“That’s fine. I can pick you up if you want.”
He shook his head. “No, Skye will pick us up.”
He punched in a message and his phone buzzed again. “Oh. They’re on their way; we’d better head back to the house.”
*
A black Tahoe sat in the driveway. We hurried down the street to meet it. Faith must have been pretty sure that Seth would say yes.
A thin, pretty woman climbed out of the driver’s seat. Her hair was pulled up into a loose bun, and bangs covered her forehead. She wore a black skirt with tall boots and a cream-colored leather blazer. In her forties, she had the whole forty-is-the-new-thirty thing perfected. She held her hand out to me as we approached.
“Hello, I’m Bea Paxton. You must be Seth’s aunt.” When she smiled I could see where Skye got her beauty. “I think we might have met briefly the other night. That poor man, what a tragedy . . .”
I nodded and shook her hand.
“Sorry for the short notice. Faith just came up with this idea as we were heading back to Grand Rapids. You don’t mind if I drop them off? I have a meeting tonight. . . .”
Since Seth routinely took a subway alone and had managed to get all the way to Michigan from New York, I wasn’t worried about his ability to navigate the mall.
“No, that’s fine. Thanks for taking him,” I said.
“It’s no problem. Skye will drop him back home by nine thirty. It’s a school night so I don’t like Faith to be out past then. I looked up the movie and I think it will be appropriate.” She looked to see if the teens were listening, which they weren’t. They were busy listening to each other’s music on their phones. She lowered her voice. “No violence or . . . sex.”
“Well, thank you.”
She raised her voice and said, “Okay, kids, let’s go.”
Seth waved good-bye to me and the dogs and climbed into the backseat.
“I guess it’s just you and me, guys,” I said to the dogs.
Tuffy whined, and Baxter let out a quiet groan as we watched the SUV pull into the street.
15
The next day, Tuesday, I took Seth to my mom’s with the dogs. Vi had decided that she and I should start interviewing anyone who had been at the ceremony on Halloween night. I had mostly agreed in order to keep an eye on her. Since the nurse who had performed CPR was closest to Rafe at his death, we decided to start with him. I wondered if he had any opinions about the failure of the EpiPen.
Daron Pagan was a Wiccan, but not part of Rafe’s coven. He lived in the area and was a solitary practitioner, like Diana. They knew each other because Daron frequented her store, and they occasionally exchanged e-mail about news occurring in the Wiccan community. Diana had called to ask him to meet with us, and he’d agreed, saying he had a lunch break at eleven thirty. Diana was going to spend the morning meeting with Rupert again. I had offered to join her, but she insisted I talk to Daron.
“Let’s hit the road,” Vi said as soon as Seth and I walked in the door.
“Maybe Clyde wants some coffee before you go.” Mom had followed Vi into the front hall.
“She’s fine, aren’t you, Clyde? We’re not driving to Canada. We’ll be back in a couple of hours.” Vi pushed me out the door and pulled it closed behind us.
She took my hand and hurried me toward the Jeep.
“What’s the rush, Vi?” I asked. I pried my hand from her grip.
“I had to get out of there before your father started on his home-repair list.” She cast a glance at the house. “Now that Seth is here to help, he wants to fix everything in our house and he’s working on the list for your house. You might want to put a stop to that.” She said this with the tone of someone anticipating a train wreck.
I smiled. My dad was not the greatest Mr. Fixit but he was harmless. He’d certainly never caused any problems that I could remember.
“If Seth and Dad want to clean out some gutters and fix the leaky toilet, I’m all for it.”
“I have a bad feeling about it. You just remember that I told you so.” Vi wagged a finger under my nose and bustled past me to climb into the passenger seat of my Jeep. She buckled herself in and sat, waiting.
Feeling my own sense of foreboding for completely different reasons, I climbed into the Jeep and steered it north out of town.
Daron worked at an urgent care clinic between Crystal Haven and Grand Rapids. I had visited the place myself after my car accident over the summer. I didn’t recall meeting him at the time, but he claimed to remember me.
As we got closer to the health center, Vi began discussing strategy.
“Mac has probably already interrogated this guy, so we won’t be able to spring any surprises on him,” she said.
I nodded, and kept my eyes glued to the road.
“Are you the good cop or the bad cop? We need to get our story straight,” she said.
“I don’t think we need a story, Vi. He already knows us, and we’re not cops.”