“Hi, Seth. Hi, Clyde.” Skye put out her hand to Alex and introduced herself.
The preliminaries out of the way, I was searching for a way to ask her what she was doing in Rafe’s neighborhood.
“We saw you drive past us just outside of Rafe’s house. What were you doing there?” Seth asked.
Her smile faltered. She stole a glance at Faith, who was busy watching the dogs in the Jeep. “Promise you won’t tell my mom?”
Alex and I exchanged a glance and nodded.
“Mom doesn’t trust anyone these days, including me. Ever since I told her I had joined the coven, she’s been on edge. It’s not really what she wanted for me.”
Faith snorted. “I would say it’s not something she ever imagined.”
Skye glared at her little sister. “She’ll get used to it.”
“Yeah, when hell—”
“Anyway,” Skye interrupted, “I’m supposed to be picking Faith up from school and going straight home. But I left a flash drive at Rafe’s house and I wanted to get it back.”
“Do you have a key?” I asked.
She shook her head. “He leaves one over his door. I thought I could just zip in there, get the drive, and get out. But there were police all over the place. What’s going on?”
“The police are investigating Rafe’s death. They think maybe it wasn’t an accident,” I said.
Both girls drew in breath at the same time.
“Oh, no,” Skye said.
“Diana said you were working on a special project with him. Is that what the flash drive was for?”
Skye’s face became pink, which made her even prettier. She fidgeted with a bracelet. “I don’t know if I should talk about that.”
“Skye, Rafe is dead. Diana’s brother has been arrested for murder. If there’s anything you can tell us about what Rafe was doing in the time before he died, it might help us figure out what happened to him.”
Skye looked at her sister, who met her gaze and nodded once. “I was helping Rafe with a genealogy project. We’d been talking at a coven meeting a few months ago and I told him how it was kind of a hobby of mine. There’s all this great stuff now on the Internet and you can trace your family back for generations.”
“What was the project?” Alex asked.
“That was the weird part. It wasn’t his family, the Godwins, that Rafe wanted me to research. It was Neila Whittle.”
Seth’s eyes snapped up from whatever he was doing on his phone. Even he had heard of Neila Whittle.
“Neila Whittle? Why?” I said.
“I don’t know.” Skye shrugged. “He told me not to tell anyone, that’s why I wanted to get the flash drive back. But, I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Do you have the information you found?”
She nodded. “It’s all on my computer. I can e-mail it to you if you want. There’re quite a few files.”
“That would be great,” I said. “Can you tell us anything about the night Rafe died? Did you see anything unusual? Was he acting differently?”
“I don’t remember anything unusual.” Skye leaned against her SUV and stared at a point over my head. “He had a little fight with Lucan Reed but, believe me, that wasn’t unusual. I was surprised that the EpiPen didn’t work. He had told me that it was a lifesaver. But then, I’d never seen him use it.”
“Is there anything else?” I asked.
Skye shook her head.
Faith said, “Why don’t you tell them about Daddy and what he thought you were really doing over at Rafe’s house?”
Skye shot a dirty look at her sister.
“My father followed me to Rafe’s one time about a month ago,” Skye said. “He didn’t like that I was spending so much time with Rafe.”
“He thought Rafe was a dirty old man,” Faith piped in.
“Shut up, Faith.” She turned back to look at me. “He wasn’t.”
“Your father thought there was something going on with you and Rafe?” I said.
Skye wrinkled her nose and nodded. “He was being superparanoid and ridiculous. As if I’d ever get involved with someone . . . ancient.”
“We should get back, Skye.” Faith held her phone out for Skye to see. “Mom is wondering where we are.”
Seth, Alex, and I returned to the Jeep and climbed inside to the excited greetings of the dogs. I pulled back out into traffic, realizing we were no closer to figuring out what happened than before we began this covert operation.
19
I pulled into my driveway thinking about a hot shower and some tea when I noticed someone sitting on my front porch. It was Tom.
Seth hopped out of the Jeep with the dogs trailing behind. He went inside, raising his hand in greeting as he passed Tom. So much for a relaxing shower and a few moments to myself. I heard Seth inside talking to the dogs and then the back door slammed.
Alex and I climbed the steps slowly. Tom stood as we approached.