“I thought you were going to do some kind of a spell. Can’t you stun her or slay her somehow?”
“Slay? Who do you think I am? This isn’t a cool television show where we save the city from evil. No, we’re not going to do anything like that. We’re going to confront her.” I was worried Jack had seen too many supernatural shows and had some preconceived idea about my powers.
“I thought it was dangerous for you to be close to her. I can’t let you walk in there, into some kind of attack.” He kept his fingers securely pinned to my waist.
“Easy, tiger.” I pushed his hand away. “She’s not going to do anything to me yet. She needs me to find those diamonds first. Remember? She wants me to have all of my magic.”
Jack didn’t seem convinced, but he shifted his step and followed me through the gate. The bricks beneath our feet were uneven and pale. Scraggly weeds were forcing their way through each crack in the driveway.
“Wait here.” I turned to check the side of the house.
From the back of the house, I could get an aerial view. I wasn’t ready yet for Jack to see everything I could do. I floated between the upstairs windows. All of the heavy shutters were closed. I couldn’t see anything. We were going to have to do it the old-fashioned way and ring the doorbell.
I landed on the rocky ground and headed back to where I had left Jack in front of the decrepit fountain. I forced a loud whisper. “Jack? Jack?” He wasn’t next to the fountain. I felt a terrible pit spreading in my stomach.
Two overweight men were forcefully holding Jack while he struggled to free his arms. The men each had one of his arms pinned and were pulling him up the marble staircase.
“Jack!” I screamed.
I raced to the stairs. I searched the ground for something I could slug them with. The shorter man kicked the door open, and I caught a glimpse into the mansion. The men ignored me. They continued to drag Jack into the house while he wrestled to free himself. I followed them into the dark manse and down a narrow hallway. It was dark but ahead of us was a blaze of light. The men punched through the next set of French doors, revealing an open room with cathedral ceilings. Candlelight flickered. Tall, tapered candles, half-burned and covered in hardened wax, lined the room and the mantle. Mounds of dried yellow wax pooled at the bottom of the candles. The room felt dirty and desperate.
Jack shook off his apprehenders. The two men willingly let him go and retreated to the corner. I raced toward him to make sure he was ok, but he shook me off and pointed to the center of the room.
A willowy figure swayed back and forth. She twisted from side to side, holding a champagne glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The back of her beaded gown was tattered. Bare threads poked out from the satin fabric and gave the dress a wiry and balding effect. Her hair was pulled in a tight bun, but the once honey-blond locks were now white and gray. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There were one and a half earrings dangling from her earlobes. Next to her were a chair and a small table. A bottle of champagne and a few candles had been pushed around on the table.
“Ma’am? They’re here.” One of the men coughed into his fist.
The willowy dancer stopped in mid-sway and spun around. The candles cast shadows on her pale, thin face. Time had erased her flawless skin and replaced it with deep wrinkles and a haggard darkness under her eyes.
“Don’t tell me what I can see for myself!” she snapped at the pudgy minion in the corner.
Then, composing herself, she snuffed out her cigarette, took a slow sip from her glass, and slinked into the only chair in the room. She crossed one leg over the other and looked at us from her cattish eyes. Eyeliner streaked the border of her green gaze, and pinkish blush that was way too heavy for her fair skin was smudged onto her cheeks.
“Oh, Ivy, I’m so delighted you joined us this evening.” She raised her glass in our direction. “And your handsome friend, Mr. Coleman. Such a pleasure.” She wiggled deeper into the chair. “We have so much to chat about. Would you two care for some champagne?” She waved at her minions to bring in extra glasses and the shorter man ran off.
“No, thank you, Ms. Chadsworth, err Helen. It is Helen, isn’t it?” I peered at the old woman through the dim light of the room. I wasn’t completely sure it was the same woman I had seen in 1968.
She bristled at the sound of Chadsworth. “Helen is quite fine. So sorry there’s nowhere for you to sit. We’re going through a bit of renovations here at the manor.” She twirled her hand in the air and halted her fingertips over her head, then began swaying again, but this time from her seated position.
Jack looked at me and nudged me in the back. I returned a “shut-up stare.” I wanted to say as little as possible. Helen was the one who needed to explain what was going on, but somehow I thought she wasn’t going to explain her over-the-top-eccentric behavior.
“So, where were we? Oh yes, Ivy! Dear, dear sweet, sweet Ivy. How did you like your gift basket? And the room? I hope they are treating you like royalty at the Starlight. Tell me, are they?”
I was stunned into silence. The woman I encountered in 1968 seemed to have faded like her dress. There were no traces of the composed aristocrat.
“Uh…yes, thank you. The basket was nice?” I looked at Jack. He shrugged his shoulders at me. “It seems maybe a little expensive putting us up in the penthouse given your current circumstances.” I looked around the barren room.
“Oh, nonsense.” She waved a hand in the air. “I have credit cards. Doesn’t everyone? You know my family’s money built that resort. Every penny that went into those walls was from me.” She abruptly switched topics. “I have been waiting for you, little witch. I need your help, my dear.”
Helen stopped swaying and turned her gaze in my direction. She sat upright and placed both of her hands on her shabby gown. My witchy instincts tingled, but I also felt something new, a slight pull as if they were trying to shift around in my body. I stepped closer to Jack and shielded part of my body with his. Instinctively, he reached around and braced my chest with his arm.
“Yes, Helen. That’s why we’re here. To help.” I attempted a smile.
“Oh, looks like I’ve already upset you.” She cackled in small bursts. “We mustn’t get ahead of ourselves. There’s plenty of time for that. I just wanted to see what you felt like.” My skin prickled as if I had just touched an electrical socket.
I shivered, and Jack inched even closer so that I had to lean around his arm to see the unhinged woman perched in her chair.
“Enough with this nonsense!” she snapped again. “I need those diamonds, Ivy. As you can tell, I really need them.” She waved her hand through the air again and lowered her voice.
The tugging effect dissolved and I felt my body rebalance itself.
“But, you have the diamonds, Helen. I saw you with a case of diamonds. What happened to those?”
“Shhh shhh.” She glowered at me from a hunched position in the chair. “I knew you would go back. I knew you would find out I was still alive. It was only a matter of time with someone with your abilities. You’re meddlesome, aren’t you?” She poked her finger at me. “But aren’t you impressed, my dear? What a brilliant plan I’ve had all of these years.”
I stood on my own. “Impressed? Why should I be impressed? You had your husband killed and conspired with his mistress. Then you managed to steal the largest diamond collection in the world and fake your own death.”
Repeating the story back to her, I realized that it actually was an impressive feat. She had managed to untangle herself from one of the most powerful men in Las Vegas and disappear for forty-five years.
“Why though? Why did you have to go to such lengths to be free? Couldn’t you have just divorced Holden?”
The shrill scream filled the room. “Silly girl! Divorce? In 1968? He was a two-timing thief. He deserved everything that happened to him. He stole my family fortune and made a fool of me in Las Vegas. I wasn’t going to let him or Simone get away with that.” She pulled both of her legs up into the chair and slid them next to her. “Oh, you don’t think I was friends with Simone, do you?” She cackled some more.
Jack and I were transfixed on the disturbed woman.
“Oh, I guess I did love him at some point. In the beginning. Yes, that’s when I fell in love with Holden. Wasn’t
he
a handsome thing? But you can’t love a snake for long.” She peered at Jack. “He always goes back to being a snake. Simone wasn’t the first. If we hadn’t killed him, she wouldn’t have been the last. So, I bided my time and laid out my plan to make Holden suffer, reclaim my fortune, punish Simone, and run off with my true love.”
She counted each of the magnificent feats on her bony fingers. She paused to see if Jack and I were absorbed in her every word. Afraid how she would react, we let her continue.
“And this plan would have been brilliant if you hadn’t meddled and written a book about it!” She snapped out of her lulling storytelling voice and pointed a gnarled finger at me.
“Helen, I never used your names. No one knows you’re alive. No one can trace the
Vegas Star
story back to you,” I pleaded with her.
“Shhh shhh. I know what’s in that atrocious story! You painted me to be some kind of money-hungry woman and Simone as a beautiful victim. You didn’t know her. She was a vixen. She slept with my husband!” She spat at us.
The candlelight dimmed and our shadows were closer to the floor. Helen was becoming more agitated. Both men in the corner advanced toward her chair, but she held up a hand to stop them. In one motion, she rose from the chair and prowled toward us.
There it was again, the pull, and my witchy tingle displaced all over my body, humming in my ears and misting my thoughts. She crept closer with her hands outstretched, swaying between us. Jack was now completely in front of me and eyed the door. He looked like he was prepared to pick me up and run.
“Helen, wait. I want to know what I can do to help you.” My voice sounded small. She stopped in mid-stride. I had to make the humming stop. “The diamonds? You need them, right? I’ll find them for you.” She backed down and slinked toward the chair.
“Ah yes. I’m in a bit of a financial situation, dear, which you’ve already so rudely pointed out. That little bitch hid her half of the diamonds. How is a woman supposed to live a life of comfort with only half of the diamonds?” She said it as if diamonds were as necessary to live as air. She stared into an empty space off to her left. Her eyes drifted back to us. “You see, when Simone died so unexpectedly in that car accident.” She winked at Jack then me. “I was supposed to inherit her half of the diamonds, but we haven’t been able to find them. I need you to travel back to the day of her accident and tell me where those diamonds are. Even better, just bring them here, my dear.”
She needed me to
Time Spell
again.
“Helen, may I ask how you got them? How did you and Simone manage to pull off the largest, unreported diamond heist?”
She laughed again. “Simone was beautiful, wasn’t she?” Helen sighed. I didn’t think she was going to continue. Every time she paused, it was as if her mind wrapped around a thought and settled there. “She was the one. It was her contribution to the plan. I underestimated her sex appeal. It was quite simple for her. The guards at the tour, they just handed them over to her.”
“Just like that?” I asked.
“Oh my dear, you and I both know she did more than ‘just that.’ I let her do all of the dirty work. It made her feel valued.” Helen twisted a thread on her dress.
Jack squeezed my hand and looked at me. He cleared his throat. “Helen?”
She perked with the sound of her name on Jack’s lips. “Yes, Mr. Coleman?”
“You said you had a true love? What does he think about all of this? About you threatening Ivy and me and our families?”
The wicked Proxy cackled and buried her head in her hands. She lifted her chin toward us and stripes of mascara ran down her face. “He’s dead, Mr. Coleman. He has been for some time now. He spent ten years protecting me and shielding me from the heinous company Holden kept. But eventually, they found him. Holden sold his soul to the devil when he got involved with those mobsters. He thought he could control them and not be the one under their control. I knew better. That’s why I escaped and why Langford helped me. He died too young, way too young, and all because of Holden. I must face the rest of this life alone, unless…” Her words trailed off and she locked eyes with me.
The more Helen’s story unfolded, the more I realized we were in deeper than I could have imagined. She was motivated. She needed the diamonds to fund her deteriorating lifestyle, and she wanted my magic for herself. She wanted the
Time Spell
for love. Evil was a powerful enemy, but it was never stronger than love. We had the dynamic duo wrapped into one—an evil Proxy in love with a ghost.
I knew I was on shaky ground confronting her, but I needed to know what she was planning. “You aren’t thinking about trying to change his death, are you, Helen? You can’t change the course of history. The effects would be beyond our comprehension.”
“Shhh shhh. Don’t tell me what I can change! I love him. Langford never should have died. My beautiful man.”
I hadn’t noticed the picture on the mantle until Helen pointed in its direction. In the black frame was a tattered photo of Helen and the tall bald man with the pointy nose, whom I had seen dump Holden over the side of the canyon. Her high cheekbones were rosy and her eyes glistened. The bald man was kissing her on the cheek. It looked like they were at the beach, and he was holding his arm out to take their picture. She did look happy; they both did.
“And with your
Time Spell
I can save him. I can bring him back.”
I was stunned. “But you won’t just be bringing him back, you’re rewriting history. You can’t be that selfish, Helen. You can’t do this.”
Her glare penetrated my eyes and the witchy, tingling pull whirled through my body. She wasn’t interested in reason. I positioned myself behind Jack again to block the invisible link she had created between us.