Wiccan, A Witchy Young Adult Paranormal Romance (8 page)

I gasped. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” I hadn’t
known the details, but I’d figured it was something like that.
“This must be horrible for you.”

He nodded again, his eyes once more
finding their way to the bright tape down the way. “We were getting
ready to break up. But I don’t know if that makes it better or
worse.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. His
comment spawned several questions, but I doubted now was the right
time to ask them so I said nothing.

He continued to stare at the tape,
fixated on it like I’d been a few minutes before. I wasn’t sure
whether I should try to talk to him or just walk away or what I
should do. I thought it would be nice if he would just offer to
walk me to school so we could leave the yellow tape
behind.

Just then, Jake’s attention switched
back to me and, much to my surprise, he did exactly that. “Why
don’t I walk you to school? This can’t be a particularly pleasant
trip for you either.”

Without waiting for my consent, Jake
took my elbow and steered me onto the grass, toward the quad. I was
silent for the first little bit, marveling over the amazing
coincidence of his offer. Then his words shook me from my
musings.

“
Are you scared? To walk by
yourself, I mean, after what happened?”

I shrugged again. “I guess not. Now
don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t walk this way in the dark, but
during the day…”

Jake looked down at me again, the
crease of a frown marring his sweaty forehead. “You’re a brave
girl, Mercy Holloway.”

A chill skittered down my back, making
me shiver. Something about the way he’d said that gave me the
heebie jeebies. But then he grinned and it was gone.

The rest of the trip to school was
consumed by Jake’s litany of questions. He asked about my classes
and how I liked them so far. He asked what I thought of college and
if I’d been to any parties yet. He asked if any of my friends had
stayed behind to come to University East and where the rest had
gone. He asked if my parents were glad that I stayed close and if
I’d found a boyfriend yet. Thank God that by the time he got into
that, we’d arrived at Fisk Hall.

“
This is me,” I said
stopping in front of the big double doors. “Thanks for walking me
to school, making sure that no homicidal maniacs could drag me off
into the woods to have their way with me.” I smiled, but when I saw
the look on his face, I was immediately contrite. “Oh, crap! I’m
sorry. That was a stupid thing to say. I was just- I don’t know
what I was thinking.”

Jake’s expression softened and he said,
“It’s alright. Don’t worry about it.” He took several steps
backward, still facing me. “Adios, Mercy Holloway.”

“
Au Revoir, Jake
Wheeler.”

The grin he gave me could’ve stopped
time. But it didn’t. He turned and jogged down the steps, hit the
grass and disappeared across the quad.

I made my way to my classroom, lost in
thoughts of Jake Wheeler this time. I stopped in front of the seat
I’d sat in last week, but all I could see was Lisa sitting in front
of me so I moved all the way through the auditorium style aisle and
picked a seat on the other side of the room.

I was early, as usual, so I watched the
students as they drifted in, picking up bits and pieces of
conversations all around me. One in particular grabbed my attention
right off the bat. It was between the three girls I’d heard on
Wednesday, the ones talking about Lisa. And they were still talking
about Lisa.

“
I didn’t know they were
about to break up. I don’t think anybody did,” one girl
said.

“
I did. Lisa told me
everything.”

“
Then spill, Trinity. What
was the deal?”

“
Well, Lisa never would say
who, but she was seeing someone else,” Trinity said, lowering her
voice.

“
I thought you said she’d
never cheat on Jake.”

“
I wasn’t going to
tell
you.
Lisa
told me that in confidence.”

“
But she wouldn’t tell you
who?”

“
Uh-uh. She took that secret
to the grave.”

“
Trinity! That’s a terrible
thing to say,” one girl said.

“
But it’s true. Makes you
wonder if Jake or the other guy found out and…well, you
know.”

The two girls gasped in unison and
looked at one another then back to Trinity.

“
You don’t really think
that—”

“
Hey, I’m not saying that
either one of them killed her. I just think it’s a pretty big
coincidence that Lisa got killed when all this was going
down.”

Just then the teacher came in and the
girls sat down, continuing to whisper quietly to one another. So
quietly I couldn’t hear, in fact, and believe me, I tried. Their
conversation had given me much food for thought, though.

As Dr. Bradbury droned on
through class, my thoughts wandered to Detective Grayson and
whether or not he had learned the information that I’d just heard.
Obviously Jake didn’t kill her, but what about this other person?
Could it have been that Lisa was leaving Jake for that woman and
she killed her? Or maybe she’d decided
not
to leave Jake and the woman
killed her in a fit of jealous rage?

I was itching to call Grayson, in part
because telling what could be a vital piece of information was the
right thing to do, but also to see if he’d tell me anything else
he’d discovered. By the time I walked through the door to my house,
I was already punching his number into my phone.

“
Grayson,” he
answered.

“
Detective Grayson, this is
Mercy Holloway.”

“
Ms. Holloway,” he said. I
could just see him leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms
over his chest. “What can I do for you today?”

“
You told me to call you if
I thought of anything else, right?”

“
Yes.”

“
Well, you might already
know this, but I overheard a conversation in class today. Did you
know that Lisa was seeing someone other than Jake
Wheeler?”

I heard the squeaking of his chair and
smiled; he probably really was leaning back in it, just like I’d
pictured.

“
No, I didn’t. Who was she
seeing?”

“
I don’t know. Neither do
her friends apparently. But I was wondering if maybe it was a
woman. You know, the woman that I saw kill her.”

“
We don’t know for sure that
it was a woman that killed Lisa Bauer.”

“
But I saw—”

“
The red hairs that were
found weren’t real. They were synthetic. Her killer was wearing a
wig.”

I’d thought it wouldn’t be long until
the authorities found and apprehended Lisa’s killer. I mean, how
many people could there have been with long red hair that she was
involved with? But a wig? That changed everything. It could be
anybody. Literally.

Then I remembered something the girls
had said last week. “Lisa might’ve been at a costume party. Maybe
it was part of a costume, the wig I mean.”

“
Very good, Ms. Holloway.
But do you happen to know what kind of costume party it
was?”

“
No, but I could probably
find out.”

“
No need. It was a Marvel
Masquerade. Everyone was dressed up as a Marvel Comics character.
Lisa was dressed as Tony Stark.”

“
Then what character would
have long red hair? I don’t know much about—”

“
There are three. Medusa,
Jackpot and Black Widow. Unless you count minor characters like
Mary Jane Watson.”

Obviously, they’d made much more
headway with this case than I had. I was beginning to think cops
got a bad rap on television. These guys were really on top of
things.

“
So who attended the party
dressed as one of those characters?”

Grayson was so quiet all I could hear
was the buzz of the open connection. When he finally spoke, his
tone was cool. “We’re looking into that, Ms. Holloway.”

I’d overstepped my bounds. Dad was
right, he was playing things close to the chest and I’d asked too
much.

“
Oh, sorry. I know you
probably can’t talk about stuff like that with me. I was just- I
thought I’d—”

“
I know you were just trying
to help. And I appreciate it. I’ll look into Lisa’s other partner,
see what I can find. Thank you for passing this along to
me.”

“
You’re welcome. Anything I
can do to help.”

“
Keep it up,” he said. His
tone was so condescending, I wanted to reach through the phone and
slap him. Instead, I cut the conversation short before I
did
end up getting
mad.

“
Alright then. Bye.” I hung
up without waiting for a response.

I sat down on one of the barstools at
the island in the kitchen to think. If I could somehow find out who
went to that party and what character they dressed as, I could, in
theory, narrow down the list of suspects to maybe just a few. Then
I’d surely be able to tell who Lisa’s killer was. After all, I’d
seen him or her…sort of. There was probably a fair chance that I’d
be able to identify the person based on body language or some
little thing that wasn’t registering with my conscious mind, but
that my subconscious mind had picked up on.

The ringing of my cell phone startled
me. I looked at the screen and it said
Belize. I don’t know why I had my best friend listed by her full
name; everyone she’d ever known had called her Billie since we were
kids.

“
Billie!” I answered
excitedly. I hadn’t realized until just that moment how much I
missed her.

“
Mercy!” She mimicked. “Why
are you so happy on a Monday?”

“
I’m not. I’m just glad you
called.” I hadn’t talked to her since she left for school almost a
month ago. “Sooo, how’s it going up there?”

“
Eh, it’s still school, but
let me tell you, there are some smokin’ hot guys in my western civ
class. Whew!”

“
Western civ?”

“
Western Civilization,” she
supplied.

“
Oh.” I’m sure she wanted to
say
Duh!
“Wonder
why?”

“
I don’t know. I guess
‘cause it’s required. Don’t know, don’t care. I just appreciate
whoever’s doing the scheduling.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at her. She’d
been more anxious to get a new group of guys to choose from than
any other aspect of college life. She’d dated the same guy since
her sophomore year and she swears that it nearly ruined her life
and tainted all other Arville men for her. Obviously, she has a
tendency toward the dramatic.

We talked for a nanosecond about our
classes and then explored at great length Billie’s most promising
suitor prospects. As excited as she was, it surprised me when she
told me she was coming home this weekend.

“
Not that I’m complaining,
but
why?”

“
Trust me, it’s not because
I want to. Now, don’t get me wrong. I miss the heck outta you, but
the rest,” she paused, making a pshh sound. “I could do without. If
I didn’t have to pick up all the stuff Mom bought for my dorm room,
I’d just get you to come up here instead.”

“
Next time, I’ll come to
you. How’s that sound?”

“
Like a plan, Mercury.” That
was Billie’s affectionate nickname for me. She didn’t use it all
the time, but when she did, it was definitely a term of endearment.
“So,” she said. “Tell me everything.”

I filled her in on all that had
happened, minus the tiny part about my vision. She was duly
impressed with that amount of action in our small town.

“
Alright, so you find us a
party to go to this weekend and we’ll do some investigating while
we get our freak on.” At the same time, Billie launched into her
best Missie Elliott impression while I chimed in with the music. We
both laughed. “Sound good?”

I wasn’t much of a partier,
but this was a special occasion. I really missed Billie. Plus, I
could kill two birds with one stone, maybe identify Lisa’s killer.
That was sure to make me feel
a little
bit
better about handling the whole
situation as badly as I had.

“
I’ll pencil you
in.”

“
Pencil me in, huh? I
will
stab
you…with
your own pencil. I’m a girl on the edge, Mercury. College changes a
person. Don’t push me, woman.
Just don’t
do it! Please—”

I interrupted her theatrics, though not
with a straight face. “Alright, alright, Daytime Emmy. You got a
date.”

“
Super!” she squeaked
happily then, in Billie’s truly abrupt fashion, “I’m out. See you
Friday.” And the line went dead.

I shook my head in exasperation, but I
was still smiling. It was like surviving a tiny tornado. And I
loved it. I really did miss Billie. My week felt brighter already,
my mood more optimistic, just knowing that she was coming home. Her
call was just what I’d needed.