Chapter 7
I gasped sharply, and so did my ghostly friends from above. Was it possible Coop could hear Win? Maybe Arkady, too?
Holy cats!
But I had to be very careful here. Very careful indeed. As much as I hated to do it, I played dumb. Don’t get me wrong, I know almost everyone in town thinks I’m bananapants and I don’t really talk to ghosts, and I’m okay with that. I’ve made my peace with it, but to those who’ve come to me, searching for answers from the Great Beyond, I know I’ve brought them a modicum of peace.
However, they can’t hear what I can hear. What if Coop is someone Adam Westfield is using to get to me? He’s not just the man who stole my powers, but ruined my entire life and had me run out of my coven on a rail—and he didn’t just do it once. He possessed a body just to get to me. I’m not ever going to forget that, or forget that he has connections and powerful spells no dead person should—not even a dead warlock.
So forgive me if I proceed with extreme caution.
Calling on my only brush with acting from my fifth-grade play, wherein Miss Castelano (our phys-ed teacher) cast me as the “third street urchin from the right” in the chorus of our disastrous rendition of Les Mis, I cocked my head with an exaggerated tilt and lifted my shoulders with a dramatic heave. “Whatever are you talking about, Coop?” I asked, my words stilted and choppy as though I’d forgotten how to construct a sentence.
Win groaned in my ear. “That was dreadful, Stephania. Painful, even.”
Now Coop’s eyes zipped about the room, her lips parting, her fists clenched as though she were ready to go into battle. “Who is that and why does he talk funny?”
“Who is who, Coop?” Trixie asked, panic in her voice, gripping her friend’s arm again and forcing her to look at her.
Okay. We had trouble. Right here in River City. Coop could hear Win. I knew it as sure as I knew my hair was nothing without caramel highlights and a trim every six weeks, and that meant I had to do something fast. I didn’t have time to figure out the how or why of Coop.
Leaning into her, I whispered in conspiratorial fashion, “Coop, come with me and I’ll explain everything. Okay? And I think you know what I mean by everything.”
Her fear didn’t exactly lend to her being here because of Adam Westfield, but maybe she was a better actress than I’d ever be. So I was willing to take the chance she was like me and could hear ghosts. Otherwise, this was an elaborate ruse just to get to me, and those dots didn’t connect.
But Trixie held up her hands and frowned, firmly shaking her head. “Okay. Hold on here. I’m not going anywhere until someone tells me what’s going on, and neither is Coop.” Gripping her friend’s hand, she pulled her close to her side and huffed for good measure to prove her point.
Trixie’s reaction sealed the deal for me. I didn’t think they had anything to do with Adam.
I blew out a breath and smiled at them both reassuringly. “I promise to explain everything if you’ll just come with me. You can’t go back to the store anyway. It’s officially a crime scene, and if you two are living there, as I suspect you are, you have nowhere to go until forensics clears the store. Why don’t you come back to my place, we’ll order in an early dinner, and I’ll explain. I have plenty of room, but,” I paused, looking around as the entire police department watched us, “I can’t explain here.”
Coop nodded, pushing her hands under her armpits. “She’s right, Trixie. We can’t go back to Inkerbelle’s. Mr. Luis Lipton Esquire said so.”
Trixie’s brown gaze was pensive at best when she sent signals with her eyes to her friend. “Are you sure you’re okay with going to Stevie’s? Because if not, we can figure it out.”
When Coop looked at me, assessing me from head to toe as though she’d be able to see if something was awry on my person just by way of a glance, she nodded curtly. “Yes. I’m sure. I trust her.” Then she patted Trixie on the shoulder with one of her awkward gestures and headed toward the doors of the station.
Trixie shuddered a sigh of resignation. “If Coop says she trusts you, then your house it is. We’ll follow you in our car.”
I heard her hesitance, yet the signals she’d sent to Coop with her eyes suggested her friend had some sort of lie-detecting ability, and that was even wackier than hearing ghosts.
But hey, I have two ghost friends and a talking bat. Who am I to say she isn’t a human lie detector?
* * * *
“She heard you, Win! I know she did.” I pulled out of the police station’s parking lot, watching in my rearview to ensure Trixie was right behind me in her rusty Caddy.
“I’m afraid you’re probably correct, Dove.”
“How is that possible, Win?”
“How is it possible you hear me—or Arkady, for that matter?”
“Because I’m a witch, International Man of Mystery! A witch with medium abilities.”
“No. You’re a former witch who’s been stripped of her powers. Yet, somehow, the fates have allowed you to hear us. Who’s to say Coop isn’t one of your kind?”
Yes. That was true. I’d had blips now and again since my powers were slapped out of me (literally slapped), but nothing concrete, and come to think of it, nothing at all these last few months.
“No,” I denied fervently. “I’d know if she were a witch, Spy Guy.”
“How would you know, Stephania?”
I gripped the steering wheel tighter, still shivering without my coat as splotchy snowflakes spattered on the windshield. “Because we know our own kind.”
“And how is that? Do you have a particular scent? Is it like when dogs sniff each other’s derrieres? How can you know?”
I tried to focus on the road, but my mind was in overdrive. “Never mind. We just know. She’s not a witch. The community is small. Everyone pretty much knows everyone. Just trust me on that. Think of it like Plane Limbo. You know everyone there, right? It’s similar but different.”
“Then she must be a medium, Boss,” Bel chirped from my purse. “A scary, violent, really pretty one, but a medium nonetheless. Something’s going on with her. I don’t know what, but you mark my words, she’s got a creep factor that’s adorable, but still creepy.”
“Mediums are baloney, Bel. You know that. They’re shysters looking to prey on the bereaved. And she’s not creepy. She’s just… Odd.” Yes. Odd. That was an appropriate word to describe Coop. Beautifully odd.
“Is that what you consider yourself, Stephania? A shyster?” Win crowed.
“You are not oyster, my malutka. You are honest and good lady. You do not take money for you. You give away to people who have none.”
I could always count on my Arkady when I needed an ego boost. It was true. We gave away my medium fees to all manner of charities. We didn’t need it, but I did need to help people. It’d just who I am.
“The word is shyster, Arkady, and yes. That’s true. We don’t keep the money people pay to contact their loved ones. And no, Win. I don’t consider myself a shyster. I consider myself rare. It’s very, very rare to find another true medium.”
“Yet, here you are,” he pointed out once more.
“But I’m a witch.”
“No, Stephania, you are not. You’ve lost your abilities to witch. But you haven’t lost your abilities to hear the dead. The two are apparently not mutually exclusive.”
“But I only hear you and Arkady. You guys do the rest of the listening for me at Madam Zoltar’s. It’s not the same.” Shrugging, I kept one eye on Trixie behind me and the other on the road as more snow fell. “I don’t know. Either way, Coop can hear you, Win, and that terrifies me.”
“Whatever for, Dove?”
“Because I don’t know what it means, and it means something. Maybe something not good. Maybe it has to do with Adam Westfield? There’s always that possibility. Though, Coop looked terrified when she heard you call me Dove. Of course, Adam is terrifying. So maybe that explains her fear.”
I had to throw that out into the universe so the notion could be tossed about and ease my inner turmoil. I didn’t want to be wrong about these women, but I needed to say the words out loud just in case.
“Do you really believe that, Stevie?” Bel asked. “Let’s rationalize here. You’re bringing these women to our home. If you felt in any way they were in cahoots with Adam “Maniac from The Great Beyond” Westfield, you wouldn’t do that. I know you well enough to know that much. You’re bringing them back to the house because you have a good heart, you know they have nowhere to go, and likely no money to go anywhere with. Oh, and let’s not forget, you love a good mystery. They brought the mystery.”
“I just felt like I had to put it out there as a suggestion so I could get it out of my system is all. But it also means Coop knows our secret. Or she will when I tell her. We have no choice but to be honest about it. She already knows because she can hear you. If she knows, she can tell other people.”
“Who? Who would care? Everyone in Eb Falls already thinks you’re one bon-bon shy of a box when it comes to talking to the afterlife, Stephania. How is Coop’s confirmation going to change any opinion that doesn’t already exist? Do make note, it sounds quite ridiculous when repeated. All that aside, I have a feeling about Coop. A good one. I don’t think she’ll have any problem with you hearing ghosts. But she also has some explaining to do. She did lob Detective Moore across the room as though he were a mere box of tissues. I imagine that’s her secret, and I’d like to know the explanation.”
There was that. Among the million questions I had, that surely was one of them. “Are you just saying all that because she’s insanely beautiful and you want to keep her around?” I teased.
Win’s answer growled in my ear. “That she is indeed. But nay, Dove. I’m looking at this objectively and rationally—and rationally, I believe Coop, though peculiar, has good intentions. And I do not believe she murdered Hank Morrison. If there was some kind of poison in the ink of the tattoo gun, that would suggest premeditation. I don’t believe Coop’s anything but black and white.”
“I hope you’re right, Win. Otherwise, we could be getting ourselves into something we can’t get out of,” I reminded him, pulling onto our street and praying Enzo had plowed the driveway so Trixie could get her very old car up our steep drive. “Not to mention, we need to find out when and why she argued with Hank. In the meantime, just stay quiet until we can figure this all out, okay?”
“Of course, Dove.”
“Arkady, are we in agreement?”
“Dah-dah, my sugar snap pea. I will zip my lip.”
The sight of our house, blanketed in snow, the lights in the gardens just coming on at dusk, warmed me from the inside out. A toasty fire and some pepperoni pizza were in order, and then we needed to get down to the business of figuring out who killed Hank Morrison.
Before the police had the chance to pin it on Coop with their “overwhelming evidence.”
As I exited the car and raised my hand to wave Trixie into a parking spot that wouldn’t interfere with Enzo’s plow, Win’s warmth (or his aura, as we mediums say) encompassed me, wrapping around my shoulders as though he’d loaned me his coat to keep me warm.
And that was some comfort as I headed into what we both knew would be a difficult conversation.
* * * *
“Ohhh, your home is beautiful, Stevie!” Trixie said on a sigh, her hand absently running over Whiskey’s head as we landed in the kitchen, the last stop on our tour.
I’d somehow managed to divert all suspicion and fear by showing them the house. I have to admit, the house formerly known as Mayhem Manor was a fabulous diversion when one wanted to avoid the inevitable.
“So you did the renovations yourself?” Trixie asked, her eyes tired and red, but wide with curiosity as she looked at our kitchen.
I barked a laugh and went to grab some wine glasses. “Um, no. I hired people to do it for us… Er, me. I picked colors and pointed my finger and wrote big checks. Lots of big, big checks.”
Trixie breathed in again, closing her eyes before she opened them and gave me a warm smile. “Well, you did a lovely job, didn’t she, Coop?”
Coop cleared her throat and straightened, inching closer to Trixie as Strike pecked at the floor near her feet. “Yes. This is quite lovely.” She repeated the words woodenly before looking to Trixie for approval.
And I know that’s what she was looking for. Approval. And still, I didn’t know why. But that was all about to change.
Coop blanched when Strike brushed against her to get to me, nearly climbing into Trixie’s arms. For such a warrior, she sure was easily spooked.
Reaching down, I stroked his head and smiled with affection. “He won’t hurt you, Coop. He’s quite friendly. I promise.”
“What is he, Trixie Lavender?” she whispered to Trixie, her voice trembling, adding to her cache of bizarre questions.
Trixie chuckled and held her hand out to Strike, who quite willingly rubbed up against her. “He’s a turkey, Coop. You know, like cluck-cluck—or something like that. I’ve never seen one as a pet, but if Stevie says he’s okay, I’m sure it’s fine.”
Grinning, I grabbed some feed from the cabinet and scattered it on the floor. “He’s sort of a rescue. Long story, but suffice it to say, he’s just another whacky addition to my family.”
Trixie knelt in front of Strike then, grabbing Coop’s hand. “Hold out your hand, Warrior Princess,” she teased. “He’s really very sweet.”
As Coop very tentatively let Strike closer, I went to find refreshment. Some much-needed libation.
“Can I interest you in some wine with our dinner? I sure could use some after today. Coop? How about you?” I asked as I popped open our industrial-sized refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of cabernet.
Trixie shook her head. “None for me, thanks, and Coop doesn’t drink.”
Coop agreed as I held up water bottles instead. “Yes. She’s right. So no thank you, Stevie Cartwright. I don’t drink.”
I was just going to let this bizarre habit of Coop running everything she did past Trixie go for the moment. “So let’s have a seat in the living room and call for our pizza, yes? Enzo, my amazing handyman and dear friend, built a fire, and it’s lovely and warm in there. You both look like you could use a moment’s peace.”
But Trixie hesitated, pulling her cap off and tucking her reddish brown hair with the blue streak behind her ears. “Hold on for a sec. I don’t mean to come across as rude after all you’ve done for us, Stevie, but…what’s the catch?”
“The catch?”
Holding her phone up, she scrolled the screen. “Yes. Er, as in, the lowdown, the shakes, the gist.” She paused and squinted her eyes. “And the shimmy?”
I stood on tippy toe and looked over her hand to the screen of her phone. “Did you Google that?”
Trixie blanched, her pale skin getting paler. “I did. I’m not really up to date on things of this nature.”
I laughed and headed into the living room anyway, motioning them to follow. I stood in front of our stone fireplace to warm my hands and sighed a happy sigh. It was good to be home. “I know there’s a story there, Trixie, but for now, we need to clear other things up first, don’t we? And there’s no catch or lowdown or anything else. I want to help because I know what it’s like to be unjustly accused of murder.”
Coop hissed while Trixie stopped dead in her tracks, putting a protective hand at Coop’s waist. “You were accused of murder?” she squeaked.
I grinned and winked, passing it off as no big deal. “Yep. But I was cleared. Promise. Just like I hope Coop will be. But we can’t do that unless you tell me what the heck is going on. Let’s start at Coop javelin-throwing Starsky across the room as though he were a ragdoll. I think that’s a good place. And please, don’t insult my intelligence here. I know what I saw. I also know Detective Moore outweighs Coop by at least seventy-five pounds—minimum. Sweatin’ to the Oldies won’t give you that kind of workout.”
Coop looked to Trixie, an eyebrow raised. “What is Sweatin’ to the Oldies, Trixie Lavender?”
“And then there’s that,” I pointed out, using a finger to punctuate the air with a warm smile. I didn’t want to upset them. I wanted to understand them. “Maybe I could let the reference to Richard Simmons go because Coop doesn’t look much older than twenty-five.”
Inching through the doorway behind Trixie, scouring our enormous space with those ever-inquisitive eyes, she took in the cool-colored walls in shades of beige and cream, the crown molding, and the big comfortable furniture we’d so carefully chosen before she addressed her age.
“I’m not twenty-five. I’m thirty-two, Stephania Cartwright,” she offered with all seriousness.
Of course she was, and naturally someone as ethereally beautiful as her wouldn’t look her age. Not to mention, she’d used my full name. She’d heard Win, all right. No doubt.
“Right,” I said with a nod, snapping my fingers to invite Whiskey into the room. “But no one calls anyone by their first and last name. And how did you know my full first name? At first I thought you might be from another country, but there’s no sign of an accent. Then, in all honesty, I wondered if there was some medical reason—which you don’t have to divulge at all, if you don’t want to. Yet, those solutions don’t explain Coop’s undeniable strength.”
Coop looked at me with that gaze that shot right through my flesh to my very soul. “I’m not from another country.”
“Then where are you from, Coop?” I asked gently, taking a seat in my favorite wingback chair and hoping they’d do the same on our couch with its jillion throw pillows Win complained about endlessly.
She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t bat a luscious eye. Rather, she looked deeper into my soul and said, “I’m from Hell.”