Hoodoo Woman (Roxie Mathis Book 3) (11 page)

Another request for a love spell. Except it’s not really a love spell they want, it’s a “make this person do what I want” spell. I said no. He called me witch bitch and went away angry. As long as he went away, I don’t care.

Deputy Travis came into the steakhouse again tonight. Mindy says he always asks to be seated in my section. When she told me that last week I thought she was full of it but he was different tonight. The way he smiles at me is different from the way he smiles at other girls. I don’t know. I suck at this.

I wish Miss Rozella was here so I could talk to her about it. God, I miss her so much.

I closed the diary, swamped with memories. Going home late at night with my clothes and hair smelling of charred meat, working money spells to improve my tips because I wasn’t always the best waitress. I recalled a night not long after that entry was written where I deliberately spilled tea all over Ray. He still left me a huge tip. That’s when I really started to take his smiles and surreptitious looks seriously.

Home back then was a small trailer not unlike what I lived in now, only a rental and older. I left my occult books out and stored herbs and roots for magical workings in the kitchen, reveling in the fact that I no longer had to hide anything. The first time I brought Ray home was a test, one he passed. He hadn’t been entirely comfortable learning the rumors about me had some basis in fact, but he handled it better than anyone else I’d met up to that point. He never judged me. He didn’t always understand me, but he never judged me.

I tossed the diary back in the nightstand drawer, slamming it shut. There was work to do. I spent some time planning the séance. As the hours dragged on I became restless.

Ray was off duty for the day. After a quick call, I left Daniel a note and drove out to Ray’s. We sat on his back deck in the afternoon sunlight.

He surprised me by saying, “You’ve done some real good work in Nashville.”

“Do I get a gold star?” I regretted the sarcasm instantly.

He looked away briefly. “I wasn’t trying to sass you, I meant it as a compliment.”

“Thank you.” I bit my lip. He’d never been one to give out compliments lightly. “I’m good at what I do.”

“I know.” He sipped his beer. “That’s why I asked for your help.”

I considered that for a moment. “Have you really been keeping tabs on me?”

His mouth turned downward. “No. After we ran into each other last year I made a few inquiries.”

“You made a few inquiries?”

“Yes, Roxanne, I made a few discrete inquiries. I was curious how you were doing so I checked up on you.”

At least he was honest. I decided to change the subject. “Who do you suppose went through Britney’s apartment?”

Ray shrugged. “Her family, I guess. Far as I know they’d be the only ones with access.”

“I think somebody in the family used their access even before she died. I found a nice little hiding spot, but someone had already cleared it out.” I considered my next words carefully. “The Parkers are powerful. Lot of money, lot of influence and connections.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you live here. I don’t.”

The pressure of his hand around mine answered before he spoke. “She asked for my help. She…she appeared in my kitchen and told me she was murdered in the best way she could manage. I took that as her asking for my help and I won’t back down. I aim to see this through to the end, no matter where it leads.” He leaned close. “Look, if you want to go home, that’s fine. You don’t live here, you don’t have to deal with this if you don’t want to.”

I had a home to get back to, and a business, and a boyfriend who needed me. I should have said goodbye right then, gone back to the lake house and packed up. Called Blake and find out exactly where in Asheville he was staying, and hit the road. That’s what I should have done. So why didn’t I?

Maybe for the same reason Ray couldn’t turn away. Someone had asked for my help. “You need somebody who can deal with ghosts. Besides, we haven’t tried the séance yet.”

He squeezed my hand. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you.” He released me, opening the notepad again. “I’m free tonight if you want to go ahead with the séance.”

“You want to be there?”

“Of course. Hell, I’ve seen her ghost twice now. I’m not scared.”

I thought of all the books I’d seen in his home office the other day and decided to ask him about them. “I wound up reading the books you left behind. The ones you bought,” he added quickly. “I never read your diary.”

“I know. I could tell the leather cord hadn’t been untied in years.”

“I read those other books and I thought about some of the stuff you could do, some of the things you’d told me about. I guess I was just curious. I never meant to wind up with a bookcase full of them, it just kind of happened over time.”

“If you’re keeping some kind of list, you can add séance to it tonight.”

“When and where?” A veil of professionalism almost obscured his nervousness. If I hadn’t known him so well I would have missed it.

As for a location, I’d been thinking a lot on that. Ray had already had me cleanse and ward his house against more spirit intrusion. Daniel and I did not want to open up the lake house to ghosts. We couldn’t risk another trip to Britney’s apartment. “Is the old Lawrence place still standing?”

“Nah, it went down in a tornado a few years ago. The foundation and one wall is all that’s left.”

“Nothing’s been built close enough to notice if we go out there to raise the dead?”

“Still surrounded by pasture. All we’d be in danger of spooking is ourselves and some cows.”

I grinned. “Sounds good. We’ll meet there after full dark. Hey, did you ever go talk to the coroner about his new houseboat?”

His face darkened. “He threatened me with a harassment suit. I’d love to get a search warrant for his financials.”

“I don’t know how to do anything legal like that. I’m better at the breaking and entering side of things.”

“You always had a knack for things that are illegal.” He rose, heading back into the house. “And things that ought to be illegal.”

I sat there, all out of snappy comebacks.

A manila envelope waited for me in the mailbox of the lake house. No return address, my name and the lake house address written in careful block letters. Thanks to the Blythe Grapevine forum everyone knew right where to find me. Adding wards around the house was tricky though, with a vampire in residence. I’d developed a spell tailored to allow Daniel’s presence while blocking out other dangerous entities and unwanted visitors but it required a bit of blood from him. The mood he’d been in lately didn’t make me eager to ask so I’d just mention we needed to be careful.

Ripped pages fell out of the envelope, hot pink filled with bold, looping handwriting in black ink. A shimmer of leftover energy radiated from the pages. This belonged to Britney Parker, whatever it was.

It’s a girl. The doctor says it’s too early to tell but I know. I can feel her already. Not moving, of course, I’m only twelve weeks, but I can feel her presence. Her energy. It’s like the light of a star is filling me, and all the darkness doesn’t matter anymore. The past doesn’t matter. All that matters is right now, and her future. Nothing can make me feel ashamed anymore. Nothing can make me hate myself anymore. Nothing can make me feel dirty anymore. Her light fills me and cleans all the dark, dirty things away. Her light makes me whole.

My kid’s gonna be fucking perfect. Ha! But she will.

None of the things that hurt me will touch her. None of the people. So I have to start figuring out what to do and make plans. Time to get the fuck out of Blythe and start over someplace new, just the two of us.

I keep thinking of her as Star. If I name her that will she hate me for giving her a flaky hippie name? She can always change it. We can have a New Name Ceremony when she turns thirteen. She can pick a new name and we can have a big rite and celebrate!

I couldn’t read anymore. Too much hope, on top of layers and layers of pain. I had to, though, so I forged ahead. The rest was similar in tone, Britney speculating about the future and what her daughter would be like. Nothing concrete, and nothing about who the father was. The clearest thing about it was her intention to leave town. She wanted away from her family. No, I couldn’t make the assumption it was her family who were the people who’d hurt her. It was likely, but I needed more than projecting my own shitty family life on hers to know for sure.

A talk with Mackie Parker jumped higher up my “To Do” list.

Whoever took items from Britney’s hiding spot in her apartment was the most likely person to have gotten hold of the diary these pages were obviously torn from. But why clear out potentially damning evidence only to share it anonymously? And how did they know who to share it with?

I booted up the laptop and went straight to Blood Shots. Sure enough, there was a post about the ghost haunting Blythe.

Well, y’all, I got me a humdinger of an investigation going on right now. Tired of digging into the past, I decided to take a look at hauntings related to recent incidents. I found a big one, just down the highway from Nashville in Blythe. My BFF, who for purposes of this case I will refer to as Hoodoo Woman, is from these parts and knows some of the folks involved, so she came with me to help me out. Seems a recent death has led to a haunting and it’s starting to look like the death wasn’t so accidental. It’s looking like murder, y’all.

A murder victim haunting an entire town. I could not have asked for a juicer story.

Why didn’t he just wave a red flag around? Of course that’s exactly what his post was meant to do. Not to mention paint a target on me. I couldn’t be mad though. It was a good idea and it worked. Now all I had to do was figure out who sent the diary pages and see if they’d share more. I didn’t need more sad motivation to solve Britney’s murder. I needed cold hard leads.

With that in mind I got ready for the séance. Supplies packed and ready, dressed in warm clothes for the uncertain spring weather at night, I spent the last bit of daylight sitting cross-legged on the front porch. Meditation had never been my thing but I’d found my own way to get myself in the right head space for heavy magic. Music came out of tiny earbuds, traveling straight to the deepest parts of myself where my magic lived and breathed and hummed. I left my glasses inside so I could see energy gathering around me in circles of indigo and violet. A not unpleasant scent of tobacco tickled my nose as the taste of whiskey burned fire in the back of my throat.

“Hello, Stack.”

He answered with a tug of wind through my hair.

“You nervous about meeting Daniel and Ray?”

A slow exhale released more of the smoke smell. No, he wasn’t nervous at all.

“This is the real deal, Stack. No faking this time. We need to speak to a dead girl so we can help her.”

Static cut into the music. A tinny, faraway voice rode over the top of the song. “This whole town reeks of her. Tastes like rage.”

“I know. Can you help me talk to her? If I can figure out who killed her, I think it will help her rest.”

The music cut out completely, leaving Stack’s voice loud and clear. “I’ll be there when you call, hoodoo woman.”

Everywhere I turned somebody wanted to call me that. It was better than witch bitch so I guess I couldn’t complain.

* * *

The woods and wetlands around the lake held all manner of hidden treasures and secrets. One of them was the old Lawrence place. The house was gray and falling in when I was a kid. I had no idea how old it was or who the Lawrence family was or who owned the property now. All I knew for sure was that it was home to a restless spirit who liked to spook anybody who crossed the property line looking for a thrill. Well, I knew a little more than that but I’d gotten so used to keeping things to myself in Blythe that I had to mull it over for a few minutes whether to tell Daniel and Ray.

We stood at the edge of the property boundary. Darkness and woods hid the remains of the house from view. Daniel said, “What’s making the hair on the back of my neck stand up?” Being supernatural creatures themselves, vampires were more sensitive than the average mortal to energy from the spirit plane.

“There’s a ghost here,” I said. “I don’t know anything about him but I know it’s a kid.”

Ray said, “A child?” The upset tone of his voice was one reason I’d never shared my impressions of the spirit who haunted this land.

“Yeah. He likes to play. He thinks it’s funny to scare folks but he’s not out to hurt anyone. I think he was about five or six. I’ve never seen him very clearly.”

Ray rubbed his jaw then took a step forward. “I know how to deal with unruly children. They need to know who the boss is, then they settle right down.” He made his way through the woods to the house, the arc of light from his flashlight cutting into the dark.

Daniel and I followed at a slower pace. Daniel said, “So. He knows how to show unruly children who’s boss.”

“Get your mind out of the gutter.”

The sound of something hitting Ray, possibly a clump of dirt, reached us, followed by him swearing.

“Come on, just admit it. You two played Naughty Schoolgirl and Arresting Officer every weekend. You don’t have to keep secrets from me, Roxie, I won’t judge.”

A branch snapped. The air whistled with movement. Once again, Ray swore.

I said, “You’re wrong.”

A child’s laughter echoed in the trees. A loud thump came from ahead. The swearing was really creative this time, including a mention of unnatural acts with goats.

“Wednesdays and Sundays,” I said.

Daniel laughed. “Church days. I like it. Yeah, I get why you left.”

I stopped, ignoring the sounds of more distress in the distance. “You said something like that before. Care to share your big theory?”

Daniel composed his features into fake seriousness. “Not at this time. Come on, let’s get the deputy out of trouble.”

We found Ray huddled with his arms over his head attempting to protect himself from a hail of dirt clumps, rocks, branches, and anything else the laughing ghost child could throw at him. I snapped my fingers, sending a burst of power through the air that rippled like a stone skipping across water. The laughter stopped. Ray straightened only to be pelted with another dirt clod.

“That’s enough, little buddy,” I said. “You go play in the woods. We’ve got things to do here.” I pulled a handful of jacks and a small rubber ball from my pocket and tossed them as far into the trees as I could. “Go on now.”

Ray was incensed. “You’re giving the little brat jacks to play with? He could take out an eye with those things.”

“He’s dead, Ray. He can’t hurt himself.”

“I’m talking about my eye!”

Daniel snickered as he opened a flask. I cut him a quelling look and said, “It’ll be fine.”

I swept my flashlight over him to inspect for damage. Except for being dirty he looked good. Sinfully good in snug jeans, a dark blue Henley under a black leather jacket, brows drawn together and mouth in a tight line. I stepped forward and with my free hand brushed away some of the grime from his jacket. “Besides, you look fine. Just a little dirty.”

Awareness sizzled between us, made of more than just old memories. Guilt followed closely on its heels, slamming into me with a force that brought instant shame. I moved away, swinging the light to search the dark for the house. Ray was my ex, the only other man I’d ever loved besides Blake. Surely feeling something for him even after all these years was natural. Didn’t mean I had to act on it.

The house, or what little was left of it, was just beyond the next line of trees. Pushing my personal business to the back of my mind, I scoped out the sight. One brick wall still stood. The roof was gone and so was most of the interior framework. Debris both natural and manmade littered the floor. One section of foundation was mostly clear.

I used the flashlight as a pointer. “That’s where I’ll set up. We need to clean off the space. If you guys can get that tree, I can get the rest.” I gave Daniel a look I hoped he could read in the dark and his increasingly drunken state.

“Sure thing,” Ray said as he moved into position on the far left end of the half rotted tree trunk that had fallen over.

Daniel took another swig from his flask before stowing it away, then went to the opposite end of the tree. As Ray used both hands and lifted from his legs like someone properly safety conscious, Daniel bent over just enough to grab a limb and flung the tree off the foundation with ease.

Way too much ease. Ray whistled. “Didn’t hurt yourself there, did you? That wasn’t exactly a light load.”

Daniel realized his mistake, looking away so I couldn’t see his face. Or rather so he couldn’t see the censure in mine. He said, “Hell, all that workin’ out’s got to be good for something.” He waved at the small bits of debris that remained. “Don’t reckon you brought a broom for all this, did you, little witch?”

I walked to the center of the space. “I don’t need a broom.”

After a brief grounding and centering, I held out my open hands at my side, fingers extended. Deep slow breaths to find the wind and call it to me. It responded with a gentle caress against my cheek and a playful tugging at my hair. I thanked it for coming and used my hands to guide it in purpose, the breeze sweeping the foundation clear as I turned in a slow circle.

Daniel grinned. “Show off.”

“I’m just getting started,” I said. Next came the set-up. I carried my bag to a corner of the foundation, passing Ray. There was no fear in his face, no disbelief or confusion. Only respect and the tiny curve of a smile.

Candles, chalk markings on the ground, roots and herbs and incense. These were the tools for the rite I’d devised. Rozella never taught me this sort of thing. After one bad attempt with a method studied out of a book years ago, I developed my own. Speaking to the dead was about forging a connection, after all, not necessarily following rules.

Which was why the last items unpacked were a small boombox and the CD of favorites Daniel found in Britney’s apartment. Once it was put in place it was time to call Stack and make some introductions.

Me, Ray, Daniel, Stack, and a séance - nothing could possibly go wrong, right? I did a quick double check to make sure I’d packed the first aid kit, just in case.