Chapter 3
For a moment I thought the man was Stalker-Man, and the memory of my Future flash:
Him, lying dead on the cold, dark ground…
…rolled like thunder through my head.
“He’s dead,” a voice said from the darkness.
I startled and pressed my hand over my chest. “Jean? You scared the gravy out of me.”
She stepped closer, light bleaching her to bones. “He’s dead.”
Her eyes were wide, the blue of her irises a thin line around the darkness of her pupils.
Shock, I thought. But there was something more.
There was blood. On her hands, on her shirt, like she’d wiped her hands on it. She was shaking.
“Okay, it’s okay. Hold on. Jean?”
She looked like she was about to pass out.
Jean was the one who handled emergencies. Jean was the one who solved crimes. Jean was the one who showed up when things went terribly wrong.
But now something terribly wrong had happened to her.
So I took over.
“Just let me…” I bent and checked the body for a pulse. Nothing. I stepped carefully around him toward Jean, trying not to trample the scene. Was this a scene? Was this murder?
It sure didn’t look like an accident.
“I’ve got you.” I wrapped my arm around her waist and guided her toward the picnic table. “Let’s just sit down. Are you hurt?”
She did as I asked, trembling, her movements robotic. I had a weird déjà vu of her being at the table this afternoon, happy in the sun, and now, deathly cold in the dark.
I was usually calm in a crisis, but this was big. Personal. Jean was my friend.
“Where’s the blood coming from. Jean? Can you tell me what happened?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t. There’s so much blood. Why is there blood?”
That was a good question and since I didn’t have a good answer: 911 coming right up.
I dialed. “I think you’re in shock, and that’s okay. This is a shock kind of situation. I’m calling the police.”
“Police?” Jean blinked, coming out of her daze. “Good. Yes. Oh, my gods. Piper. He’s dead. There’s blood. Blood on me. How is there blood?”
“Yep. I got this. We’re going to deal with all that in just a sec…”
“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?” Delaney asked.
“Delaney, it’s Piper. You need to come out to the Blue Owl. Jean’s here and she’s okay, but she’s in shock. A man’s been stabbed or shot or something. He’s dead.”
Her response was firm and immediate. “Stay right where you are. Don’t touch the man, don’t get close to him. Tell Jean to stay with you. I’m on my way.”
“We’re behind the building. Should we go inside?”
“No. Stay where you are. Don’t let anyone near the crime scene.”
The call ended and I knew she’d be here in under 10 minutes.
Crime scene. The reality of the situation, the clarity of this now settled, and I had a sinking feeling things were going to get worse.
Someone had killed that man—whoever he was—behind our building. Jean was covered in blood.
Had she killed him?
No, I refused to believe that. She was my friend and her job was to save people, to keep them safe. She wasn’t a killer.
Then who was? And why had they killed him here?
No idea.
Think, Piper. What would Jules or Dusi do?
“Oh! Right,” I said quietly. “Murder. Mystery. Just like the books. Look for clues.” I patted Jean’s shoulder gently. “Stay here. Delaney’s on the way.”
She nodded and put her head in her hands like she had the worse headache in the world.
I walked to the body, careful to use the same pathway Jean and I had already walked.
The pool of blood was huge—did that matter? Did it mean something?
What details would a detective see?
His jacket wasn’t a fancy brand, his jeans were well worn, but his shoes and watch were expensive. The jacket had a long tear in the back of it.
So he’d probably been stabbed, not shot.
I shook my head. Stabbing was an intimate kind of killing. Someone had to get in close to do it.
He had dark hair, medium-pale skin, and was clean shaven. I’d guess he was in his early fifties.
He was definitely not Stalker-Man, but I’d seen him come through the diner.
He was Hugo Malloy, Gail’s ex, or soon-to-be-ex-husband.
“Oh no, Gail,” I whispered. “Were you angry enough to do this?”
She’d been here. But then, so had Kenny, Hugo’s business partner who had been mad about Hugo not wanting to sell the business.
Neither of them had seemed to like Hugo much, but did they hate him enough to kill him?
I scanned the ground with my phone flashlight, but it wasn’t like the murderer was going to leave the murder weapon or a business card behind to make it easy on me.
“Okay,” I said out loud, thinking this through. “Now what?”
What tools did I have at my disposal? My biggest strengths were looking on the bright side of things and sometimes seeing the correct future.
Not noticing an important detail in this now didn’t mean there weren’t some I’d notice in the future.
I wondered if I could get a peek at what Future Me might see.
Little futures bubbled and then flashed:
Jean in the back seat of the police cruiser
Delaney arguing with Buzz
Stalker-Man opening the passenger side of my car and sitting down. “We need to talk…”
None of that helped with the dead body.
C’mon, future, I begged. Show me something useful for once.
There was a brighter flash, just the quickest of images:
A beautiful golden box.
“A box? Really?” I huffed. “We need to work on what ‘useful’ means, future.”
“Piper?” Jean cleared her throat and sounded stronger on the second try. “Piper, I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill him.”
“Of course you didn’t! I never thought you did. Don’t you worry. Delaney is so good at this stuff. She’ll figure it out. Just hold on, then you can tell her everything.”
Jean made a sound between a choke and a laugh. “No, I can’t tell her everything.”
“Hey, now. She’s your sister. Of course you can talk to her.”
“I know I can talk to her. I just can’t tell her everything. Because I don’t remember any of this.”
“Any of what?”
She held up her hands. “Being out here. Him, whoever he is. Why he’s dead. Why there’s blood on my hands. I was at the booth—I did sit in the diner, didn’t I? You brought me water?”
“Yes. That happened.”
The distant wail of a siren, no two, coming closer cut through the stillness of the night.
“I don’t remember walking out here. Just the diner, then I was here—you were here. I saw you and you saw me.”
“Shock? I think you’re in shock.”
“Listen to me. I’m not in shock—okay, fine I probably am—but my memory is gone. It’s missing.
“I remember the diner, I remember you coming out the door. I don’t remember this,” she pointed at Hugo, “at all. My doom-twinges were off the charts when I was in the diner. Someone or something messed with my memory.”
“Magic?”
“It could be.”
I turned a circle, trying to sense if there was magic here.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, magically speaking.
“We can tell Delaney about your memory. Oh! Maybe you have a head injury? That’d be good. Well, not good, but concussions can knock the sense right out of you. Did you hit your head?”
She reached up to check her skull and grimaced at the blood on her hands. “I really want to wash this off.”
“As soon as Delaney gets here. She told me not to mess with the crime scene, so we just have to hang on a couple more minutes. Tip your head, easy now, I’m going to feel the back of it.”
She followed my instructions, and I carefully felt the back of her head.
“Ow! Yes. Ow.”
I pulled my fingers away. “That’s an injury. It’s bleeding. Did you fall?”
“Can’t remember.”
“Are your hands scraped?”
“I—” She turned them over and back. “No? I don’t think so.”
The siren was loud enough to be almost at the parking lot.
I should be feeling relief, but instead I felt a sudden urgency to do something, to fix this. To be the one who could give Jean answers.
“If you fell on the gravel, your hands would be scraped up. So maybe someone hit you? Did you see anyone else out here?”
The sirens cut off, and I heard engines rolling closer. The trees edging the diner strobed red, blue, red.
I was out of time.
Almost.
Details. What details might be clues?
I searched the darkness, a breeze fluttering through the trees above us and around us.
There, on the diner step beneath the watery light, I saw a splatter of blood.
Had Hugo stood there? Or had the killer paused there with the murder weapon in his hand?
“Jean?” Delaney’s voice carried over the rapid crunch of her boots on the gravel. She looked angry and afraid, a flashlight—one of those industrial ones that could light up a block and be used as a weapon—in her hand.
“Right here,” I said. “She’s okay. She’s right here.”
Jean held up one hand almost in apology.
Delaney rushed toward her. “Are you okay?”
“Mostly. My memories, Del. They’re gone.”
Delaney nodded but her gaze was all over her sister’s face and body. “Where’s the blood coming from?”
“She has a lump on her head,” I said. “Bleeding.”
Delaney washed the beam over Jean, then flooded the body, the doorway, and the green space around us with light. “No one else out here?”
“No one except him,” I pointed at the body.
Hatter, one of Ordinary’s other police officers, who rocked the lanky cowboy vibe, came around the corner of the diner.
He pushed his Stetson back with a finger and whistled. “I’ll cordon it off, boss.”
She gave him a curt nod and turned to me. “I need your statement.”
“Of course. Anything I can do to help.”
Her pale eyes narrowed as she studied the scene. She was the chief of police. She could add one dead body to one bloodstained sister and deduce that it looked like Jean had killed him.
But she must not truly believe that.
Delaney was extremely fair-minded. She’d been good to me when I’d made a big mistake and trusted a crooked god—Mithra—back when I’d first come to town. Even though I’d thought I was doing the right thing, I had been wrong.
Delaney could have kicked me out of Ordinary, but she knew Mithra, and she knew how he manipulated and used people.
My punishment had been community service helping Bertie, Ordinary’s Valkyrie and community event coordinator, with her many, many (have I mentioned many?) festivals.
But because of that volunteer work, I’d found my best friend Jules, our murder mystery book club, and more recently, my other best friend, Dusi.
It had turned out for the best, is what I’m saying. Delaney was good at helping things turn out for the best. I knew she would make this right.
“Jean,” she said. “You have the right to remain silent.”
Jean squared her shoulders and faced her sister. “I didn’t kill him.”
Delaney hesitated a split second before answering. “I know. But you need to have your head wound looked at. Then we’re going to be asking you questions. A lot of questions. You don’t have to say anything. Not yet. Not to me.”
“I came to the diner after the fire. I drank some water. I was feeling bad, doom-twinging, so I walked outside for some air. I don’t remember coming back here. I don’t remember touching him. I don’t know how I got blood on my hands. Someone took my memory.”
“First we’ll get that gash on your head taken care of,” Delaney said. “I don’t want to hear anything else yet, all right? Are you okay to walk?”
Jean stood. “Yes.” Her gaze cut to Hatter setting up the yellow tape and somehow, she went even more pale. “Who is he? The victim?”
“That’s not something you’re going to deal with.” Delaney was guiding her toward the EMTs.
Sage and Page, Ordinary’s EMTs (who were also vampires) rolled a gurney into position next to the body. They both had silvery blonde hair that shone like moonlight in the shadows.
Sage was one of my book club friends. She had big opinions on every book we’d read so far (don’t get her started on Raymond Chandler) but her sanguine attitude was dampened, her expression serious as she took in the scene.
She shot a look my way and I shook my head. No, I didn’t know what had happened. No, I didn’t know what was going to happen next.
“Sage, can you help me with Jean?” Delaney asked. “Head wound.”
“Absolutely.” She stepped over to them. “Let’s get you to the ambulance.”
“I’ll be right back, Hatter,” Delaney said, walking beside Jean.
“Say, boss?” Hatter said.
“Yes?”
“You really think you should be alone with her? Your sister?”
Delaney stopped. The emotion that flickered across her face made me want to give her a hug.
“Why can’t she be with me?” Jean asked. Then: “Oh, yeah. Right. Conflict of interest. Hatter should sit with me in the ambulance and after that interrogate me, Del.”
“You don’t have to say anything without a lawyer present.” Delaney held out her hand for Hatter’s camera.
“I know. But I didn’t do this. I’ll answer questions.”
“Hatter if you…” Delaney started.
“Fair and by the book. I got this, boss.”
Delaney looked like she wanted to say something, do something, but the moment passed. Hatter pressed his camera into her hand, then followed Jean and Sage.
Futures flickered:
Coffee for Delaney
Water for Jean
And a long dang night of questioning
“Let me put on a fresh pot of coffee,” I said. “I’ll get Jean some water. Page, do you need anything?”
“I’m good, thanks.”
“Delaney?”
She took a deep breath, looking like she was ready to shove mountains off their foundations. “Just coffee. Thanks, Piper. Thanks for staying with her until we got here.”
“You’re welcome. Let me know if there’s anything I can do. Oh! There’s some blood on the step, if that helps.”
“Thanks. Stay inside for now.”
“Can do.”
I made my way back into the diner and kicked into automatic, brewing coffee and helping keep everyone calm while Shoe (another Ordinary officer) assured everyone this wouldn’t take long.
I didn’t have to look into the future to know he was totally lying.