Ground Read online

  Gray light filtered through the skylight above, reflecting off the white-painted walls. Ivy twined up the brick. I let myself sink into the illusion of being in a forest. I breathed quietly, trying to feel where this anxiety was really coming from.

  My truck, okay, the theft still pissed me off. And Brayden – we’d been so careful not to admit our feelings for each other for so long. But the anxiety tangling in my chest was more than that. It reminded me of…

  College. And I don’t think about college a lot.

  But once, after a night at a frat party, I’d awoken with my eyelids stuck together from the glue from my false lashes. I couldn’t open my eyes, couldn’t figure out what was happening. This morning felt a lot like that.

  Squinting, I looked up through the skylight. A gray mass of clouds formed in the sky.

  I shut my eyes and rolled over. It was Saturday morning. My coffee shop was closed on weekends — we catered to the local, workaday crowd — so this was my sleep-in day, and I wasn't going to waste it with worry.

  The cat, Picatrix, leapt onto my bed and mewed in an annoyed tone. I say “the” cat rather than “my” cat, because no cat ever really belongs to you. Picatrix was a stray I’d taken in a few months back.

  She kneaded her paws into my side.

  “Five more minutes,” I mumbled.

  The claws came out, tiny needles piercing fabric and skin.

  “Fine.” I groaned. “I’ll feed you.”

  I sat up and stroked her soft, black fur.

  Someone banged on my door. The cat tensed, then leapt to the multi-colored throw rug. A striped blanket cascaded to the floor.

  I checked the clock on my end table. Ten o'clock. What kind of monster would bang on my door at this hour on a Saturday?

  I stumbled out of bed. Tying a silky kimono robe around my waist, I hurried to the exterior door and threw it open.

  The cat bolted between my bare legs and darted outside.

  My sisters, Lenore and Karin, grinned. Karin's smile was laced with repressed annoyance.

  “I forgot something,” I said, “didn’t I?”

  We were triplets, though we didn't look alike. Karin had auburn hair and a perennially serious expression. She was also an inch taller than my five-six and her features softer.

  Lenore had honey-colored hair, a fair complexion, and the body and movements of a dancer. She was also an inch taller than me. I'd been gypped in the height department.

  Even though we all had different noses and chins and eyes (mine were green), people pegged us for triplets. Feature-by-feature we were different, but the sum of our parts had a certain sameness.

  “You forgot our brunch,” Karin said, accusing. She blew into her hands then jammed them into the pockets of her thick, navy pea coat.

  I opened the door wider and let them inside.

  “Sorry,” I said. “It will only take me a minute to get ready.” I slammed the door behind them to keep out the cold.

  My sisters shared a doubtful look.

  “It will!” I said, defensive.

  I hurried to my bedroom and pondered my closet. And all right, so maybe it did take me a while to decide if I should wear the sapphire turtleneck or the ruby-colored sweater.

  I sped through dry brushing my skin. It was the single morning ritual I stuck to with any regularity, just because it felt so damned good. The brush still smelled of cinnamon oil from when I’d anointed it yesterday. The soft bristles tickled, acting as a gentle loofah and waking up my skin.

  Since my sisters were waiting, I took a super-fast shower and didn't bother with my hair. My bed head didn't need much aside from a quick finger combing anyway.

  I nudged shut the bedroom door to hide my unmade bed. Kicking a zebra-print throw pillow out of the way, I slipped my thick, ruby cable sweater over a babydoll dress. Applied my makeup and made a gesture, casting my morning glamour spell. Found a pair of thigh-high, suede boots to keep (most) of my legs warm.

  When I emerged, Lenore was sitting cross-legged on one of my kilim throws over the distressed wood floor. My sofa was at her back and framed by the white-painted, ivy-covered brick alcove. She scribbled in her black-leather notebook — poetry, no doubt.

  Karin lounged on the sofa and flipped through a fashion magazine, which meant she was bored out of her mind.

  Shy Lenore, who worked in a bookstore and wrote poetry for fun, dressed like a bookish bohemian. Today she wore a long, white, flowing coat over white jeans, a pale blue knit top and matching infinity scarf. I couldn’t tell what Karin had on beneath her coat aside from a pair of skinny jeans.

  “I'm ready,” I announced.

  “You're going to freeze,” Karin warned, eyeing my bare thighs critically.

  “But I'll do it in style.” I pirouetted, and she made a face. “Besides, it's not like it's snowing.”

  My cell phone rang. Anyone who knew me wouldn't call at this hour on a Saturday. Had the police found my truck? I scrambled for my purse, tripping over a discarded stiletto heel and stumbling to my couch. Brightly patterned cushions tumbled to the floor.

  I answered, breathless. “Hello?”

  “Ms. Jayce Bonheim?” The man’s voice sounded official, and my heart jumped.

  “Yes,” I said, “that's me. Is this the police?”

  Karin straightened on the sofa. She and Lenore shared another look. I ignored it.

  “Yes, this is the sheriff's office. We've found your truck.”

  I squealed. “You found it! When can I get it back?” But an odd lump formed in my stomach. Suddenly apprehensive, I asked, “Is it in one piece?”

  “Yes, we'd like to take you to the site. A squad car will be there in five minutes.”

  “Five...? But—”

  The person hung up.

  I stared at the phone, puzzled.

  Karin rose. “What's going on? Is there a problem?”

  “Someone stole my truck last night, right out of the Bell and Thistle parking lot. The police say they've found it.”

  “That's good news,” Lenore said. “You were lucky.”

  “Yes,” I said, uncertain. “They're sending a squad car over to take me to the site.”

  “Did the thief crash it?” Karin’s lips pursed.

  “I don't think so.” I twisted the bangles on my wrists. “They said the truck was okay.” But picking me up and driving me to my truck didn't track with what I knew about the Doyle Sheriff's department. Unless someone at the department was trying to make up for wrongly arresting me for murder last summer.

  “What's wrong?” Lenore asked.

  I shook my head. “I don't know. I've just got this feeling something's off.”

  My sisters shared another look.

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “You know how it is with my feelings. I'm totally intuitive.”

  “Yeah,” Karin said. “It is odd that they're offering to play taxi service so you can get your truck.”

  “That's what I thought.” I gnawed my bottom lip.

  “Maybe they feel bad about arresting you earlier this year?” Lenore said.

  “I thought that too.” Another cool thing about being triplets is we tend to think alike, even if we aren't alike.

  Heavy footsteps clumped up the stairs outside.

  Twin lines appeared between Lenore’s eyebrows. “That wasn't five minutes.”

  A heavy fist pounded on the door.

  I opened it, my sisters clustering behind me.

  Two uniformed sheriff's deputies stood at the top of the steps. Even though I’d known they were coming, I flinched. The hard expressions on their faces brought back bad memories. But this wasn't a murder. It was a stolen truck. My truck. I was the victim.

  “Jayce Bonheim?” the gray-haired man asked. I guessed he was in his late forties, early fifties, but his face had that perfect, waxy sheen shared by all Doyle’s residents.

  “That's me,” I said.

  “We've found your truck. Will you come with us, please?”


  “Let me grab my purse.” I swooped to the couch and collected my bag, and then a thick, sand-colored scarf that was lying beside it. Looping it around my neck, I followed the police onto the landing outside.

  The chill air stung my cheeks, and the clouds seemed to darken. I shivered. “Sorry about brunch,” I said to my sisters, clustered in the open doorway. “Maybe we can do lunch instead?”

  But Karin was dialing her cell phone. “I'm calling Nick.”

  “Maybe I should come with you.” Lenore tugged on a hank of blond hair looped over her shoulder.

  “Sorry, ma'am,” the younger cop, his face spattered with freckles, said. “We're only allowed to bring Ms. Jayce Bonheim.”

  “It's cool,” I said with more confidence than I felt. Something was definitely Up, but I hadn’t done anything wrong. I’d called in the stolen truck right away. Brayden had witnessed everything. I’d be fine.

  I followed the sheriff’s deputies downstairs. The younger man opened the police car’s rear door.

  Stomach twisting, I slid inside. Criminals rode in the back. People under suspicion rode in the back. But it would be a tight fit if I smashed into the front with the two men, so maybe I was reading too much into seating arrangements. I tried to relax, but my skin hummed with tension.

  We drove out of town and turned east, driving past the Bell and Thistle and higher into the Sierras. Patches of snow dotted the ground. The pine forest thickened.

  We rounded a sharp bend, and the squad car slowed. Half a dozen sheriff's cars and a coroner's vehicle parked on the side of the road in a thin layer of snow. Too many emergency vehicles for a simple stolen truck.

  The deputies stepped from the squad car.

  I reached for the door, realized there were no inside handles.

  The phone in my fist rang, and I checked the caller ID. It was Nick, Karin's boyfriend. “Hi, Nick.”

  “What's going on?” His deep voice rumbled.

  “I'm not sure.”

  The older cop opened my door for me. “No phone calls, ma'am.”

  “The deputy is telling me I can't talk,” I said.

  “Where are you?” Nick asked.

  “Just up the highway about twenty miles.”

  “I'm on my way,” he said.

  “No calls,” the deputy repeated.

  I hung up. “Sorry. I didn't know.” I was about to see something other people weren't supposed to know about. Either that, or I was under suspicion, and the cops didn't want me tipping off any partners in crime. Restless, I turned the cheap and cheerful bangles on my wrists.

  I slid from the squad car and adjusted the beigey scarf around my neck.

  “Your truck is this way, ma'am.” The deputy gestured toward a narrow, dirt track. Thin drifts of snow powdered the shoulders.

  I knew this place. The road was short and led to a rough parking lot for a local trailhead.

  In silence, we walked down the dirt road, lined by pine trees smelling faintly of vanilla — sugar pines. A chipmunk raced past us and spiraled up a tree. It glanced back at me, its beady eyes seeming to warn, “be smart and beat it, lady!”

  The road sloped downward. We rounded a bend, and the track opened up to a parking area. My charcoal pickup sat parked near the trailhead, flanked by two granite boulders covered in a mantle of snow. Its front doors hung open, and Sheriff McCourt herself rummaged inside the cab.

  I surged forward, but the younger deputy grasped my arm. “Wait here.”

  The older deputy strode to my truck and said something to the sheriff.

  Sheriff McCourt backed from the cab, removed her wide brimmed hat, and clawed her hands through curly, blond hair. She clamped the hat on her head and strode toward me, her expression impassive. Her thick, greenish-brown jacket was zipped to the collar. “Ms. Bonheim. Thank you for coming.”

  “What's going on?” I rubbed my arms and looked around at the milling officers.

  “Is that your truck?” the sheriff asked.

  “Yes. I reported it stolen last night. What's wrong?”

  “Why do you think something's wrong?”

  “The coroner's van,” I said. “Was there an accident?”

  She glared at the older deputy, and his lips pressed together. “Come this way,” she said to me.

  Goosebumps on my thighs, I followed her to the rear of my pickup. Karin had been right about my short dress. I hated it when she was right. I hated it more that I was about to see something awful. And it didn’t take a witch to foresee that ending.

  “Did you leave anything inside your truck bed last night?” she asked.

  “Leave anything?” I thought about it. “There was an old tire.”

  “Only a tire?”

  “I had to change a tire last week. I hadn't gotten around to taking it in for recycling yet.” Changing a tire is hard work when you don't get much practice. After I’d finished, I'd dumped everything into my truck bed and forgotten about it, ignoring the tire iron’s rattling.

  “Look inside the bed.”

  I reached to brace my hand on the tailgate.

  “Don't touch anything,” she said sharply.

  My hand dropped to my side. Standing on my toes, I peered over the gate. A beefy, red-haired man lay curled beside the old tire. His skin was bluish. His eyes stared. Blood stained his scalp. Dizzy, I sucked in my breath. “That's Matt Zana.”

  “You know him?” the sheriff asked.

  “He's a handyman from Doyle.” My voice wobbled. Well, I'd known there'd be a body. The coroner's van had been a flashing red clue. “He installed some shelves in Ground a few months ago.” And he’d been a major pain in the butt. Matt had jabbered constantly, demanding my attention. Little wonder it had taken three times longer to install the shelves than planned. In the end, I'd almost wished I'd tackled the job myself. But he was dead, and that washed away a swarm of sins.

  “A few months ago?” the sheriff repeated. “When was that, exactly?”

  “Um, September.” Sticky sorrow weighed my chest. Matt was married. I knew, because a good bit of his conversation had been complaints about his “old lady,” Melanie. The poor woman. Did she know he was dead? I didn't think they had any kids, and that now seemed like a good thing.

  A steller’s jay settled on a pine branch and dislodged a coating of snow, which rustled to the ground.

  “When's the last time you saw him?” she asked.

  “Saw him?” I parroted. “I don't know. I think he was at Antoine's Bar last week.”

  “What about the Bell and Thistle?”

  “Where my truck was stolen?” I shook my head. “No, I didn't see him there last night, if that's what you mean.” I tried to read her expression and failed. Why did you bring me here?

  Her eyes narrowed. “Tell me about last night.”

  “I was in the ladies room. The window was open, and I looked out. It overlooks the parking lot. I saw my pickup being backed out of its spot.”

  “Backed out?” she asked, her tone edged with suspicion.

  “Yes, that's how I parked it. Why?”

  “In my experience, it's easier to back a truck of that size into a parking spot then drive in from the front.”

  “Well, I didn't back it in,” I said. “The Bell and Thistle has a narrow lot, and there were a couple other big trucks already parked there. They stuck out, making it hard to maneuver. So I drove straight in.”

  “Do you remember who owned those other trucks?”

  “Who else was in the bar, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  Weak beams of gray sunlight streamed through the pine branches. The jay shrieked, the deep-blue tuft on its head twitching.

  “Mr. and Mrs. O'Malley were there.” They'd been giving Brayden and me the evil eye all night. “Hank, the bartender was working that night, and Doc Toeller was there. I don't remember any of the others.”

  “Really?” She raised a brow. “You're quite the party girl. I'd have thought you'd have known everyone there
.”

  I folded my arms. Normally, I might have. But last night I'd only had eyes for Brayden. And if I was telling the truth, I'd been avoiding the looks of the others — some curious, some hostile. All of Doyle knew how Brayden’s wife had died, and that I’d been a suspect in her murder. “Well, I didn't. I was there with Brayden Duarte.”

  “Ah yes, the widower.” Her lip curled. “You two didn't waste much time.”

  I sucked in my breath and stiffened. “That's really none of your business.”

  “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Then what happened?”

  “I ran out to the parking lot and shouted for the thief to stop. The driver reversed hard, like he was going to run me down. I had to dive out of the way. Then Brayden ran outside. The truck drove off, and we called the police.”

  “The thief tried to run you down?” Her voice was flat, disbelieving.

  “Brayden was there,” I sputtered. “He saw everything. You can ask him.”

  “I will.”

  “Jayce!” a man's voice called.

  We turned, and the sheriff muttered a curse.

  Nick Heathcoat, flanked by two deputies, strode toward us. Tall and dark haired, and with the chiseled looks of a Greek statue, it was little wonder Karin had fallen for the man. Not only was he an awesome lawyer, he hadn't freaked out when she'd hit him with the double-barreled news that we were witches and under a curse.

  I hadn't even broken the news of the curse to Brayden yet, though he was down with the witchcraft. And I knew with a sick certainty it was no accident a body had been found in my truck. Witches can’t afford to believe in coincidences.

  Nick flashed a grim smile. “Good morning, Jayce, Sheriff. I understand you have some questions for my client.”

  Sheriff McCourt’s lips peeled back, shark-like. “Strange that Miss Bonheim would call a lawyer for a stolen truck.”

  “Strange that you'd bring out a team of crime scene investigators for a recovered truck,” he said.

  The sheriff turned to me. “We need to discuss this at the station.”

  “Discuss a stolen truck?” Nick asked.

  “Discuss a murder.”

  He didn't say anything for a moment. “What's going on?”

  “Her truck is a crime scene.” The sheriff’s mouth pinched. “We found a body inside.”