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  There was a loud crack, and I twitched. On the windowsill, a crow peered in at us. It rapped again.

  “Shoo!” Lenore rose, and the bird flew off. “And the poem, did she kill her lover?”

  “The poem doesn’t say. It ends with her casting the curse. Nobody knows how it ends, or if the curse rebounds on her. But it’s only a story.”

  “Is it?” Jayce crumpled on the sofa. “At least no one can say you’re not thorough. You would go all the way back to ancient Rome. But how does it help us?”

  I bit my bottom lip. “It tells us you don’t cast dark magic without marking your soul. In magic, there’s always a price. The point is, there’s a historical precedent for this sort of love/death curse.”

  “So it’s real,” Jayce said. “And it’s happening. If we’re going to break this curse, we’re going to have to use everything we’ve got.”

  “Whoa,” I said. “Last I checked, none of us were pregnant. We’re not in danger.”

  Jayce just gave me a look.

  “Wait,” I said. “You don’t really believe Alicia died in Ground because of this curse?”

  Jayce rose and paced. “A human killed Alicia. But what are the odds she’d end up in Ground?”

  “If someone’s trying to frame you—”

  “Who? Why would someone want to hurt me?”

  I didn’t have an answer for that.

  “So what did you think of Aunt Ellen’s idea that someone in Doyle is keeping the curse active?” Lenore asked.

  “It could explain why a curse could continue across multiple generations,” I said, reluctant. “But Ellen’s going through a lot, and she’s being pumped full of drugs. Can we really be sure she’s even got her history right? We know our mother died in childbirth, but I don’t know how our grandmother or great grandmother died. Do you?”

  “No,” Lenore said, frowning. “Genealogy never interested me.”

  Jayce whirled on Lenore. “So you doubt her?”

  “No, it’s just… It’s hard to know for sure.” Lenore’s delicate hands twisted in her lap. “Mentally, Ellen’s not all there. Last night she had a long, rambling conversation with an invisible rabbit. Then she insisted I get the washing off the line before it rained.”

  “It was raining,” Jayce said.

  “She’s got a dryer,” I said. “She doesn’t have a clothes line.”

  “But Ellen wasn’t rambling today,” Lenore said. “She seemed as clear-headed as ever, didn’t she?”

  I nodded.

  “More importantly,” Lenore continued, “three’s a big number in witchcraft, and here we are, triplets. Maybe Ellen’s right, and this curse can be broken.”

  “So you believe it’s real.” I rubbed my hands over my black slacks. No. How could we have gone our entire lives under a curse and felt nothing? We were witches, dammit. If we’d been so ignorant, we couldn’t be very good ones.

  “Do you mean you still don’t believe?” Jayce asked.

  I studied my shoes. “Curses exist. But before Ellen told us about it, I never felt I was under any dark force. And now that we’re obsessing over it, we could be cursing ourselves.”

  “We’re not obsessing,” Jayce said.

  Beads of moisture dripped down the sides of the glass, its cold smoothness pressing against my fingertips. I could touch the glass, feel it, understand it. This was real. “Maybe. But the more we believe in it, the more powerful the curse becomes.”

  “All right,” Jayce said, “let’s assume someone in Doyle is involved in the curse. What does that mean?”

  Lenore shook her blond head. “How can that be possible? Ellen said it’s been happening for centuries, the man our ancestress supposedly killed has been dead for a long time, and so have any of his loved ones. We don’t even know who he was.”

  “Maybe we should,” Jayce said.

  “Is this really where we want to spend our time?” Frustration knotted my belly. “Gossip and curses? Someone murdered a woman in your coffee shop.”

  “I’m no detective,” Jayce said. “What do you expect me to do besides get myself a good lawyer? Right now, all we can do is keep it together and focus on Ellen. And she’s focused on this curse.”

  But it wasn’t all we could do. We could ask around, figure out who had it in for Alicia and Jayce. “Forget the curse. You could go to jail. How can you be so… casual about getting pulled in for questioning?” My fingernails bit into my palms.

  Jayce rolled her eyes. “I’m not being casual. I’m sitting tight and listening to my lawyer.”

  “I think Ellen would rest easier if she knew we were working the curse angle,” Lenore said. “We need to take this seriously, if only for her sake.”

  I rose. If we were cursed, we were cursed. I didn’t see what we could do about it. But there were things I could do in the real world. “Fine. We take it seriously. You figure out the curse. I’ll do what I do best.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  I drummed my fingers on the dining room table and waited for my computer to boot. A warm breeze flowed through the open window, the ferns on the hillside rippling in the sunlight.

  Curses. I was still torn between disbelief and dread. If a curse had taken out every mother in our family line, then it was powerful. Too powerful for someone of my abilities to tackle. Besides, if it existed, we’d lived with it for years. We only had to worry if one of us got pregnant, and that was definitely not in my near future. The immediate concern was the murder in Ground.

  But Lenore was right. Ellen was worried about the curse, and that mattered to me a great deal.

  Rising, I walked to my cheerful blue kitchen and poured a glass of water from the pitcher in the fridge. I took a sip and held the glass against my forehead. My home had no air conditioning. Sheltered by the trees and hillside, the house was usually cool. But this afternoon the heat had broken through. The overhead fans turned, stirring the hot air.

  Returning to the dining room, I sat at the wooden table and clicked to the Doyle Daily Journal website. The murder of their editor was front-page news, though there was nothing in the article I hadn’t already learned.

  I typed Alicia’s name into the paper’s online search engine and scrolled through the articles under her by-line. Her stories appeared daily. Articles about the harvest wine festival, school board meetings, a local fire… Nothing scandalous, only the daily life and gossip of a small town.

  Two hours later, I rubbed my bleary eyes.

  If Alicia had enemies, it wasn’t because of anything she’d reported in the last three years. An older article? Or something she was working on now? I reached for the phone. Maybe Brayden had had luck with his wife’s computer.

  I hesitated. Nick’s advice to avoid Brayden hadn’t been bad. Brayden had a thing for Jayce, and he tolerated me because I was his connection to her. Would using that help or hurt my sister?

  I set down the phone, unwilling to risk it. Not today.

  Instead, I entered the sheriff’s name into the search engine. Sheriff McCourt was all over the news, and it didn’t take long to find her husband’s story. I whistled. He’d run the county’s welfare department and embezzled nearly half a million dollars.

  McCourt had set up false accounts for welfare recipients who didn’t exist and then pocketed the money. He’d been sentenced to five-years in jail for fraud and identity theft and had a year left on his sentence.

  Was it possible his wife hadn’t known he was stealing? Returning to the newspaper’s website, I ran a search on the election, a year after his arrest. There’d been a heated back-and-forth in the op-ed pages. One side thought the wife shouldn’t be forced to pay for the sins of her husband. The other suggested she was either a fool for not knowing what her husband had been up to or was complicit in the crime. The first side must have won, because the sheriff had been re-elected. There’d been calls for a recount, but it had never come to anything.

  Feeling dirty for doing it, I ran a search on the statutory rape Brayde
n had mentioned. The police arrested a teacher named Ely Milbourne for “having an ongoing sexual relationship with a local student.” My mouth twisted. Milbourne had claimed innocence — that the student had seduced him. Riiight.

  Another short article rehashed the story, adding that Milbourne had made bail. And then a flurry of articles after he’d skipped bail, disappeared.

  I studied his photo. Ely Milbourne was handsome, with piercing blue eyes, chiseled features, and thick, brown hair. With his looks, women must have been throwing themselves at him. Why had he resorted to a teenager?

  I looked through the window. On the hillside, the shadows of the trees lengthened. I snapped shut my computer and stood, stretched. Jayce said she’d stay with Ellen tonight. I should have prepared to join her, but my limbs twitched, restless.

  Stuffing my keys into the pocket of my slacks, I strode out the back. I’d once attempted to fashion a garden in the backyard but had managed to kill everything. Finally, I’d let Jayce take over. She’d planted winding paths lined with sage and leading to a sinuous labyrinth of lavender bushes.

  “Not even you can kill this,” Jayce had promised.

  So far, she’d been right.

  Inhaling its heady scent, I walked around the labyrinth and climbed over the stile.

  I strode up the hill and into the woods. My black tennis shoes crunched on the dried oak leaves and acorn hulls dusting the path. The soft breeze, the scent of drying, wild herbs relaxed my muscles, and I rolled my neck.

  Boston had been exciting with its people and bustle, and the surrounding forests and lakes had been gorgeous. But this was my home, with its long grasses, golden in the summer. I loved the changes in elevation, from oaks to redwoods, and then from pines to sequoias.

  Ahead, a chipmunk darted along the path and raced up an oak. I climbed higher, where the big trees waited, cool and silent sentinels among the twisting hills.

  The forest darkened, redwoods blocking the sun and making shade for a stream lined with ferns. I ran my fingers along the bark of a broken stump, covered in thick, green moss.

  A branch cracked to my right, and I whipped toward the sound.

  A narrow, granite boulder, upright like a dolmen, stood alone. Lichen bleached its sides. I stood for a moment, peering past it. Shaking myself, I continued on.

  I hiked on, the slope working my thighs. The scar on my palm burned, and I rubbed it against my jeans, silently cursing that long ago spider.

  The creek trickled below, on the left, and I paused to look down the hillside and watch its progress. I closed my eyes. The burble of water could have been a murmured conversation, and for a moment I thought I heard words in the trickling stream.

  Leaning forward, I strained my ears. No, the sound was only water, teasing my imagination.

  I roused myself and blinked. The forest had grown darker while I’d stood daydreaming. I checked my watch, squinting at the dial in the gloom.

  An hour had passed.

  I tapped my watch. An hour? How was that possible? Judging by the distance, I’d been walking no more than twenty or thirty minutes. Had I’d left the house later than I’d thought? The wind soughed in the branches above, and I shivered despite the heat.

  The undergrowth snapped.

  My heart skipped a beat. It was probably a small animal, but I turned, returning the way I’d come. I’d promised my sisters I’d come to the hospital, and I wanted to shower and change first, and—

  Above me, there was a creak, a crack, a crash. I looked up.

  A branch plummeted toward me.

  Yelping, I skittered backwards. The branch thudded to the earth, smaller branches scattering, snapping.

  I clutched my chest. The branch was thick, heavy. It could have crushed my skull… like Alicia Duarte’s.

  Swallowing, I stepped over the branch. It was nearly full dark now, the silhouettes of the tree trunks barely visible. The near-night seemed unnatural, as if time now flowed at a different pace. But the sun set more quickly in the shade of the trees and the hollow of the hills.

  I trod carefully, staring down at the narrow path, trying to pick out its faint trail in the deepening dark. I passed the tall, granite stone. In the darkness, it looked human, a forlorn, hulking form.

  The bushes rustled.

  Mouth dry, I lengthened my strides. I knew this path, knew these woods. I wasn’t going to get lost. Occasionally a bear made its way to this elevation. But that was rare, and a bear wouldn’t bother me. Bears had their own problems to deal with.

  A branch snapped.

  The hell with rationality. I ran, barreling beneath the trees, around a twist in the hillside. A man’s figure rose before me, and I slammed into him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Oof.”

  I tumbled to the ground and tucked into a clumsy roll. Panting, I scrambled to my feet. A light shone in my face, blinding me.

  “You might watch where you’re running,” a man said.

  “Who…?” I edged backward, raising my hand to shield my eyes. A dried leaf dropped from my palm. “Who’s there?” I demanded, my voice shrill. “I can’t see you.”

  The light flipped upward, making a ghoul of Nick Heathcoat’s face. The lawyer frowned, the flashlight deepening the furrows in his brow. “You shouldn’t be out here alone, not at this time of night.”

  “What are you doing here?” I crossed my arms.

  “I was looking for that homeless man you and your sister ran into outside Ground. Word is he likes to hang out by the spring. I must have taken a wrong turn.”

  “You did.” I brushed off my shirt. It was too dark to tell if I’d been successful at removing the dirt. “The spring’s on another path.” And Nick Heathcoat was looking for it, searching for answers. Jayce’s “feeling” about him had been right. He was taking this seriously. I let my head fall backwards and worked to master my breath. Light from a single star penetrated the thick tree branches.

  He laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. At the contact, I inhaled sharply.

  “Hey.” Nick peered into my eyes. “Are you okay?” He scanned the flashlight over my body. “I don’t see any major wounds. Let me see your hands.”

  “I’m fine. They’re fine.” He smelled of musk and cedar, and I had a sudden urge to lean into him. Confused, I stepped away. “Come on. I’ll show you where the spring is.”

  “No, I’ll walk you home.”

  I strode down the path toward the spring. “We need to find him, and it will go quicker if I help. I saw the man earlier today, behind Ground. I tried to talk to him, but he ran off.”

  He aimed his flashlight at the trail. “You shouldn’t have done that. If you see him again, call me.”

  “I don’t see how he could have gotten inside Jayce’s coffee shop to kill Alicia Duarte. But maybe he saw someone.” The path branched, and I veered left, up the hill. “The trail to the spring is this way. It’s easy to miss in the dark.”

  Nick growled. “Karin, enough. I’ll do this on my own.”

  “If we hadn’t run into each other, you’d still be wandering in the wrong direction.”

  “I’d have found the spring eventually.”

  My eyes adjusted to the light. Nick wore hiking clothes — boots and jeans, a t-shirt and backpack. The spring was only two miles in, so the gear seemed excessive. But people did get lost in these woods. Six years ago, one young woman had never returned. I frowned, remembering. My sisters and I had been away at college, but our aunt had been part of the volunteer search team. When we’d finally arrived home, she was still brokenhearted at their failure.

  We trekked along the winding path, Nick’s boots a faint rustle on the uneven trail. I lagged behind him. The edge of a black tattoo peaked from beneath his blue top, and I studied it, trying to figure out the image and wondering about the lawyer.

  He rubbed the back of his neck, as if he felt my stare.

  I looked away.

  Trees loomed over us, their presence a weight squeezing
my lungs. An irrational fear spiked through me that they were aware, watching. I’d always liked these woods, but tonight they emanated something malignant. And my imagination was running away with me again. But when I spotted a clearing ahead, I broke into a trot.

  “Hey, wait up,” he said.

  I reached the clearing and my muscles unknotted. A crescent moon blazed above the trees. My blood pumped, erratic, in my veins. What was wrong with me?

  I checked my watch, a useless gesture in the light of the waning moon. My wrist trembled, and I shoved my hands into my pockets. “Have you got the time?”

  Nick raised his watch. It briefly glowed blue. “Almost nine o’clock.”

  I stared. “Nine? That can’t be right.” I’d been in the forest for three hours? And I’d promised my sisters I’d be at the hospital, dammit. My face tightened. I was late.

  “I don’t think my watch is off. What’s wrong?”

  My jaw clenched. Late, late, late. Too late to turn around now. We were nearly at the spring. “Nothing. The spring’s not much farther.” I pointed across the clearing. “That’s where the trail picks up.”

  He clicked off his flashlight and moved forward more slowly. I followed, placing my feet carefully. If the homeless man was here, we didn’t want to alert him with our flashlight. But the darkness made me uneasy, the moonlight bewitching Nick into a gray shadow.

  At a set of rough steps cut into the hillside, we moved more carefully. The sound of running water filtered through the bracken.

  My ankle brushed against a low branch. I started, skin twitching.

  Nick stepped off the last stair and paused, gesturing for me to halt. He scanned the area.

  We stood on a valley floor. A pool of water glittered, black in the moonlight. Heard but unseen, the spring emerged from a break in mossy granite. Water burbled over stones, flowing away through a cleft in the hills. Redwoods towered, silent sentinels guarding the ferns and brush dotting the edges of the spring.