Chapter Thirty-Three
Thirty-Three
As the intruder arced their foot to kick Bob, I held my hand out and squeezed it shut into a fist.
The attacker’s leg froze in place.
For one brief, stupid moment I thought, Those shoes look so familiar.
And then it struck me. I’d seen those shoes when I was cowering under Melody’s bed and the person wearing them was hiding bloody gloves in her suitcase.
I knew time was still moving, though, with the fireplace crackling loudly from the blaze I had raised up from nothing and Bob ferociously growling as he struggled to both defend me and get his stuck paw free from the person’s sock.
The attacker made panicked grunting noises as they tried to move their body and realized in horror that they couldn’t. After a mighty struggle, Bob got his paw free and skittered across the room, hiding himself under one of the armchairs but still making plenty of noise to show he wasn’t afraid.
With my cat safe, I approached the person and stood in front of them. While I couldn’t see their face behind the knit mask, I did see a pair of frantic brown eyes through the eyeholes, positively bulging with terror.
Good.
I had never in my life wanted to hurt another person, not in any real capacity. Even when I’d learned my husband was cheating on me, I’d been more interested in finding a way to never see his face again than in doing anything to physically hurt him.
But this person had come into my home, a safe space for me, and they had not only tried to kill me—or at least severely incapacitate me—they had been on the cusp of hurting the one creature on the planet who loved me unconditionally.
I wasn’t going to stand for that.
I raised my fist, and with it they lifted a good three feet off the floor, dangling a few inches from the overhead chandelier. They continued to make muffled grunting noises, and it took me a moment to understand why they weren’t screaming or swearing at me.
They couldn’t move their mouth.
I had managed to take the gift I’d been given, one that protected me by freezing the world around me, and I had controlled it. I had funneled that ability to freeze time into a single person and stopped them in their very tracks.
While I was a little too high-strung at the moment to enjoy my success, I did pause for a moment to take in the scene above me and realize just how impressive a feat it really was.
I had done that.
And now I’d need to explain it to the police somehow.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket with my spare hand, leaving the other fist lifted, not sure if I needed it in order to keep the spell active but unwilling to take any chances. I was no longer worried about the police being mad at me for talking to Dierdre about the lawyer, because I was pretty certain whoever had killed him and Sebastian was floating up around my ceiling right now.
Detective Martin arrived within minutes. They’d still been doing another search of the inn when I’d called, which meant they hadn’t had far to come. When she walked into the sitting room where I was still standing, she took one look up at the ceiling, then one at me, and let out a long, low whistle.
“I have no idea how I’m going to put this in my report,” she said, her voice remarkably calm.
“ Suspect detained by homeowner ,” remarked Detective Kim, who had come to stand on the other side of me.
Why were both of them so chill about this? The person was floating .
“Hey, Phoebe,” Detective Martin said in a soothing tone. “You can let them down now.” She placed her hand on my shoulder, and Detective Kim withdrew his service weapon, angling it at the floor but having it ready just in case the person decided to make any funny moves once they were on the ground.
I unclenched my fist, and the intruder dropped roughly to the floor, landing with a thud. I could, perhaps, have been a little gentler about how I had done this, eased them down before releasing my grasp, but I didn’t feel particularly guilty about the loud groan they let out.
“Are you going to arrest her?” demanded the masked assailant. Since it was the first time I’d heard their voice, it came as a bit of a surprise to me that I recognized it.
I’d just been speaking to the person a few hours earlier.
With Kim behind her for cover, Detective Martin approached the figure, who was collapsed on the floor and ripped their mask off roughly. Staring back at me, startled and flushed, was Connor. I thought back to the shoes I’d seen when I was under Melody’s bed and realized his had looked so familiar because he was the one who had come in and hid the gloves in her suitcase.
“ You? ” I asked, though it was fairly obvious that yes, indeed, it was him. “It was you ?”
He looked at me, wide-eyed with horror. “You weren’t even supposed to be here. I just wanted those bank statements you took. I saw you snooping around the B and B. I know you took those statements from Melody’s room.”
That was why Connor had just tried to kill me and my cat? To get back evidence I didn’t even have?
He turned to the police. “You gotta lock that woman up. Did you see what she did to me?” His voice was higher-pitched than usual, and if it hadn’t been for Detective Martin dragging him to his feet, he probably would have crab-walked himself halfway across the room and out a window to get away from me.
“Us?” Detective Martin asked, after she finished reading him his rights. “We didn’t see anything out of the ordinary here. Did you see anything, Detective Kim?”
“ Suspect detained by homeowner ,” repeated Detective Kim. “That’s all I saw.”
The raging fire in the hearth had died down to a dull crackle, and Bob had emerged from under the armchair. He gave Connor one last good growl-and-swipe before dashing off to the living room, where he buried himself under a throw blanket.
Tough guy.
I still couldn’t process what I was seeing. Of all the possible killers, all the truly strong motives, why would the one person who Sebastian relied on to get all his content be the one to kill him? Connor had job security, he had a connection to fame, he had the ability to travel freely for work. If what Daphne had said was true, Sebastian had hired the kid when no one else would. It seemed like a plum gig. I couldn’t understand why he, out of everyone who had been involved in this, was the one who had done it.
“ Why did you do it?” It was the only thing I could ask, and it was a question that encapsulated so many of the things I was dying to know. Why attack me when he had already put me onto Melody’s scent? Why kill Sebastian in the first place, and why kill the lawyer after that?
There were a thousand other things I wanted to know, but Detective Martin was leading him out my front door in handcuffs.
“I’m not telling you anything, you psycho. You witch.”
Detective Kim was straightening out the knocked-over coffee table and then donned a pair of gloves before picking up my fireplace poker. “You mind if I take this with me, for evidence?”
“Please. I’m not sure I’m ever going to be able to look at it the same.”
“You might as well come along after us, Phoebe. We’re going to need an official statement from you, and you probably want to be there when we release Leo Lansing.”
“Not really sure how I’m going to explain any of this with an official statement.” I waved my hand around the room.
“Don’t worry. We learned how to handle this from your aunt.”