Strega (Strega Series) (6 page)

"Gram? Where are you?" I walked through the living room and into the dining room, and dropped my purse on the table. I rounded the corner into the kitchen and she still hadn't responded. I knew she was home. All the lights were still on. She definitely wasn't in bed yet. When I left, she couldn't wait for me to return and tell her everything. Shaun was the first boy I'd ever gone out with more than once.

Then I saw her foot across the threshold of the sunroom. A split second felt like hours as I ran to her. Fear tore through me as I imagined the worst. Did she have a heart attack? A stroke? She was so healthy, it couldn't be that. Did she fall?

Please let her be okay. Oh God, please let her be okay.

I got to the doorway and stood over her body. I was paralyzed in horror. Face down on the floor in a puddle of her own blood, she lay with her legs and arms bent and twisted around her in the most unnatural way. Her clothing was torn. Blood soaked the light blue denim shirt she always wore when she painted.

"GRAM!" I shouted. The sound tore from my throat as I fell to my knees beside her. I checked her pulse, her breath, but I already knew that she was gone.

"NO! NO! NO!" I yelled over and over again, unable to grasp the reality. I turned her over and pulled her into my lap. I held her head, cradling her, rocking her, stroking her blood-drenched hair away from her face, still whispering it over and over again.
No. No. No.

The soft curtains billowed as the night breeze floated through the broken glass doors. My eyes swept the room. For a brief second, I wondered if her killer was still in the house. But the thought evaporated as quickly as it came because I just didn't care. If he wanted to kill me too, he could have. If I was dead, I wouldn't have to feel a thing. I gently closed her eyes and sat there holding her. She was all I had left.

I sat down at the table and methodically folded a piece of paper while Rena scurried around the kitchen and made a pot of coffee.

"You need to be more careful than ever. Especially since whoever killed her is still out there. Gram would be yelling at you so I'm just doing it for her," she said, her face softening into a smile for my benefit. I knew her. Inside, she was a wreck. She grabbed the milk from the refrigerator and brought over two mugs while we waited for the coffee to finish brewing.

"How is Max?" I asked, hoping once again that we could change the subject.

"Oh, he's fine. His arm hurts like hell, but they put him back together and he's all casted up. He has to work a gig in Salisbury tonight. Can you believe that? The poor guy."

Max was a radio DJ at WMXT. His boss had called him last minute to work a fundraising event at the nearby club
Code Red
, Rena explained. Max was covering for Jake, the DJ that was supposed to work the event. Even with a freshly broken arm, Max couldn't say no. He'd worked at the station for three years and would have done anything to rise to the top of the promotion list. He worked the mid-day shift, which drew half the listeners and paid half as much as the top morning spot.

"Have you eaten anything since yesterday?" Rena asked, bringing the focus back to me.

"No," I said reluctantly, knowing that this would get her going again. She shot me a look of disapproval and grabbed a carton of eggs from the refrigerator.

"How are you still functioning?"

"I'm not," I said honestly. "What if he comes back, Rena? What if he's watching me now, waiting for another opportunity?"

"Listen Jay, come with us later to Code Red. And I'll call Max and ask him to stay here with us tonight. If you don't feel safe here, we can always go to his place."

I imagined Max trying to defend us with one arm while on pain medication.

"But I'm only seventeen. I can't even get into Code Red," I protested. Max was twenty-two. Rena was only nineteen but she always slipped in with Max when he did these appearances.

"It's a fundraising event. It's eighteen-plus," she said, looking at me like I was being ridiculous. "You're close enough. Besides, we'll be with Max. Nobody will check your I.D."

"Okay," I finally consented, but I was already dreading it. All I wanted to do was sleep, and I still had the whole day ahead of me.

"From now on, you need to be much more careful. Drive to work, no matter how nice it is out. And always check the backseat of your car. No empty parking lots," she urged. "There are creeps everywhere. You can never be too careful."

Rena didn't trust anyone, especially after Gram's death. It was so unexpected. There was no motive. Everyone loved Gram, and we lived in the most benign little town where there was never any crime. It just didn't make any sense. Our trust in people was completely shaken.

"Most people in this world are good," she said. "But it's naïve to think that everyone is. That's just not reality. I wish it was, but it's not. Some people are really bad. No conscience, cannot be fixed. No amount of therapy can rehab a murderer or a rapist—they have a fundamental wiring problem. And because people like this exist, we always have to be careful."

I took my last bite of eggs and she grabbed my plate and put it into the sink.

"I'm going to go call Max. Everything is going to be okay," she said, giving me a big hug before she wandered back to the living room. From the kitchen I heard her strong, controlled tone wither into worry.

"You are not gonna believe what happened to Jay last night..."

I finished my coffee and poured myself a second cup, already feeling the sleep-deprived, caffeinated anxiety building within me from the first cup. I stared out the window across the familiar landscape and tried to conjure up a moment of peace. I was losing control, and I didn't know where to begin to fix it. I was so tired. All I knew to do was to run. If I stopped, surely the ground would rise up around me and pull me in.

"Jay?" Rena yelled from the living room. "What the hell is this?"

"What?" I yelled back, slowly breaking my gaze from the backyard before I chugged toward the living room.

As I rounded the corner, Rena came into sight with a bewildered expression on her face. What I saw next made the blood drain from my head. My throat went dry. The floor moved as if I was falling toward it. My mind spun in search of a logical answer for what I was seeing. Rena stood beside the sofa, pointing at the cushion where I sat moments before. Bunched upon it was the scarlet red fabric I'd found in the basement in my dream. And stabbed directly through it was the blade.

Rena threw open the basement door and reached for the light switch. To my relief, those same stairs I'd descended in my dream were now completely illuminated by an overhead light. Rena went down first, holding the long metal flashlight she dug out of the closet. The same flashlight I used in my dream. I followed her, gripping my bat tightly in my sweating hands.

We explored the basement from end to end, but everything was in its right place. We found nothing unusual. The bulkhead doors were closed and locked from the inside. We checked the rest of the house, and all the doors and windows were secure. In silence, we returned to the living room and fell onto the sofa together, staring ahead as our minds spun like rubber tires on ice.

"Well, we know nobody could have broken in," Rena said, eliminating the only plausible explanation. She leaned over and pulled the blade from my hands.

"Maybe it wasn't just a dream," she said, clutching it tightly. "Maybe it was a memory. At least part of it. Maybe you really did go into the basement last night. Maybe you were sleepwalking, and you brought this back with you."

"Then how did it end up in the cushion, right where I was sitting?" I asked anxiously, standing up and pointing to the hole it had left. "You saw me sitting there before, and it wasn't there!"

"There's no other explanation, Jay. We just checked everywhere. Nobody's in the house with us," Rena said confidently. Her face softened as her worries began to dissipate, but mine only grew. If I'd been in the basement the night before and brought the blade back with me, it would have been there when I woke up that morning. But it wasn't.

I stared at the flashlight. Rena had just pulled it out of the closet. If I'd really used it, I wondered why it was buried under rubber boots and umbrellas, and covered in dust that morning.

"I can't look at that anymore." I grabbed the blade from Rena and wrapped it in the rich red fabric, and tossed it onto the table.

"Honestly, I think you just need some good sleep. Go chill out. Take a nap. Max will be here later. Tonight will be fun
—a good distraction."

She gestured toward the stairs. More than anything, I just wanted to go shower and then crawl into bed.

"Hey, you're not going anywhere, are you?" I wouldn't be able to sleep unless she was staying.

"Nope. I have tons to do," she said, pointing to the stack of books she'd left on the dining room table when she got Max's emergency call. "I've gotta register for classes and get started on some required reading. Go rest up."

I lifted my exhausted body off the sofa and looked to the stairs longingly. But my eyes migrated back to the table and settled upon the blade. The red fabric had fallen away just enough to reveal the brilliant silver tip. Though it terrified me, I couldn't help but reach for it.

When I got upstairs, I closed my door and sat on the edge of my bed with the blade. I gripped the handle just above the elaborate crossguard. It rested comfortably in my palm and extended to my wrist. In my other hand, I carefully laid the sharp blade, which measured from the bottom of my wrist to the tip of my middle finger. About seven inches, I estimated. It was intimidating
—its razor-like edges could have sliced through anything. The inlaid stone at its center was soft like any rock on the beach, weathered and worn with time, but its light blue surface shimmered like the water beneath the blazing summer sun. The blade was weighty, clearly crafted of quality materials. And designed with such intricate detail. It seemed brand new, in perfect condition without a scratch upon it. But the peculiar symbols on the handle made it seem more like a relic I would find in a museum and less like something I would find on a shelf at a nearby retailer.

The logical explanation would have been that the blade belonged to Ruth and Jack. They were both historians, and it definitely looked like it had some historic value. But I would have seen it before now. They couldn't have contained their excitement about acquiring a new piece for their collection. They would have displayed it on black velvet in a wall case with every other historic item showcased throughout the house. And I'd been in the basement two days earlier to do laundry. If it was lying on the floor then, I would have noticed. I didn't know where it came from, but I knew in my gut that it was not theirs.

Ruth and Jack had lived in Newburyport for decades, as long as Gram did. Though they were both semi-retired now, Jack still taught his Italian Renaissance and Roman Civilization courses at the college. Ruth was a retired professor, but she still worked part-time at the Maritime Museum downtown
—she was their historical writer.

Every year around Christmas, Ruth and Jack threw their annual holiday party. It was always so festive, and chock-full of history department colleagues, Maritime Museum staff, and old friends. Last year, I dragged Rena with me. Ruth had been insisting that I bring this friend of mine that I talked so much about. Rena was not keen on the idea of hanging around with a bunch of college professors at first, but after convincing her that Gram would be there, she finally agreed to come. She loved Gram like family. And Gram loved her right back.

At that party, I ran into my high school history teacher, Mr. Baker. He was new to our school, having recently moved east from Ohio. I noticed his familiar face right away as he walked through the door. His cheeks were rosy red from the cold. As he brushed the snow from his jacket, he saw me too. I was one of the few students that actually paid attention in his class. I'd only known him for a few short months, but he was as friendly as if we had known each other for years.

Of all my classes, Mr. Baker's was my favorite. His sense of humor and poignant jokes, although cheesy at times, kept class interesting. He always managed to find an opportunity to slip one in no matter how unyielding the subject matter. And he was a wealth of knowledge. No matter the question, answers seemed to come to him so easily. Aside from being a great teacher, it was also the subject matter of his class that piqued my interest. The ancient Romans. A small civilization turned major superpower, and their centuries long domination of the world. Mr. Baker never missed an opportunity to point out examples of their steadfast influence in our modern world. Our alphabet, calendar, infrastructure, government. The list went on.

I was surprised to see Mr. Baker at that party, and wondered how he knew Ruth and Jack. When he first came to town, he explained, he stopped at the Maritime Museum and met Ruth. When she learned that he was new in town and a teacher—of history no less—she got Jack on the phone and insisted that he take this lovely young man out for coffee and acquaint him with the area.

As soon as I got chatting with Mr. Baker, my plan for a quick visit was off the table. Poor Rena was left to drown in endless cups of hot apple cider in front of the warm, crackling fire, caught in conversation with one of Jack's old friends who was under the impression that she was someone else the entire night.