Page 38 of The Accidental Detectives

“He lied,” Brenda said, weaker with each word, her voice raspy and slurred. “His name…wasn’t…Winston…”

I needed to forget the details about his name and why he’d lied. We had to get the hell out of here and get Brenda fed. When I had this bitch in a choke hold she’d remember into the afterlife, I could ask questions.

“But didn’t this thing with Win…er, Alfred, happen a long-ass time ago? I don’t wanna play armchair psychiatrist, but this shit? It’s not exactly healthy to hang on to stuff this long, let alone hundreds of years. Maybe you should get help?”

Sonja tipped her head back, revealing her creamy throat as she laughed—before she lifted her head and balled her fist, hurling a fireball at my head.

The hot ball of her anger hit me square in the head, singeing my hair. Not the first time this has happened, by the way. When Robbie was learning how to be a witch, she’d set my hair on fire, too, but I would’ve liked the previous time to have been the last, thanks very much.

While my hair crackled and sizzled, and Brenda slid farther down my body, Sonja leaned into me, her face hard, her blue eyes fiery. “Alfred was the love of my life! He was supposed to marry me.Meeee! It was all arranged by our families, and she stole him! This tramp—thisjezebel—ruined my life! He was mine!”

Wait. Theirfamilieshad arranged it? Did they do that for stable boys back in the day? I ground my next words out, trying to stay focused, but the pain of the zip-ties digging into my flesh was becoming a distraction I couldn’t ignore.

“But he was a fucking stable boy, Sonja. Why would your family want you to marry a stable boy? Back then, wasn’t that like marrying the guy who works at the gas station?”

Sonja looked surprised at first, but then she got her footing. “Alfred was no stable boy! He was a mining heir. His father owned half of Pennsylvania, and he was my fiancé!”

“So what the fuck was he doing, pretending to be a stable boy?”

Planting her hands on her slim hips, Sonja made a face. “He hated his father and he hated mining. My father owned railroads. We were the perfect match.Perfectuntil he ran away and went to work forherbrother.” She looked away, like she was lost in a memory. “He left me at the altar, humiliated me in front of hundreds of people…”

I dug the toes of my work boots into the hard ground, trying to stand up. I’d feel better if I could look her in the eye. “So why did you wait all this time to get your revenge? And girl, that’s called obsession, not revenge,” I spat.

Tears formed in her eyes, sliding along her rosy cheeks. “After Alfred ran away, my father lost his business. Without that merger, we became paupers. We were thrown out onto the street—and all because he fell inlove,” she said, her words dripping with sarcasm. “I was married off to a horrible man who beat me, abused me, for money that my father just wasted anyway,” she growled, hissing the last words.

Brenda was fading fast. Her silence beside me, her limp form sagging, told me so. We needed to get this show on the road.

Rolling my head on my neck, my burnt hair falling in my eyes, I pushed harder to get an answer. I knew what Sonja wanted. She wanted to brag—gloat about the work she’d put into besting Brenda. I wanted her to get it the hell over with so I could get my hands on her.

“But you still didn’t answer the question. Why did you wait so long to get your revenge, Sonja?”

She sighed, long and beleaguered, letting her fingers flutter to her mouth. “Because I couldn’t find Brenda! I didn’t know where she was. We didn’t have social media back then. But I never gave up, and while I waited, I met someone who showed me how to practice the art of dark magic, and we made a deal.”

A deal. Darnell had once made one of those—not for the reasons Sonja had, but deals were common in the paranormal world. It happened all the time, mostly with the devil.

“A deal?” I spat. “A deal that did what Sonja?”

“A deal that turned me into a witch and bestowed me with immortality. A deal that gave me more power than you can ever imagine.”

Drops of blood began to slide along my wrists and onto my fingers. That meant the force of Sonja’s spell had a rare magnitude. Vampires don’t readily bleed, our healing powers too great, unless the wounds have a whole lot of power behind them.

“Great. So you were turned into a witch. Yahoo. Get to the point,” I ordered, my jaw tight, knowing my temper was getting the better of me and the tearing of my flesh wasn’t helping my patience.

Sonja lifted her chin, the smile on her face fond. “Eventually, I grew strong…strong enough with my new powers that I could hatch a plan to make Brenda pay for ruining my life, for leaving me destitute. It took time—so much time—so much research, but once I found Brenda, and then I found Owen, it was all a breeze from there.”

She grinned then, like she was proud of all her hard work, putting her hands behind her back and clasping them together.

“But she didn’t even know you existed…”

“Well, she does now, doesn’t she?”

To say I was rapidly becoming tired of this game of cat and mouse was a fucking understatement. If I didn’t get these damn ties off my limbs, they were going to sever them.

“So ya catfished Brenda. Made her fall in love with Owen. You found a guy who looked a lot like Alfred, moved in next to him, murdered him and framed Brenda. Planted that fingernail at his apartment, the electrical cord at her house, cloaked yourself to look like her in the video…all so you could frame her for the murder of a guy who had two kids and a wife and knew nothing about your grudge. The icing on the cake? You tried to friend his damn wife with his fake profile. You’re an evil genius. Blah, blah, blah. Oh, and I bet you killed Alfred, too—which is why he never met up with her the night they were supposed to run away together. Amiright?”

If I could get my hands around this bitch’s neck, I’d choke her until her eyeballs popped out of her head. She’d obliterated Lacy and Owen’s lives, tried to ruin Brenda’s and had the gall to come to my house, because she was a total flippin’ nutcase. Love does some strange shit to people.

The anger inside of me churned, twisted until it almost made me uncomfortable.

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