Chapter 16
Chapter
Sixteen
B right and early the next morning, I waited outside the repair shop until Dominic arrived to unlock the door.
“I don’t open for another ten minutes,” he said.
“I wasn’t taking any chances.”
He chuckled. “Tired of hoofing it around the island, huh?”
“I’ve had a lot of ground to cover lately.”
“You might have more. I heard that new handyman is missing.”
This rumor I could put to rest immediately. “Hank isn’t missing. He’s been relocated off the island.”
“Did he have something to do with the murders?”
“No, but Justine will have to hire someone else for Dean’s overflow. There are too many jobs for one man.”
“I could the say same about security.” Dominic gestured to my golf cart with a ta-da motion. “Good as new.”
I slid into the familiar seat and gripped the wheel.
“How does it feel?” Dominic asked .
“Like a golf cart.”
“Well, I’d be concerned if it felt like an Audi. I’m good, but I’m not that good.”
As I pulled out of the repair shop, my phone buzzed with a Code Orange. Great. I stopped on the trail to check the details. The Magnolia bingo hall. I pointed the golf cart in the direction of the hall and pressed the pedal to the metal.
I parked next to a cluster of other golf carts, not a single one parked in a straight line. Less than a week without Judd and the island was already descending into chaos.
I walked up to the double doors, where Edith and another woman were waiting.
“Maya, thank goodness you’re here,” Edith said.
“Somebody reported an emergency,” I said.
“There sure is,” Edith said. “Catherine has won three times in a row. She’s using magic, I know it.”
“And that’s against the rules,” her companion added with a dramatic push of her glasses back to the bridge of her nose.
“I can assure you that Catherine would never use magic to win a bingo game.”
“Aside from cheating, it’s theft,” Edith pressed.
“Do you have any evidence of a spell?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t cast one.”
I didn’t have time for this nonsense. “Without any evidence, there’s nothing I can do. You’ll need to decide whether to pack up and leave or keep playing.”
Edith harrumphed. “This is an outrage.”
“It’s an outrage that you’d waste Neighborhood resources on a petty grudge.”
“I’m one hundred and seventy-five years old, Maya. Petty grudges are all I have left.”
“If it will make you feel better, I’ll speak to her.”
“Yes, it would.”
“Can I watch?” the companion asked.
“No, you may not. I don’t want either one of you within earshot.”
I entered the hall in search of Catherine.
She was impossible to miss with a crowd of sycophants surrounding her.
Some people grasped at the flimsiest reason to put another person on a pedestal.
That’s what generations of deity worship did to us.
Give it another century and they’d probably manifest a god of bingo.
“Hi Catherine, can I speak to you in private for a minute?”
Her gaze slid to the clock. “Only a minute. The next round is starting in two. I need time to clear my head.”
Oh boy.
I took her gently by the elbow and steered her to a quiet corner where we wouldn’t be overheard. “I understand you won the last three games. Congratulations.”
Catherine beamed. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
“There have been accusations of cheating.”
“Haters gonna hate.”
“That’s true, but I’d like to hear it from your lips that there was no magic involved.”
Her eyes flashed with anger and indignation. “Do you come by the clubhouse every bingo game and ask the winners that same question?”
“No, but most winners don’t win three consecutive games.”
Catherine glanced over her shoulder at the clock. “I really should get back.”
“Not until you’ve answered my question.” Her hesitation bothered me. I expected an indignant denial, not outright evasion.
She lifted her chin. “Nobody can prove it.”
“Catherine, did you use some kind of spell to win?”
“What’s the harm?” she hissed. “Margie and Meemaw did it for crazy eights. I thought I’d try it for bingo.
I never win anything. I didn’t want to end up like Belinda, dead in a fountain never having won a single thing in my whole extended life.
What’s the point of being a witch if I can’t have a little fun with it before I die? ”
Catherine was in a grief spiral. Got it. “Listen, I understand what you’re going through, but cheating and stealing isn’t how you deal with your big feelings.”
She blew a raspberry at me. “You make it sound like I’ve committed some heinous crime. This is bingo! Let an old lady have a bit of luck that’s long been denied her.”
I sympathized with her, I really did. “Catherine, quit now or I’ll force you to tell everyone how you won those three games.”
She recoiled. “You wouldn’t.”
“I’m the acting director of security. Of course I would.”
“Judd would…” She paused. “Judd would’ve already arrested me.”
“Yes, he would have.”
Her eyes cleared. “I’m sorry, Maya.”
“I’m not the one you need to apologize to.” Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed someone staring at me. A wisp of a woman with gray hair so thin that I could see patches of her scalp.
“Catherine,” I said slowly, “don’t draw attention to her, but do you recognize that woman in the corner with the gray hair? ”
“Half the room has gray hair. You’ll have to narrow down the description.”
“She closely resembles the cartoon witch from Snow White .”
Catherine pretended to wave to someone across the room as her gaze flicked to the strange lady. “No,” she said through the clenched teeth of a pseudo-friendly smile. “Never saw her before.”
“Thanks. I’m going to check her out.”
“Need backup in case she offers you a poisoned apple?”
“It’s probably best if I handle this on my own.” We were in a bingo hall. How much trouble could the woman cause?
I walked toward her, maintaining a nonchalant stride.
I avoided eye contact and paused every few steps to feign interest in a player’s bingo card.
My ruse, however, was futile. Before I reached her, she leapt onto the table with more energy in her spindly legs than I had in my entire body and keened.
Neighbors’ palms slammed against their ears to muffle the hideous sound.
“We get it,” I shouted. “You’re a banshee.” Her vocal histrionics didn’t affect me, for which I was grateful. The bingo hall doubled as a musical event center and the acoustics were amazing—when the sound was pleasing to the ear.
The banshee pointed to me. “Fly too close to the sun and your days will be done.” Another earsplitting keen followed her substandard verse.
“If you intend to threaten me, you’ll need a more impressive rhyme.”
The old woman’s tongue darted between her broken teeth as she hissed at me like an angry cat. Then she kicked the bingo cards in front of her feet, scattering the chips on the floor. Angry objections filled the air .
The banshee jumped to the floor with such grace that I was beginning to think she was, in fact, part cat. She rushed past me, nearly knocking me flat on my ass in the process. I was saved by the firm hand of Buck, who managed to catch me before I bruised my ego.
Buck observed her hasty exit. “Who’s the new lady?”
“Only a visitor,” I said, regaining my balance.
“Too bad. I like a bit of fire in a woman.”
I sprinted from the bingo hall in search of the banshee. Evermore was an island. She’d need a vessel ready and waiting if she intended to make a quick escape. Not at a dock, though. Nobody would’ve let her disembark without authorization.
I ran toward the nearest beach. Sure enough, I glimpsed a small motorboat in the distance. The banshee was headed straight for it.
I spread my wings in hot pursuit. “Why are you here?” I shouted, my words quickly swallowed by the wind. As much as I liked living on an island, that cross breeze was a real nuisance sometimes.
I stared at the dark water and tried to think of reasons why a banshee would show up in the bingo hall, taunt, then flee.
I let loose a string of curses. I’d been out of the field too long. The banshee wasn’t the main event.
She was a distraction.
I turned away from the beach and flew inland. Who else had invaded the Neighborhood? What was at risk?
I had no Judd. No teammate to divide and conquer the island. Meemaw was wrong about me. I hadn’t worked truly alone in five years. Maybe I’d forgotten how.
I laughed, tasting the bitterness on my tongue. Impossible. I’d hidden myself from others, but I would never manage to hide from myself, no matter how hard I tried. I’d been a solo operation from the time I could ride a bike. I knew how to function as a one-woman party pooper better than anybody.
I remembered the break-in at my cottage. Someone was back and they were searching for what—evidence? If they didn’t find it in my home, where else would they need to look?
It had to be the crime scene. They’d left evidence behind. That was the only reason to take such a great risk and return to Evermore.
The tightness in my stomach eased when the fountain came into view. There was no sign of movement?—
Water splashed and a lean figure sprinted toward the shoreline. Perfect. Unless he was a merman, I’d have him trapped on the beach. Whoever he was, he was preternaturally fast. Far too fast to be someone ready to join the Neighborhood. He seemed to know exactly where he was going too.
Then I spotted it on the horizon. The banshee’s boat.
The wind picked up, slowing the beat of my wings. I realized I was no longer chasing a man. The human physique had morphed into the body of a water horse. His figure cut through the water like a knife through soft butter. He was some kind of shapeshifting water spirit.
A gust of wind knocked me for six, and I struggled to return to an upright position.
I needed my feet back on land. I returned to the beach and watched helplessly as he transformed back into a man and climbed into the boat.
The banshee gave me the middle finger and let loose a final victorious shriek as the boat turned toward the open sea.
I trudged back to the fountain, my shoes sinking into the sand. A man who could shapeshift into a water horse when wet wasn’t a man at all. He was a glashtyn.
What was he after? More importantly, did he find it?
I kicked off my shoes, rolled up my pant legs, and waded into the shallow water.
A banshee and a glashtyn working together. What was the connection? They were both minions, not masterminds, which meant they were likely working for someone else.
“That’s against HOA regulations,” someone yelled.
“Tell Justine to send me a fine.” I continued scanning the floor of the fountain to see if there was anything noteworthy.
Aside from pennies and the occasional quarter from the big spenders, I saw nothing.
If there was something valuable here, the glashtyn likely found it.
I tried to recall my initial search of the fountain immediately following Belinda’s death.
Had I seen something unusual and dismissed it as irrelevant?
I gave up my search and flew back to the bingo hall to retrieve my golf cart, my pride still stinging from the double failure. If only I had full access to my powers…
No. I refused to travel down that road. There was a damn good reason I’d masked them.
If I’d busted out a rare ability every time there was a Neighborhood crisis, I’d be dead or imprisoned by now.
I had to try to handle this investigation the old-fashioned way.
I’d worked too hard and sacrificed too much for this life, and I aimed to keep it.
The glashtyn was probably handing “it” to his overlord right now. Then again, I’d interrupted his search, hadn’t I? It was possible he hadn’t found what he was looking for because it wasn’t in the fountain. Not in the fountain. Not in my cottage.
Which meant they’d be back.
My chest constricted at the thought. What if they returned and crossed paths with an innocent bystander? I couldn’t risk another death in the Neighborhood.
I called Zachariah and got his voicemail. Probably at the golf course—but which one? There had to be something we missed during the autopsy. Something special we overlooked.
Something worth killing for.