Forty, Fabulous and Fae Read online

  I’d been so entrenched in the depths of my thoughts that I hadn’t even realized he’d dragged me all the way out to the middle of the park, next to the duck pond, where all the kids were playing around on the grass. He pointed to an old, wooden bench that had probably been around since before my grandmother had even arrived in Portland, before he sat down himself.

  “Alright,” I sat down hesitantly, still a little unsure as to why he’d taken a sudden interest in me. “What’s the deal with this bench?”

  “It’s just nice,” he shrugged. “I like to come out here when I’m really caught up in the case, trying to figure everything out but not getting anywhere.”

  “And what makes you think I’m trying to figure something out?” I demanded.

  Hunter turned to me and gave me a once over, a half smile lighting up his face.

  “You’re not?” He grinned.

  “Fine,” I sighed. “I am trying to figure something out. It’s…”

  Well, I couldn’t exactly tell him the truth, now could I? I caught myself before I dumped an entire insane asylum’s worth of crazy right into his lap. Sure, we’d been talking about the murders, but neither one of us had thought they’d had anything to do with the occult. Now, obviously, I knew that wasn’t at all true, but what would Hunter think if I told him that?

  He’d probably write me off as a total nutball, and then I’d be down my only friend. If we even were friends, after all.

  “What is it?” He prompted.

  “I just found out my family’s been hiding this big secret from me,” I replied. I could at least tell him that much. “And they’re still lying to me about other stuff, even after I caught them in the first lie. I’m just starting to feel like I don’t even have solid ground to stand on anymore, like everything I thought I knew about myself just disappeared, just like that.”

  I snapped my fingers for emphasis. Red hot tears stung my eyes, and I forced myself to stare at the duck pond so Hunter couldn’t see me crying. I watched as a pristine, pure white duck let out a loud quack, and then tipped its whole body forward to dive for bugs and fish.

  “What were they lying to you about?” Hunter asked.

  His tone was open and honest. I think I was about to tell him, too, disregarding all reason and logic, until I saw the expression in his eyes.

  There it was again. That darkness I’d seen before, the one I couldn’t totally place.

  So as much as my heart wanted to spill my new, darkest secret to this near total stranger, I felt myself pulling back, a little wary of this sometimes-malicious glint that would enter Hunter’s eyes.

  At the same time, though, something deep within me told me I could trust him. It was strange, almost like a whisper of my intuition, like there was some inner being who actually spoke to me and told me that Hunter was one of the good guys, that he was on my side.

  I hoped that was true.

  “Just family stuff.” I waved my hands in the air, as if it was normal family stuff, like my brother was actually my father, or some other sort of soap opera-esque thing.

  Not that I had a brother. Or a father.

  “Hmm.” Hunter nodded. “Well, that sounds awful. I’ve got to go.”

  He stood up so abruptly he nearly knocked over my half empty coffee cup.

  “Wait, what?” I demanded. “Why do you have to go?”

  “I’ve got a case to solve,” he shrugged.

  “So do I,” I replied.

  At this point, I really did. Someone was targeting witches in this town, which meant that my mom and Grams were in danger.

  And so was I.

  “No, you don’t,” Hunter shook his head. “I work alone.”

  “Really? Because you seemed awfully freaking interested in me when I was looking over those cold cases.”

  “I just wanted another perspective,” Hunter hedged, but it didn’t feel like the truth to me.

  “Come on,” I pleaded. “I need to get my mind off of family secrets, just for an hour or two. Let me help you.”

  It wasn’t a total lie. Trying to solve these murders would absolutely take my mind off the fact that everyone I’d ever trusted seemed to find it fitting to lie right to my face for lengthy periods of time.

  Hunter had already started down the path, shaking his head in annoyance. So I ran after him.

  I’d always been persistent, and today was no different.

  “You’re going to follow me until I say yes, aren’t you?” Hunter sighed.

  “Yep.” I nodded. “So you might as well just give in now.”

  “Fine,” he replied begrudgingly. “But if you get in my way, I maintain the right to send you home at any moment.”

  I didn’t reply. He could sure as hell try to send me home, but I wouldn’t be going.

  11

  I followed Hunter all the way back to his apartment, about a mile and a half away from Rockstar Coffee.

  To my absolute chagrin, I was nearly huffing and puffing by the time we got there, while he was breathing deep and meditatively, like the long walk up and down the hills of Portland was no skin off of his back.

  Exercise and McCarthy women didn’t exactly mix too well. Come to think of it, McCarthy women didn’t mix well with an awful lot of things.

  “It’s…nice.”

  I struggled to find a better description for the tiny apartment Hunter led me to. Nice was just about the best I could do, considering the place looked like nobody even lived there.

  It was one of those newfangled studio apartments, the one landlords dubbed “bachelor pads,” so they could get away without having to use the words “no kitchen” in the description.

  In fact, there was pretty much nothing but a sink and a hot plate against the far right wall, a mattress pushed up against the left, and a tiny little bathroom next to the doorway that had a toilet, sink, and standing shower.

  Look, I’m not a super fancy woman. Sure, I liked my Louboutins and my pressed skirts, but I’d grown up in a tiny, messy little house. But I drew the line at a kitchenless shoebox apartment with no bed.

  “Did you know your nose crinkles when you lie?” Hunter asked suddenly.

  “What? No it doesn’t!” I actually pulled out my phone so I could look at myself in the reflection of the black screen.

  “It does,” Hunter replied, his gray eyes dancing with mirth. “Just at the top here.”

  He tapped the bridge of his nose, right where it met his forehead, to indicate where my apparent tell was.

  “Okay, Mr. Lie Detector,” I laughed. “Let’s just get down to business, huh? What have you got?”

  “You’re bossy.”

  “I’m used to being in charge,” I shrugged.

  “Take a seat.” He pointed at the mattress on the floor.

  Carefully, I sat right on the very edge, avoiding any part that may have touched… God only knew what Hunter did in that bed.

  The P.I. pulled out a stack of papers from the single yellow filing cabinet in the room and plopped them at my feet. Before I could reach for them, though, one of his hands shot out and caught mine.

  “I have a question for you first,” he stated seriously.

  Those steely gray eyes bored into my own and sent my heart into an annoying flutter.

  “What?” I asked, a little breathlessly.

  “How’d you know about the bag of herbs?”

  Crap.

  I’d completely forgotten that, in my terrified haze after that crazy vision the night before, I’d texted the only person who would have known anything about the case.

  Hunter.

  And in doing so, could have given myself away. But he didn’t believe in magic, right?

  My mind raced to find a plausible cover up, and I finally stumbled on one that I’d used plenty of times before, when I was trying to drag a confession out of a criminal.

  “I overheard some of the women talking about it at my family’s shop,” I replied. “Buncha crazy ladies. They think someone’s
targeting witches.”

  Okay, I admit, it was a double-edged move. I wanted to cover my tracks while also digging for information that I didn’t think Hunter would just offer up to me.

  I watched him closely, and he knew it, because he kept his features smooth and his reaction even.

  “Interesting,” he frowned. “What else did they say?”

  “Uhhhhh,” I drew out the sound to attempt to give myself a little more time to think of a plausible response that would also get me a little bit closer to the information I needed. “All the witches seem to be shopping at Magic for Real. My Grams owns it. She’s a little crazy.”

  I was sure as hell not about to tell him that she was the one who was worried.

  “Yep,” Hunter nodded. “Well, whoever you overheard is right. The killer’s targeting a coven of witches, just like they did last time.”

  I think my jaw hit the floor. I was absolutely certain that when I woke up in the morning, I’d find a big, long, purple bruise on the underside of my jaw, right where it smacked down on the hard laminate flooring of Hunter’s apartment.

  “A coven?” I breathed reflexively.

  Thousands of thoughts swirled through my head, so many that I found it nearly impossible to keep track of them all.

  First, there was the fact that Hunter actually believed in magic and witches. And then, on top of that, that this killer was targeting us. And then, on top of that, the fact that the killer wanted an entire coven dead.

  “That’s what I said,” he nodded. “They got twelve last time. One short of thirteen. And whoever’s doing it this time is going for the same number.”

  “You don’t think it’s the same person?” I prodded.

  “Not likely,” Hunter looked at me. “What, do you not believe in magic?”

  Here was the time to make a decision. If I said I did, he might be able to figure out my secret. I didn’t know how, but the man was smart. But, on the flip side, if I said no, he might stop working with me, and then I’d be out of luck when it came to this case. I didn’t have any resources here in Portland, so I needed to rely on Hunter to get all of the information for me.

  “I guess I’ve never thought about it.” That seemed like a good, diplomatic, rational answer. One that wouldn’t give my secrets away and, at the same time, wouldn’t make Hunter want to toss me out of his apartment.

  “You are a strange one, Shannon McCarthy,” he chuckled.

  “What makes you say that?” I demanded indignantly. I didn’t like being called strange. It reminded me too much of being a kid and having to explain why my house was covered in all sorts of occult items.

  “You just… are.”

  He wasn’t trying to be insulting, I could tell by his tone. He sounded more surprised than anything else, which only served to confuse me. I didn’t understand this man. He ran hot and cold faster than a rich person’s sink could flip from one temperature to the next. One minute, I felt like I was this massive annoyance, and the next, it seemed like he was rather glad to have my company.

  “Alright, fine, so say they’re witches,” I announced, rather artfully changing the subject. “What sort of belief systems do they hold? What’s their deal?”

  “Well, first, I don’t think they call it a ‘deal,’” he chuckled. He yanked a piece of paper from one of the files and handed it to me. “See this? It’s an account from Muriel’s best friend. Her name’s Theodosia Arlington. She owns some bookstore here in town… Books Are Friends, I think it’s called.”

  The world exploded around me in that moment. Either that, or I was having a panic attack. Books Are Friends was the store I’d wandered into, the one where the candle flames had grown to impossible heights, and where that woman felt like something was off about my energy. I assumed she was the owner.

  Which meant she and Muriel were best friends, and it wasn’t too much of a stretch to think they were in the same coven. The same one Mom and Grams were in, if those other ten pictures were any indicator.

  I brought myself back down to earth and focused on the paper in my hands so Hunter didn’t see the little freakout I’d just had.

  “This is her testimony?” I asked, staring at the page in my hands. “How the hell did you get the cops to hand this over?”

  “I can be very persuasive,” Hunter shrugged. “Look, here’s the part where Theodosia says they were a coven. And look at the other two names listed.”

  “Ernestine Lockwood and Honey Biggs,” I breathed. “They were all in the same one.”

  Of course, I’d already known this. But Theodosia's statement simply confirmed my hypothesis.

  I had to find this bastard before he found my family. There was no way I was letting them die, even if they were liars and I reserved the right to hold a grudge against them for the rest of my life.

  “Precisely,” Hunter nodded. “Believe it or not, they’re being targeted. The only problem is, Theodosia wouldn’t give up the names of the other nine. So we have no way of knowing who their next victim is.”

  “So, what, they got together and did spells and stuff?” I pressed him.

  To be totally honest, I was using Hunter as my own personal magic Google right then. I couldn’t bear the thought of asking Mom and Grams anything, since it seemed every question I brought up was shut down immediately. Like my question about the vision.

  “Something like that,” Hunter nodded.

  “And I bet they see the future, too,” I laughed, making an attempt to cover my very serious question with a joke.

  But my newfound partner in crime found absolutely nothing funny about that.

  “No,” he barked. “They’re not psychic. That’s a ae power.”

  No matter how hard I tried, my poker face did not want to stay the moment he said those words.

  “A fae power?” I choked. “As in… fairies, and whatnot? Like The Lord of the Rings?”

  My voice was so high pitched I probably could have called a dog over.

  “Not quite. More like, Shakesperean beings whose only intentions are, well, evil.”

  “Oh, good.” I gulped audibly. So now, not only was I a witch, but I had some sort of weird fae power that meant… Well, I didn’t exactly know what it meant. But I knew who could give me some answers.

  And they shared my last name.

  “I have to go.” I stood abruptly, knocking the papers from my lap and scattering them all across Hunter’s bare floor. I should have stayed to pick them up, since that was the polite thing to do, but I couldn’t bring myself to hang around any longer knowing that I was a fae. Or had a fae power. Or… I didn’t even know.

  “But we barely got started looking into this,” Hunter protested. “There’s still so much shit to talk about.”

  “Another time,” I insisted. “I just remembered that I have to go and do something.”

  “Do what?”

  Boy, was he as persistent as I was. I could see why it annoyed him so much now.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I snapped, a little more rudely than I intended. “I just have to go, okay? Have a good afternoon.”

  I couldn’t leave on a completely rude note. Even so, I spun out of Hunter’s apartment faster than a spider spins a web, feeling the whole time like I was drowning in an empty swimming pool.

  I had a fae power. So what did that mean?

  12

  I only made it halfway down the block before I had to lean over a trash can so I could completely puke my guts out.

  Normally, I’m not a puking person. In fact, I think the last time I threw up, I was still in law school, and had given myself the worst hangover known to man. Suffice it to say, food hadn’t come up the wrong way in over a decade.

  But this was a whole lot worse than the world’s most terrible hangover. This was… Shakespearean?

  Actually, no. I didn’t think that even Shakespeare was enough of a genius to dream up this fantastic level of absolute craziness.

  By the time I’d finished puking my guts out
, I counted at least two rude looks from strangers, and one homeless guy who seemed a little bit too interested in what I had for breakfast.

  But, in true Shannon fashion, I stood up straight, shook out my hair, and walked on down the street with my head held high.

  I pulled into the gravel driveway of the familiar cottage house about ten minutes later.

  The outside was still the same as it had been when I was a kid. But now, it was as if I was seeing everything with a brand new set of eyes. The line of tiny stone gargoyles that guarded the porch suddenly had a whole new meaning. The rocks scattered among the herbs were no longer just pretty things to look at, but a symbol of energy and magic.

  And then there was the herbs themselves, the strange plants that I’d explained away to visiting friends and boyfriends, and even to myself. My family just had a weird obsession with different types of plants. After all, who would want to live in a house with the same boring grass and oak trees that everyone else had?

  Not me, that’s for sure.

  Now, though, boring seemed like it would have been wonderful compared to the twisted maze of secrets and lies my life had become.

  I stepped up to the old door, stuck my key in the lock, and swung it wide open to reveal the familiar, and yet strange, house.

  Just as the items in the front yard had, the clutter in Grams’ house took on a whole new level of meaning. The charm that hung over the front door to ward off fairies and their ilk now twisted my stomach, and the candles on the mantle of the fireplace, made of beeswax and filled with all sorts of strange herbs, seemed to mock me.

  If I was fae, how come the charms didn’t ward me off? How come the magic of the candles hadn’t thrown me out of the house? I couldn’t be fae. It had to be a coincidence. The vision must have been some sort of random dream I’d had that just so happened to be real. Mom and Grams would have some sort of explanation.

  I hoped.

  I was still in the doorway, taking everything in, when Mom came around the corner, from the kitchen. She froze when she saw me, and stared at me nervously, waiting for me to make the first move.

  For a long moment, I couldn’t find words. I just stood there looking at her, replaying every single memory we’d had together. Every moment I felt like she was hiding something, every time I caught her looking at me longingly, like she wished I was something more.