The thing to do, the right thing to do, was tell him that she had changed her mind about going to the plantation, that she was just going to go home and stay there for the night. She owed her friends a certain loyalty, after all.
But she didn’t want to go home. And didn’t she owe something to herself, as well? Admittedly, she didn’t know Aidan Flynn well, but she wanted to know him better. Even if they constantly clashed.
They weren’t in a relationship, of course. But they could be. And wasn’t that part of a relationship? Making things work even when you disagreed or got angry?
Hold on, you are nowhere near to that point, she warned herself.
But no warning was going to help her now. Not even Miss Ady’s insistence that there was evil at the plantation. Evil that was after her.
Now that voodoo doll…It had been left at her home. While she was sleeping. That was far creepier, when you thought about it. Of course, voodoo dolls had been left at the plantation, as well. But not when any of the brothers were staying there, which told her that whoever had done it was a coward, only willing to go after women and empty houses.
Aidan was waiting for her in the front of the shop, staring thoughtfully at a life-size skeleton dressed in a tux and hanging near the door.
He turned to her. “Ready?”
“Yes, thanks. I need to run by my place,” she reminded him. “I have to grab some clothes and feed Jezebel.”
“Of course.”
He went in with her, and while she gathered a few things from her room, he offered to feed the cat. Jezebel, the little hussy, had liked him from the beginning. Kendall could hear the Persian purring from the bedroom.
When she came out to the kitchen, she saw that he had unlocked the rear door and stepped out back.
He saw her, waved, then walked over to the gate. It was big and heavy, and wide enough to allow a carriage to pass through. He scaled it without visible effort, putting himself on the outside, in the alley, then climbed back into the courtyard.
“Kendall,” he called.
She walked out to the back, curious.
“It wasn’t much of an effort to scale this,” he told her. “The hinges make great footholds.”
She saw exactly what he was saying. She doubted it was a feat an octogenarian could accomplish, but it wouldn’t take a gymnast, either.
“This has to be how he, or she, got in,” Aidan said.
“I imagine.” She was silent a moment. “Should I ask the police to come back? See if they can get any prints or anything?”
“The cops around here don’t get excited about bones,” he said. “I don’t think—no matter how much they like you—they’re going to pull out all the stops to find some prankster.” He looked at her and shrugged. “Besides, I doubt there’ll be any fingerprints other than mine.”
“Why not?”
“Because whoever bought those dolls was wearing gloves.”
“But my voodoo doll was a cheapie. Your voodoo dolls were the expensive ones.”
“You really think there are two people out there planting slashed-up voodoo dolls?”
“No,” she admitted, then crossed her arms over her chest, feeling a little shiver. Night was just starting to fall. Suddenly she was glad she had decided to go with him.
She didn’t want to be here alone when the darkness came.
The nighttime DJ at the radio station was a heavyset giant of a man named Al Fisher. He was a decent sort who loved music, loved people and had been the first one to contact Jeremy about doing PR. Tonight’s call-in segment was going great, Jeremy thought, as he reminded listeners that they had an hour left to call in for a chance at winning the last available tickets.
Then he got a call from some guy with a voice like a Halloween bogeyman.
“Your first event is this thing at the aquarium, right?” the caller said.
“Yes,” Jeremy said.
“They say you’re planning a second event out at that plantation you inherited,” the caller said in his raspy voice.
Jeremy hesitated. The idea of doing a gala out at the plantation hadn’t been a secret, but neither was it common knowledge. He wondered how this guy had heard about it.
“Well?” the caller said.
“The idea has come up, yes.”
“Well, get that idea right out of your head,” the caller said, his raspy whisper taking on a menacing quality. “What you’re doing is wrong. You may be a Flynn, but if you start bringing people out to that place, bad things are going to happen. Really bad things. The dead need to rest in peace. You need to get out of there or you’re going to die.”
“All right, great Halloween prank,” Al put in, hitting the cut-off switch and disconnecting the caller.
The rest of the hour passed pleasantly, but in light of the voodoo dolls that had shown up on the lawn, Jeremy couldn’t get the caller out of his mind. When they were finished, he took off the headphones and looked at Al. “You’ve got caller ID at the switchboard, don’t you?”
“Sure.”
“Find out who that was for me, will you?”
“Just some idiot,” Al said dismissively.
“I’d still like to know.”
“Gotcha.”