Kissing the Werewolf - An Izzy Cooper Novel (14 page)

“And they have a thing for those old black and white horror movies,” Tim added.

“Well there’s Aggie Wardwell. I think her house burnt down about a month ago … and she did try to assassinate the guy who owns the bakery.”

I felt a little guilty pointing the finger at old lady Aggie, but she fit the profile, and she was definitely a cat lady.

Leaning over his desk, Ayden grabbed a pen and his notebook. “Where is she now?”

“I don’t know. The last time she was arrested, Jeb said something about putting her in Sunnyside.”

Sunnyside was the only retirement home on the island. Unlike most rest homes, Sunnyside had few residents. The majority of the people on the island lived to be a ripe old age, and managed to stay in good enough shape to remain in their own homes, but every once in a while there was a problem. That was the case with Aggie. She still had her magic, but was losing her reasoning.

“Why don’t you and Tim go talk to her,” Ayden instructed. “I’m going to go talk with Elias and find out what else he knows about the Marsh estate.”

I was jealous. Why couldn’t I go talk to Elias?

Since I’d parted ways with him at the cemetery, I hadn’t been able to get that kiss out of my head.

As soon as this case was solved, I was going to find out why I couldn’t remember this relationship he kept talking about.

Sunnyside was located on the corner of Seventh Street and Simmons Avenue. Unlike other retirement homes, Sunnyside wasn’t an institution housed in a large building with dingy halls, and even dingier rooms. It wasn’t one of those places where the old and decrepit spend their final days dreaming of better times.

The brainchild of Delia Antson, Sunnyside was a private housing project for the elderly.
It consisted of several acres of beautiful cottages, each with a lot of its own, where the residents could grow their own herbs, as well as have a little vegetable garden.

The residents were well cared for. There was always a medical staff on duty in the main building, and of course Delia.

Delia was known as the good witch of Storm Cove. She was fifty something. and still a fine looking woman, but she’d never married. After her grandmother died in a Portland rest home, she’d inherited a fortune. Delia vowed to change how the elderly lived after reaching their twilight years, and she did just that when she founded Sunnyside.

It was well after 6:00 pm when we arrived, which meant visiting hours were over. The residents didn’t receive visitors in the evening, except for by special arrangement.

I was hoping Delia would still be in so that we could get permission to interview Aggie, in spite of it being after hours.

A short brunette showed us into Delia’s office.

She was sitting behind her desk, but as soon as we entered, Delia stood and smiled.

Her appearance was always so perfect; I couldn’t help but wonder what her secret was. Whatever it was, I wished they’d bottle it and sell it to the rest of us.

The director of Sunnyside was a little chunky, but it was hard to tell beneath her perfect tan pantsuit. She wore her brown hair long, and it had so much body and shine that it still looked good on her. In spite of her age, her lashes were long and thick, fanning over a set of huge brown eyes.

“It’s been a long time Izzy. How are your uncle and grandmother doing?”

“Good … and you?” I asked, which was only polite.

“I’m doing good.” She nodded, her smile widening.

She was right. It had been awhile. The last time I’d seen Delia was when I was fifteen, and she’d busted me taking a shortcut through Sunnyside to get to the jetty on the south side of the island.

She called Granny Stella, which resulted in me getting grounded for a week. I never could understand what the big deal was about using Sunnyside for a short cut, but then I’d read about the wolf attack.

Apparently they’d had a resident who could no longer control the changing. Usually the old man was secured, but somehow on this particular night, he’d gotten out. It just so happened that a group of teenagers were cutting through the property when he got loose, which led to the attack.

Now it made a little more sense. All the residents were special, and some of them were not quite in their right mind, which could lead to all kinds of chaos.

“I know it is after hours, but it’s important that we see Aggie Wardwell. She’s here, right?” I asked.

Delia nodded. “Do you mind if I ask what this is about?”

“It’s official police business,” Tim answered for me.

“Really … and it can’t wait until morning?” Though Delia was smiling, I could see skepticism in her eyes.

“It could be a matter of life and death,” I added quickly.

“Well in that case, I’ll take you to her cottage myself.”

* * *

Aggie’s cottage was quaint, and very Tudor like. It reminded me of something you might see in a fairytale. It even had a thatched roof.

Delia prided herself on Sunnyside offering an escape from reality for its residents, and from what I could see, it probably did that.

Delia had to knock on the door a couple times before getting any response.

The door opened just a crack. “Do you knuckleheads have any idea what time it is?”

There were definitely cats. I could hear them meowing behind the door.

“I’m sorry,” Delia told her. “You have a couple of visitors that need to talk with you.”

“Who?” Aggie grumbled.

“Hello Miss Wardwell. I’m Izzy Cooper,” I said, pulling out my FBI identification. “This is my partner, Special Agent Tim Lehman.”

“I don’t have anything to say to the fuzz. Now get out of here before I zap you into Neverland!”

This was going to be a lot trickier than I’d thought. “I have to insist Miss Wardwell. We do need to speak with you, and I’d prefer to do it here, but I can take you into the Sheriff’s office if need be.”

Threatening an old lady had to earn me at least one bad mark, but there was no helping it.

“Fine then,” she muttered and opened the door. “Can’t a body get any sleep these days?”

“She sleeps a lot,” Delia whispered.

Aggie’s thin frame was wrapped up tight in an old pink terrycloth robe. Her short gray hair was in disarray. It was apparent that she’d been sleeping.

Since Aggie wasn’t going to be the most cooperative person to deal with, I wondered how best to question her.

“Are you missing any of your cats?” I decided that approaching by way of her cats was probably the best bet.

A thoughtful look crossed her face and she stepped back to survey the cats gathered at her feet. A moment later she looked up.

“Now that you mention it, Nikki hasn’t made it home yet. He’s usually home by now,” she said, stepping to the side so she could see the yard behind us. “Have you seen him?”

I shook my head. “So you just now noticed him gone?”

Aggie nodded. “But he’ll probably be back. Nikki and a couple of the others have been wandering out a lot lately.”

Aggie was looking good for this, but if she were the one channeling, she didn’t seem to be aware of it.

I was at a total loss for what to do next. We couldn’t exactly arrest her without any evidence. Not to mention the fact that if she really were unaware of what was happening, she wasn’t actually the perpetrator, but a tool the real bad guy was using.

“Okay … if you don’t mind, we’d like to stop by tomorrow and see if Nikki has returned,” I said, offering my most disarming smile.

“Fine by me,” she nodded and shut the door.

“I thought this was a life or death situation … not about a missing cat?” Delia was a little perturbed. I couldn’t blame her.

“It is … but it might have something to do with the cat,” I explained.

“I see. Well I hope you got the information you came here for.”

“Do you know much about Aggie’s habits? Does she watch a lot of television?”

“Does she ever! For the last couple of weeks she’s been having a horror movie fest. I think she’s borrowed nearly ever classic horror movie in Sunnyside’s library.”

That stopped me in my tracks. “Does she have one right now?”

Giving me a strange look, she shook her head. “The librarian was off today. I remember seeing Aggie return a movie this afternoon … after her nap, but she couldn’t get another one.”

I turned to Tim. “Do you have one of your cards?”

Nodding, he pulled out one of the business cards he always kept in his back pocket and handed it to me.

Taking it, I handed the card over to Delia. “If she borrows a movie tomorrow, can you give me a call and let me know what the movie is?”

Again she gave me a strange look, but nodded. “Sure. Are you certain everything is okay?”

“Yes … I would tell you more, but like my partner said, it is police business.”

When we got back to the car, Tim turned to me. “What are you thinking? Shouldn’t we be bringing her in for more questioning?”

“I don’t think so. If I’m right about this, she doesn’t even realize what she’s doing. Taking her in right now would probably put a damper on whoever is using her, but we wouldn’t find out who that is.”

Tim didn’t seem convinced. “But what if someone else gets killed in the meantime … and what about your sister?”

“Whatever is happening has something to do with those movies … and she doesn’t have one tonight, so I believe we’re safe. As far as Annabelle goes, I think she is beyond Aggie’s influence now. Whoever it is that is using Aggie, also has Annabelle.”

“And you think that someone is Captain Beaufort?”

I nodded. “Somehow he’s reaching out from his prison and he’s doing it through Aggie.”

Tim dropped me at my car, but just before leaving, he reached out and grabbed my arm. “You better keep that gun of yours handy … just in case,” he advised.

“Thanks Tim,” I smiled. “I’ll do that.” Hesitating, I looked over my shoulder as I got out. “You know none of this explains a TV in a house that has been abandoned for a century.”

“I know. Maybe the sheriff has an idea why it would be there. I’ll give him a call in the morning.”

Nodding, I shut the door.

When I was safely in Lady Luck’s driver’s seat, with her door shut, Tim waved and drove away.

The lighthouse’s parking area was empty, except for Uncle Aaron’s scooter.

I tossed around the idea of going up to the top of the lighthouse to ask Aaron more about that spyglass he’d found. If it was connected to the Mystique, it could also be connected to Captain Beaufort.

No matter how I ran through it, I kept coming back to one thing. In order for this old vampire to use Aggie, there had to be some kind of connection between them.

Finding that connection was the next thing on my agenda, and I would need to work fast. With the Bicentennial celebration the next day, I had a hunch that’s when all hell would break loose.

What better time to extract revenge on a town, than on that town’s two hundredth anniversary? That was also when most of the citizens would be concentrated in one area.

Sinking into the hot bubble bath, I closed my eyes and tried to relax. Sending out my sensors, I tried to pick up something from Annabelle. It was there, but even weaker than it had been before.

Annabelle was tired, but I still felt no fear. In fact, she seemed to be angry. I felt sorry for whoever it was that pulled her into that TV. If she found a way to use her magic in there, they’d be in deep trouble. My sister could get really nasty when she was angry.

Once when we were in grade school, Annabelle got mad at one of her classmates, Charlie Davis. That was back before she knew she was a witch, and what she could do.

Charlie had been teasing Annabelle all day about the color of her hair. He was still doing it as we were leaving the schoolyard that day.

Annabelle turned to glare at him. He was standing on the sidewalk behind us. In a blink of an eye, that sidewalk turned into a pit of wet cement and he started sinking. It took me and three other kids to pull him out.

Mom was extremely upset when she found out about it. That was the day she’d told us that we could absolutely never think bad things about someone when we were angry. She never explained why, only that we couldn’t.

I never understood why my mother had been so adamant about that until I came to live with Granny Stella. That’s when we found out what could happen if we got angry and didn’t control it.

Getting so little sleep over the last couple days, I was dead tired, which probably explained why I was on the verge of drifting off when I was startled awake by the creaking of the bathroom floor.

My eyes flew open, and I found myself staring into the laughing eyes of the most devious demon to ever walk the earth.

“You seriously need to stay out of my bathroom!”

Julius laughed. “And what fun would that be?”

“What do you want?” I asked, sinking deeper into the water.

“Just checking in to see how your case is going.”

“Crazy … that’s how it’s going. Not that I think you really care,” I came back, fixing him with a glower from hell.

I wouldn’t mind these visits so much if he weren’t so annoying, and if he’d knock. It would also be nice if he actually had something useful to tell me.

To tell the truth, I wasn’t even sure why he kept hanging around. A lot of the time I was a total bitch to him, but I had an excuse. He is a demon after all, and his purpose was to lure me to the dark side, and by doing so, deny me redemption.

“So tomorrow is the big day … Storm Cove’s two hundredth birthday.”

“You know more than you’re telling me,” I accused.

“Maybe,” he said, giving me a lopsided grin. “But if I told you everything I know … I wouldn’t be able to watch you run around and play cops and robbers … or murderers.”

“Whatever.” I rolled my eyes.

I’d long since stopped trying to get info out of Julius. Sometimes he’d give it up, but most of the time he wouldn’t.

Letting out a deep sigh, he kneeled down next to the bathtub so that I was looking into his eyes. “I’ll make you a deal. Let me have a little touch and feel, then I’ll tell you what I know.”

Pursing my lips together, I took a handful of water and threw it in his face. “You pig!”

In the process of attacking him with bathwater, I’d inadvertently allowed one of my breasts to peek out of the water.

He noticed. “Well that was quite a sweet sight.”

“Go away!”

“You mean you want me to go away without telling you what you want to know?” His eyes widened in mock surprise.

“Well I’m not letting you feel me up for it.”

“I got a peek,” he shrugged. “That’s good enough for right now.”

“So go for it. What do you now about the case?”

“The case?” One of his dark brows shot up. “I never said it was about the case.”

“What then?” He was really starting to get on my nerves. Not a good thing after a long, frustrating day.

“How about your alleged relationship with the dog man?”

Now he had my attention. “Go on.”

“He’s telling the truth. You did have a little teen romance going on with him.”

“Why can’t I remember it?”

“It could be someone took your memory,” his answer was noncommittal.

Julius loved playing cat and mouse games.

“Who would do such a thing?” I was exasperated, and really wanted the game to stop.

“What you should be asking is, who
could
do such a thing.”

“A witch maybe.” I spoke my thoughts aloud.

The theory only made sense up until I remembered that my memory would have had been taken before I lost my witchy power.

Stealing a witch’s memory wasn’t impossible, but it also wasn’t easy. Witches had a way of knowing when they were being witched.

But a vampire could do it, especially if the witch wasn’t aware the person was a vampire. If you didn’t know someone was a vampire with the power to compel, you’d have no reason to keep your guard up.

Maybe Julius was onto something.

“Think harder,” he urged.

“A vampire?”

“Maybe you aren’t quite as air headed as you seem to be,” he smirked.

Ignoring the insult, I pushed on. “But the ghost hunter is the first vampire I’ve ever met.”

“Not likely. You probably just didn’t realize said person, was a vampire.”

The next thing I knew, Julius was pushing my head under the water, which sent me into a panic until I realized he was pulling me back up.

“What the hell!” I yelped.

Without acknowledging my outburst, he poured a little shampoo in his hand and began to massage it into my hair.

Wow! It was feeling really good.

“Think back, love. Do you remember an engagement ring … a moonlight walk along the beach?”

His fingers were warm against my scalp, almost hot.

I did remember. It was the night of Elias’s big kiss, but I’d forgotten the most important part. Elias had proposed that night and gave me a ring.

It was all coming back now, all the nights and days I’d spent with Elias. It was true that I’d chased him like a lovesick schoolgirl, which was actually what I was. That went on up until the summer I turned seventeen.

I couldn’t be sure what changed, but suddenly he wasn’t ignoring me anymore. One day when I was trailing him, he circled back and came up to me from behind.

At first he was angry that I was following him, but then I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him.

He kissed me back, and wow! It was mind-blowing awesome. 

We were inseparable after that. During my senior year, I spent every spare moment with him, but then I had to go away. He was worried that I’d forget him while I was away at college, so he proposed.

“How could I have forgotten it all?” I whispered.

“You forgot the events … not the feelings. That’s why you’re still chasing after him like a bitch in heat.” The fingers massaging my scalp grew a little rougher.

“Well that wasn’t a nice thing to say,” I looked up at Julius, and was surprised to see him scowling.

Without warning, he dunked me again to rinse my hair.

When I came back up gulping for air, the scowl on his face was gone.

A thought occurred to me. “Did I lose my memory when I died?”

“Nope. Your ex fiancé is a vampire. Think about it.”

With that, he stood and started for the bathroom door.

“Julius.”

The sound of my voice stopped him.

“Thanks.”

Nodding, he left, closing the door behind him.

Every once in a while Julius actually did something nice for me, like helping me remember Elias.

That one memory had a domino effect. It didn’t take long before I recalled Jasper stealing my memory.

He’d been trying to get me to go out with him for weeks, but I’d refused because of my engagement to Elias. One night he’d come to my dorm room and compelled me to forget Elias. He’d taken the ring off my finger and slipped it into his pocket.

I was under his spell, with no will to stop him.

But compelling a witch isn’t nearly as effective as compelling a regular person. He’d managed to steal the particulars, but not the feelings. That’s why I’d always felt there was something not quite right about my relationship with Jasper. It was also why I’d never been able to get Elias out of my mind, even though my memory of him had been stolen.

Jasper had a whole lot more to answer for now.