Wiccan, A Witchy Young Adult Paranormal Romance (3 page)

She was still assuming, filling in
blanks that I was purposely leaving empty. And, again, it was
working out to my benefit. This way, the things I wanted kept
private stayed private. And boy, was she ever barking up the wrong
tree.

I just nodded my head. She
was no help at all, but I wasn’t about to tell her the details
she’d need in order to give me some
real
advice. I looked up at her and
smiled, trying to look relieved, as if she’d solved all my
problems. “I didn’t think of it like that. Thanks, Mom.”

She smiled one of her super
sweet smiles and reached over to squeeze my hand. “You’re welcome,
honey.”
She
should’ve been thanking
me
since I probably just totally made her
day.

By the time I’d finished my
coffee and had a shower, I was feeling a little more human. I went
to my closet and picked out my most responsible-looking outfit. I
was determined to do what I needed to—
whatever
I needed to— in order to
help Lisa.

Before I left for school, I looked at
myself in the mirror with a critical eye. My long, auburn curls
were gathered in a clip at the nape of my neck, a very severe,
no-nonsense look. My brown button-up shirt was tailored so that it
was professional yet feminine and my jeans were completely free of
holes and ragged hems. I slid my feet into brown flats, grabbed my
messenger bag and headed for the door.

Though I despised the thought of
walking by Lisa’s would-be murder scene, I hadn’t picked out a new
route to school yet and I hated to drive such a short distance. I’d
have to fight for a parking spot and that was no way to start the
day.

I looked for Jake when I reached the
sidewalk I’d first seen him jogging on. Much to my disappointment,
however, he was nowhere to be seen. Irritated with myself for even
looking, I pushed the thoughts aside and turned my attention to the
area I was approaching.

When I got near the spot
where I’d seen Lisa die, I walked
way
around it so that the vision
wouldn’t be triggered. Sometimes I’d only see them once, no matter
how many times I walked over the same spot, but there had been the
odd occasion that I’d see the murder every time I came within a
couple of feet of the site. I wasn’t taking any chances that I
might see Lisa again; I had enough of a guilty conscience
already.

With my ironclad determination firmly
in place, I pushed through my Tuesday-Thursday classes and,
thankfully, they sped by without incident (and by “incident” I mean
talking myself out of going to the police). By the time I was
leaving my last class, however, I had managed to work myself up
into a near-breakdown fit of nerves that was the result of almost
four hours of dwelling on dread.

On my way home, I ran through dozens of
scenarios in my head, rehearsing what I could say and how I could
say it to avoid looking like a lunatic. Well, as much as possible
anyway. There was a certain amount of that I’d have to expect. But
it goes without saying that the less crazy I could manage to come
across, the more help I would be to Lisa.

Once I got to my house, I dug my purse
out of my messenger bag and pulled out the keys to the red 1997
Jeep Cherokee that my parents had bought me after graduation. I
unlocked the door and hopped in behind the wheel. It started up
quickly, thank God (I’d been having trouble with the battery) and I
threw it into first gear and sped out of the driveway.

CHAPTER THREE

Arville is a fairly small town on the
northern outskirts of Baltimore. It functions more as a bedroom
community for the big city so the crime rate isn’t nearly as bad
here as it is further to the south.

Arville’s police department lies right
in the center of town. It’s a newer brick building with a
reflective glass front.

When I pulled into a parking space, I
saw uniformed people everywhere. Some were standing and talking on
the steps, a few were milling around in the lot, one or two were
coming and going from the building. I saw only two others dressed
in street clothes and they were coming out of the building not
going in. For some reason, that made me very nervous.

When I cut the engine off, I wiped my
sweaty palms on my jeans and tried to calm the anxiety that was
twisting my stomach into knots.

Though there was absolutely no reason
anyone should pay me a bit of attention, I felt like all eyes were
trained on me as soon as I exited the vehicle. Self consciously, I
tugged at the hem of my shirt to straighten it then smoothed the
hair away from my face, making sure that all my curls were still
tucked firmly beneath the clip at my nape.

I’d thought the intimidation factor of
the exterior of the building was off the charts; little did I know
that the interior was exponentially greater. As soon as I walked
through the door, the cop behind the desk to my left asked me if he
could help me. That should’ve made me feel better, but he was
sitting behind a floor-to-ceiling sheet of what I suspected was
bullet proof glass. I was too busy being overwhelmed to answer, so
I said nothing. I just smiled like an idiot and continued to take
in my surroundings.

To my right was another wall of glass,
behind which was some kind of collective office space for the cops.
There were plenty of uniforms in there, too, but most of those guys
seemed to be in plain clothes.

Some were sitting behind their desks
shuffling papers and typing on the computer. A few were on the
phone, which apparently rang perpetually, as evidenced by the
near-constant twitter I heard. The only ones that didn’t appear to
be busy were the three men that were standing in a semicircle
around the coffee pot.

Behind them at the very back of the
room was another wall. The bottom half was covered with wainscoting
and the top half was glass. The thin stripe of closed mini blinds
gave the glass a patterned look. The large stencil on the door to
that room read CAPTAIN R.J. LEVINE.

The scene looked just like what I
would’ve expected, just like it did in the movies, and I was
terrified. What if they tried to lock me up for being crazy? What
if they mistook my attempts to help as some sort of intimate
knowledge and tried to charge me with a crime? Or what if they
thought I was playing a prank and I got into some kind of trouble
for that? I couldn’t go through life branded a criminal.

I jumped when the cop behind
me spoke again. He shouted
Hey!
I thought it was a bit loud, but I guessed he’d
been trying to get my attention and I hadn’t responded.

Wiping my palms on my jeans again, I
walked to the counter and smiled up at him. His desk sat atop a
dais behind the glass.

He was probably well into
his fifties and had thinning salt-and-pepper hair. His uniform
lacked the tie I’d seen most of the other cops wearing and the
first button of his shirt was undone, revealing a triangle of his
white undershirt. His ruddy, bumpy complexion would’ve made him
look mean even if the frown he was wearing hadn’t. His sharp brown
eyes were narrowed on me and
Go
away!
was rolling off him in thick
waves.

My tongue was so dry it felt like it
was stuck to the roof of my mouth, but I cleared my throat and
began as coolly as I could manage. “Excuse me, but is there someone
I could talk to about a possible murder?”

He eyed me skeptically for a few
seconds before he barked, “Have a seat.” He picked up the phone to
his right and mumbled something into the mouthpiece.

I walked to the bench that sat along
the wall right beside the counter, between the water fountain and a
door that was marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Clenching my keys
tighter in my hand, I perched on the edge of the seat and crossed
my arms over my chest, careful not to touch anything. It was hard
to tell how many prostitutes and criminals the bench had seen
before me and my hand sanitizer was in the Jeep.

About ten minutes later, the door to my
right opened. A surly looking man with a bushy head of frizzy brown
hair grunted my name. I had to purposely keep my eyes trained on
his face, as they were wont to stray to the considerable paunch
that was straining against the buttons of his sweat-stained shirt.
The striped tie he wore rode high on his big belly making it look
like a young boy’s tie—way too short.

I got up and followed him through a
maze of hallways to a small office with a MISSING PERSONS placard
on the door. With one hand, he gestured for me to take a seat so I
slid into one of the two functional blue and chrome chairs that sat
in front of the bare desk.

“
Alright,” he said as he
squeezed into the chair behind the computer, grabbed the mouse and
started clicking. As I watched him, I saw that he wore a tiny black
name tag that read LT. J. DISHER. “How long has this person been
missing?”

I’m sure I was looking at him like he
was speaking Greek. I’d thought it odd that they’d take me to a
room for missing persons, but who was I to say anything? I’d never
done this before.

“
Um, she isn’t missing yet,”
I said carefully.

“
What?” he barked. “I
thought you had a missing person.”

“
No, I said a possible
murder.”

“
Myers, you dyslexic son of
a—” He trailed off, rubbing his forehead in frustration. I assumed
he was talking about the guy behind the bullet proof
glass.

Disher opened a drawer and rifled
through it until he found what he was looking for. Then he wet his
thumb and pulled out a couple of sheets and stuck them on a
clipboard.

“
Here, start filling this
out,” he said, handing me the board.

When I took the clipboard, the first
thing my eyes were drawn to was the big oval wet spot in the shape
of Disher’s thumb that decorated the top of the first paper. My
stomach swished and swayed for a second and I purposely looked down
at some of the questions instead.

As I suspected, they wanted lots of
details. The form started out with specifics about the victim. Hair
color, eye color, skin tone, build, length and style of hair, and
kind of voice, which were questions I felt comfortable in
answering. But then it started to get a little hairy. Scars,
approximate height, approximate weight, specific personal features,
medical conditions, medications needed, detailed description of
person’s last known whereabouts. Those questions? Eh, not so much.
And that’s to say nothing for how I was going to explain the rest
of what I had to say.

I flipped the pen against my finger as
I studied the questions, debating my best course of action. If I
filled out the form only partially, they might not take my claim
seriously. On the other hand, if I made up answers to the questions
I didn’t know, they might not be able to help me (and therefore
Lisa) at all.

“
Excuse me, sir,” I croaked.
I cleared my throat again and took a deep breath before continuing.
“What if I don’t know—”

“
Just fill in as much as you
can and be as specific as you can,” he interrupted, answering me
without even looking up.

I nodded and bent over the paper to
fill in what I knew.

Less than five minutes later, I pushed
the pen back under the jaw of the clipboard and laid it on the desk
in front of the lieutenant.

I rose and turned toward the door to
leave, but he stopped me. “Hold on,” he said, scanning the form.
“Is this all you know?”

“
Yes, but it’s complicated.
I—”

“
Sit down,” he growled,
cutting me off again.

Quickly, I slid back into the chair I’d
just vacated and looked expectantly at Lieutenant Disher.
“Sir?”

“
Are you wasting my time,
young lady?”

“
No, sir. I—”

“
Then let’s cut to the
chase. Tell me what’s going on.”

“
Lieutenant Disher, I need
your help. I honestly believe that something will happen to this
girl if you don’t—”

“
Will? You didn’t
even
see
anything?”

“
Well, I saw her with, uh- I
saw a person, um—” All the things I’d considered saying, all the
explanations I’d rehearsed had fled my mind all at once, leaving
behind a complete blank. When left to wing it, I always went with
the path of least resistance. In this case, that was the truth. “I
saw someone choke Lisa Bauer to death in the grass just off campus
at University East.”

If I hadn’t been so nervous,
the look of surprise on his face would’ve been comical. “You
what?
I thought you said
a possible murder.
”

“
Uh, I, um- yesterday, I,
uh—” My head began to throb. This was getting worse by the
second.

“
Why don’t you start at the
beginning,” he offered, more gentle than he’d been up to this
point.

“
Well, I saw it when I was
on my way to school yesterday morning. I cut through the woods and
was walking toward the quad when I saw her. She was on her back in
the grass and a person with long red hair was strangling her.” I
tried to be as brief as possible, hoping he wouldn’t ask me too
many questions.