Chapter Four #3
Immediately, she began crying, and Beckett pulled her into his body as he, too, mourned hearing that information.
“I’m sorry,” Julian stated. “We didn’t want to tell you over the phone. She took out a gun and ended her life.”
That was horrific.
Now, though, Claire was curious.
“Where’s Ridge? Is he okay? He has to be so upset! Can we do anything for him?” she asked, firing off all the normal questions a family member did at a time like this.
As for him being upset…
That wasn’t the half of it.
“He’s asleep upstairs in our shared office,” Lucian stated from his spot on the couch. “I can feel him sleeping. I’m with him while he’s resting.”
Claire shook her head.
“I can’t believe this!”
Yeah, welcome to their world. Only, this was going to get a whole lot crazier when they vetted them in.
Then, Julian escorted them to the couch, and they sat down. Avalon went back to sitting beside the Monroes.
Julian wanted his sister to be caught up.
“Avalon and Nate are going to be clients. We’re going to help them stop whatever is trying to get to Genesis and Lucian. We know they’re the targets.”
Beckett went there.
“What can we do? Is there something we can do to help?” he asked.
That was very Beckett-like.
The man was always worried about others, even when he’d been through Hell himself.
“We’re going to start researching a man by the name of Thomas Vanderbilt.”
Claire lifted a brow.
“As in the Vanderbilts who helped build this town?” she asked. “The ones who have a statue in the square of a Vanderbilt heir who supposedly singlehandedly helped build Salem?”
Julian nodded.
Claire laughed.
Maybe it was the exhaustion, or the fact that they’d been through the wringer tonight, but she couldn’t help it.
“Oh, well, that should be one giant clusterfuck that gets us kicked out of Salem, or dead by whatever this is that’s hunting them.”
Oh, she didn’t know the half of it.
But Julian would fill them in later.
“We’ll be okay.”
They all hoped so.
“I can’t believe Wynter took her life. Is this part of the other deaths?” she asked. “Because she was solid and not depressed.”
Tori nodded.
“We think it took her out to slow down Lucian. He can’t go back into the static without his tuner. Ridge was the key, and he’s locked out.”
Claire was sad for Lucian.
Being psychic was part of him, like it was for everyone else there.
“I can tune for him.”
While Lucian appreciated the offer, it didn’t work like that.
“Thank you, Claire, but it’s not that simple. Ridge and I had a connection in the static. We have a partnership. Here, he’s my best friend, but there, he was my mate. I can’t go back in with you because it wouldn’t be the same.”
She blinked.
“Oh. I didn’t realize.”
Bishop raised her hand.
“Yeah, I’m not psychic, so I can’t tune for him. You have to have some sort of ability if you could help Beckett tune.”
She didn’t think she did, but Beckett had told her that same thing more than once.
“I’m out of commission. We’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way. Investigating,” Lucian stated. “Until Ridge can manage to tune again for me, IF he ever can again.”
Yeah, and if his wife didn’t kill him because they still hadn’t told her about what happened in the meditation shed. He still had to tell Bishop he’d had sex with Ridge on this plane.
And if she didn’t murder him, well, then maybe he would be able to help them.
“I’ll be able to help Avalon in the static, but that’s about it for me. I’ll need her to get into it to her level, and into her mind.”
Julian reassured him.
“We’ll get to the bottom of it.”
There was no doubt they would.
Tori was curious.
“We know that a medallion was found in Wynter’s blazer pocket. Someone had to put it there. I doubt she’d put it in her pocket herself,” she said.
That was very true.
The woman had repeatedly said how much she didn’t believe in any of this, despite working in an office that was haunted.
That might have been her downfall.
Sadly.
“She wouldn’t,” Bishop admitted. “She didn’t buy into it.
She thought all of this was bullshit. I don’t know how one ignores the fact that we have a ghost that talks to the photocopier, and one who leaves us messages on the glass, but she just didn’t think it was legit,” she said, meaning witchcraft.
If ghosts were real, why couldn’t witches be real too? They’d all seen their witches take care of business. They were all safe thanks to Raven.
The man they were discussing sighed.
Unfortunately, this was all preventable.
Had.
She.
Listened.
“I wish she would have done what I asked. Next step, family, is tattoos. If you can’t be trusted to wear a charmed medallion, we’ll have to do something more permanent.”
Julian laughed, but not for the reason he expected.
“Oh, well, don’t think I’m not five seconds from making that a mandatory thing for the people working here. This is the second time that we’ve been burned by something dark and not so nice,” he stated.
Booth shook his head.
“Good luck getting a pentagram tattooed on my wife. The charmed wedding band was a fight, and the world can’t see that. She’ll shit a ton of bricks if I suggest a tattoo on her body to begin with, but a pentagram? She’d kill me.”
Oh, no doubt.
From where he was sitting beside his wife, Nathaniel Carter had been thinking about what Tori had said.
The investigator in him might be dormant, but he didn’t die.
Not.
Even.
Close.
This all smelled wonky to him.
“So, you think that she actually had to come in contact with this person, and they slipped the medallion into her pocket?” he asked. “Because that’s getting up close to someone. I couldn’t put anything in your pockets without you knowing I was doing it.”
He had a point.
Only, Tori knew there were only so many possibilities of how this had happened. Wynter wasn’t a weak woman. She’d been a cop who’d saved Ridge’s life.
She was street savvy, and balls-to-the-wall tough, much like Bishop and Honor.
You didn’t survive as a cop by being a pushover.
Before, they were lost in the grief, but now, they were hellbent on finding this person. They were on the case, and her husband was right.
They needed to approach this like Avalon Carter was their client. This was going to be a tough investigation, but they’d pull it off without the dead helping them.
Why?
Oh, maybe because they were NOT losing Lucian.
Or anyone else.
Tori shared what she knew, in case they weren’t aware of what went down.
“She called Ridge before going back to the house to spend time with Sophia. She would have said she found a medallion, don’t you think?”
That was a no-brainer.
They all nodded.
Well, then, it looked as if they all agreed.
“So, someone had to put it on her person.”
Julian knew what that meant.
“We’re going to have to retrace her steps.
She did interviews yesterday. She was at that shop, the shrink, and…
who knows where else? She was on her own after Honor split off.
If someone approached her, it would have been when she didn’t have a cop all over her.
Honor is hyper vigilant about her surroundings. ”
Booth laughed.
“She’s paranoid as fuck, and in this case, I’m damn glad she is. Everyone needs to be. If all it’s taking is someone putting a pentacle in their pocket…”
That was true.
When Honor got free, she was going to have to talk to them. This was going to be out of the cops’ hands.
It was in theirs now.
Raven reassured them.
“One, you’re all charmed with trinkets from me. Two, as long as you’re not depressed, and down, you should be good. This thing is a dream weaver/psychic vampire, and they prey on weakness psychologically. No one who is depressed should be out there working this.”
Julian looked around.
There were a lot of people in the room, and all of them were damn valuable to him and Victoria.
“Well, it’s time to be honest, fam. Anyone here got the blues? Speak now, or end up dead if this thing finds you,” he said bluntly because it was a serious matter.
No one spoke.
Until Lucian did.
“I mean, I’m depressed that my tuner, and partner in the static, is going through this, and I’m sad that Wynter is dead. We all loved her,” he said with emotion in his voice.
Julian glanced over at Raven.
“That kind of depressed?”
He shook his head.
“Mourning is mourning, and eventually it turns into the next stage of grief. ANGER. I’m talking anything that might be construed as genuine depression.”
Bishop went there.
“Like post-partum?” she asked.
When they all looked at her, she slowed their roll.
“Not me. I’m horny as a bunny,” she stated, pointing at her husband. “I climb all over Lucian and am giggly while I do it, but I was thinking…Wynter just had a baby not that long ago. Could that be what she was carrying and not telling us?” she asked.
That hung there.
Why?
That was logical.
Leave it to Bishop to come up with that and to probably be right about it too.
“Yeah,” Raven said. “Something like that. Any of the recent moms feeling down? There’s no shame in it. It happens.”
Bexley raised her hand.
“I felt like that after Jonathan was born, but not recently,” she said.
Julian wasn’t messing around.
“Bex stays inside her house,” he said. “If this thing is trying to weaken us, the best way to do that is to stop Raven. Bex getting hurt would do that.”
Yes, yes, it would.
Only, from his spot beside his wife on the couch, Raven wasn’t worried.
Not.
At.
All.
Why?
Well, because he had charms and protection spells all over his wife, her uterus, and even her baby toe. He was thorough, but he was also grateful that Julian was willing to make sure she kept a wide berth from all of this.
“I agree that ANYONE who feels any sort of way should stay in,” he said.
They glanced over, and Bex shrugged.
“Well, that works for me. I can do my job in a house with the dead. Trey amuses me, and I’m sure he’ll keep me company the whole time.”
Yeah, and Julian actually missed his snarky commentary all of the time. It was crazy, but he’d rather be locked down with Trey than out in this craziness.
That said it all.