Natalie parked behind the Burning Lake Police Department and glanced around at the cruisers with their two-digit numbers on the trunks—Cruiser 01, Cruiser 02, Cruiser 03, et cetera. A row of identical midnight-blue Ford sedans with TO PROTECT AND SERVE stenciled on the doors. They used to have a witch on a broomstick painted on the trunks until the chief put the kibosh on that little experiment. He thought it was tasteless, capitalizing on an ancient tragedy.
Now Natalie sat for a moment, rubbing her exhausted eyes. She felt like a tightrope walker balanced on a tautly strung wire. Here she was, knee-deep in the case, and yet the frustration was hard to describe. It hurt inside her head, it hurt in her heart, it hurt in the roots of her hair. As a rookie detective, she’d been given full access to Willow’s archived file. The crime scene photos were particularly earth-shattering, all those chilling details. But it was Willow’s unseeing eyes that got to her the most—fixed on the overcast sky. You could see miniature clouds swirling on the lenses. It had rained that day, and Willow’s long, dirty blond hair swirled wetly into the grass and tangled around her porcelain fingers, making paisley patterns.
Willow had always been a protective big sister with a mischievous streak. She taught Natalie how to spit down a well, how to pirouette, how to sing with a hairbrush, and how to sneak cookies when their mother wasn’t looking. Willow owned hightops in every color—pink, green, purple, red—and wrote messages in black Magic Marker on the white rubber fronts. She’d write There’s No Place on one shoe, and Like Home on the other. E.T. on one shoe, and Phone Home on the other. Bond, James Bond. Funny, how life gave you all these little moments, then pulled the rug out from under you. Natalie gathered her reserve energy and got out of the car.
The police station was a hive of activity this afternoon. The assignment board was full of new cases—burglaries, shopliftings, bicycle thieves, drug ODs, fugitive farm animals, you name it. Just like any other midrange town, their department ran twenty-four/seven. They were often stretched thin, and the detectives didn’t partner up like they did on TV. Natalie worked alone most of the time, and her caseload was straining at the seams. She didn’t need another drop-everything case.
She checked the board. Luckily her name wasn’t on it. She walked down the hallway and found Luke in his office. “Got a minute?”
He leaned back. “Yeah. Come on in.” The sound of his voice soothed her brain.
She sank into the only chair in his office that wasn’t stacked with paperwork.
“How’re you holding up, Natalie?”
“Terrified I might’ve missed something. Otherwise … overwhelmed, but things aren’t spinning out of control yet.”
“Welcome to my world.” He picked up a bag of pretzels from his desk and said, “There’s bottled water in the fridge. Help yourself. Pretzel?”
She fetched a bottled water out of Luke’s minifridge, unscrewed the cap, and scooped a couple of pretzels out of the bag, more out of politeness than hunger.
“What do you have for me?”
“Besides a killer headache?” She placed the poppet doll on his desk. “I found this buried in Brandon’s backyard. Lindsey Wozniak’s landscaping crew dug it up. Whoever put it there was hoping to cause major pain.”
“A voodoo doll?”
“They’re called poppets. This one is bound with twine and bent backwards, stuck with a dozen or more pins—which means it’s serious black magic. I’m pretty sure it’s a revenge curse. All that negative energy supposedly transfers to the target. You bury it somewhere on the property to maximize its power.”
“The target, meaning Daisy?”
“Looks like it,” she said. “Sewn up inside the doll was a red ballpoint pen and a torn piece of paper, just the corner. I’m assuming it was Daisy who was doing the grading, and she gave the student a B-minus. Whoever did this, whoever went to all the trouble of making a poppet and burying it in the backyard, was most likely the recipient of that B-minus.”
“So this was a revenge curse?”
“Or a death curse, depending on the incantation.”
“And most likely, whoever made the poppet was an A student.”
“Who else would get so upset over a B-minus? Riley sure wouldn’t.”
“No, he’d be happy with a B-minus.”
“But a B-minus could pull down a high achiever’s grade average.” She handed him the smaller evidence bag. “This is cord magic. Also known as knot magic. I found it tangled up in Ellie’s bracelet, and it’s identical to the one that was hidden inside the poppet doll. Same length and color of twine. Both knotted nine times. The knots are supposed to bind the spell to the target.”
Luke nodded solemnly. “Lenny can verify if the two pieces of twine match.”
“It would be significant. It would link the doll to India. She’s an honor student. A B-minus could’ve affected her grade point average. I followed India and her friends to Abby’s Hex today, but before I could ask her about it, she pulled the dad card.”
Luke handed everything back to Natalie. “Have Lenny do a comparison test for the twine, and then process the rest for DNA, prints, and age. See what we can find.”
She nodded. “Meanwhile, I’ll start a search of Daisy’s grade rolls for the current year and extrapolate which students received a B-minus from her. We’ll focus on India and her friends.”
“Good.”
She shuddered. “It’s a chilling thought. I’ve known these girls since they were toddlers.”
He studied her closely. “Is this going to be a problem? The fact that Ellie and her friends might be involved?”
“No,” she protested, feeling a swell of emotion in her throat. “Ellie knows I’m a cop, first and foremost.” But she was going to have nightmares about this.
“Then you need to interview your niece as soon as possible.”
“Tomorrow,” she said. “Meanwhile, India told me she used Ellie’s bracelet to perform a healing spell on Riley, but that’s complete bullshit. They wouldn’t need Ellie’s bracelet for that—they’d need something of Riley’s.”
“So she’s lying.”
Natalie nodded. “I think it has something to do with Ellie quitting the coven. Looks like they’re replacing her with a new recruit. Angela Sandhill.”
He sipped his bottled water and asked, “When did that happen?”
“When did Ellie quit the coven? The day after Daisy was killed.”
“So there’s some connection, but I don’t see it,” Luke said. “Help me out.”
“India’s been lying about her relationship with Riley. She claims he’s been stalking her, ever since they split up. But according to Jules, Riley is her dealer.”
“Ah. And he was dealing on Wednesday afternoon.”
“I think it’s possible he went over to Berkley’s house to sell India some weed.” She handed Luke another evidence bag. “This is Riley’s Samsung, as you know. I searched the digital pix stored in memory and found a bunch of selfies taken of Riley and India together, as recently as last week, and she doesn’t look the least bit intimidated or uncomfortable.”
Luke swiped through the digital images. “So she’s been lying about it to cover up her drug habit?”
“Maybe. I’ll have to have a heart-to-heart with my niece tomorrow, see if I can get to the bottom of things.”
He pulled on his knuckles. “What was your impression of Ethan Hathaway?”
“He was very cooperative, for the most part. Daisy ended the affair about a month ago. He doesn’t know if the baby was his. Daisy wasn’t sure, apparently. He didn’t seem fazed when I asked him to take a polygraph.” She glanced at her watch. It was 4:55 P.M. “He’s coming in for an interview at five.”
“Do you think he killed her?”
“He doesn’t have a solid alibi, and some of his answers were a little hinky—for instance, he accepted the fact that the baby could be his but didn’t ask for a paternity test. According to Grace, some of the women Hathaway’s dated found him to be antisocial and bookish. But Daisy loves to read, she loves books, and Brandon suspected she was bored with him, so … to each her own.” It sounded flippant, but she hadn’t meant it to sound that way.
“Bookish people aren’t all they’re cracked up to be,” Luke said.
“Tell me about it.”
He eyed her curiously. “You’re over that guy, right?”
“Who, Zack?” She made a face, then let the seconds slip past. Their first night together felt like ages ago. In the middle of the night, she’d crawled out of bed with a craving for ice cream. They tiptoed into the starlit kitchen, giggling like children. Zack fetched them two mismatched spoons and they leaned against the counter, watching the moon rise and eating Hood’s chocolate chip ice cream straight out of the carton. “Yeah,” she said. “It’s relationship roadkill.”
He held up his hands. “Not that it’s any of my business.”
“Jesus, you’re weird.” She laughed.
“Why?”
“‘Are you over him?’ ‘None of my business,’” she teased.
“Are you mocking me?”
“Not at all.”
“Because affectionate mocking is not allowed.” Luke had never liked Zack, which should’ve been her first clue, since Luke was an excellent judge of character. Now he took a swig of bottled water and loosened his tie. The world came alive and sparked inside his eyes. “I think we’re sharing a moment. Are we sharing a moment?”
“God, you’re impossible.”
When Luke was a scrawny kid, every single one of his T-shirts had holes or rips in them. His sneakers were threadbare. He couldn’t wait to get his driver’s license, and as soon as he did, he bought a beat-up Buick Skylark for $500 and got lost on the back roads of Burning Lake while blasting the B-52s’ “Dirty Back Road” on his crummy Radio Shack speakers. He was proud. He was vengeful. He kept score. He was a misunderstood superhero. He was Deadpool. He was Wolverine.
“Anyway, I’ve kind of given up on love.” Natalie shrugged. “If that helps.”
“No, it doesn’t help at all,” he said.
She could feel the blood thundering in her ears.
He was about to say something else when the phone rang. He picked up. “Hello? Okay.” He hung up. “Hathaway’s waiting for you.”