I Will Fear No Evil (Psalm 23 Mysteries Book 10) (11 page)

“It’s okay,” she said, her voice shaking slightly. “Just don’t do it again.”

He nodded and just stood there for a moment, holding her. Finally he pulled away. His heart was still racing but he felt like he had regained mastery over himself. “We should get over to Traci and Mark’s.”

“Okay, but first I have one question.”

“What is it?”

“I’m needing a little clarity on my outfit,” she said with a smirk.

With a straight face he said, “Wear a sweater. Wear two sweaters. And jeans, too. The ugliest, most poorly fitted jeans you can find.”

“So then I won’t be attractive?”

He shook his head. “Don’t count on it. I have a feeling you could wear burlap and it would still be sexy.”

She blushed even as she laughed and the sound almost made him forget his promise to Mark, his concern for Traci, and the fact that her sister could be in serious trouble.

Almost, but not quite.

“We better get out of here,” he said. And suddenly he felt an urgency about it, like there was somewhere they needed to be and fast.

Cindy frowned. “Is something wrong?”

He nodded. “Yes, I just wish I knew what it was.”

9

Mark had a sick feeling in his stomach as he waited for Liam to join him at the park. He was way, way outside his comfort zone and had been since the first body had shown up on Monday. He tried to rehearse in his mind how he was going to approach the coven, but realized he had no idea what to expect. They could be hostile, angry at the intrusion by outsiders.

Then again they were holding their meeting in a public place, in the park in downtown Pine Springs. They couldn’t be expecting complete privacy. For that there was forest not half an hour away. Then again since everything that had happened at Green Pastures a while back he wouldn’t blame anyone for never wanting to go into the woods again, ever.

Maybe that was why they met in the park. It was safer. Also closer. By meeting late at night they also minimized the risk of interruption so just because they were in a public place didn’t mean they were ready and willing to accept visitors.

He wondered why of all the spots in the park they gathered near the lone Redwood tree. He wondered if it had some mystical significance. When Lizzie first got into Wicca she’d talked about different plants symbolizing different things and being used in various rituals.

He sighed and leaned his head back for a moment. Maybe if they hadn’t given her space, but had butted into her life earlier none of this would be happening now. Still, he didn’t want to believe that the deaths were Lizzie’s fault. And it wasn’t just because he didn’t want to be known as the cop that locked up his wife’s sister.

Lizzie used to be a lot gentler when she was younger although she’d always been a bit moody. Sensitive, that’s how Traci had once described her sister and it made sense.

Liam’s car pulled up next to his and Mark got out. “Thanks for coming,” he said as Liam came around to stand next to him a few seconds later.

“What are partners for?” Liam asked with a shrug.

“Did you at least see some interesting tourist places?” Mark asked, feeling the urge to talk to fill the silence, trying to calm his own jitters.

“Took the nighttime tour of Alcatraz when I went up to San Francisco.”

“I bet that was disturbing.”

“Made me glad I became a cop. When I was little my mother swore I could go either way.”

“Not you,” Mark said. “You’re a straight and narrow type of guy and I’m sure you were the same way as a kid.”

Liam just shrugged. “So, care to tell me what we’re doing in the park late at night?”

“We’re going to see some wiccans about a witch.”

“Okay, you lost me.”

“I’m not even sure I understand. We’re going to interrupt a coven meeting, hopefully, to try and get some answers. Stick close.”

“Just out of curiosity why is it that we always get the weird cases?” Liam asked.

“Just lucky I guess. You wouldn’t want life to get boring, would you?”

“No, but every once in a while it might be nice, you know, as a novelty.”

Mark shook his head and clicked on his flashlight. “Okay, let’s go.”

They had parked fairly close to where the giant Redwood tree was. He’d hoped that if they had the element of surprise on their side that even if coven members decided to run, they’d at least be able to catch one or two. Hopefully those would actually have information worth knowing.

“You want to fill me in on what’s going on?” Liam asked.

“Later,” Mark growled. “For now, maintain silence. We don’t want to spook them.”

Which is ironic, because I’m the one who’s freaked out
, he thought.

They made their way stealthily through the park. He kept the flashlight low, sweeping on the ground just in front of them so they could see where they were stepping and hopefully not trip over any inconvenient roots.

As they neared the tree he could hear voices. They were low and it was hard to make out what they were saying. He felt his heart begin to pound harder and his palms began to sweat. He didn’t like the thought of bearding a coven in its den.

He saw pinpricks of light next, candles placed on the ground in a rough circle as he had suspected they might be. The coven was here, and the closer he got the more he hated this whole situation.

He slowed down and started walking even more softly. He wanted to get a good look at the circle before revealing their presence if he could. He counted a dozen people standing a shoulder’s width apart from each other, just inside the circle drawn by the candles. All of them wore cloaks, half of them had the hoods drawn up to obscure their faces while the other half didn’t. Apparently some of them didn’t care who knew what they believed.

He and Liam were very close now although the others still seemed to be oblivious to their presence which was a good thing. He couldn’t make out exactly what they were doing, but it was clear there was a lot of gesturing that went along with the words they were saying.

After another minute of that a woman stepped into the center of the circle and raised her arms. “Merrily met and merrily part. Blessed be.”

“Blessed be,” the others intoned. Then everyone reached down, picked up a candle and blew it out.

The moon was shining brightly enough that there was still enough light to see by. Everyone took off their cloak so maybe he’d been wrong about it being meant to obscure. Maybe it was just like a ceremonial dress. Whatever was going on it seemed like the formalities were over and now people just started chatting with each other. He overheard one of the women mention her daughter’s piano recital the next afternoon while two men were talking about getting the transmission fixed on one of their cars.

And suddenly Mark felt himself relaxing. Without their cloaks and candles they seemed more like regular people. He suddenly found it hard to believe that the people he heard chatting so casually about the same kinds of things other people did could be behind such brutal sacrifices.

Throwing caution to the wind he stepped forward. The woman who had been in the center of the circle noticed him first. She looked at him with curiosity and walked forward. Two things struck him about her right away. The first was just how curly her red hair was and the second was that she was wearing what looked like a hand-knitted sweater.

He blinked in surprise and wondered if this was Sweater Girl that Lizzie used to talk about with her roommate.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Yes, are you the one in charge here?”

“Tonight I am,” she said. “We often take turns.”

“So, you’re not like the high priestess?”

“No, our coven is run a little more democratically than some of the more traditional ones,” she said.

He pulled out his badge and her look of curiosity turned to one of concern. “My name is Detective Mark Walters and this is my partner. I was wondering if I could ask you about one of your covenmates, I guess you would call her.”

“Who?”

“A girl named Lizzie Matthews.”

“Lizzie, yes, I know her, but she’s not one of our covenates, not anymore.”

“When did she leave?”

“It was quite a while ago. I’d say about two years.”

“Can you tell me why?”

The woman’s face changed subtly and her eyes became more guarded. “Can I ask what this is about?”

“She was reported missing about a week ago and a few hours ago her roommate was found, murdered.”

“Oh my!” Sweater Girl said, her hand flying to her mouth. “That’s terrible!”

“Yes, and we’re eager to figure out what’s going on and to find Lizzie. She might be in terrible danger.”

“Of course, I’ll do anything I can.” She turned and called out, “Albert, can you come here a moment?”

A large, sweaty bald man walked over, his face jovial and grinning from ear-to-ear. “Do we have newcomers Matilda?” he asked.

“No, Albert. These are the police. Lizzie Matthews has gone missing and she may be in danger. I’m going to talk to them for a while. Can you ask the others if any of them has heard from her recently or might know anything about her whereabouts?”

“Of course,” he said, the grin quickly disappearing from his face. Matilda led Mark and Liam away as Albert began to speak to the others. Once they were out of easy earshot she faced them.

“When Lizzie joined our coven she was very eager to learn, excited about everything. She’d had no real exposure to religion of any kind growing up.”

Mark nodded, but didn’t say anything. He was going to avoid mentioning his connection to Lizzie if he could. The less Matilda knew about him, Lizzie, and everything that was going on the better for all of them.

“She took to it quickly, learned as much as she could, but after a couple of months I could tell that something was wrong.”

“What?”

“She wasn’t as happy as she had once been. In fact she was getting more sullen, withdrawn. I suspected something might be upsetting her in her personal life, but she wouldn’t talk about it. Then she began questioning some of our most basic teachings. I could tell that she was no longer satisfied with our way of worship or the things that she was learning. She started asking a lot of questions of more established members, questions that had to do with the study of dark magic. She was making some people uncomfortable. She was becoming obsessed with power, how to achieve it, how to keep it, that sort of thing.”

“And what did you tell her?”

“That she was focused on the wrong things. I told her Wicca was about being a part of something and not dominating something.”

“Do you have any idea what she might have been after?”

“Power, that is my only guess. If it was something more specific than that, I wasn’t privy to it. It had reached the point where we knew we were going to have to ask her to leave, which broke my heart. We try so very hard to be inclusive that it is a tragedy when we have to instead exclude. However, it seemed that she had tired of us long before we had tired of her. She quit the coven, said she’d found a better one, a coven that was more suited to her needs. We let her go with our blessings and a heavy heart.”

“And you haven’t seen her since?”

“I don’t believe so,” Matilda said.

“Any idea about who this other coven was she had joined or where they’d meet?”

“Not really, but two of our other members left at the same time she did and I figure they went on together.”

“Who was this?” Mark asked sharply.

“Peter and Vanessa. They were also drawn more to the darker side of things.”

“Do you have contact information for either of them?”

“I’m afraid not. I lost my phone while I was on vacation last year and with it all my old contacts. I’m usually the one who sends out reminders about meetings and things so I had everyone’s numbers. It’s possible someone else knows how to contact them. I can ask.”

“That would be greatly appreciated.”

“Consider it done. Is there anything else I can help with?”

“Not that I can think of at the moment, but I’m going to leave you with my card and I’d appreciate it if I could get your contact information.”

“Of course.”

She gave him her number and he wrote it down in his notepad before handing her one of his cards. She tucked it into the pocket of her jeans. “Detective, there is actually something you might be able to help me with, if you don’t mind.”

“What’s that?” he asked, somewhat surprised. Most people being questioned by a police officer, even if they were innocent, were still eager to see the officer go.

“Something weird has happened. I have a black cat.”

Mark couldn’t stop himself from smirking.

She rolled her eyes at him in response. “I know, very cliché. Look, black cats are the least likely to be adopted and the most likely to be put down. I happen to be a cat person and I’m a sucker for underdogs. Well, my cat went missing a couple of nights ago.”