Page 12 of Witch Upon a Star
“Keys, where is this?” Angel asked. “The murder didn’t happen in Mount Grove, did it?”
Keys shook his head. “Cottonville. DEA had them in that seedy motel off of I-99.”
“And where is the tower they think the shot came from?”
The image on the televisions zoomed out, following thered line from the model of Dixie Gilbert’s forehead, out the window, down a line of trees, over a hill, and finally to a cell tower.
A graphic of a large purple thumbtack landed in the grass at the base of the tower. “This is where the shell casing was found.”
That seemed like a good distance away, and outside of the police’s normal search radius.
Frowning, Pumpkin asked, “Why would they even search all the way out there?”
“They didn’t at first,” Keys answered. “From the initial report, they were only searching the parking lot and questioning witnesses. Fang claimed from the very beginning that he heard nothing beyond the breaking of the window glass and then Dixie falling. There was no gunshot or muzzle flash. When other guests of the motel claimed the same, the police started searching beyond their initial radius. Problem was, there was nothing there. You saw,” Keys added to no one in particular. “That cell tower is the only thing between it and the motel window. There’s no other perches from that height and trajectory. According to the report, Agent Strouse went out there on a whim and found the shell casing.”
“Where is that shell casing now?” Lucky asked Keys.
Keys typed on his computer some more. “Harrisburg.”
Lucky looked down the table at Ranger. “You up for a little B and E?”
Ranger smiled. “Absolutely.”
“You can’t just take the casing,” Demo argued. “We need to replace it with one or somehow clean it. They’ll come down on all of us if they discover the casing is missing.”
“I don’t want you going alone,” Bulldog told Ranger.
“Ghost has gotten as much rest as you and Lucky,” Ranger argued. “I’ll be fine on my own.”
I was not about to let my brother go into such a situation alone. While I had no doubts of Ranger’s abilities, it never hurt to have someone watching your back, especially when breaking federal law.
“I’ll go,” I volunteered. “I have my four hours of auctioned labor this afternoon and am free after that.”
It wasn’t like we could break in during broad daylight anyway. Scar could, but then walls, doors, and locks didn’t seem to apply to my silent club brother.
“We’re hoping Toni is able to get Steel released on Jenna’s alibi and Keys’ security footage. But I still don’t want a possible shell casing out there with evidence pointing to Steel.” Lucky looked at Ranger and then me. “Leave no trace. Keys will be on coms.”
All three of us nodded. It looked like my day just got a little bit busier. First doing whatever it was Calliope needed done at her new store, and then breaking into an evidence lab in Harrisburg. I wondered offhandedly what chaos tomorrow was going to bring me.
3
CALLIOPE
Ishould have known I wouldn’t be able to keep anything from my parents. As soon as I entered my house Saturday night, they were waiting for me. They didn’t have a gift like I did, but that didn’t mean their Spidey Senses weren’t tingling. Neither had ever failed to know when I needed them, whether I knew it or not.
My dad, Marmot, was a tall, lanky man with shaggy, gray hair that fell around his ears. He always had stubble on his face for as long as I could remember. In contrast, my mom was short, like Dosia and me, though I was the shortest. Her once-blonde hair was now a shiny silver, which I thought made her look all the more ethereal.
Together, my parents had four children. The oldest was my brother, Fennel. He was fifty-three and had five kids between his two marriages. He lived in a Pagan commune in New York that ignorant people would perceive as a cult. There was no ‘high leader’ or anything unsavory happening in the community. It was just a group of families who wantedto live cleanly and without the pressures of a mostly Christian-based society.
Then there was Savory. She was the stereotypical middle child. Never married, always in trouble, and might be a little unhinged. But at her core, my sister was a good person. She just didn’t like to see animals being mistreated and may or may not lead an activist group that was entirely against zoos. She also acted like she was fifteen instead of fifty.
Stellaluna, or Stella, had been Dosia’s mother. She and her husband, Calvin, were killed when Dosia and her brother, Ambrose, were young. They’d been living in California at the time. After their deaths, Dosia and Ambrose came to live with my parents and I in Mount Grove. If Stella was still alive today, she would be forty-eight.
I was an ‘oopsie’ baby. At twenty-four, I was two years younger than Dosia. It was a fact we constantly played up, especially when we’d been in school together. My parents were hippies and had always believed in free love. As much as it wigs me out to think about it, I was also pretty sure they were swingers in their heyday.
I loved my parents, who had not only given me their all despite their advanced age at the time of my birth, but also had taken in their orphaned grandchildren. They taught me how to understand my visions and inclinations. They were also the ones who stressed caution, especially in a society that was not known to take kindly to witches.
My coven was small. Outside my own family, we only had a few local initiates. I was also the only one with an active power and a Third-Degree Wiccan. Since we were so small, I took on the role as High Priestess, but did not use that title.
