Page 74 of The Sister's Curse

“Which boys?”

“Those rich boys from Warsaw Creek. They came to the door the other night, looking for her.” Cassandra’s mouth turned down.

“Who? And when was this?” Cassandra would never be acceptable as a witness in any court, but maybe she could lead me to hard evidence.

“I think it was Wednesday. Viv and Dana were both out at their part-time jobs. They both work for the milkshake shop.”

“Who came to the door?”

“That boy Jeff. And his friends Quentin and Mark. Dana doesn’t like those boys. They made fun of her for being poor.” Cassandra’s knuckles whitened on the edge of the table. “We aren’t poor, but everyone looks poor to them.”

Dr.Fox shot me a warning look.

“What did the boys want?” I asked.

“They heard Dana had a Ouija board. They wanted to borrow it from her. I told them no, and that they needed to leave my girls alone.” Cassandra’s lips pulled back on her thin teeth.

“That’s a very strange thing to ask for,” I said.

“Those boys have bad magic. Very bad.” She shook her head. “They knew my girls were witches. I always told the girls to be quiet, to go under the radar, but they knew, they knew…” Her gaze grew distant, and her soft fingernails dug into the concrete table.

“I think that’s enough for today,” Dr.Fox said.

I leaned forward. “They wanted your girls because they were witches?”

Cassandra’s gaze fell full and heavy on me. “Those boys wanted Dana’s blood. They wanted power, and they took her…” Her face crumpled, and she covered her face with her hands. A high-pitched keening sounded, like the cry of a bobcat at dusk, and it lifted the hair on the back of my neck.

She looked at me through parted fingers. “But they’ll pay. The river spirit will make sure that their bloodlines end in the bottom of the river…”

Dr.Fox stood abruptly and wrapped her arm around Cassandra. She nodded to the orderly, and they lifted her to her feet.

“I told him. I said: ‘Frederick, you watch out for my daughter.’ And he didn’t!” she wailed. “He was a hundred miles away when…when…”

“This interview is over,” Dr.Fox said curtly. “I hope you got what you wanted.”

I watched as they took the wailing woman back to the brick building.

I didn’t know if I’d gotten what I wanted, but I got…something.

—

I sat in the car. Something was prickling at me. I pulled out my laptop and continued background checks on the boys Dana dated. I knew the Kings of Warsaw Creek were assholes, but I wanted to see if I needed to broaden the field.

The first guy, Wally, was career military. A response from the DOJ said that he was in OPSEC, at an undisclosed location, right now, and that he hadn’t been in the US for two years. I could cross him off the list of suspects.

The second, Luke, had died in 2004, in a motorcycle accident in Montana. He’d been startled by some bison crossing the road, ditched his bike, and unfortunately met his end bleeding out in that ditch.

The third guy, Jason, was working on a crab fishing boat in Alaska. I guessed it was possible that he held a torch for Dana and had come back to create havoc. But his parole officer said that, to her knowledge, he was on the straight and narrow after serving his time for armed robbery. She’d left a message for him, and he’d called her back from Sitka when his boat was unloading. It was high crab season, with thousands of dollars to be made, and it didn’t make sense that he’d sacrifice the money to go trekking down to the mainland to cause trouble. Revenge could wait for the offseason, right?

That left the regular boyfriend, Rick. I liked him more for revenge, since he’d been more than just a casual hookup.

“Frederick.” I repeated his full first name, the one that Cassandra had used. I had found his high school records before, but the trail went cold after that point. I’d sent out a request to the Social Security Administration to see if he’d changed his name and court records.

I’d gotten one hit back from the clerk of courts—Frederick Alan Smitz had taken his stepfather’s last name, and had been officially adopted, at the age of eighteen.

I stared at a scanned image of his Social Security card.Frederick Alan Jasper.

“Holy shit.” I exhaled.