arrested.

The morning news brimmed with murder. Footage of Angus and Wanda being

escorted out of a cabin in Lake Tahoe was replayed on every channel. Unreal. Angus and

Wanda, handcuffed, trying to hide their faces, were escorted by burly sheriffs through a mob

of cameras.

What would happen to them? I assumed Wanda’s family would come to her rescue, but

I had never heard Angus mention any family besides this NorCal “Grampy.” He couldn’t

afford legal defense. He’d wind up with some court-appointed public defender.

I changed the channel and watched Angus being guided into a patrol car once again. It

was surreal. Eyes shining, the blonde reporter blabbed on with pseudo gravity to the folks at

home. You’d have thought they had nabbed the Zodiac Killer.

I turned off the TV, dumped my dish in the sink. Belatedly, it occurred to me that

Angus knew the truth about my relationship with Jake. How long before that came out in

questioning? The minute he found out that Jake was the cop who’d discovered the body, he’d

put two and two together. He’d spill. Or did Jake have a plan for keeping Angus quiet?

I considered Jake’s theory that Angus had tried to set me up the night before. It didn’t

make sense. Set me up for what? It wasn’t like the cops had been waiting for me to stumble

onto the crime scene. If anyone was being set up, wasn’t it most likely Angus? The body had

been found in his house.

I was sketchy on the details of how he had angered his former playmates, but there was

no doubt he had ticked off some unpleasant people. Then he’d compounded his offense by

skipping out. Was it too much of a leap to suppose that, when they’d been unable to retrieve

him through the power of negative thinking, they had decided to use the police?

Or to approach from another angle: Angus’s defection had posed a kind of threat to

them. They had neutralized him by framing him for murder.

Granted, committing murder was quite an escalation from harassment and vandalism,

but if these were the same people who had killed Tony Zellig and Karen Holtzer, then

murder wasn’t anything new.

Why this girl, though? Kinsey had clearly been one of “them.”

Okay, qualify that. She had been one of the group looking for Angus. Did that mean

she was part of Angus’s…what was it called? Coven? According to Guy Snowden, Angus had

belonged to a harmless Wicca group. I’d met Wiccans, and they didn’t seem like the same

species as Kinsey and the Poison Dwarf. Angus had been frightened of his former friends; the

scariest thing about the gang at Dragonwyck was their addiction to wheatgrass.

The symbols left at the shop and the grave sites of Tony Zellig and Karen Holtzer had

been inverted pentagrams – black magic. The Wiccans had been disturbed by them. So what

did that mean?

Might there be two different factions? Was there some kind of woo-woo turf war going

on? It was hard to picture Angus – the Angus I knew – as a major player in a diabolical

chess game. He could be a pawn, though.

Thinking about it made my brain hurt. Or maybe that was the hangover. I decided to

let it go and get downstairs.

* * * * *

I hadn’t been downstairs for ten minutes when Lisa phoned.

“Oh, Adrien, they’ve arrested That Boy!” She always referred to Angus as “That Boy.”

“They say he killed a girl. That he may be a serial killer!”

“That’s bull– ridiculous,” I said. “I think he’s been framed.” First time I’d actually put

the thought into words, but I realized I did believe this. I sure as hell did not believe that

Angus was a serial killer, and I hadn’t noticed any of the symptoms.

“Oh, darling!” A blend of sympathy and dismay. Mostly dismay.

Cradling the phone between my cheek and shoulder, I glanced over at Velvet. She was

busy addressing the shop’s Christmas cards. We’d spent an embarrassing amount of time

yesterday trying to print labels. In the end we’d decided it would be faster to do it by hand.

I lowered my voice. “Lisa, would it be possible to talk to Mr. Gracen? Could something

be worked out with my trust fund?”

“Have you decided about the house, then?”

“Huh? No. I was thinking of Angus. There’s no way he can afford decent legal defense.”

“Adrien, you must be joking.” Her tone was sharp. “Were it possible to lay your hands

on that money, helping that boy would never be an acceptable reason.”

“Is the money mine or not?”

“The money is in trust for you. The reason it is in trust is to prevent this very kind of

thing.”

“Oh, right. Thirty-two years ago my grandmother miraculously foresaw that one day I

might need cash to help a friend –”

“He’s not a friend, Adrien. He’s someone who works for you. Someone whom I have

always said was most unsavory.

“My God, you should hear yourself.”

“What does Jake say?”

“Jake? What the hell does Jake have to do with it?” The mention of Jake made me

madder than anything so far.

“Don’t swear at me, Adrien. Jake is a police officer. He has experience in these matters.

And he’s your…oh, what is it called? Your partner.”

“Jake has nothing to do with anything. Angus is my responsibility.”

“Your responsibility? How is that boy your anything?”

“He works for me. I don’t think he has anyone else.”

She answered tartly, “Rather a feudal attitude, don’t you think, from someone who

thinks I’m a snob?”

“Will you help me or not?”

“I will help you by doing whatever is in my power to prevent you from accessing that

money. That money is your future. You have no idea when you may need that – that

cushion.”

Right. Because – fingers crossed – my health might give out at any moment, thereby

fulfilling Lisa’s dire predictions for the past sixteen years.

“All I needed to know,” I said crisply and hung up.

After which, I stared in disbelief at the receiver sitting there in its cradle. I’d never

hung up on Lisa in my life. I don’t think I even interrupted her very often. Jeeeesus. I waited

for the phone to ring.

Waited.

Slowly I expelled a long breath. I glanced over at Velvet. She looked away hastily.

* * * * *

Late morning, the Misses Dauten showed up en masse. It was like someone had decided