I shook my head. Probably that was the worst call for power that anyone ever performed. I was glad Mercutio wasn’t here because it would have been embarrassing for him to hear me. I went back into the house and washed my finger, which was still pulsing blood. I pinched the tip.
“Ow, ow, ow!”
I’d just gotten it to stop bleeding and was putting on a Band-Aid when a loud knock at the door startled me. I scrambled into my clothes and rushed over to answer it, expecting it to be Bryn with Mercutio. I pulled the door open to find Zach, his expression as full of thunder as the impending storm.
“Girl, you better have a damn good explanation.”
Chapter 12
“I do have a good explanation for running off, but I can’t tell you what it is,” I said.
The veins and muscles in Zach’s neck popped up. I knew I was about to get an earful, but we didn’t have time for that.
“I have special medicine. I was just on my way back to Glenfiddle.”
“Sure you were.”
“I don’t lie.”
About anything important . . . unless there’s a real good reason.
“What were you doing with Bryn Lyons?”
So he’d already heard?
Small-town folk are faster than DSL Internet. Darn them.
“Can we talk about it on the way? And, hey, what are you doing here? Didn’t the sheriff say we were all supposed to stay at the factory?”
“You ran off, and, like a damn fool, I came looking for you. Then I hear you’re taking limo rides with Lyons,” he spat. “You want to explain that to me? Not so’s I’d care if he got struck down with whatever disease these people have got, but I do give a shit that you’d rather spend what could be your last hours with that arrogant SOB instead of me.”
I looked at his handsome face, and something inside me started to hurt. Zach might be my difficult ex-husband, but he never would’ve taken power away from me that I planned to use to save people’s lives in order to heal himself. He’d have stayed wounded and taken me to the people, and when we got home he’d have drunk a bottle of whiskey to kill the pain and told me to clean the wound for him and then to sit a spell and talk to take his mind off it.
I touched his face. “I only ever loved one man, and I’m looking at him.”
“So what were you doing with him tonight? And what did he say to you to make you cry?”
I blinked and looked away. I guess washing my face hadn’t made my eyes less red. I should have spilled some Visine in them, but heck, I’d had other things on my mind, and I wasn’t expecting company.
“I was crying over Mercutio. He forgot he’s a cat and got himself in a dogfight. So he’s at the vet, and I don’t know if he’s going to be okay. I hope so. I really do hope so.” I bit my lip and shook my head. I was pretty sure Mercutio wouldn’t want me to get distracted at a time like this. “C’mon let’s get to the factory and see if this medicine works. We’ll talk about everything later.”
“What kind of medicine is it, and where did you get it?”
“I got it from someone Bryn knows.”
He didn’t seem satisfied with that explanation, but before he could ask more, I said, “We’re wasting time. Those people are dying!”
Zach walked out, and I followed him. I climbed into the front seat of his prowler, debating whether or not I should tell him everything. He didn’t believe in magic. We’d had some whopper fights because I believed in Edie. If I told him about casting spells and werewolves, he would think I was crazy and have me committed, but how was I supposed to cast a counterspell with him watching? And how was I going to explain running around town in a trench coat with Bryn Lyons?
I avoided his questions during the drive by asking plenty of my own about how the Glenfiddle workers were doing. Zach told me that he and the sheriff had been busy, dousing the people with water, then turning the big fans on them to cool them off.
We got to the factory and found that the sheriff too had left the scene.
“Must’ve gone for help,” Zach said. “We didn’t want to risk infecting the rest of the town since we’d been exposed, and we kept expecting the radios to start working out here, but they never did. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Did you call for help once you got away from here?” I asked him.
“Yeah, should be on its way by now. They had to go over to Dyson to get some special protective suits that we don’t have. Gear for coming into contact with hazardous materials. The question is why you didn’t call for help right after you left. You let us sit here all night while you went to a party.”
“I knew the sickness couldn’t infect you.” I walked to the doors, feeling decidedly uneasy about Zach watching me. And that wouldn’t help my concentration, which, like Bryn Lyons said, I would need. I turned. “Can you do me a favor?”
“Like what?”
“I need to be alone to give them this medicine.”
“Why? What is it?”
“Please.” I walked over and grabbed his hands. “Can you just trust me? I need you to. I really need you to.”
“I’m tired as hell, Tammy Jo.”
“Please. This once, please just trust me.” I don’t know if he could hear the desperation or the tears in my voice, but he sighed.
“I’ll take a walk to the end of the road and wait for the help to arrive.”
I leaned forward and gave him a quick kiss and then spun toward the factory. I raced inside, closing the door behind me. The people were flushed and had dry, cracked lips from dehydration.
“Oh boy. Oh God, I need help. I sure do need it.” I rushed from one to the next, rubbing the henna paste on their foreheads. By the time I got back to the first of the group, Tommy Kane, he already looked a little better. His skin was less hot at least.
“That’s real good. This is all going to work.” Then I heard the sound of sirens. “Shoot. They’re here too fast,” I muttered, scrambling to light the candle. I got it lit and then ran around the group five times, waving the herb bundle over their bodies. I set the herbs on fire and wafted the smoke over them.
“Smoky fire to warm the earth, it receives their fever in her hearth. A blessing here surrounds this girth, dirt then water heralds calm rebirth.”
I heard gravel crunch under the ambulance’s tires. I clapped the fire out, preserving the hot ashes in my hands.
“Ow!” I whispered, blowing into my hands. I rushed out the back door, not wanting to get caught, and ran toward the stream. I was only about fifteen feet away when I slammed into something and fell down.
“Where the hell are you going?” Zach’s voice said in the darkness.
Amazingly, I’d kept my hands cupped, but my butt wasn’t happy about it.
“I need to wash this stuff off my hands,” I said. “I need to hurry.” I rolled onto my elbows and knees and pushed up, careful of my hands as I did. I got to the stream and realized I needed to be sure of which way the water was flowing, but it was too dark to tell. I put my foot in the water and felt it pushing my pant leg, then bent over and released the ashes, letting them flow away from me. I stepped out of the stream, my foot squelching in my shoe.
“Did you step in the water?” Zach asked.
“I guess so, by accident. Doesn’t matter. We’re already so drenched, you know?”
The sprinkling turned into another hard rain, and we hurried back toward the factory. My hands stung, but I didn’t care. We suddenly heard noise and shouts and broke into a run, rushing to the door.
The Glenfiddle workers were sitting up and demanding water.
Thank you, Earth, and thank you, God, for the power and the miracle.
“Looks like the medicine worked,” I said with a smile.
Zach slung an arm around my shoulder and planted a kiss on my cheek. “That’s my girl.”
Zach took me home, where I changed my clothes. I realized that I didn’t have Bryn’s cell phone number to call him at the vet, but I didn’t have to wait long to find out what was happening. My phone rang just before I was ready to leave to drive there.
“He’s okay. I’m bringing him home,” Bryn said.
“Um, all right. Y’all be here soon?” I asked, glancing at Zach, who was standing in the living room waiting for me. He’d offered to drive me to the vet’s, and although we hadn’t really talked about all the details of the evening, because I’d said I was too tired and upset to talk, I knew Zach—he’d let things set only so long before he started an interrogation. And I’d be a captive suspect if he were driving me somewhere. On the other hand, I preferred riding in the car with him to having him getting in the middle of any talking between me and Bryn at this point.
“Yeah, I’m pulling up in your driveway,” Bryn said.
Just peachy.
“All right then.” I hung up the phone, trying hard not to grimace. I wished I’d had time to shoo Zach out before Bryn got there. The sound of a car door shutting drew Zach’s gaze to the front of the house.
“That’s Bryn Lyons. He’s bringing Mercutio home. It was his dog that Mercutio got in a fight with.”
“Is that so? And what were you and your cat doing at his house?” Zach asked, blocking my path to the front door.
The doorbell rang.
“I need to get that.”
“I’m closer. I’ll take care of it for you,” he said with mock politeness, sweet as a honeybee right before it sticks its stinger in.
I frowned at him. “It’s my house and my cat and my company.”
Zach eyed me up and down and then turned and walked over to the door. I followed him, annoyed, but wanting to welcome Mercutio back.
Zach opened the door, and Bryn, with a sleeping Mercutio cradled in his arms, waited for Zach to open the screen door. Zach simply looked them over.
“Can you open the door?” I asked from over Zach’s shoulder.
Zach’s movements were slow, drawing the process out, making things tense in that way Zach does so well. Bryn stepped inside and passed Zach on his way into the house. I followed my cat, which Bryn laid carefully on the sofa. I immediately sat next to Mercutio, examining him.
“He’s okay. He’s got some stitches and a few punctured muscles, but Mac gave him a sedative and a painkiller. He should be back to normal in a week or two. Mac sent these,” Bryn said, setting a couple bottles of medicine on the counter. “Antibiotics and pain medicine.”
I leaned over and gently hugged Mercutio. I looked up at Bryn then. “Your dog’s a menace. He needs to be tied up and neutered before he attacks any other innocent cats.”
“He’s a dog. It’s his job to attack cats,” Bryn said, but added more gently, “I suppose it’s better in general if you don’t bring Mercutio when you come over.”
“Well, that won’t be a problem in the future. Thank you again for helping me get the medicine for the Glenfiddle workers. They woke up and are doing fine.”
“Are they? Well-done.”
“Yeah, so it turns out the medicine was strong enough.”
“Good.”
Zach leaned against the wall, arms crossed against his broad chest, eyes boring into Bryn’s back.
“There are a few things we need to talk about,” Bryn said to me and paused.
“Go ahead,” Zach said at the same time I said, “It’s not a good time.”
Bryn’s eyes flicked to Zach for a moment and then focused on me again. “The unexpected visitors that came to the meeting are not satisfied with the results of their effort. There’s reason to believe they plan to follow up on their objective.”
I blanched at the reference to the vicious werewolves coming to town.
“I think you should consider staying at my house until the business is concluded. I can chain Angus outside; Mercutio can stay inside with you.”
Zach cleared his throat, drawing my attention to him. “Is that something you’re interested in doing? Staying at Lyons’s house, Tammy Jo?”
Bryn didn’t acknowledge the question. He just went on talking. “This isn’t a matter you can rely on your ex-husband for help with. Don’t let your anger cloud your judgment.”
“Oh, I never do that. It’s my red hair that interferes with my good sense. All that color so close to my brain, it plum disorients me most days. I’ll stay at my own house, thank you.”
“Tamara—”
Zach interrupted him, voice hard as granite. “She answered you. The answer was no. Now, it’s been a long day. Why don’t you take yourself back across town.”
The edges of Bryn’s mouth curved into a sardonic smile, and he walked over to the fridge. He lifted the erasable marker and wrote a phone number on the whiteboard I use for my grocery list.
“For when you change your mind,” he said without bothering to look back at me for acknowledgment. He recapped the marker and let it drop to hang from its string, then walked down the hall and out of my house.
Zach walked over to the board, curling his hand into a fist.
“Don’t,” I said, but he ignored me and rubbed the number off the board. I sighed. I wasn’t planning to call Bryn, but my life was so crazy these days, who knew?
“Who’s coming to town, and why is that your problem?”
I sighed. Zach and I had broken up, but we were still all in each other’s business. And it would really piss him off for some other guy, a guy he liked about as much as paying taxes, to know more about my life than he did.
“It’s—” I put a hand to my head, shaking it slowly. I felt Zach close in on me.
“C’mon now. You got a problem, I’m your go-to guy, darlin’.” He put his arms around me and hugged me against his warm, hard body. “Tell Big Zach about it.”
When I’m worried or upset or even just under the influence of female hormones, any comfort makes me cry more than onions, and I was really close to tears at the moment. I looked up with swimming eyes. “It has to do with the ghost in my locket. I know you hate that subject.”
Zach whistled slowly. “And Lyons is saying he believes in the girl in the locket, huh? C’mon, Tammy Jo, you know he’s shining you on. His interest in helping you get your necklace back is to get close enough to get you into his bed.”
“Could be.”
“Not ‘could be.’
Is
. And you don’t need to worry. I’ll get the locket back when this case gets solved.”
“Are you close to solving it?”