Chapter 14 #2
“That’s ridiculous,” Hunter sputtered.
I sat up and leaned over the table. “And then do you know what I think happened? I think you two panicked and decided to kill Mari. You met up under the guise of a business meeting yesterday, but really it was a tryst to remind yourselves why you were doing this. Sasha leaves your office first, goes to see Mari. Since there wasn’t a break in, Mari obviously knew her killer.
Sasha goes inside, and then what, Sasha?
” I studied the fairy over the lip of my coffee.
“Did you bring one of your twines from your store, strangle Mari, and then Hunter comes home and pretends to find her, but not before you both make sure you’ve left no evidence behind? ”
“That’s ridiculous!” they shouted simultaneously.
“Really?” I said. “Because it makes perfect sense to me. I think you two killed Mari to keep your affair secret and to start a life together.”
Hunter slammed his hand down on the table. “That’s not what happened!”
Sasha put her hand on Hunter’s arm. “They’re just trying to get you worked up, Hunter. They have no proof of any of this.”
“Daddy?” Jayla called out, setting her book down. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine, honey,” Hunter called back. “Go back to your book.”
Zane’s cell phone pinged, and he pulled it out. “That’s Doc Treestone. Autopsy is done, and Barbie is ready with the forensics.”
I stood and gave them my most sympathetic smile. “You two had your chance to come clean. Anything we come across now—”
“Fine,” Hunter said. “We’ll tell you about the valentines.”
“No!” Sasha hissed. “Shut up, Hunter!”
I sat back down and stared at Hunter, not wanting to give him a chance to back down. “Tell us. What was the big secret the valentine cards were hinting at?”
Hunter ran his hands through his perfect hair and sighed. “Fifteen years ago, we played a prank on someone that went horribly wrong.”
“What kind of prank?” I asked.
“It was our senior year,” Hunter said, “and there were these two girls who were so mean. I’m talking mean to everyone. They thought themselves better than the rest of us. They were always laughing at us and stuff.”
I frowned. “Are you talking about Eliza Nordic and Darla Starling?”
Hunter’s eyes went wide. “How did you know?”
I waved a hand in the air. “Doesn’t matter. Go ahead with your story.”
“It was our senior year,” Hunter said. “And we’d had years of Eliza and Darla, as you call her, making fun of us.”
“And it wasn’t just us,” Sasha said. “They were mean to everyone in the school.”
“So one night we decided to get them back,” Hunter said. “We formulated a plan and completed it.”
“But we all had a hand in it,” Sasha said. “That was the deal.”
“What plan did you come up with?” I asked.
The two exchanged looks again before Hunter continued.
“We cast a spell that would cause the two girls to fight over the same guy.” Hunter took a sip of his mocha. “Rayna and Mari crafted the spell, Sasha made the chocolates, and Reed and I delivered the gifts to their doorsteps early the next morning before school.”
I nodded. “Now the verses make sense. Sasha, yours mentioned secrets being sweet, and Hunter, yours mentioned secrets you deliver.”
“Reed was never really that into it,” Sasha said, “but he was into Rayna, and she wanted the mean girls to pay for the way they acted.”
“Here’s what we didn’t know until later,” Hunter said.
“Mari and Rayna had crafted a spell so the girls would fight over the same guy. Right? What Mari didn’t know was that while she was out buying the flowers, Rayna added another layer to the spell.
A sort of rage spell or something like that.
” He shrugged. “I don’t know exactly what you’d call it.
But Rayna designed it so that as the day wore on, and the flowers were smelled and the chocolates were eaten, the person would get angrier and angrier.
” He took another drink of his coffee. “Our initial plan was to just have the girls get into a fight over Bruce in the morning, and then we’d have the day to make fun of them.
But by lunch, we could see that Eliza and Darla were seriously becoming unhinged.
Mari was the first to suspect, of course.
When she confronted Rayna at the end of the day, Rayna was smug about it. ”
Sasha tapped her cup on the table. “That’s when we heard the girls were going to fight in the parking lot.” She glanced at Hunter. “And this next part we could never prove, but…”
“What?” I demanded.
“We were all standing around in the parking lot,” Hunter said, “watching Eliza and Darla push each other around. I remember Bruce being there, laughing and boasting how the winner would be his date to the dance that night.” Hunter shook his head.
“When all of a sudden, Darla lets Eliza have it with a wave of magic. I mean, Eliza went flying through the air. When she finally stopped rolling, she was in the middle of the parking lot. She stood up, and as she went to move, another of our classmates was heading right for her in his car. He slammed into Eliza and did some major damage.” He glanced over at his daughter still reading by the fountain.
“But that’s not the worst part. See, Mari and I talked about it later, and she said she felt magic coming from Rayna.
Mari always believed that Rayna either made the car slam into Eliza or did something using magic. ”
“I felt it too,” Sasha said quietly.
“But instead of saying something,” I said, “you guys made a pact to never admit what you’d done.” I shook my head. “Why would you do that? And why did Rayna go so far?”
“You have to understand,” Hunter said. “We had no idea Rayna had cast that addition spell and that she’d used magic to help Eliza get hit by the car.
We were just wanting the girls to fight at their lockers that morning.
We never wanted anything serious to happen to Eliza. That was all Rayna’s doing.”
Sasha nodded. “That’s true.”
I didn’t say it aloud, but I thought if they didn’t want it to go as far as it did, then maybe they shouldn’t have been casting spells to harm another person in the first place.
“Later that night at the dance,” Hunter said, “Mari confronted Rayna about using magic in the parking lot.”
“And?” Zane asked. “Did Rayna admit to it?”
Hunter shrugged. “Yes and no. Rayna hinted to using magic during the fight in the parking lot, but then she was quick to point out that we all had a hand in making and distributing the original spell, so if she got in trouble, we’d all get in trouble.”
“That’s why I thought maybe Rayna was sending the valentines,” Sasha admitted. “Her way of telling us to keep quiet…or else. But then I heard she got one as well, so that didn’t make sense.”
“Why did Rayna have it out for Eliza so badly?” I asked. “Because Eliza was mean to you all?”
“No,” Sasha said. “The last straw was Rayna losing out to Eliza for Winter Court Queen. The day of the election, Eliza started a mean rumor about Rayna, and Rayna was sure that’s what caused her to lose.”
“Who knows if that’s true or not,” Hunter said. “But Rayna believed it.” Hunter drank the last of his coffee. “All of this tore Rayna and Reed apart. Reed just couldn’t handle what Rayna had done, and so a few weeks later, he broke up with her and stayed away from the rest of us. Sort of.”
“What do you mean sort of?” I asked.
“After Mari and I came back to live in Mystic Cove,” Hunter said, “Mari would drop hints she either saw Reed or spoke to Reed.” He rolled his eyes and snorted.
“Why, I don’t know. Reed wasn’t anyone we’d be friends with now.
He’s a fisherman, tends to drink quite a bit, and he pretty much has zero ambition.
Why he and Mari kept in touch was beyond me. ”
The fact he didn’t see the irony in his statement after complaining about his treatment in high school was not lost on me.
“I’ll never forget Rayna’s parting words to Reed as he walked away after their breakup,” Sasha said. “She told him if he ever thought to open his mouth about what had happened, she’d make sure he had the same sort of accident as Eliza.” Sasha snorted. “Truth is, she told me the same thing.”
“And Mari and me,” Hunter said. “She said we’d end up like Eliza.”
I thought back to Rayna’s veiled threat to Mari in the back alley. She’d told Mari keeping her mouth shut would be best for Mari’s family, especially Jayla. Was that her way of threatening the young girl? And then what? Rayna had decided to silence Mari before she could tell anyone?
“What’s going to happen now?” Sasha asked.
“I’m not sure,” Zane said.
“Can I go back to my store?” Sasha asked. “Are we done?”
“For now,” I said.
I watched Hunter and Sasha hurry away from the table and shook my head. “Well, Rayna’s motive to kill Mari just became clear.”
Zane stood and gathered our empty coffee cups. “Let’s go pay Reed a visit.”