The Sinister Secrets of the Enchanting Blaze Read online

  Paisley nodded, eyes bugging. “I feel it!”

  Grace suddenly caught an image behind Paisley. Though the light was dimming quickly, and fog gathering in the air, she picked out the shape of the Custom House Tower among the skyscrapers of the Financial District. A dagger of fear pierced her guts. Paisley had no doubt been staring at it when Grace approached. Realizing she trod on thin ice, she moved more carefully.

  “Well, I got the scooter. Let’s just go someplace else. A not-swaying, not shaking place. How about it? Maybe get something to eat. You look a little thin. When was the last time you ate anything?”

  Paisley pursed her lips in thought. “I bought a bag of Doritos at the gas station.”

  Grace remembered the financials Pete Willoughby had obtained. “That was two weeks ago, Paize. You must be starving.”

  “I think there was a rehearsal barbecue for the “Thriller” dance. My brain’s all foggy.”

  Should she go there? How else to drag Paisley off the bridge? “It’s because you’re under a spell, Paisley.”

  “What, like a magic spell?”

  “Yeah. We can talk about it, but how about on the ground, in a restaurant—or if we hurry, we can get some kopi luwak at Len’s before they close.” Grace didn’t know of any other place that served the world’s most expensive coffee, save Judy’s Java. Paisley had become instantly addicted since sampling the bizarre beverage on their first case together.

  “I’ve given up the kopi luwak. There’s a lot of stuff about animal cruelty on the Internet. And, really, what do you have to do to an animal to make it poop coffee?”

  Grace thought that might be a good point. “Let’s just get back on solid ground. We can eat wherever you want.”

  Spreading her feet a little wider on the girder, Paisley angled her head. “Let’s get back to this magic spell.”

  The bullhorn cut through the din making Grace jump. “Attention, protesters: you have twenty minutes.”

  What choice did she have? “It’s a spell that makes you unafraid. Aggressively unafraid. It forces you to conquer your fear.”

  “Huh.” Paisley folded her arms. “Now, don’t think I’m unappreciative of your efforts. After all, you stole my scooter, and managed to get it up here through various roadblocks. That took some doing. But what’s so bad about conquering fear? I’d have to put that in the positive column.”

  Paisley licked her forefinger and made an imaginary check-mark in the air.

  Grace showed her palms. “I know it sounds good, but it ends badly.”

  “Oh, really.” Paisley folded her arms and frowned. “You know a lot of people who have been... what’s the word, bespelled?”

  Grace didn’t’ think “bespelled” was a word, but she pressed on. “No. Just one. And I never got a chance to meet him.”

  For a few heartbeats, Paisley stared at Grace. Then the younger woman put a foot up on the rail and gazed across the river. Mist and fog all but obscured the city, but Grace knew what Paisley was looking at.

  “You’re talking about Will, aren’t you?”

  “Please come down, Paisley.”

  She continued to gaze into the distance. “I knew it. Will was afraid of heights. Like, two steps up a ladder and he started to sweat. He couldn’t look out the attic windows.”

  A stiff wind, carrying shockingly cold rain, blew through the structure. Paisley’s pea coat riffled, and she had to grab the stocking cap. Grace froze in fear, believing Paisley would go over the side.

  A moment later, the bridge seemed to move beneath Grace’s feet. She’d experienced the jostling, bumping vibration of large bridges when she had been stuck in a backup. Standing on the deck proved a much more intimate experience.

  Behind them, the crowd murmured in reaction. Bridges swayed in the wind. They were meant to. That knowledge didn’t dismiss the fact that what felt like solid ground was actually moving.

  Paisley ignored this. She faced Grace, both feet now planted on the girder. Her face cinched in emotion. “Someone killed Will. My brother was murdered.”

  Grace nodded. “I think so. Let’s get off of here, figure out how to find this guy.”

  “He was perfect!” Paisley’s eyes squinted, tears flowing down her cheeks whisked away by the wind. “He was so, so good!”

  Anguish drew her features down, the pain on her visage reflected in Grace’s heart. “Paisley, I’m so sorry.” Grace teared up as well.

  Paisley threw her head back, screaming to the heavens, her ravaged voice carrying over the choppers, the music. “Why?”

  Legs shook, knees buckling. Grace managed the three steps closer to the edge of the bridge. She caught Paisley as she sank. Against her jacket, Paisley sobbed, wailing the way only children, and the utterly lost, can.

  Grace held her friend, sheltering her from the weather. But she could not stem the emotion pouring out of Paisley, nor the knowledge pouring in. The two of them were gently rocked as the bridge reached the apex of its swing, and started back.

  Chapter 19

  “Attention protesters: you have ten minutes.”

  The police PA sounded again. Music died. The storm forced the helicopters a safer distance from the bridge. As the volume lowered, Grace felt Paisley’s fingernails biting through her thin suit jacket.

  “I’m on a bridge!”

  Paisley’s voice sounded high, strangled.

  “Let’s get off of it.”

  “I can’t move.” Trucks passing on the deck below coupled with another heavy gust of wind made the deck beneath them shiver. Right into Grace’s ear, Paisley shouted, “Gahh!”

  “Take a breath. We’re okay. The scooter’s right here.”

  “No, no, no, no, no, no, no way am I riding over this bridge.”

  Paisley gripped Grace tight enough that it took effort to draw breath. “We’ll start walking. C’mon, stand up.”

  As they rose, Paisley shook so hard, Grace thought the girl would drag her down again. She managed to walk her over to the scooter, and get her hands on the left handlebar. She moved around to the opposite side.

  “Where are you going? Don’t leave me!”

  “I’m right here. C’mon, push.”

  One shaking foot in front of the other, Paisley walked the scooter with Grace. The mob of protesters, performance artists, whatever they were, soon started walking past. The bridge was about two miles long. At this rate, they might get into Boston around midnight.

  Each sway or rumble slowed Paisley, but Grace urged her on. She didn’t know how soon the barricades would come down, and the upper deck flooded with cars. There were no bike or pedestrian lanes. After a moment, they left the temporary corrugated metal shelter. Paisley closed her eyes, teeth gritted. Rain pounded down, soaking Grace to the bone within minutes. Still, they plodded south.

  Tobin Bridge spanned both the Mystic River and then the Little Mystic Channel. Water seethed below, dark and storm-whipped. It was a long way down. Grace chose to keep staring straight ahead. Paisley’s eyes remained squeezed tightly shut.

  It seemed like a long time, but they finally passed over the smaller span. Grace breathed a sigh. “Okay, can we ride now? We’re past the river.”

  Paisley peeled her eyes open, and snapped them shut again. “We’re still on a bridge!”

  “But there’s no water under us.”

  “We’re. Still. On. A bridge.”

  “Fine,” Grace said through her teeth, and shoved the scooter along.

  As the deck sloped down, she wrestled against Paisley’s grip to move them to the right lane. Treetops and the roofs of buildings stood on either side as they descended. A few minutes’ walk brought them to ground level. Grace thought it still felt like a bridge, and continued to slog through the rain.

  “Okay, how about now?”

  They had reached the end of the bridge, which terminated in a tunnel with two possible routes. Grace chose the City Square Tunnel, just to get the hell off U.S. 1.Paisley gazed at the entrance. After a fe
w moments, she held out her hand. “Keys?”

  “I’m not letting you drive.”

  “I’m not riding bitch with you unless I have a helmet.” She wiggled her fingers. Grace fished out the key. Behind the seat was a globular top box. Paisley unlocked it, and removed a perfectly normal helmet. She plopped it over her hat. Grace took the aviator helmet from the floor.

  “Wanna trade?”

  Paisley shook her head, pointing. “There’s no visor. You’ll need the goggles. It’s raining. Probably bugs.”

  Blowing out her cheeks, Grace donned the bronze helmet; lowered the goggles over her eyes. She straddled the bike, leaning it slightly, and kicked it to life. Paisley got on behind her, wrapping arms around Grace in a death grip.

  The tunnel was spooky with no traffic as Grace throttled up and squeezed the clutch.

  “No bridges,” Paisley said in her ear. “Promise me.”

  Dammit, the whole area was crisscrossed with bridges. Grace didn’t know the area that well. “Okay, I’ll try.”

  Paisley squeezed Heimlich-maneuver hard. “Promise!”

  “Okay,” Grace grunted. “I promise.”

  Grace tried to get her bearings. After getting lost in Cambridge for half an hour, she finally found the Charles River after circling the MIT campus twice. She followed the bank until it curved north and the road, though hung with various names, became Route 3.

  Rain slackened as they putted through West Cambridge, North Cambridge, Arlington, Winchester, and finally caught I-95 in Burlington. The highway was a bitch, every car she followed, every car that passed, splashed them in muddy wheel wash that utterly obscured the road. Paisley hung on tight, the helmet pressed painfully into Grace’s back.

  To avoid the bridges in Salem, Grace exited on Lowell Street in Peabody. Though the name changed to Main Street, and then Boston Street, they finally drove up Chestnut without a single bridge beneath their two wheels.

  Grace putted up the driveway and across the walk, stopping in front of the porch. She switched off the engine. “You’re home, Paize.”

  Paisley didn’t stir.

  “Paisley?” Grace struggled to free herself from the death grip. She discovered Paisley wasn’t actually hanging on. At some point, the younger woman managed to stuff her fists in the nearly useless pockets of Grace’s suit coat. The hands were jammed in good. Against her back, Grace felt a vibration. It took a moment to recognize the sound of Paisley snoring.

  Grace found it took an effort for her own hands to release the handlebars of the scooter. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized that a bone-chilling numbness had set in. She couldn’t feel her face. After flexing her painful joints, she managed to get her hands over Paisley’s fists in her pockets. A mistake. Now, both their hands were trapped in the tiny fabric space. Grace grunted at the strain, but she was fully secured.

  Light spewed forth as the front door swung wide. The Old Lady hurried down the porch steps.

  “Paisley? Oh my Lord, you found her. Is she—”

  “She’s snoring.” Grace again tried to pull free. Monkey trap, she thought, when you couldn’t get your hand out of a cookie jar without dropping the cookie. “I can’t get her off me.”

  It took a pair of scissors to free their hands. Grace looked down at herself. Road grime and grease had saturated the fabric. Given the irreparable damage, the tiny pockets were no big loss. Together, she and The Old Lady managed to drag Paisley into the house.

  For a few moments, Paisley came around. Fumbling hands yanked off the helmet. It clunked to the floor. She looked Grace in the eye.

  “No fish sticks for lunch.”

  Then she wobbled to an antique sofa in the living room and fell face down on it. Snoring ensued.

  “Are you sure I shouldn’t call an ambulance?” The Old Lady studied her unconscious great-niece.

  “No,” Grace admitted. “Honestly, I don’t know where she’s been or what she’s been doing.”

  “The important thing is that you found her, and brought her home,” The Old Lady said. “For that, I owe you one. You look exhausted. Perhaps you should take a few days off.”

  “I don’t think so,” Grace said. She was now shivering uncontrollably.

  “With pay,” Victoria Cartwright said.

  The words meant nothing, as Grace was on salary. That Yankee stinginess.

  On the one hand, her boring assay of the book collection in Boxford sounded wonderfully uneventful; peaceful, even. On the other, someone had done this to Paisley and to Will.

  “I’m not through with this yet,” she said. “Not by a longshot.”

  Chapter 20

  Grace stood in the bathroom, looking in the mirror. Her destroyed suit overfilled the small garbage can. She saw clean rings around her eyes, where the goggles had been. Reverse raccoon, she thought, like when you got a sunburn wearing shades. Otherwise, it looked as if she’d grown a beard. All the way down her neck. Even her bra and panties were filthy beyond saving. Why of all days had she worn one of her nicer sets? They matched and everything. These joined the mess in the garbage can as she stepped into the shower.

  Feeling returned to her skin in the form of pain. By the time the water heater ran out of hot, she felt no better—only more fatigued. Despite this, as she lay in bed, sleep eluded her yet again. The news was over, so she didn’t get the chance to see if she’d been captured on video by a hovering traffic copter. Misty Moonlight was showing “Night of the Living Dead,” with a lighting technician as her guest. In a close-up during the interview, Grace saw a spray of freckles, long lashes, a face mournful in repose, yet beautiful despite this. Paisley’s mother, for sure, once you saw the girl without the Goth makeup.

  Grace jerked awake to the morning news, and a shot of her walking an orange scooter toward the police barricade. At least she wasn’t so recognizable from above. Not with a shiny bronze helmet on. She considered foregoing a shower this morning, but she found road grime under her nails, in her hair and—eew!—in her teeth!

  “Don’t be bug parts, don’t be bug parts,” she said through the toothpaste as she brushed her teeth furiously.

  She put on coffee and hopped in the shower. Greasy road grime had left a film on her skin. How did Paisley do this? She rode a scooter all the time. Her strange and extensive wardrobe never seemed to suffer. Nor did she appear to be covered in black highway mud. Or maybe that’s why she always dressed in black.

  At the kitchen table, she put on the news. Coffee in front of her, she ran a brush through her hair. The Staties were lauded for the efforts to keep traffic moving in Boston, despite the closure of the Tobin Bridge. She didn’t see herself, or Paisley, in any video clips.

  Eyeing the clock, she figured Paisley was still sleeping. She found some Pop-Tarts and toasted them for breakfast. So domestic, Grace thought to herself.

  Half an hour later, she let herself into the Federalist house on Chestnut. She was not surprised to see Paisley in the same position as when she’d left. Someone had removed her boots and stocking cap. Green hair flowed over the antique sofa. It complemented the sage-colored fabric with embroidered white roses.

  She considered waking Paisley up, but Grace honestly didn’t know what the younger woman had gone through. Deciding to let her sleep, Grace walked up the two flights to the attic office. The stuffed raccoon glared as she pulled on the desk lamp.

  Although the copy of the shooting report had probably taken up more than a single file box, Paisley had broken it down in sections. Grace had skimmed most of it. At that point, she had been assembling a narrative. Something had been creeping around her brain ever since. She unlocked the cabinet and pulled the file folder labeled “Evidence Custody Report.”

  The majority of the report, which was about a half inch thick, described cash, weapons, and illegal drugs. A second section referred to photos and video of shell casings: a few .40 caliber Smith & Wesson, scores of 9mm Winchester from automatic weapons. The last section was the miscellaneous stuff—a six-
foot statue of a skeleton in a gold robe, eighty dollars’ in two-dollar bills, cigarettes, flowers, candy, cigars, fruit, incense, perfume, tequila, beer, wine, forty bucks in gold dollar coins, ten bucks in silver dollars, seven joints, various hideaway sniffers filled with cocaine, three gold pendants, six silver chains, four silver and turquoise amulets, two pairs of diamond earrings. The list was extensive, exhaustive, and missing the one thing that most stood out in Grace’s mind.

  There were no candles on the evidence report.

  Grace dug out photos of the crime scene from another folder. She looked at the statue of the Grim Reaper, its feet buried in offerings. It was not tough to make out the tops of jar candles amid the fresh flowers. She couldn’t believe that they hadn’t been collected. Perhaps they had been, though unofficially. Grace selected a close-up of the offerings.

  She exited the office and went to the room where Will’s things were stored. The boxes were U-Haul, the bins probably from Target. None of them had a printed chain of evidence grid, or official markings of any kind.

  Holding the photo in one hand, she pulled a candle from the dusty box. It looked like a standard jar candle, as did the ones in the photo, as did the one in her purse, as did the one that hexed Paisley. There was no way to link the ones in the attic to the ones at the crime scene. However, considering the rest of the evidence was recorded down to the number of Fun Size Snickers, Grace knew she had found a clue.

  Were those the same candles in the evidence photo, dressed for a spell? If not for the omission in the report, it would be the longest of long shots, a total coincidence. Since they were not listed as taken into evidence, there was no description. No owl in flight on the bottom, no flecks of red and black in the white wax, there was nothing to tie the candles to the ones that had afflicted Paisley and her brother.

  Shutting the box tight, Grace tipped it over, examining it from all angles. It was just a carton for shipping candles. No company logo, no place of origin, only a recycling emblem marked the bottom, so she set the box back down.