Chapter 23
The ghost has Jared, and I have no idea how to find him. My heart is about to beat out of my chest. I calmly tell Keri and Roger I’ll put in some calls and have every cop in the city looking for him.
Which I should do, right?
But they won’t be able to find him. Because a ghost took him.
A fucking ghost.
Where do ghosts even take people? How did she take him? I go back inside and close the door, feeling dizzy. Jared is in danger and I’m fairly certain it’s totally on me this time. Letting Lynn through the rift was an accident.
But sharing info about her with Jared…maybe I said too much. Maybe I got him too interested and too excited and should have made sure he wouldn’t try to summon her. I should have done a better job protecting him.
I put my head in my hands and lean against the door.
“Ace?” Gemma’s voice comes from the stairs. “You okay?”
“No,” I say, slowly shaking my head. “I’m not.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Remember that boy, Jared, I told you about?”
“Yeah, your neighbor. Did something happen to him?”
“The ghost took him.”
Her eyes widen. “Took him?”
“I have no idea what to do.” I inhale, feeling close to panicking. “I have absolutely no idea how to get him back.” I blink, and look at Gemma. “She’s going to kill him.”
“Ace,” Gemma starts, getting freaked out by my panic. “You’ll save him. It’s what you do.”
“But how?” I’m not one to let self-doubt get the best of me, but right now I’m feeling as helpless as ever. “Where the fuck does a ghost take a person?”
“I don’t know. She’s an angry ghost?”
“Oh, I’d say so for sure.” I blink and try to snap myself into detective mode.
Jared was kidnapped. His kidnapper is an angry ghost, but I need to think of her as an angry woman.
“Her death was ruled accidental, but given the circumstances and how pissed the fuck off she is, I think she was murdered.”
Gemma’s eyes meet mine. “Maybe that’s what she wants: a confession. Was it Jared?”
“No. He’s too young even now to even be suspected. I think it was her boyfriend and—that’s it!”
“What’s it?”
“If I can get him to confess, maybe she’ll stop with the haunting.”
“Yes!” Gemma agrees. “Her unfinished business will be finished and she can move on. But, uh, how are you going to get the boyfriend to confess? Don’t you have legal hoops to go through with that stuff?”
“Yes and no.” I push off the door and go into the kitchen and open the notebook full of translated spells. “I don’t have time to do this as Detective Bisset.”
“I’m not quite following,” Gemma says.
“I’m a witch. What’s the point of having powers if I can’t use them to terrify someone into a confession in order to save an innocent kid?”
“And you can’t tell me what I’m doing here?” Officer Nick Beasley asks, raising an eyebrow.
“No,” I tell him. “I need you to trust me.”
“I trust you.” His eyes go to Gemma, and I know he’s confused. But the less he knows, the better. Gemma and I went over the plan, and it’s a bit of a Hail Mary, but I think it’ll work. And if it doesn’t…it’s back to the drawing board.
“You can trust her.” I shift my gaze to meet Gemma’s. “I do.” Folding the papers Nick gave me, I call Gemma and put my phone in my purse once she answers. She’ll be listening, and will alert Nick when it’s time.
I get out of the car and briskly walk across the street. Trevor Harris is at home, bored and alone, according to his Instagram stories at least. I push my hair over my shoulder and knock on his door. The TV is on and it’s so loud I’m not sure he can hear me.
I knock again, and this time the volume on the TV goes down. A few seconds later, Trevor opens the door.
“Can I help you?” he asks.
“No, but you can help someone else.” I give him my best sexy smile.
His eyebrows go up and his gaze drops to my chest. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“Can I come in?”
“Uh, sure.” He steps aside and I move in, looking around the house. It’s messy and cluttered, and some sort of football video game has come to a standstill on the TV. The door shuts and locks behind me. If I didn’t have the power to summon fire, I’d be sweating right about now.
I unfold the papers and pull a crystal from my pocket. I press the two together, getting ready to whisper the concealment charm.
“Is Lynn home?” I ask.
His eyes widen. “Lynn?”
“Yes. Lynn. She said she’d be home later.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Why not?” I ask.
He puts on a good show, closing his eyes in a slow blink and dropping his head. “She…she passed away.”
“Funny,” I say, not missing a beat. “I saw her this afternoon. She gave me your address. I’m writing an article about the local waterfalls.”
“This isn’t funny.” His eyes flash. “Who put you up to this?”
“No one. So…Lynn isn’t home?”
“Listen, lady,” he says through gritted teeth, and rushes me. I back up, pinning myself against the wall. He raises his hand, pointing a finger in my face. “This isn’t fucking funny.”
“You know what’s not funny? Killing your girlfriend and making it look like an accident.”
Trevor balls his fist and tries to hit me. I move out of the way and mutter the spell. The concealment charm ripples through me and I disappear from his sight.
“What the?” He spins around, looking for me.
Oh my God, it’s working even better than I thought. I’m completely invisible. Slowly, I move to the other side of the room.
“You pushed her,” I whisper.
Trevor’s nostrils flare. “Who the fuck are you?”
“A friend of Lynn’s.”
I slink behind a chair and give it a shove. Trevor jumps, hands raised, ready to fight.
“Admit it. You pushed her.”
“No. She fell. I…I tried to save her. She…she got too close to the edge.”
“And then you pushed her.”
“Shut up!”
I move around the coffee table, knocking a beer bottle to the floor.
Trevor spins around, hands held out to his sides.
The floor creaks under my feet, and I sidestep out of his reach at the last second.
Taking one of the pictures of Lynn I printed, I toss it down.
Once it leaves my grasp, it comes into his sight.
“Stop it!” he screams, bringing his hands to his head. “Leave me alone! I didn’t kill her! I didn’t.”
He’s getting close to breaking already. I lean over, putting my face closer to my purse. “Now,” I tell Gemma. I inch around the coffee table, looking out the window. Gemma and Nick are getting out of the car and rushing toward the house.
“Why did you do it?” I go on, throwing another picture of Lynn on the ground. This one has murderer written across it in red ink.
“I didn’t!”
“Stop lying.” I put my hand on the lock on the front door, waiting another beat before shooting back the deadbolt. Any second now, Nick will be on the front porch.
“I didn’t do it!” Trevor’s eyes are on the front door. I dart forward, picking up the remote to the TV. I turn the TV off and throw the remote across the room, taking his attention away from the door.
I throw the window open and cool night air blows through the house. I have a few more pictures left, and this time, I hold one that I printed off Trevor’s Facebook. I summon the fire around my fingers and ignite the paper. The end burns and curls as it floats to the ground.
I move around, standing close behind Trevor. “Admit it!” I whisper in his ear. “Admit you pushed her.”
“All right!” he cries, falling to the ground. “I pushed her. We were fighting and I pushed her. But I didn’t mean to kill her!”
“You only wanted to seriously hurt her?”
“No, I…I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking. I was mad and it was a reaction!”
“So you admit it. You. Killed. Lynn.” I grab a handful of his hair and yank his head back. “Tell the truth!”
“I did it! I did it,” he sobs. “I pushed her and she died. I’m sorry!”
With that, Nick comes into the house through the open door.
I step to the side and drop the concealment charm.
I step on it, crushing the glass bead. The spell is broken and I come back into view.
Nick blinks, obviously confused about how I just showed up.
But he snaps out of it and arrests Trevor for Lynn’s murder.
“It worked,” Gemma says, watching as Nick takes Trevor to his squad car. “It actually worked.”
“He cracked easily,” I tell her, turning the lock on the doorknob. I pull the front door closed and join her on the porch. “He must have felt a lot of guilt over the years for this. Lucky for us.”
She nods. “So…is it over? Will Lynn cross over?”
“I don’t know.” We walk down the porch steps. “And I’m not too sure how to find out.” I flick my eyes to the night sky. The guys are awake now, and Jac will know what to do from here.
Nick puts Trevor in the backseat of his car and closes the door. He watches as I cross the street.
“How did you know?” he asks me.
“Just a hunch.”
Nick crosses his arms and hikes his eyebrows. “A hunch, really? Come on, Bisset, you can do better than that.”
“Fine, I can. But the less you know, the better. Just…just get him to confess again during questioning and stick to our plan.”
“I can do that. I was driving by and heard the disturbance. I went to make sure he was okay and heard him confessing.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he says, looking conflicted. A beat passes between us and he meets my gaze with a lopsided smile. “Even on vacation you’re solving cases long overlooked.”
“What can I say? I’m a workaholic.”
“I think you’re more than that.”
I raise my eyebrows. “That’s for me to know. Thanks again, Nick.”
He gives me another nod and gets into the car, turning on the lights and taking Trevor into the station.
“You know he totally wants to bang you,” Gemma says as we walk back to my car.
“Yeah, I’ve come to that conclusion. He has a girlfriend.”
“Gross.”
“I know, right?” We get in the car and head home.
“Where the hell would she take him?” I run my hands through my hair, heart racing. I’m back at the house, and Jared is still missing.
“I have no idea.” Thomas paces back and forth by the window.
Everyone is on edge, and not knowing what the fuck to do frustrates me more than anything.
Jacques is translating another section from the book, Hasan is out in the yard keeping watch, and Gil is gathering up all the herbs in the kitchen to make another batch of the banishing spell.
“What about the waterfall?” Gemma suggests. “That’s where she died, right?”
Jacques looks up from the book. “That makes sense, actually.”
“Should we go?” Gemma asks.
“We need a plan.”
I twist my hair around my finger. “Open the rift and shove her back in?”
“That’ll work,” Jac says. “But trying that on your own is risky, Ace. The spell is complicated.”
“She won’t be alone.” Gemma stands next to me. “I can help with the spell. I’m not as powerful of a witch as you, Ace, but I’ll do what I can.”
Jacques considers it. “It’s not ideal, but time is of the essence here. The kid’s life is hanging by a thread.”
“No pressure or anything,” Thomas mumbles, giving me a wink.
“Let’s do it then,” I say, ready to spring to action.
“The spell requires three witches,” Jacques goes on. “We can help, but you’re going to carry most of the power.”
“How do we do this?” Gemma asks.
“This spell has many parts.” Jac taps the book. “But Ace opened a rift before without even meaning to. That’s not the hard part.”
“The hard part is closing it, right?” I move closer to Jacques, looking down at his notes.
“Closing it, not letting anything out, and making sure the ghost doesn’t take Jared through the rift with her. A human wouldn’t be able to survive that.”
“Oh, lovely.” I close my eyes in a long blink. “Easy peasy.”
Jacques takes my hand. “You will get him back, Ace.”
“What if it’s too late?”
“It could be,” Jacques says honestly. Usually, I’m all for him not sugar-coating shit. I don’t, and I appreciate him not being afraid of the truth. But right now, I could really use some lies.
Jared is just a kid.
I knew the ghost was after him.
I should have done more.
“We’re about an hour drive away. Maybe less if we hurry.”
Jacques tears a page out of the notebook and hands it to Thomas, telling him to get the things written down. Thomas looks it over and then hurries upstairs.
“Do you know how to cast a circle?” Jac asks Gemma.
“Yeah, I do.”
“You’re going to cast a protective circle around Ace. Your job is to hold it the best you can so nothing gets out.”
Gemma nods. “I can do that.”
“Let’s go,” I say, flattening my sweaty palms on my thighs. “We can work out the rest of it on the way. Oh, shit.”
“What?” Gemma asks.
“We won’t all fit in the car.”
Gilbert closes a cabinet and comes to the table with an armload of herbs. “You all go. We’ll follow above you.”
“I don’t want you to get caught,” I counter.
Gil grins. “We won’t get caught.”
“You better not,” I warn him. “I’m not losing you. I’m not losing any of you.”
“I’m not that easy to get rid of. Promise.”
“Good. Then let’s go.”
We gather the rest of our stuff, call Hasan in, and head out.
I sit in the back with Jac so we can go over our plan as Gemma drives.
A good thing about moving to this house on the outskirts of town is that I’m only an hour or so away from the national park.
Still, an hour is too long. So much can happen in an hour.