Page 4 of Wicching Hour (The Sea Wicche Chronicles #3)

FOUR

True. She Is Scary and Hot

C ecil slapped the surface again, taking my mind momentarily off murder. The last time I swam under the deck, I’d found that Poppy had made a safe little den for their eggs with rocks against one of the pylons holding up the deck.

The gallery had been a fish cannery in its past life. Gran purchased the dilapidated building when I was little because she said she knew it would one day be mine. Years later, with money from my first big sales, I purchased the property from her and began remodeling.

Two of the outermost purple-algae-covered pylons were home to my large, gorgeously orange starfish friends Charlie and Herbert. “Good morning, gentlemen. You’re looking quite dapper.”

Mary Beth leaned over as well. “Hello, Cecil. Thank you for looking out for our girl.” One of Cecil’s tentacles rose above the water and swirled in a circle before dropping under again. “See?” she said, nudging me with her elbow. “He likes me best.”

“P’fft.” I scanned the ocean, looking for a dark head to pop up. “Wilbur?” I called, looking for my selkie friend. We played fetch most days, but he’d been absent more and more often lately. He was a guard my father sent to watch me. Perhaps Dad had decided I didn’t need the extra protection. I worried, though, that it was more that Dad needed him back, that something more pressing was brewing under the surface.

“So,” Mary Beth said, sitting on a bench, “why aren’t you letting the police pay you for your services?”

I turned back to see Hernández watching my agent warily. That showed good sense. Mary Beth was no one to mess with. Hernández, though human, knew that supernaturals existed. She knew her sometime detective partner Osso was a bear shifter. She knew I was a wicche and Declan a werewolf. She’d even met a vampire and part demon. I was surprised she hadn’t run for the hills yet. The way she clocked Mary Beth told me she was pretty sure my agent wasn’t completely human either.

“Because,” I said, “if they’re coming to me for help, it means that someone is dead and I refuse to profit off some else’s tragedy. Bad juju, that.”

Mary Beth thought a moment and then nodded. “Sensible.” She stood. “I’m going to put special stickers on all the Winslow purchases. I’ll have the shippers come Monday, when you’re closed. You’ll be here to direct them, yes?”

I nodded, sitting beside the detective. “Just give me the time they’re coming so I can make sure I’m here.”

“Good,” she said, heading back in. “I’ll call my contact and set it up.” Just before she closed the door, she turned back. “You open at two this afternoon, right?”

I nodded.

She skewered Hernández with a glare. “She has her own work to do. Don’t make her late.”

Hernández held up her hands in surrender and we waited until the door closed.

“Damn,” she breathed. “She’s scary. And hot.”

I nudged the detective with my shoulder. “Look at you, sharing your hot girl opinions with me.”

“Yeah, well, she scared the professionalism right out of me.” Shaking her head, she pulled her ever-present notepad out of her jacket pocket.

“I won’t tell your girlfriend,” I said.

“Eh.” She shrugged. “Andie would agree she’s hot. And scary.” Shaking her head, Hernández flipped open her notebook. “You’re right. I am here about someone being dead. I have two people murdered in much the same way, with no evidence left at either scene. So far, I can find nothing connecting the two. One’s a middle-aged woman, a judge. The other’s a man in his late twenties who works part-time at the station. When I tell you they have nothing in common, I mean they don’t even use the same laundry detergent.”

Leaning back against the bench, I thought longingly of my nice warm bed. I might have been able to get a few more hours before opening. Then again, without Declan, I’d have a hard time sleeping.

“They have the law in common,” I said.

Hernández shook her head. “When I said he worked at the station, I meant he worked in records. He’s a drummer in a local band. The part-time work he did for us was his only stable source of income. As far as I could tell, his path never crossed with the judge.”

“Okay, but isn’t the no evidence thing a clue?” I asked. “That takes some expertise, doesn’t it? Maybe your killer is a crime scene cleaner.”

“Don’t think that hasn’t occurred to me,” she grumbled, glancing at the back door. “So, can I borrow you for a little while? I’ll have you back before opening.”

I stood. “Yeah, I guess. I need to be back no later than one and preferably before. I’ve got a lot of empty shelves in the gallery to fill.” I waved her into the studio with me. “I didn’t get a chance to eat anything this morning.”

The clear muffin box on the counter looked emptier than yesterday. “It looks like Declan took a few. I have a strawberry-pistachio, a salted caramel, and a marbled chocolate and cinnamon. What’ll you have?”

“I want the salted caramel!” Mary Beth called from the gallery.

“Okie-dokie.” I tore off a paper towel to pick it up.

Mary Beth met me at the doorway to the gallery, the phone at her ear. She took a bite of the muffin while mmhm -ing to whoever was on the line, and returned to the gallery.

“I’ll take the strawberry,” Hernández said. “I had a strawberry one before and it was amazing.”

“Ah, thanks. The pistachio adds a nice nuttiness to it. Hopefully you enjoy this recipe too.” I offered the pinkish muffin in the box to the detective and then took the last one with another paper towel, not wanting crumbs on my gloves. “I just need to get my backpack.”

Taking a bite, I went to the doorway and waved to get Mary Beth’s attention.

Eyebrows raised, she waited.

“She’s taking me to a crime scene. I told her I have to be back by one.”

“Twelve is better,” she warned.

“I told her that too.” I studied the gallery, taking another bite, while I made mental notes of what needed to be filled in. If I was out of anything—and I was—I’d need to rearrange the displays.

Mary Beth glanced around as well. “I’ll fill in what I can. I’m flying back to New York this afternoon. The shipping service will be here Monday at ten. I’ll leave you a list of everything they should be boxing up.”

“Okay, thanks. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” I grabbed my backpack from the base of the stairs.

I’d started taking it when I went anywhere with the police. I carried a sketchbook and pencils, so I could draw what I saw. I also had bandages and antiseptic after one harrowing experience when the cuts the victim had endured showed up on my body. I even had snacks and water. The police weren’t big on feeding me. And my plastic honey bear bottle that I filled with ocean water. Sometimes I needed a little water fae boost.

Hernández waited for me on the deck. I pulled out the honey bottle, dumped the water back into the ocean, and then held my hand over the waves, pulling up a stream of seawater. When the fountain of water was level with me, I collected some into the jar, screwed the lid back on, and stowed the bottle.

The detective knew I was a wicche but still stared whenever I did something wicchey.

I shouldered the backpack, took another bite, and headed around the outside of the gallery, Hernández following.

“You don’t hide that stuff around me anymore,” she said, hitting her key fob and unlocking the doors of her very plain sedan.

“Do I need to?” I asked, sliding into the passenger seat.

“No,” she said before taking a bite and wrapping up the rest of muffin, wedging it into her cup holder. “I guess I’m just off balance when I see you do fantastical things. It’s cool, though. I’m getting used to it.” She checked the time on the dashboard. “I’m not sure if we have time for both crime scenes. I’ll take you to the first and we’ll see from there.”

I nodded, finishing the muffin. “Hey, any news on the little creep who killed Christopher and Ana?” That series of abductions and murders was the first time I’d worked with Detectives Hernández and Osso.

She shook her head, flicking on her turn signal. “Still awaiting trial. He’s undergoing psychiatric testing. His lawyer is claiming trauma response from losing his parent. The DA and our doctor say psychopathy.”

Poor Christopher and Ana. The death of a child, that destruction of innocence and potential, cut deep. Staring out the window, I said, “I agree with your DA and doctor.”

“Yeah,” Hernández said, her voice heavy. It was hard to think of the case and not be weighed down by it.

She drove us into a wealthy neck of the woods and pulled into a circular drive in front of a Spanish Colonial mansion.

“Nice,” I said, noting the lush landscaping and the grand home. The only thing marring the picture was the yellow crime tape at the door.

Hernández climbed out, and I joined her. A prickle ran down my spine. I looked in the usual places and saw lenses. “She has security cameras all over. You guys didn’t see anything?”

The detective shook her head and led the way to the front door. Bypassing a special lock, she opened the door and let us in. It was beautiful, with large terra-cotta tile floors, creamy stucco walls, and dark wood beams on the cathedral ceilings. A curved staircase to the right circled up from the foyer to the second floor.

“A lot of house for one person. I assume this is the judge’s house.”

Hernández nodded. “Her husband passed last year. Their kids are grown and moved away. Friends say she was thinking about moving, of scaling down, but the house held so many good memories, she was having a hard time moving forward.”

“Real estate agents know how to clean up and make everything look presentable,” I said. “Maybe the killer was someone she’d just met about her house.”

Hernández nodded again. “I’m looking into it, but she doesn’t appear to have contacted any agencies. A house like this would only list through a handful of firms. This place will go for three or four million.” She shrugged. “The responding officer’s wife is a real estate agent and that was his guess.”

“Given the neighborhood, the property size—wait. Is that a golf course out the back window?” I shook my head. “This place is going for a lot more than that.” I walked through the foyer, past an office and a sitting room, into a huge living room with windows onto a slate patio, with flowering shrubs and tall trees. A well-dressed man and his caddy moved into the fairway to take a shot.

Lowering my voice, I said, “Are we sure this judge wasn’t on the take? This house seems way fancier than a judge could afford.”

“I wondered the same,” she said, “but her husband was a surgeon and came from money. There are no marks on her record, no whispers of questionable rulings.”

I walked around the living room, easing down my defenses. She had photographs everywhere, some posed, some candid. I leaned in close to study a family portrait. The judge was a beautiful Black woman who exuded reliability. She was not one to forget a birthday or recital. Steady. Her husband was a tall, thin Asian man whose eyes smiled even in photos. He was the one who got her to shake off a hard day and play Scrabble with him or go for a long walk. Their two children—boy and girl—were almost as tall as their father, though the son had his mother’s serious mien.

“Can you stand in the kitchen or something?” I asked. “I want to walk the whole house and see what I pick up. Okay?”

“Sure.” Hernández left the room, retreating the way we’d come. Lowering my mental blocks even more, I opened myself up. Echoes of laughter and raised voices, tears and shrieks of joy. It was a home.

When I walked past the tall glass doors leading out onto the patio, I felt a chill run down my spine. Moving closer, I felt a wave of barely suppressed rage wash over me. This was where the killer had entered.