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Gus greeted Kat on Jacqui's front porch. His face wore the mark of two sleepless nights. "What's going on, Gus?" The deputy shrugged. "Has the whole town gone crazy?"
"Some days, I wonder." He opened the door for Kat. "I'm on my way back to the station. Please let me know if you think of anything that might help."
"With what? The reappearance and murder of Mario Muggs? The missing teen? The beatings? The assault against Hobo Joe? Or now, this, Cordelia's escape?" Gus' frown aged his tired expression.
"Yes. Any of that." He retreated to his vehicle.
Turning toward the living room, Kat found Jacqui sitting on the couch. Shoulders slumped and mouth slack, Jacqui stared at her hands. Kat couldn't remember ever seeing her look so helpless. It pained her. Nurse Carrie sat to Jacqui's left, a hand on Jacqui's back.
Carrie waved Kat toward a chair. "I don't know where she is. I haven't a clue. I shouldn't have left her alone." Carrie patted Jacqui's back.
"I was here, remember? You weren't her only guardian." Carrie turned her eyes toward Kat's. "I thought she was asleep. Deep asleep. With what Dr. Lawrence prescribed, I don't know anyone who wouldn't be zonked."
Jacqui used her fingers to grind circles into the skin of her temples. "But then, after we found the compromised medication ... we should've checked right away."
“Compromised medication? I don't follow." Kat brushed some hair behind her ear and looked to Carrie for an explanation.
"Yes, we discovered some of her pills were fakes."
"Fakes?" Kat watched as Mrs. Jacqui's fingertips turned white. She groaned and fidgeted on the couch cushions.
Carrie restarted patting Jacqui's back but never broke eye contact with Kat. "I know, it's shocking. Dr. Lawrence took a batch to the sheriff's office. The deputy just missed him."
"How and who?"
Carrie shrugged. "We don't know. But it was more than Mrs. Muggs'. Some of Miss Rene's were fakes as well. Every prescription medication from the past three months was all suspect."
Miss Jacqui sighed. "And we left Cordelia alone. Without her proper medication. We kept sifting through pill bottles."
"Miss Jacqui, we didn't know. As soon as we realized, we checked on her. This is not your fault."
Unsoothable, Miss Jacqui launched to her feet and paced the living room. "She was distraught. We shouldn't have left her alone, at all. It doesn't matter if she was sedated or not. We flat shouldn't have left her."
Kat couldn't think of words to ease her friend's distress. There weren't any. Now that Cordelia was gone, the only thing that would calm Miss Jacqui was finding her. Kat knew Jacqui summoned her for that purpose. Without Lydia around to help her, she wasn't sure where to start.
✽✽✽
The humming of the street beneath her wheels quieted Lydia's racing thoughts. She prayed over her husband, and Hobo Joe and Cordelia and Lucas and whoever else that happened to be entangled in the town's current trauma. Lydia's stomach soured as she thought over all the last week had brought to Honey Pot.
Three packages left, in her deliveries, she swung by her house. A quick toilet break, a spritz of perfume, and a fresh cup of coffee brightened her mood. Lydia's energy returned. Deliveries were easy. Helping Hobo Joe was heavy and hard. For the moment, her objective was clean and straightforward. She'd get back to her mess of an investigation after completing her mission successfully.
✽✽✽
Kat stared at the Muggs' residence. Chills rambled across each goose bump. She knew Miss Jacqui was sitting on the edge of her guest bed, and Nurse Carrie leaned against the doorframe. Each set of eyes analyzed Kat's every move.
Kat did not work well under observation. The attention drove her batty. She imagined drapes moving in the upstairs windows of the Muggs' home. Sometimes she envisioned shadows rushing past the waving shades. She wished the other ladies would leave her alone. She needed to think not to imagine things. Kat opened her mouth to insist they vacated the area when she noticed a section of crime scene tape tattered and limping along with the breeze.
✽✽✽
Ivy played a board game with Jess and Eloise. Eden, the tiny dictator of the group, instructed the boys through a make-believe battle of dragons versus hobbits. Flora snoozed. Her head throbbed. A shoulder rub from Ever eased the tension but did not erase it. Even in sleep, she felt a thrumming and squeezing.
Eloise sneezed, waking her resting mother. "Oh, baby, are you getting sick?"
Eloise counted colored blocks and moved her token before answering, "I don't think so. It feels like allergies."
"From what?" Her daughter shrugged and returned to her game. Ivy offered the girl a tissue. Jess fetched her friend a glass of cold water. "Aww, thank you, guys. That should help you, Elli."
Eden burst through the front door, slamming it on the boys that chased her. She laughed in a mad frenzy. Her victory cackle cut off with dramatic potency. "What stinks?" Eden's nose wrinkled and she mocked gagging on the welcome mat.
"I don't smell anything," Flora said.
Ivy took a deep inhale and wrinkled her face as Eden had done. "There is this weird smell. Apples, cinnamon, and plastic."
"The candle." Flora pointed toward the hearth.
✽✽✽
Jacqui and Carrie bantered at the kitchen table. Carrie did her utmost to calm the older woman's nerves. But nothing worked. Amid another round of guilt weaving and comfort dodging, Kat slinked from the house. She stretched, taking in a gulp of summer air and huffing it out violently. Just a few moments longer, then she decided to brave the wrath of Ethan Everett. Whether he liked it or not, she was going inside the Muggs' house. Her choice sat firmly in her mind, but her hands wouldn't stop shaking.
✽✽✽
Ivy seared her fingerprints on the glass of Flora's Victor E. Candle. She rinsed them in a stream of cold tap water and fetched an oven mitt before trying again.
The red, white, and blue wax married into an awkward violet slush. The puddle sloshed around, bouncing a wilted plastic bag on its steamy waves. Ivy set the entire mess into the kitchen sink. Frigid steel clashed with boiling wax. The candle case popped, sending small pieces of glass shooting around the stainless steel basin.
"Are you alright?" Flora, quick to her feet, stood beside Ivy. She investigated the teen's hands. Other than a small splattering of wax on the girl's wrist, Ivy was fine. "What's that?" Flora gestured toward the bag in her sink. It oozed pastel powder streams down the drain.
"I'm pretty sure it's the cause of our headaches."
Flora took a wooden spoon from a decorative canister beside her sink. With the handle, she prodded the mess and fished out the offensive plastic sack.
"I have a weird feeling about this. Get your phone." She commanded Ivy.
"Already on it." Ivy snapped photo after photo, from varying angles, on her cellphone. Jess and Eloise huddled behind Ivy and Flora. "It might be better if the girls went outside, for a while, as we air out the room."
Flora went over to Enoch's resting place and scooped him into her arms. "Let's all go outside."
✽✽✽
Kat fished the key out from under Cordelia's planter and stabbed the lock. The door opened without her turning it. Kat's inner chicken pecked at her conscience. She ignored it and took a solid, intentional step inside before shutting the door behind her.
✽✽✽
Emily did her best not to cry. She knew, from experience, monsters in human flesh loved when their prey crumbled. Emily refused to whimper even when fear pulsed and pushed at her throat. A few quiet angry teardrops slid down her cheek and crusted in their tracks. The blindfold her captor haphazardly tied to her head hid her tiny weakness. She was thankful for it.
No one knew where she was. Lucas might lend a clue or two to the police if anyone thought to ask him. Ivy would be frantic and call Mr. Everett. It would be too little too late. There wasn't an escape for her. Not this time. She knew it. But there was no way she was going to let anyone else in on her thoughts. She would defy them to the end. She would fight and claw and bite until there was nothing left to fight for. Ivy's Grandmother, Miss Annie, once relayed odd but useful information to her girls over cookies and milk.
"Leave evidence! Always! Whether you've been taken captive or you're storming a city. In matters of faith or matters of the flesh. Fight to the end and always leave evidence behind!"
Emily never figured she'd need Miss Annie's words. But the memory of them gave her spirit a lift. Though her habit was rusty, she prayed. "Please don't let Ivy think this was her fault."
✽✽✽
Kat tiptoed through the Muggs' living room. The stillness of the house crept under her skin and gave her the willies. Pressure spiraled up her spine. Someone else was in the house. She could feel them. Kat believed Cordelia returned to her house on a drug-induced whim, but the fact that Cordelia was a friend didn't calm her nerves. Something dark lingered around the once happy home. She couldn't shake it. It followed her from room to room.
If Cordelia was in the house, should Kat call out and announce her presence? Her guts squeezed at the thought. What if it wasn't Cordelia? Or worse, what if someone was with Cordelia? Kat's imagination assaulted her senses. She shoved past the late-night movie thriller scenes that played with every settling creak of the hardwood floors. Even though every ounce of common sense begged her to retreat, Kat ascended the shadowy staircase.