ve got to go.”

“
Is something
wrong?”

“
DeCarlo’s just been
shot.”

I literally dropped the phone and fell
to my knees, heaving bile into the thick grass. Some perverse part
of me actually felt satisfaction at the news and that just made me
retch all the more.

When spasms finally stopped squeezing
my stomach, I picked up the phone and stood to my feet. As I
suspected, the line was dead. Grayson had already hung up. I
flipped my phone closed, but it rang the instant I snapped it shut.
It started me and I jumped.

“
Hello?”

“
Are you
alright?”

“
Yeah. I dropped the
phone.”

“
It sounded like you were
puking your guts up.”

How embarrassing! “Well, it’s been a
trying day. Some girls got in a fight right in front of me and a
couple of them really got hurt. I just think I’ve had my daily
quota of violence.” And that was absolutely true.

“
Well, I really do have to
go, but I’ll let you know how things are going. Call me if you
think of anything else or if something happens. Feel better.” Then,
with a click, he hung up. I guess I was just going to have to get
used to his abruptness.

For some reason, right at that moment,
I thought of the smile I’d seen last night and I realized that he
wasn’t always so abrupt. Thoughts like that almost made me want to
smile, like a ray of sunshine trying to peek through cloud cover.
But as I put my phone away, the dark cloud of the day settled over
me once more, drowning out any signs of light.

When I got home I went straight to my
room again and stayed there until Mom got home. She came and
knocked on my door then poked her head in.

“
Are you hiding out,
crankopotamus?” I knew she was trying to be cute, turning the name
I’d called her a hundred times back on me. Normally I probably
would’ve found it amusing, but not today.

“
Not today, Mom,” I said as
pleasantly as I could manage.

Her eyebrows rose and disappeared
beneath her bangs. “Oh. Well I’m sorry. I’ll call you when dinner’s
ready.”

She closed the door and, though she
didn’t say so, I knew she was in a snit. The guilt over treating
her like that when she didn’t deserve it just piled on top of the
shame I’d already amassed for the day. If possible, my mood
actually worsened.

After about fifteen minutes of sulking,
I decided to go and help her with supper. It was the least I could
do and suffering through some common courtesy surely wouldn’t kill
me.

I might’ve argued that later. By the
time we were all through eating, I was itching to get back to my
room. It took a huge amount of effort to be nice and cheerful, to
seem happy, things that I used to do and feel without any effort at
all.

As soon as it was acceptable without
raising eyebrows, I excused myself to my room, citing a headache.
And that wasn’t much of a stretch, as my head had been throbbing
ever since Grayson told me about DeCarlo.

When I got back to my room, I dialed
Grayson’s number. His voicemail switched on so I left a brief
message saying that I was just checking on the status of DeCarlo.
Then I hung up, feeling inordinately disappointed. Not only had I
wanted to check on DeCarlo whose injury I could possibly have been
responsible for, but I also just wanted to talk to Grayson. Even
though it made no sense, for some reason I felt like I needed to
hear his voice.

I didn’t get a return call from him
that night, so even though my sleep was not plagued with gruesome
real-life killings, it still wasn’t really what I’d call good sleep
either. And my mood the next day reflected it.

The gloomy gray sky that hovered over
me on my way to school did nothing to alleviate my sour mood. When
I got to the sidewalk, the last thing I wanted (or expected) to see
was Jake Wheeler.

At first I doubted my eyes. He was
supposed to be in jail. How could I be seeing him on his jogging
route?

I blinked several times, but still the
image of Jake jogging slowly through the dissipating fog remained
clear.

“
Mercy Holloway,” he called
when he got closer to me.

“
H-hey, Jake,” I stammered,
trying to sound natural and botching it big time. I tacked on a
smile to add authenticity, but it felt a little plastic and forced,
too.

He slowed to a walk then came to a
complete stop several feet from me. Though I knew I should’ve been
alarmed, I wasn’t the least bit afraid. I didn’t see a murderer in
front of me. I saw a pathetically shallow playboy that I felt
stupid for having wasted some decent daydreams on.