This Strange Addiction, Julie Steimle [little readers txt] 📗

funny way of talking, often sarcastic and frequently tongue-in-cheek. She always kept things light, especially the dark stuff.

“So, anyway, contact this number for Matt and…” He took the card and wrote his phone number on the back. “This is for me. I work homicide usually, but Jessica thought you needed help ASAP. And I know how dangerous those Middleton witches can be.”

For a second, the air around Joshua got colder. She didn’t know why. And weirder, Joshua stared into empty space to her right for a moment before shooing off quite possibly a bee she could not see. He said, “I recommend you keep mace or something on you for self-protection.”

“I’ve got pepper spray and a tazer,” Audry said, patting her purse.

Joshua laughed. “Good.” But then he winked and said, “Did Rick give you one of them?”

Audry colored, wondering what he was assuming. “Uh, his mother, actually.”

He drew in a shocked breath.

Shrugging, Audry added, “She had just tazed my ex-boyfriend with it at this café I worked at—years ago. She was having lunch there.”

“No way.” Joshua looked impressed. “So you got to meet Mrs. Deacon. That’s amazing. Is that how you met Rick?”

Coloring more, Audry shook her head. “Uh, no. I actually—”

His car’s police radio went off, calling for him. Officer Joshua Johnson immediately ran to the car to pick it up. Audry overheard a call for backup in a neighborhood not far from there. It sounded like more than a domestic disturbance.

Officer Johnson answered the call, quickly apologized to Audry and hurried off. He was gone in a whoosh, no sirens. Audry stared down the road after him, amazed. The world Rick Deacon inhabited was amazing. He knew such colorful people.

And also dangerous people. Joshua Johnson was a homicide cop. And during that entire conversation, Audry had the feeling that he was just as burdened as Tom Brown and Matthew Calamori were. 

 

Hogan called that evening, just to hear her voice and to ask if she was too angry with him to see him the next day. Breathing it in and out, Audry confessed that she needed more than just a few hours separate from him. She needed time. But she did tell him that Charlene had followed her to the store and she was the one who had sent Cara to the luncheon.

<< It figures, >> Hogan muttered on the phone. He then sighed wearily over it. << I told you Isis was vengeful. She finds all my other exes and tells them whatever she can to make them hate me. I have no idea what she told Cara. I can only guess. But I am sorry she is following you. You might want to report her to the police. You would probably have more headway with them than I can. >>

Audry inwardly groaned. The last thing she wanted to do was have to take out another personal protection order. The last one had been such a hassle. And even then, the type of people who liked to stalk others weren’t the kind who respected boundaries and followed laws. She had learned that with Harlin. What the order really did was make it so the police had to act more promptly on her behalf.

 

The following day, Audry decided she needed to visit her friend, Jessica Mason—no… Jessica Cartwright. It took a bit to remember Jessica’s married name, even though she had been married not too long ago.

When she went down to her car, Audry noticed something funny stuck to the rear bumper. Peering closely at it, it looked like pink chewing gum. Automatically Audry thought of Charlene, who had probably stuck it there out of spite… but then why would she stop at chewing gum? Why not key up the car? Yet as Audry pried off the gum and wrapped it in a tissue to chuck in the near dumpster at the end of the parking lot, she realized her beat up Honda hatchback would not be that much worse off with more scratches. It wasn’t like Rick’s fancy hybrid.

Going back to her car, Audry climbed in and started it. The rattle in the engine sounded louder. For a brief second, Audry grieved that she had not learned a little about engine repair. She did know how to change a tire and a fan belt and the air filter. And she could easily get a car jumped, and top off fluid and check the oil… but that was the full extent of her mechanical abilities. And Hogan, despite being a great chemist, was no mechanic. That meant she would have to play the roulette game and search for an auto repair place. But later. Not now. She had to visit her friend and let her know her suspicions about Silvia… and she needed someone to vent to about Hogan.

Audry’s drive took her onto the freeway and out of state. The rattling in the engine and the hum of the air conditioner created an almost buzzing rhythm as her eyes scanned the road. It was almost hypnotic. She put on the radio to distract her from it. Once or twice, Audry had the uncanny feeling she was being followed. There was this blueish car that was traveling in the same direction she was going for a good while, though eventually when Audry pulled off the freeway, it continued on.

Into the town which Andrew and Jessica resided, Audry drew in a deep breath, admiring the green as she steered through the roads. The one thing she did not enjoy about living in big cities like New York was all the inorganic shapes. She liked being in nature. She loved the wildlife and all the lush plant life. Audry had grown up in a home near small woods where she used to play with her older brother and their friends. It was the best part of her childhood. Because of that, Audry had vowed long ago that once she was able to finish her PhD, she would move to a more rural area where she could be employed with a wildlife service to continue her preservation work.

Of course, if she and Hogan got married, she knew she would have to adjust that plan a little bit. He had a small apartment in Queens which he called his home base. He was hardly ever there, almost always in a lab or out in the field, but his company Water Way often had him out collecting and testing water samples for various townships on extended trips. And when she had met him, the notion about them keeping his home base while they came and went from it on various excursions seemed like a good idea. But now Audry wondered if it was possible to switch his home base to some place more rural. She had to convince him.

Locating Jessica’s home wasn’t too hard. They had a one bedroom apartment not far from the university hospital where Andrew worked. As he was still in medical school (them barely making ends meet), the place was modestly cheap. Audry found it ironic, as Andrew was Rick Deacon’s best friend. But Audry figured that the reason they were best friends was that Andrew never wanted to use his friend for his money—though Audry was sure Rick had offered to buy them a home as a wedding present.

Parking, getting out and walking to the apartment complex, Audry’s heart thumped anxiously. Jessica was expecting her.

She knocked on the door.

“Be there in a minute!” Jessica’s voice called out on the other side.

Rubbing her clammy hands, Audry rocked on her feet. She had no idea how anxious she really was until that second. It was crazy how nervous she felt.

Then Jessica opened the door.

Jessica Cartwright was, at first glance, average. She had an average kind of tan—ambiguous racially. She had brown hair and brown eyes, and she was of medium height. Her face was of an average beauty—no striking features to identify. No one would have ever thought anything was unusual about her at first glance. At first glance, she was forgettable. But after she started to speak and her eyes lit up, you knew she was someone special.

Jessica smiled wide and let Audry in. She gestured to the couch and said, “Take a load off. You look stressed out.”

Audry nodded, stepping into the room. She removed her shoes, as Jessica’s home was that kind of place—one kept clean by simply not bringing dirt in. It was the very tone of the home—a haven. A safe place. And it was cozy. On the walls were photographs of family on both sides, and pictures of things she and her husband loved—which were mostly their friends. Audry also noticed the wolf tee shirt she had been selling was framed on the wall.

“So, who’d you see,” Jessica asked once she sat back down on the couch. Jessica’s belly was swollen to the size of a small watermelon. She wasn’t quite monstrously pregnant to the point of heavy waddling when she walked, but it was clear Jessica didn’t find standing or sitting very comfortable for long. She was also munching on what looked like trail mix, next to a jar of hummus and corn tortilla chips which were on the coffee table. “You said Silvia’s coven might be spying on you.”

Eying Jessica’s odd choice of snack, Audry sat down next to her and described them. “One was a tall, leggy, blonde woman in… I don’t know how else to describe it but Barbie pink. And… like an LA hooker. And the other two…” Yet Audry stopped, watching Jessica’s eyes widen with recognition. Jessica knew whom she was talking about.

“Go on, the other two.” Jessica rolled her hand for her to continue.

Shaking her head, Audry said, “Well, the other two were… I dunno dissimilar. One was pretty average. Maybe blue eyes, brown hair. Caucasian. And the other was kind of horror movie frail. Toast colored hair. Fizzy-ish. The kind of girl that gives the impression of innocence before pulling out an axe to chop you and your friends up.”

“She didn’t have a twin?” Jessica asked. For a second Audry thought she was making fun of her, but there was more of an honest question to it.

So Audry said, “No. Just those three women. Who are they? You seem to know. I mentioned Prostitute Barbie and—”

Jessica choked on a laugh, nodding.

“—you know exactly whom I am talking about, don’t you?” Audry felt a little sick. “They are from Silvia’s coven, aren’t they?”

Nodding, again Jessica said, “Yes, and it was smart of you to text me. The Barbie chick’s name is Danna Groves. And she’s pretty scary.” Jessica then rolled up her sleeve, showing Audry the scar on the underside of her right forearm, one Audry had seen plenty of times before. “Danna was the one who cut me.”

A rise of nausea lifted into Audry’s throat. She tried to hold it down, swallowing. “Really?”

Jessica nodded. “Yeah. And as for the other two, I don’t know for certain, but the second girl sounded like one of a pair of twins I know. The Garland sisters. Tricia and Amber. Pretty dangerous witches.”

Chills went down Audry’s back. She didn’t like it when Jessica spoke about witchcraft as if it were real. It was one thing hearing kooky Silvia talking about it with all her crystals, pentagrams, and herbal oils. But it was quite another when sensible Jessica (who knew how con-artists and skeptics thought, having been raised by one herself) took such things seriously. She was a police detective, for pity’s sake. She was grounded in reality, not fiction.

“So how did they track down where Silvia lived?” Audry asked, frowning.

Jessica shrugged. “Who knows? The fact that it took them this long is a sign they did not have anything to track her by. The apartment is not in her name. It’s in Rick’s name.”

“Maybe they are good at deduction,” Audry suggested.

To that, Jessica smirked. “Maybe. Danna is into fortune telling, and that makes her incredibly observant. However, the Deacons own a lot