Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Gus
LESS THAN FIVE SECONDS AFTER KIT left, Mum turned her disapproving gaze on me. Her lips pursed like she was holding back what she wanted to say, and then she sighed and sipped at her coffee again.
“What?” I prodded.
“Nothing. Only did you have to be so…”
“So what?”
She waved a hand, apparently encompassing all of me. When I stared blankly, she relented. “Something is obviously wrong. He wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t dire. Kit needs a friend, August. He needs you. Can’t you see that?”
A long time ago, I thought so too. But it turned out Kit had never needed me back then.
I doubted he did now. Look how far he’d come all on his own.
The son of a broken drunkard, he’d pulled himself up out of his childhood misery and catapulted himself onto the world stage.
He’d done interviews with celebrities and politicians from multiple nations and covered the war admirably.
There wasn’t a person in this city who wouldn’t claim Kit Daring as one of theirs.
He had all the friends a person could ever need at his fingertips.
You’d never know I broke his heart.
“I don’t think so, Mum. Whatever’s happening, it seems like he has it under control. Even if he needed help, I'm the last person he’d pick.” My voice had gone rough somewhere in the middle.
“You could try offering,” she urged with a pleading gaze. “You'll regret it if you don't make things right, August. I know you will. He was your best friend.”
“Sure. And now George Baker’s my best friend.”
“As much as I love George, and you know I do, the three of you were peas in a pod. You can’t tell me you're done for good with Kit. And his hurt feelings were plain to see, so clearly, he's not done with you either.”
Crossing my arms, I leaned back in my chair.
“Running off to Montreal and ignoring my letters until I stopped writing says different. Look, if his feelings are still hurt that’s all the more proof he doesn’t want anything to do with me.
Besides we’re not the same kids we were, and we can’t hang on to everyone we’re ever close to.
Sometimes people are better off separate. ”
Mum bit her lip, her eyes going misty. “Maybe this time it’s not about what you want. I lost two children already, and the Lovely boys were basically mine from the time their Mum died. Can’t you at least try?”
My stomach clenched tight with spiky, hot guilt. I didn’t know what to say, only that I never wanted to make her cry. Losing Elsie was my fault, maybe John too. I couldn’t force her to lose Kit just because I did.
Standing, I walked around the table and pulled her up into a tight hug. “I'm sorry, okay? I'll smooth it over. Don’t cry, please, Mum. It breaks my heart.”
“I'm not crying,” she insisted, sniffling as she rubbed her wet cheek against my suit jacket. “Who would cry over something so silly? Don’t be ridiculous.”
Chuckling, I leaned back and dutifully pretended not to notice the red rims of her eyes or how shiny they were. “Of course not.”
She brushed her hand over the damp patch on my shirt.
With a faint tingle of her magic grazing my senses, it dried good as new, the scent of warm vanilla drifting off the material.
Her ability to use her magic so easily without spellcraft always seemed effortless.
It was like she had a passing thought and her magic simply responded.
She said it came from her mother’s side; they’d all been blessed with an ease of tapping into it.
And her father’s side was where I got my aptitude for blood magic.
I’d memorized spells and their ingredients at my grandfather’s knee during every summer visit.
We couldn’t risk putting blood magic spells in writing.
Too many people, even among mages, believed it was evil, the devil’s work, when it was nothing more than a powerful boost. Only dangerous to use if you didn’t have the skill and practice, or you took risks you shouldn’t.
I could still remember my grandfather’s wide, dimpled grin whenever I got a spell right.
His shocked delight when I tweaked the ones he taught me to produce different results.
Settling back in, Mum and I finished our breakfast, chatting idly about Henry and his girls and other news. Mum carefully avoided any further mention of Kit, though I knew better than to think she’d let me forget my promise.
As she was telling me about her latest published article, a siren wailed outside. When the sound cut off nearby, we looked at each other, then both rose to investigate.
From our front doorway, we could see two cop cars in the Lovely’s driveway and another in front of the house. The base of my skull went cold. What had Kit stumbled onto when he went home?
“August?” Mum asked, worry pitching her voice high.
“Stay here. I’ll see what’s happening.” She didn’t need to see it if something terrible had happened to Ted and Mary-Alice. Without grabbing my jacket, I rushed to shove my feet into my shoes, then jogged outside and across the lawn.
Dread beat in my veins as I clambered up the steps to Ted’s.
The front door was wide open, revealing the chaos inside.
A table was toppled over in the entrance, the pretty painted ceramic vase that used to sit there smashed to pieces all over the chipped wood floor.
Shards of the shattered mirror that had hung on the right mixed in to create a glittering minefield.
Papers were scattered everywhere, smashed under soggy boot prints.
More concerning was the wall at the bottom of the stairs. There was a big dent in it a couple feet off the ground. A smear of dried blood. And when I looked closer, droplets continued down the steps.
There were no signs of a body being dragged.
Scenarios shaped up in my mind: Ted falling down the stairs, whacking his head. Getting up and walking away from it, lucky he hadn’t broken his neck. Mary-Alice being shoved down them, her fate nowhere near as kind. Ted picking up the body and taking off to avoid the consequences of his actions.
Yesterday, I would have said that was impossible.
I’d known Ted Lovely his whole life. He was a good man.
I hadn’t known Mary-Alice as well, but I’d seen them together.
They seemed happy. In love. Then again, I knew better than most that seemingly good men sometimes made brutal mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes took lives.
Plenty of relationships looked happy from the outside until you discovered the rotten core.
I didn’t like to think Ted might be a murderer, but it was a possibility I couldn’t ignore.
Or I could be blowing up a bit of blood and a battered wall into a grisly scene because I was predisposed to see horrible things. Suspicion was baked into me.
“August North!” boomed a voice from my left, toward the kitchen.
Constable Fred Corbin regarded me with a grimace.
He was taller than me, six feet and change, with massive shoulders and a bit of a belly spreading out on his middle.
With his reddish mustache matching his prematurely greying hair, he was still handsome.
“Daring couldn’t have called you in already, we’ve only just got here. ”
“Nice to see you too, Freddy. I’m an old friend of Mr. Daring.” That felt strange to say. Not because I hadn’t been his friend, but to me, he’d always be Kit, or in more self-flagellating moods, Lovely. “I was visiting next door and noticed the cars. What are we looking at?”
Sighing, Corbin waved me in. “Might as well come talk to Daring yourself. Mind your step.”
He brought me into the kitchen where two other policemen were seated with Kit at the table.
This room was an even bigger disaster than the entryway.
Drawers torn open, contents tossed across the floor, white cupboards hanging off their hinges, broken dishes and glasses spilled over the counter, food tossed haphazardly. Worrisome.
The Mounties knew me well enough not to be too surprised I’d shown up to a missing persons scene, but they still shared a quick unsure glance, wondering if Kit called me first and if so, why?
Better nip that in the bud. “Sorry to interrupt. My mother lives next door and she sent me over to check on Mr. Daring when we saw the cars. We’re old family friends.”
Their expressions cleared. The man on Kit’s right stood up.
His name started with an F. Fraser, I thought.
“Then Mr. Daring can fill you in while Corbin and I talk to the neighbours. Joudrey, you get the camera and photograph everything. Make sure you get the—” He glanced at Kit and clearly shifted what he was about to say. “The, ah, stairway.”
Joudrey nodded briskly. “On it, sir.”
They retreated to complete their tasks, and I was left with Kit, whose heavy stare I had avoided up ’til then.
“You can tell your mother I’m fine,” he said, shifting uncomfortably. He looked tired. His hair was a wild mess, and his face was pale.
“You’re not. Clearly.” Kit’s eyes narrowed and his mouth pressed in a thin line, but he didn’t make a move to straighten up. “Ted and Mary-Alice seem to be missing, and—”
“What do you want from me, August?” His tone was weary and dismissive.
My temper flashed, but I pushed it down. Kit’s gaze strayed to the hallway, where the flash of the camera was going off and papers crinkled underfoot.
“I don’t want anything,” I protested, my shoulders rising slightly before I intentionally lowered them.
He wasn’t trying to hurt me. He was going through a difficult time, and I needed to manage some compassion.
It was the least Mum would expect. “It’s like I said. Mum was worried about you, and I—”
“Came to check on me for her. Okay, you did. So go ahead and let her know I'll be just fine. If I need anything else, I'll let her know myself. Oh, and thank her for her concern, would you? It's nice that someone cares.”
Fully aware of the pause in shuffling from the hallway, I kept my voice low and quiet, “I care, Kit.”
If I said more, I wouldn’t be able to contain the churning sea of emotion in my chest, stirred up under the gale force winds of being near Kit again. Of seeing him miserable and alone. The pebbles and shells of old feelings scattered loose, no matter how much I tried to shove them down.
Kit watched me with hawk eyes, the fear and pain he thought he was hiding so well peeking from their depths. It took effort to keep my expression impassive. Control of myself was something I’d mastered in the devastation Kit left behind.
I wouldn’t ever forget. And obviously neither of us could forgive. So why was I here?
With apparent difficulty, Kit finally looked away from me, swallowing. “If you have to know, I'm rotten. My little brother is missing, his house was ransacked, and…” He drew in a breath. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do now.”
“You hafta give the Mounties time to work. There could be a reasonable explanation—” Kit’s features telegraphed his skepticism as well as any words could. “Okay, maybe not. But it’s too early to get worked up.”
“Is it?” Kit asked, face twisting with grief. “Because I don’t even know how long they’ve been missing. I haven’t spoken to Ted in almost three weeks.”
“If Ted was missing so long his work would’ve noticed, wouldn’t they? His friends?” I pointed out, rational even if the ache in Kit’s voice got to me. “They’d have already been investigating. But they weren’t. So, he can’t have been gone long.”
Kit acknowledged that with a shaky nod. My hand itched to rest on his shoulder and squeeze in reassurance.
“Let me go talk to Constable Corbin. He’s a friend.” Maybe he’d tell me something he wouldn’t want to tell Kit. “See if they’ve gotten anywhere with the neighbours.”
Kit wet his lips, then pressed them together, eyes bleak. “All right.”
He looked around the kitchen helplessly, and this time I gave in to the urge to touch him and tried not to flinch when Kit’s shoulder tensed under my palm.