Chapter 32
BYE
Early Early Morning Day 16
The door flew open. Diego appeared briefly in his black tactical gear, face covered, gun drawn, before the rest of the candles were put out by the gust of wind.
The lights turned on quickly. The room filled with men.
Me hovering over an unconscious Maracella, a dead bodyguard inside the circle, his blood all over the floor, the other bodyguard rocking back and forth in a corner. Babbling incoherently. The frustration rose in my throat. Tears threatened again.
I wasn't sure if the bodyguard could be mentally recovered. If the spell even worked for Maracella. I knew one thing for sure about Demons. They lied.
I was furious and frustrated and my anger was hot and quick in my stomach. Jonny's lies, Demons showing up, and the man who made me forget, all swirled around in my head. I wiped the blood off my knife on the blanket of the bed and stuck it in my boot.
I watched as Diego looked at Maracella and nodded toward his colleagues. They picked her up gently and removed her from the room. Her bodyguard followed.
The other man, the one who volunteered for the ritual. His body was pale at the North of the circle.
Diego watched me, his eyes dark. He thought I did this. He believed I orchestrated this.
I looked around the room. These things always seemed to be caught on camera. There it was, a camera, not hidden very well, peaking between the leaves of a fake tree.
Diego noticed what I was looking at and walked over to it.
While his back was turned, I headed to the door. I spotted my suitcase and purse against the wall and picked them up, walking out as calmly as I could.
The taxi was quick to pick me up, down the street from the Lodge. About an hour later I was sitting on a bench at the small train station, waiting for my train to arrive. I held my ticket up and looked at it closely. A one-way ticket to Phoenix, Arizona.
Someone ran quickly past me grabbing the ticket from my hands, the young man was so fast I barely stood from the bench before he disappeared around a corner.
Fuck.
The two other people on the platform didn't seem to notice. I sighed and made my way back inside to buy another ticket. I was digging through my purse for my wallet when I ran into the Sheriff. "How are you everywhere?"
He chuckled. "That's kind of what being a Sheriff is." He shrugged and noticed my fat lip. He reached to touch me but stopped himself and noticed my suitcase. "You can't leave town yet, the case is still open."
I sighed. "Well, I can't stay at the Lodge anymore." I shrugged, all I wanted to do was cry and sleep and eat some carbs.
The Sheriff looked at me closely. "You think you're causing all this?"
"A lot has happened since I've been here."
He laughed. "A lot happens around here all the time. This town has been cursed." He pulled his Magic Detector from his pocket. Its red light blinked rapidly. "My sister would love to take you in. She hasn't stopped talking about you since dinner."
"I don't know about that. I can always get a hotel room for a night or two." My paychecks were pitiful and wouldn't leave me much room to buy another train ticket.
"Not really, the other hotel in town is being sprayed for roaches." He pointed across the street. The windows were boarded up and signs read closed all over the large building. A pest control van sat out front. "How's Cherry doing? Keiran says she's taking the break up pretty hard."
I swallowed the lump rising in my throat. "You've seen Keiran?"
He nodded. "My sister's dinner the other night."
Faint memories of Keiran swirled in my head. It was him that forced my car into the tree but how I knew him before that still eluded me. I needed some answers from him about my past. And if he doesn't tell you? I imagined taking my knife and stabbing him in the eye.
"You can always stay with me," the Sheriff said quietly. "Do you like the water?"
I nodded. I needed to get to Keiran and figure out a way to make him talk.
We walked to the Sheriff's jeep and he drove us down the highway before we reached a windy mountain road that overlooked a big lake. The sun setting on the glittering water and the boats bobbing lightly made for a whimsical sight.
"You live on a boat?" Even though I hadn't been sleepwalking, being so close to the water still made me nervous.
He shrugged. "It's like being rocked to sleep. You might like it." He parked in a lot close to the docks.
I followed him to his boat. "Oh wow, it looks like a pirate ship."
