Life's a Witch (30 page)

“You did get it,” Thistle argued. “You got it, and sold it to Aunt Tillie and our grandmother because you thought this area was beneath you.”

“Don’t bother denying it,” I added. “We know what happened. When you left, Walkerville was a struggling community. The land was worth practically nothing. You got your payout and you were happy because you thought you stuck Aunt Tillie and Grandma with property you didn’t want.”

“Our mothers turned that property into a goldmine,” Clove chimed in. “They put their blood, sweat and tears into that inn. They designed it and they’re the draw thanks to their hard work and cooking. They worked their A-S-S-E-S off and they reaped the rewards. You don’t have anything to do with that inn, and you don’t deserve a dime.”

“Who are you spelling for?” Aunt Willa asked, glancing around.

“You, dumbass,” Thistle replied, earning a scorching glare from Aunt Willa. “If you try to take that inn from our mothers, you’re going to have a lot more than Aunt Tillie to deal with.”

“That’s right,” I said. “Our mothers are beloved in this community. They volunteer their time and they’re good people. No one likes you here. No one will take your side. A judge certainly isn’t going to take your side.”

“No matter how well your mothers are liked in Hemlock Cove, Tillie is hated here,” Aunt Willa said. “People will take my side to get rid of her.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” I argued. “Aunt Tillie isn’t hated.”

Thistle arched a dubious eyebrow.

“She’s not hated,” I repeated. “She’s feared. Do you really think the people of this town want to risk going after her? She’ll burn every single one of them to a crisp before she lets you take that land. You know that, right?”

“I see she has you snowed, too,” Aunt Willa scoffed. “You’re afraid of her because you think she has magical powers. Let me tell you something, my dears, she doesn’t have magical powers because they don’t exist.”

I stilled, exchanging a confused look with Thistle. Powers came with being a Winchester. Our mothers mostly dabbled, yet they still had power. Had Aunt Willa deluded herself into believing she wasn’t paranormal because she was so desperate to be normal? That’s the only excuse I could muster.

“I think you’re living in La-La Land,” I said finally. “Whatever you think you’re going to accomplish here, you’re going to fail. Whatever misery you think you’re going to mete out to Aunt Tillie, it’s going to come back on you. That’s called karma.”

“And we all believe in it,” Clove added.

“Then you’ll all be sorry together,” Aunt Willa said. “Rosemary has been talking to our lawyer. She’s quite brilliant in legal circles. You know that, right?”

“The only circle Rosemary looks brilliant in is the one in your own head … or the Ring-Around-The-Rosy one at your local kindergarten,” Thistle replied. “You’re an idiot if you think you can touch that property. I’m almost happy you’re doing this. It’s going to be so much fun to watch you lose.”

“And what happens when I win?”

“Then we’ll get to watch Aunt Tillie dance on your actual grave,” Thistle answered. “That will be fun, too.”

Thirty

After Aunt Willa’s visit – and huffy exit – I was on edge. I paced Hypnotic until Thistle and Clove couldn’t take another second of my nervous energy and threatened me with a dirt sandwich or banishment. I knew Aunt Willa didn’t have a claim on the land, but whenever someone messes with my family I want to do something horrible to them. Unfortunately, that was Aunt Tillie’s job in this particular situation.

I headed toward The Whistler, thinking I could get some work done – or at least waste an hour shopping on Etsy – when I saw Rosemary walking through the front door of the office. Ugh. What is with her and Brian? It’s incredibly annoying. Well, there was no way I was hanging out with the two of them. Of course, it might be fun to eavesdrop. Oh, who was I kidding? Edith could do that. I’m never going to choose the path that might lead to projectile vomiting, and that’s all I could think of whenever I looked at Rosemary.

I cast a glance in the direction of the police department, tempted to see how Landon and Chief Terry were doing with the three teenagers of terror. They didn’t want me there for obvious reasons. It was unprofessional to have the local news reporter sit in on an interrogation. It was even worse for the FBI agent in charge to bring his girlfriend along.

With nothing better to do, I found myself walking in the direction of the Jamison house. I was lost in thought – possibilities about Nathaniel’s death and fitting retribution for Aunt Willa warring for supremacy – when I happened upon Chloe as I rounded the corner that led to her house.

“What are you doing here?” Chloe asked, her eyes narrowing. “Are you here to finish me off?”

I sighed. Coming to the Jamison house was a bad idea. I’d forgotten that Chloe was laboring under the misassumption that I tried to kill her. “How are you doing, Chloe?”

“How do you think I’m doing?” Chloe asked, her tone scathing. “My brother is dead. My mother is a mess. She’s decided I need rehab because the pot is clearly driving me insane. My life is perfect. I should be on one of those Real Housewives of … Whatever shows.”

When she put it like that … . “Chloe, I know that life seems as if it’s stacking up against you right now,” I said. “Things will get better. I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but you will find a way to move past this.”

“I’m sorry, are you actually offering me sympathy after you tried to kill me?”

“I didn’t try to kill you,” I replied. “I … you misunderstand what happened.”

“How? We were standing next to the water, and the next thing I knew I was flying through the air and landing in the middle of that filthy mess. There was no one else there.”

There was no rational way I could explain what happened, so I decided to change the subject. “You should know that Stephen, Dakota and Charlie have been taken in for questioning today,” I offered. “Landon and Chief Terry are talking to them right now.”

Chloe furrowed her brow. “For what?”

“Well, for everything,” I said. “You heard about the pot field, right?”

Chloe rolled her eyes. “Everyone heard about the pot field. It’s the lead story in the Hemlock Cove … oh, wait. You write for The Whistler. There’s no way to make sense of that.”

I was starting to think rehab was a good idea. Chloe was definitely scattered. “Did you know about the field?”

“Everyone knew about the field,” Chloe replied. “The only people who didn’t know about the field were the cops and … well … you.”

That was interesting. Teenagers are prone to exaggeration, but I had trouble believing the pot field managed to remain secret given the number of parties at Hollow Creek. “How long was it there?”

“Um … I don’t know,” Chloe said, shrugging. “It’s been there as long as I can remember. I first heard about it when I was in middle school. I didn’t know what Nathaniel was talking about when he mentioned it, but he was definitely talking about it then.”

“So, what? Are we talking, like, four years here?”

“That sounds about right.”

Holy crap! Teenagers today are much better at keeping secrets than we were at that age. Aunt Tillie would’ve sniffed out a secret pot field within days. She wouldn’t have needed years. “Who planted it?”

“I … .” Chloe tilted her head, considering the question. She didn’t want to rat out her friends. I got that. The truth was going to come out no matter what, though. Charlie was going to spill his guts faster than a zombie on
The Walking Dead
.

“The police are going to find out one way or another,” I prodded.

“I have no idea who planted it the first time,” Chloe said, resigned. “Every year a group of kids takes over the field from another group of kids. They get … selected.”

I frowned. It was like a pot popularity contest. “Was your brother one of the chosen ones?”

“He was one of the popular boys.”

That wasn’t an answer. “Nathaniel was one of the popular ones, so he ran the field with a couple of his friends,” I surmised. “It gave him extra money. When he went to college, he lost out on that money, and your mother didn’t have any extra to give him. Did he try to take over the field again when he came back this summer?”

“I have no idea.”

She was lying. I was on the right track. I knew it. “Who are they working with?”

“Who is who working with?” Chloe asked. She looked genuinely confused.

“They have to be working with someone,” I pressed. “I overheard Stephen, Dakota and Charlie worrying about what ‘they’ would do. Who is the ‘they’ those boys are talking about?”

“I have no idea.” Chloe crossed her arms over her chest, defiant.

“Chloe, you’re not protecting anyone but the people who killed your brother,” I said. “Is that what you want? Do you want your brother’s murder to go unsolved?”

“I don’t really care,” Chloe said. “I’m not ratting on people. That’s not who I am. I don’t know a lot about my brother because he was always mean to me, but I know what he would think of anyone who talked to you guys. I’m not going to do it. There’s nothing you can do to make me.”

“You’re making a poor decision here,” I said. “You’re going to regret it.”

“I think I’ll live,” Chloe shot back. “I’m not taking advice from the woman who tried to drown me in the same creek my brother died in. I know that’s something I would regret.”

I watched Chloe flounce away in the direction of downtown. Her pace was brisk and yet her shoulders dipped. She was a troubled girl, and I had a feeling it was going to get worse before it got better.

I lifted my eyes to find her mother staring at me through the bay window at the front of their house. Her face was … dark. She probably thought I tried to kill Chloe, too. I lifted my hand in a half-hearted wave, but Patty didn’t return it. There was no way she was going to talk to me. This was another dead end.

I was out of options. Again.

I FOUND
myself back at Hollow Creek an hour later. I’m not good with down time when I’m waiting for answers. I’m impatient. I can’t help it. I blame Aunt Tillie. She set a poor example on that front. I hoped Nathaniel would make an appearance so I could question him. He was the only one with the answers I needed.

I scuffed at the dirt as I walked, debating how I could reconcile what Chloe said with my emerging theory regarding the pot field and her brother’s death. If it really had been up and running for years – and I had no reason to doubt that – the pot field served as a money-making endeavor for years. Still, how could the kids simply hand it over to the next generation without putting up a stink? Someone had to organize it. Someone had to make rules and force the kids to follow them.

If Nathaniel came back and thought he was going to step into his old job, that might be enough to propel someone to kill him. It wouldn’t be enough to propel someone to stab him eight times, though. That still bothered me.

“What are you doing back here?”

I shifted when I heard Nathaniel’s voice, fixing him with a hard look. “I’m trying to figure out what happened to you,” I answered. “You’re not talking, and there are a lot of things about this that don’t make sense.”

“You’ve ruined everything,” Nathaniel said. “You ended the parties. You burned down the field. There’s nothing left here. You ruined it all!”

“You’re left here.”

“And now I’m alone, thanks to you,” Nathaniel spat.

His reaction made me inexplicably sad. Sure, he was a drug dealer and rampant asshat, but he was still a sad and lonely young man. “You don’t have to stay here, Nathaniel,” I reminded him. “In fact, you’re not meant to stay here. You can move on.”

“Maybe I don’t want to move on.”

“Do you know what will happen to you if you carry on like this? You’ll turn into a poltergeist. Do you know what that means?”

“I’ve seen the movie,” Nathaniel replied dryly. “The original was much better than the remake.”

“That can be said about every movie,” I shot back. “A poltergeist is rage. That’s all it is. If you give in to what you’re feeling, you’ll never have any peace. Is that what you want?”

“I can’t have what I want, can I?” Nathaniel challenged. “I wanted a future. I wanted to be someone. I died as a Hemlock Cove nobody. What’s worse than that?”

“You died someone,” I said. “You might not have been who you wanted to be, but you were still someone.”

“And who is that?”

“You were a son. You were a brother. You were a human being. That’s gone now. You can still have an afterlife if you allow yourself to release the rage.”

“I don’t want to do that,” Nathaniel said. “I want to be angry. It’s the only thing I have right now.”

I shook my head. Apparently stubbornness was a shared trait in the Jamison family. “Tell me who you were working for,” I said, changing tactics. “Chloe said this field has been operational for years. Every year a new group of students took over the operation. You were forced out, but you tried to come back, didn’t you?”

“I did a good job,” Nathaniel seethed, his aura flashing red. “I should’ve been left in charge. Those idiots who were running it this year … well … you saw what happened. They killed the entire business.”

“Who were they working for?”

“I don’t snitch,” Nathaniel said. “I’m not telling you that.”

“Even though they killed you?”

“They didn’t kill me,” Nathaniel replied. “They tried to force me out of the business and cut me out of the profits, so I have no love for them, but they didn’t kill me. Besides, I stole their cash stash as payback. They got what was coming to them for trying to block me.”

The money in the cave. “If they didn’t kill you, who did?”

Nathaniel’s face contorted, his eyes traveling to a spot over my shoulder. I refused to let him distract me, though. I needed answers and I was sick of him refusing to answer my questions.

“Who killed you, Nathaniel? It’s important. I need to know.”

“Why don’t you turn around and find out.”

Oh, crap. Not again.

Thirty-One

Behind me? If whoever was behind me didn’t do it first, Landon was definitely going to kill me this time. Crap on toast!