09 - Return Of The Witch by Dana E. Donovan Read Free Book Online Page B

close, bumping foreheads with her lightly. I dropped my voice to a hush. “I’m sorry I pushed you away. I know you wanted to help me, but I wasn’t in a good place. I needed my space.”
    “Thou wert filled with grief. I know.”
    “No, I was filled with anger: sour-piss and vinegar anger, and I took it out on everyone, including you.”
    “Art thou angry now?”
    “No. I’ve accepted things as they are. I’m at peace now. I got to say goodbye to him last night.”
    “To Master Tony?”
    “Yeah. I built a bonfire and—”
    “Girls?” Dominic came over and put his hands on us. “Is everything all right?”
    I whirled my arm around and dislodged it off my shoulder. “Excuse me. Can’t you see we’re talking here?”
    “I’m sorry. I thought—”
    “Well, don’t think. It just makes you look stupid.”
    He looked back at Carlos, who made a point of looking the other way. Returning to me, he said, “All right, when you’re done. Take your time.”
    I whispered to Ursula, “We okay?”
    She smiled and nodded.
    “ Okay, we’re done,” I said.
    “ Good. Can we talk about these missing women now?”
    I took Ursula’s hand and walked her back to the desk where Carlos was sitting. His shit-eating grin told me he enjoyed watching me bite Dominic’s head off. It wouldn’t have surprised me to find that he was the one who sent Dominic over to check on us.
    “Lilith,” he said. “You look nice this morning.”
    I returned a manufactured smile. “And you’ re a naughty boy.”
    He took that as a compliment.
    Dominic pulled a chair out for Ursula before taking a seat opposite Carlos. “Tell me how you knew about her.”
    “Who?”
    “April Raines. The woman from Ipswich.”
    “Oh, is that where she was from ?”
    “What do you mean was?”
    “She’s dead now. Least I think so.”
    “ How would you know that?”
    “I’d rather not say. But if she’s from Ipswich, how did you learn about her?”
    Carlos said, “Brittany told us. Said someone called in a 911 last night. A couple of officers rode out to April’s house and checked it out.”
    “ Did they find anything?”
    “ They found an open front door, some broken glass in the bathroom, a little blood on the floor.”
    “Who did you say called it in?”
    “A neighbor . Seems several people nearby heard a scream and then the sound of breaking glass coming from inside the house. When officers arrived, they found no one there.”
    I allowed my gaze to drift out the window as I recalled the details of my dream the night before. Though I wasn’t ready to accept it, I had to admit to myself that something was just not right. What I was hearing from Carlos and Dominic went way past coincidence, and frankly, it was beginning to scare the hell out of me.
    “Did you hear what I said?” Carlos asked.
    I turned to him. “What?”
    “I said the reason Brittany called us was because she knew we’d be interested once we heard what they found on the woman’s bathroom floor.”
    “ Blue powder.”
    “ A blue…. Yeah. Hey, how did you know?”
    “ Lucky guess. Tell me what else they found?”
    “Nothing.”
    “No forced entry?”
    “Just an open door like I said. It wasn’t forced.”
    “Anything missing?”
    “Nothing obvious. They found her purse with money and credit cards in it, expensive jewelry on her dresse r in the bedroom and a smart phone on the kitchen counter.”
    “Their conclusion?”
    Dominic answered, “They concluded April probably cut herself on some broken glass and hurried off to the hospital, leaving the front door open in her haste.”
    “There you have it then. That’s probably what happened.”
    “Except nobody knows what hospital,” said Carlos. “Ipswich doesn’t have one. Brittany checked with Beverly, Newburyport and Haverhill. She even called as far south as Salem.”
    “ Huh? Well that is strange.”
    “So, ” Dominic said. “At least now you believe there’s something going on here.”
    I nodded.