Heather Graham - The Hexed

Jack grinned. “You have my permission, though I have a feeling you’re not going to need it. Someone on high is going to tell the sheriff to invite the FBI—and you’re going to be it.”

“I doubt I’ll be alone,” Rocky said. After his meeting with Jackson Crow, he’d met the other members of the local Krewe. Crow’s wife was also one of his agents; her name was Angela Hawkins, and her main job was to assess reports and determine which agents should work each situation, according to their talents as well as their availability. She would undoubtedly be sending someone else to work the case with him.

Jack nodded. “Autopsy tomorrow, if you want to observe. Carly Henderson was released to her family a few days ago for burial. You’ve seen all the records and reports, though.”

“Thanks. And good night, Jack. Good to see you. I just wish...”

“I know. You should have shown up for the reunion,” Jack said. “Except even then...”

“Melissa was on everyone’s mind.”

“Yeah,” Jack agreed.

Rocky slid into the driver’s seat.

Jack called out to him one last time. “I’m glad you’re here, Rocky. I’m, uh, ready to go long.”

Rocky waved to him. “Takes a team,” he replied.

A little while later, in his room at the hotel, Rocky laid his Glock in its small holster on the bedside table, stripped down to his shorts and lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

Three. Now there were three.

That they knew of.

Why one all those years ago—and two more now, so many years later?

He could ask himself the question all night and it wouldn’t matter. He didn’t have the answer.

Yet.

Finally he slept.

And he dreamed. He was a kid again, following a voice. A voice that said, “Help me.”

He ran—ran hard and fast. This time, he had to save the victim. He came to a graveyard and hopped over and around stones, trying to reach the summit of a little hill right in the middle of the graves. Because he could see her there.

It was Devin Lyle.

She was facing him. The wind had caught her raven-black hair and swept it around her face. She was tall and sleek, and her dress was caught by the whipping breeze, as well. The night sky was a deep blue, with black shadows. He could hear her calling to him, asking for help, and he couldn’t reach her.

There was a presence behind her, but she didn’t know. She didn’t see.

It was the killer.

For a moment something glittered in the starlight.

A knife.

Rocky jerked awake drenched with sweat. He looked at the bedside clock. It wasn’t quite 6:00 a.m.

Screw it. He got up and showered. He thought of the different investigative paths he might take.

By the time he was dressed, he knew exactly where he was going.

* * *

The old saying was right. Daylight did make everything better.

Devin rose, showered and dressed, then brewed coffee. Looking out, she saw that there was still a patrol car in front of her house, just as she had been told there would be.

She poured a cup and went outside. Unbidden, an image came to her mind. She was going to get there and find out that the officer was dead. There would be a bullet hole through his forehead or a knife stuck through his throat.

Her imagination playing tricks again, of course.

He wasn’t dead. And he was young, maybe twenty-three or twenty-four, tops.

“Thought you might like some coffee,” she told him.

“That’s wicked cool of you, thanks,” he said, smiling.

She nodded and dropped her estimation. Maybe twenty-one and fresh out of the academy.

She handed him the cup. “It’s black, but I have sugar and creamer inside.”

“Black is great.”

“Are you hungry?”

He didn’t get to answer the question, because a black SUV drove up behind him and parked.

Agent Rockwell got out, and she noticed details she’d missed the night before. His eyes were direct and green, and he kept his dark auburn hair short and well groomed. And he was impeccably dressed in a dark suit that fit him perfectly.

He walked over to them, displaying his badge for the officer in the car.

“I’m Officer Fitzpatrick,” the young man in the car said. “Glad to see you, sir. I’ve been told I could head home at nine, but I don’t know if I’m getting a replacement or not.”

“I don’t believe so,” Rockwell said, and looked at Devin. “Not enough manpower, and we don’t believe that Miss Lyle is in any danger—especially now that the night is over.” He smiled reassuringly at Devin. “We don’t actually believe you were ever in any danger, but I thought that after the trauma you went through, the reassurance of an officer out front might be welcome.” He stared at her assessingly. “It looks like you made it through the night quite well.”

Fitzpatrick handed back her mug with a thank-you, then turned his key in the ignition and drove off.

“Thank you for sending him.”

“Sure. May I ask you some questions?”

“I guess,” she said.

He was staring at her house curiously. Suddenly he looked at her and smiled. “I just realized...this is the Witch of the Woods House.”

Devin felt her muscles tightening at the reminder of the way some locals had mocked her aunt and the cottage.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said coldly.

“Sorry, just growing up so close—in Peabody—there were rumors about this place, that’s all. It was owned by an older lady, by all accounts a lovely woman, who was a Wiccan and grew herbs and...every girl I went to high school with wanted a love potion from her. I guess she passed away—she was quite elderly even then. Did you know her?”

“Yes. She was my great-aunt, Mina Lyle,” Devin said. She couldn’t help the chill in her tone.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. About those questions...?”

She shrugged. “Come in. The house doesn’t bite.”

“I didn’t think it did.”

She led the way in and offered him coffee, then went to get it, leaving him in the parlor, studying all her treasures.

When she returned, Poe was sitting on his shoulder.

She looked at the bird. Wretched traitor! she told him silently.

And yet...

She didn’t know what it was. She’d been so terrified after her discovery in the woods that she’d thought he was an idiot when he hadn’t immediately dialed 9-1-1.

Now...

Now she couldn’t help but note that he was extremely good-looking in a masculine but rather...federal way. He could have walked onto the set of a new Men in Black movie and fit right in.

“He’s great,” Rockwell said of the bird. “What’s his name?”

“Poe.”

“Of course. Well, let’s set you on your perch, Poe,” he said, and easily urged the bird back onto the white pine perch in his large cage. He looked over at Devin. “And thank you. For seeing me, speaking with me—and for the coffee.”

As he sipped, his eyes wandered, then lit on the marble bust of Madame Tussaud.

He walked over to it, and she realized that he was staring at the pentagram medallion.

He turned to her. He was tense. Hard. Everything about him had changed.

“Where did you get this?” he demanded.

And she realized that the icy stare that he was aiming her way was filled with...

Suspicion.

3

None of the pentagrams were the same. No one of the three was like either of the other two. Rocky had seen all three medallions, and they were firmly etched in his memory.

The first, the one he’d seen on Melissa Wilson’s body, had been a very clean design, with only a thin line of silver vines winding around the angles at each point of the star.

On the second—found on Carly Henderson—the points of the star were themselves formed by green-tinted vines.