Chapter 17 #3
“Right, what you never said was that Lahn was pregnant with his child. What you never said, in that sanctimonious way you always do, is to leave his ass because he wasn’t good enough and didn’t deserve my love.
That was the betrayal. That you would knowingly allow me to marry a man that would treat me that way. ”
“Lahn just needed time and encouragement to tell you—”
“What about what I needed! God dammit Ma!” Closing her eyes she took a breath so deep Santiago would be proud. “I can’t do this. I won’t do this.”
She stood and reached for her bag.
She wasn’t running anymore, but she was moving on from the need to defend herself. She wasn’t educating another person on how to love her; how to value her. She was done asking anyone to prioritize her; especially not the woman who birthed her into this world.
“I don’t know what’s happening between you and Daddy but that’s between y’all.
I’m done being the emotional support dog for this family.
Now if you want to stay at my place that’s fine because I won’t be there.
There is a ghost but it’s her home.” She placed her house keys on the table.
“If you choose to stay here at Lina’s before heading back to the Bay, just leave the keys with her.
I’ll text you the code if you should need it.
And please, drink plenty of Lina’s special tea. It’s divine.”
It was almost midnight when the call about a disturbance at the bed and breakfast came through. Cutter and Te Awa were in the station when Santiago stepped out of his office, locking it.
“I’ll handle it on the way home,” he told them. “Sonny, you need a lift there?”
“I’ll stay late if it’s all the same to you, League. Cutter’s gonna show me what the place is like after the witching hour.”
Santiago held his gaze then nodded.
Te Awa still couldn’t sleep at night. It wasn’t a surprise, the condition existed well before Sonny joined the military, but he’d hope the man had found some peace after shifting back to civilian life.
“I’m off tomorrow, so unless there’s something you well-trained individuals can’t handle, or another body, please leave me alone.”
“Roger that, Sheriff.” Cutter laughed. “I’ll make sure day shift gets the message. Rest up. Night watch’s got this.”
“You know he just wants to eat cake all day without sharing,” Sonny muttered.
“It’s my damn cake,” Santiago stated. “Y’all be safe.”
Once he was in his cruiser, Santiago called his aunt. She was upset that one of her new residents had even called.
“The crisis has been averted,” she told Santi. “But could you still come by and help me move a couple of things?”
He hung up and for what had to be the tenth time today, found his finger hovering over Lauren’s name.
He’d had a myriad of reasons for calling her.
To see if she’d gone back to his place to get her phone; to make sure she was staying out of trouble; to tell her about speaking to the ex-fiancé; to see if everything was good at her place; to see if he still had cake.
Pulling up to his aunt’s, he learned that the things she wanted him to move were actually people.
“It has been an eventful day, mijo,” she told him, avoiding his gaze.
“What did you do?”
“Sibling quarrel, tempers were running high, I had to intervene with calming tea.”
“Tia Carolina.”
She walked to the parlor waving him to follow.
“I have three new guests. A very good day for business, si. But what I find is these young ones, they have very weak constitutions.”
Stepping into the salon he saw two twenty-somethings, one man and one woman, unconscious. The woman was laid out on the floor, and the man was half on the floor and half on the couch.
“The Singhs and the Montrells came by for dinner earlier. They began discussing town lore and ghosts. After the tea, this one became paranoid. He imagined he was seeing demons. He was attempting to call ghostbusters…or paranormal hunters, I can’t remember. Then he passed out.”
“I’m confiscating the tea.”
“It’s totally legal.” She shrugged. “Plus, they signed a waiver, Lauren had me include that in my terms and conditions of stay.”
“Of course she did,” Santiago muttered. “You said you had three guests. Where’s the other one?”
“Oh, Mable’s been upstairs for ages. She’s Lauren’s mother you know. Arrived this morning. She had no problem with the tea.”
“Wait, did you just say Lauren’s mother is here?”
“Upstairs. Room one.”
“Her sister?”
“I’m sure I wouldn’t have enough room for another guest,” his aunt said coolly. There were four bedrooms upstairs. The sister had unknowingly made an enemy.
Santiago rubbed a weary hand over his face and sighed. “Where do you want them?”
“The sister is in room two and the brother is in room three. I tried to move them, but I can’t do it on my own.” Santiago picked up the male. “The pair stopped by on their way to Asheville. They found out about my place online. Isn’t it exciting?”
“Not really.”
“You’re being grouchy, you need rest.”
“I’m off tomorrow. Unless there’s an emergency—”
“There will be no emergencies.”
Santiago left his aunt’s but didn’t do his ride around town before going home. He was concerned about how Lauren was handling her mother coming to town; about how she was processing Cody’s body being found in the lake.
Everything went to shit after the discovery.
Cody Earl’s family was prone to violence on their most well-behaved days, and they took the news as expected.
Two of them where crying in their jail cell last time he saw them.
He’d release them tomorrow. They just needed time to process. Everybody needed time to process.
Not long after the incident with Cody Earl’s family, Anderson Archer arrived at the station, again accusing Lauren of murder. Didn’t matter to him that Cody Earl had been reported missing over a month before her arrival. Anderson believed she was a part of some kind of conspiracy to bring him down.
What concerned Santiago was that people were beginning to listen to him.
There were no leads on who broke into Lauren’s house yet, and they were no closer to solving Mrs. Willoby’s or Bailey Joe’s deaths, because Doc Cleveland determined that the latter was also a homicide.
“I got toxicology back on Bailey Joe,” the county coroner said excitedly.
“You found something?”
“I found an injection sight, and Sheriff, there’s no way that Bailey Joe could’ve injected himself.
The angle of entry would’ve been impossible.
This was straight as an arrow, right between the shoulder blades.
He never could’ve done that, especially with his arthritis.
Plus, I checked his clothes and there was a small puncture with the substance around the entry area lining up perfectly with the injection sight.
These have been our first murders in Shrouded Lake in nearly eight years.
“Once you know what to look for it’s a damn sight easier.
Mrs. Willoby suffered a cardiac event due to prolonged ingestion of the substance and tumbled down the stairs, but the substance in her blood was in lesser amounts, yet purer a form, than what was present in Bailey Joe’s.
In his tests, there were the trace amounts of the ghost flower, but there was also fentanyl.
Both substances were in a more deteriorated state in Bailey Joe because he had been dead longer upon discovery.
TOD was at least thirty-six hours before he was found. ”
“Well shit. Send me over your reports ASAP. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, but don’t share anything with anybody until I give you the go-ahead, Doc. And I mean anybody.”
Unlike the night before, when he approached his home tonight it was full-on dark again. Maybe Lauren chose to go home after the shock of her mother. He was exhausted, bone weary, but he’d swim in the lake and go stay at her place with her.
Inside the house, he disarmed the security system. He knew instantly she was here. The heater was on, and it smelled of freshly baked cake. Not pound, not chocolate—something new, and she must have made coffee to go with it.
He walked into the kitchen.
No, not coffee and cake. He cut a slice, popped it in his mouth and moaned. It was cake made with coffee. He sat down and ate two slices, searched the refrigerator, moving Lauren’s cartons of almond milk and reaching for his whole milk, drinking directly from the bottle, then he went for his swim.
After several minutes under water, Santiago knew with clarity that it was all connected.
The three murders, the animal head in Lauren’s house…
He just hadn’t pulled the right threads to unravel the mystery and find the answers.
He was really curious to see what Lauren’s audit turned up and if the issue of funds was a motivation for the murders.
Swimming back to the house, he saw Julian on his porch. He didn’t even wave. He had more pressing matters to attend to than beer with a neighbor.
In the house, he bound up the stairs and walked toward the softly playing R&B music in his bedroom.
He grunted in disappointment when he opened the bedroom door to find Lauren fast asleep. Splayed out in his bed like a damn starfish. After showering, he climbed into bed naked and turned off the Bluetooth speaker, uncaring if Lauren woke up or not.
She didn’t. Damn woman.
Looking toward the dark ceiling, he closed his eyes, certain sleep would crash over him swiftly. He was sure it would, but when he breathed, he breathed in her scent. And when he shifted, he felt her warmth. It reached out to him.
He turned onto his other side, away from her, and despite his fatigue, sleep eluded him. He turned back on his other side and although he knew he shouldn’t, shifted until his body was flush against hers.
Draping his arm over her waist, he held her to him so she wouldn’t be able to leave without him knowing. Why did Lauren leaving suddenly feel like the worst choice she could ever make?
Placing his cheek on the silk bonnet covering her head, he fell straight to sleep.