“It’s relatively new,” she said. “I just bought it a couple weeks ago, and I wore it on a hike with David,” she said quietly, and then the tears started. “We went shopping. We went out for lunch, and, when we came back here, we were talking with the neighbors for a bit, and I was wearing it.”
She wondered if David’s house wasn’t probably the easiest location to grab that photo. If somebody was watching the house, then,hmm… “Okay, that’s a help. Thank you.”
“Why would somebody take that photo?” Louisa asked, puzzled.
“I’m not sure,” Kate said. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out. It was in David’s email inbox.”
“Weird,” Louisa said. “Well, I mean, unless somebody knew of me…” And then she stopped, gasped, and said, “Somebody wasn’t trying to put an idea in his head that I was having an affair, were they?”
“No, I don’t think that was it at all,” Kate quickly reassured her.
“Oh, good,” Louisa gasped. “I would absolutely hate for anything like that to have happened. He’s always been my life.”
“I’m sure he knew that.”
“Well, if he did,” Louisa said quietly, “why didn’t it matter then?”
That was a hell of a note to end the call on because Kate had absolutely no idea how to respond.
*
Simon’s Wee Hours of Saturday Morning
Simon woke inthe night—really the wee hours of early morning—with the same voice going on and on in his head.
Do it. Do it. Go ahead and do it.
Simon remained quiet, trying to let the voice wander through his consciousness. He wanted to slam the door to his mind and to lock it on the other side and to find a way to shut out intruders like this. Something was almost mocking, reminiscent of a teenage bully in high school, pushing you to do something you didn’t want to do on a dare, knowing that everybody was watching. And, if you didn’t do it, you would get picked on for the rest of the school year. Yet, if you did do it and failed, it would be just as freaking bad.
Do it, the voice said, with that hated insinuation that suggested the person on the other end of these words was totally capable of doing whatever it was.
On a hunch, Simon asked, “Do what?”
The voice stopped for a second and said,Do it, and then it was gone.
Simon was in bed, quiet, his heart slamming against his chest. He looked at the room around him. “Grandmother, what the hell did you get me into?”
It had been her abilities that had sent him as far away from this world as he had been. There’d been nothing fun about it for her either. She’d been mocked and teased. People laughed; others would cross the street to get away from her, all because of her witchy abilities. And yet his grandmother had been a wonderful woman with a heart of solid gold. Nobody had appreciated the things she had done for the community or for the individuals she had helped. And even those she had helped the most had a hard time seeing her publicly. Because the others would ostracize them as well. And it was all about community back then; it would have been all about keeping his grandmother away from the community.
“Assholes,” he muttered under his breath, as he tried to go back to sleep.
Only sleep was the furthest thing from his mind. As he lay here, he wondered who the hell the voice belonged to. It sounded different every time, different, yet somehow the same. Similar and yet something was off, almost—and then he stopped, not knowing how to describe it. Finally giving up, he rose and had a shower, then sat down with a fresh pot of coffee to do some paperwork.
As he sat in his favorite chair overlooking the view, he saw the sunrise. He smiled; it always helped to restore his faith in humanity, although humanity had nothing to do with that sun. It was all about Mother Nature, and, sure enough, humanity was doing as much to drive her into the ground as it could. He settled back, wondering just how bad things would get before people would take note of the environment and do something about it. When it was almost seven o’clock, his phone rang, and he looked at it in surprise. “Louisa? Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice hesitant. “I’m making arrangements for David’s funeral.”
“Ah, I’m sorry,” he said. “If there’s anything I can do to help—”
“That’s why I’m calling. I spoke with the detective yesterday, and she said something about a photo of me in an email.”
“And?” he asked, cautiously putting his pen down and picking up his coffee to take a sip. He wondered what she was calling about and how much Kate had told her.
“Well, you remember my friend who was here when you came by?” she said. “She didn’t seem to think that the police had any right to take the laptop.”
“Didn’t have any right?” he said. “Well, for one, I told you that they needed it, and you were in agreement with that.”
“But they didn’t have a warrant, did they?”