Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
“Hair,” I repeat. “Last night I saw him—the murderer—cutting off someone’s hair. He kept it as a trophy.”
“Holy shit.” Keith eyes the ground, running his hand over his face. “That’s DNA evidence.”
“We can’t touch it,” Rene says. “This is basically a crime scene, right?”
“I think the hair is kept in something,” I go on, letting my eyes fall shut as I drop my mental shields all the way down. Ethan is at the gym with a client and I promised I wouldn’t try to communicate with the spirits in the house without him since one already proved to be violent.
Still…I can handle myself.
Going over next to Hunter, I kneel on the ground and put my hand to the earth. “What did you do?” I ask and make a mental connection to the dark spirit. He’s aware of what I am now, repulsed that I’m a witch and angry that I’m a medium. He tries to get away but I keep prying, taking him on in a mental game of tug of war.
He pushes against me and it starts to hurt physically. Pressure builds in my head and I grunt, refusing to let go. Blood drips down my nose right as I get a flash of him sitting in a tiny cottage. He puts a lock of hair into a red coffee tin and then comes outside, moving the little stair. He puts the coffee can in a hole in the ground and covers it up. He knows he can’t keep it there forever, but he likes to go back and look at his trophies every now and then.
“Got you, fucker,” I grumble through gritted teeth, opening my eyes and wiping my nose with the back of my hand.
“W-what just happened?” Rene asks, digging through her purse for a tissue.
“There’s a coffee can buried right here. Filled with his murder trophies.”
“And maybe a few finger prints,” Keith adds.
“Yeah.” We all look at each other, debating what to do.
“I need to tell my aunt something,” Keith starts. “How the hell will I keep her out of the house? She’s coming after work today to rip up carpet.”
“Would she believe it if we told her the radon detector went off in the rest of the house?”
“Probably. She’s not very well versed in construction.”
“Okay. Um, tell her that since she knows we were here last night.” I look back at the ground, thinking. “Who did you talk to that lived here at the time of the murders? If I can get the name of whoever lived in this shed, I think that’s enough to go to the police, right?”
“Yeah,” Rene says. “But they’re going to wonder how the fuck you knew that.”
“I could discover the coffee can while wearing gloves and preserving any DNA,” Keith suggests. “I'm helping my aunt renovate this place, after all.”
“That one might make more sense,” I say. “Okay. You both have to get some sleep before work tonight. Can you text me the contact info for the lady who used to live here?”
“No need. She lives at Silver Meadows nursing home in town and is lonely. I think she’d appreciate the visit. Her name is Bernice Hollis.”
“I’ll swing by, and if Allison and Marissa were witches, I should probably fill in my coven and see if they were possible members.”
I run my hand over Hunter’s sleek fur, telling him he did a good job finding evidence. We all walk around the front of the main house together, getting in our cars to leave. The nursing home is about fifteen minutes away, and I send Ethan a text letting him know my plan for the rest of the afternoon.
The “guest parking” section at the nursing home is pretty empty. I get out, looking around before Hunter shadows out of the car. Pulling my purse onto my shoulder, I start toward the front doors, wondering if this was the nursing home Aunt Estelle lived out her final days. How lonely she must have been. I’m not sure which I feel more: anger or sadness.
I could have visited her, insisted she be moved to New York so the whole family could look after her. Hell, I would have considered moving in with her and helping take care of her at home. Maybe I would have always lived with her and got a job somewhere in Thorne Hill. Life would have been so different if I’d just known the truth from the start.
“Hi,” I say to the front desk receptionist. She’s playing a game on her phone and only glances up at me. “I’m here to see Bernice Hollis.”
“Ummm.” She makes a big deal of turning around to look at the analog clock on the wall. Like…your phone is literally in your hand. “She’s probably in the rec room.”
“Would you mind telling me how to get there?”