This Strange Addiction by Julie Steimle (story books to read .TXT) 📖

being stalked… in a manner of speaking?”

Chuckling—though his eyes revealed he was sorry for his friend Rick, just like every other friend of his—Matthew replied, “Well, when Tom saw them at the auto shop he used his resources to make sure they could no longer get close to you.”

Daniel lifted his eyebrows. His eyes silently asked what kind of resources Tom was using. Audry could only imagine what the CIA would let him use for personal things. Matthew smirked back at Daniel, nodding. Daniel chuckled. Then he broke into deeper laughs, really enjoying the thought.

They went to the holding cells, specifically to an isolated one. Inside, Silvia was rocking on a seat, her mascara in streaks down her face as she was gnawing on her thumbnail.

“I’m here.” Daniel rushed up to the door.

Silvia hopped off her seat hurrying to the bars. “Danny…” Then her eyes set on Audry. “What did you bring her for?”

“She is being thoroughly protected,” Matthew said as he gestured for the guard to get the keys.

“She drove me here,” Daniel said.

Shaking her head, Silvia then gazed painfully on Audry. “You are too innocent. You shouldn’t be here.”

All three of them glanced at Audry who was shocked at such a description.

“I thought Rick was trying to protect her from all of this,” Silvia snapped.

Both Daniel and Matthew cringed, exchanging looks.

“Does he even know she is here?” Silvia demanded.

Audry huffed toward the ceiling. “Rick Deacon does not control my life.”

Silvia reached through the bars and grabbed Audry’s hand as the guard stuck the keys into the lock. “No. Definitely not. But you don’t want this. I know you. You don’t want this craziness. We have no choice. This is what we’ve got. But you—you are normal. You have a life. You don’t need to get tangled up in our insanity.”

“We are not tangling her in it,” Daniel said, gesturing for his sister to remove her hand so they could slide open the door. “But those witches will try to if we don’t nip this in the bud. Now, Silvia, Matt says you are a witness to a murder. Come on, what is really going on here?”

Silvia looked around and shook her head, peeking to Audry. “Not here. And not with her here. Take My Darling some place safe. Some place far from here. Some place where they can’t track her.”

“They can track her,” Matthew said.

Silvia stared at him.

“They’ve been at your apartment and had tracked her there. They know she knows you,” he said. “I think they got something of hers so they can scry for her.”

Silvia closed her eyes.

“Now if we want to keep Audry out of this mess, we need your help to do it.” Matthew gazed hard at her. “If you are a witness to the murders or involved in any way, then I need you to make a formal statement and be prepared to be a witness at a trial.”

Silvia’s eyes went wide. They seemed to be begging for help. She looked to Daniel, silently begging him as Matthew did not seem moved. “Please. I don’t want Audry hurt. I know they are going to target her next.”

They looked to Audry.

“I was trying to lead them away,” Silvia said. She shook her head and closed her eyes. “It was my fault. I gave them Harlin’s hair instead of Rick’s. They didn’t think it was funny.”

“I didn’t think witches had a sense of humor,” Daniel said flatly.

She lifted one eye toward him. “They have a cruel sense of humor. If a man not of our coven offended a woman from my coven—” she shook her head. “You know what’d they’d chop off and mail to his mother?”

Matthew closed his eyes flinching. Daniel just made a face at her.

“And they never let you leave.” She shook her head, eyes toward the ceiling. “Why did I think I could?”

Audry took hold of her hand. “Hey. Don’t think like that. They don’t control your life. You can’t let them bully you.”

Silvia looked to her. Her eyes seemed to focus again. Her clammy hand grasped Audry’s. She nodded.

“This is why you wanted to leave—and knew you could,” Daniel leaned near and whispered, heading then toward the door to lead them out of the cell block. He nodded to Audry, smiling appreciatively.

Matthew smiled, nodding to Audry also.

Audry walked with Silvia, holding her hand as they went out and back to the main hallway. Matthew led them to an interrogation room where Audry was allowed to sit in while they recorded Silvia’s testimony.

The long and the short of it was that Silvia had long ago set up some kind of warning system to let her know if the coven was coming for her. She had also set up a few decoys around New York City. Her decoys were ladies whom she found looked enough like her that at first glance they would have been mistaken as her. Silvia had tagged them in a way so that anyone scrying for her would find them. A false trail. She didn’t actually expect the witches to kill them, she said.

“It’s all my fault,” Silvia said, hands over her face. “It was a simple spell. I didn’t realize they would go that far.”

“Normally they wouldn’t,” Daniel muttered, his arms folded, watching her in deep thought. “This feels too extreme—too public. Not very Middleton Village like.”

Silvia nodded. “Danna wouldn’t go to that extreme. She’d find a way to drag me back to Middleton Village and they would kill me there. This is the act of someone unhinged—or an outsider they might have teamed up with.”

Matthew nodded to himself, thinking on that one. He murmured to Daniel, “Who would they have teamed up with? Would they have teamed up with anybody?”

“Covens are exclusive. Witches are competitive, jealous,” Daniel hissed back. “Fiercely.”

Audry felt dizzy hearing all that stuff about spells, witches, and such. It just wasn’t real. But the word unhinged made her think of that creepy horror flick chick.

“Unhinged….” Daniel muttered louder, thinking more. He then glanced to Audry apparently thinking the same thing. “Who did you see again at the apartment building?”

Shrugging, Audry said, “Uh, Prostitute Barbie—”

“Danna Groves,” Silvia huffed. “She’s not unhinged. If dealing with the vimp from California had not messed her up, little will.”

What was a vimp? Audry had no clue. What kind of word was that?

Daniel nodded to Audry to continue the list. So she did.

“Uh, that creepy girl that Jessica said was Garland sister—”

“Garland?” Silvia stiffened. “Tricia or Amber?”

Audry shrugged. “I don’t know. I only spoke with Danna.”

“You spoke with Danna?” Daniel and Silvia said together, both alarmed.

Audry nodded. “Yeah, days ago. When my car broke down. She stopped to ask about you when I was stuck waiting for a tow truck. But Tom Brown chased her away from the fix-it shop when he was fixing my car.”

Silvia heaved a breath, nodding with relief. She looked to Daniel. “If your freaky friend Tom is watching her, Audry will be ok.”

Staring, Audry found it surreal that Silvia was calling someone else freaky—even if it was Tom Brown who was quintessentially freaky.

“So, the Garland girl,” Matthew asked. “Is she someone who would be described as unhinged?”

Silvia nodded, then shrugged. “Yeah. They could be… but, I don’t think they’d be let out of the town if they did anything this stupid.”

“Who was the third person again?” Daniel asked.

Audry shrugged. “I don’t know. She was ordinary. Brown hair. Blue eyes. About my height, if maybe a half inch shorter.”

“That’s right. Probably Marta Lindon,” Daniel suggested, looking to Silvia.

Silvia groaned. “Damn. Marta hates me. She hates me almost more than she hates Jessica.”

Audry blinked, sure that Jessica she was talking about was their friend Jessica Cartwright-once-Mason. She recalled what Jessica had said about the Middleton Village witches and what they had done to her. The scar up Jessica’s right forearm was clear in her memory—and Danna had done it.

“That’s a problem,” Daniel said.

“But would she do something unhinged and kill a woman who looks like you while in New York?” Matthew asked.

Shaking her head, Silvia muttered, “I doubt it. Marta isn’t stupid. However…” she shook her head.

Matthew’s head lifted in alarm. He whispered to Daniel. “They might be using someone in the city. A Wannabe.”

Daniel flinched.

“A Wannabe?” Audry stared at them.

They looked at her, surprised she had overheard.

Explaining, Daniel said, “Someone who wants to be a real witch but doesn’t get it right.”

“It is a way of punishing aspiring witches,” Silvia muttered, slumping against the table. She looked to Audry. “I know you don’t like the creepy stuff, but the fact is experienced witches are gifted in never getting caught when they kill someone. They always make it look like an accident or a natural death—like a heart attack or a mauling by a wild animal.”

Matthew closed his eyes cringing. “These women took strange falls, but no witnesses of who might have pushed them or how they tripped and fell.”

Silvia nodded with a huff. “The work of an inexperienced witch.”

“So, there’s another one out there,” Daniel said.

“Or more,” Matthew muttered. He shook his head and lowered his voice to a whisper. “We’ve got to bring JJ in here to talk with her.” Matthew whispered to Daniel, not quite silent enough for Audry to not overhear though they had not meant it for her. “We need his ghosts to confirm what Silvia is saying. And we need to take Audry to a safe place for tonight. She should not go back to her apartment.”

JJ’s ghosts? Were they serious?

Daniel nodded. “Who should we call? Should she stay at Red’s—I mean, Andy’s place?”

Matthew frowned. “I dunno. I’m not so sure that is a good idea. Jessica is pregnant and it is getting closer to her due date, and we really don’t need witches around her while she is pregnant.”

“I think the Chosen One can handle herself—but ok.” Daniel then shook his head. “Um, how about that school you went to. They’ve got extra rooms, right?”

“Gulinger?” Matthew’s eyes widened. He peeked to Audry. “Maybe for Silvia. She knows where the current location is. She’s been there before this whole mess helping out there—but we don’t need witches tracking her to the campus. That would be a real problem. The last time a witch came there—ugh. Besides, Rick would be furious. He wants Audry far from ghoulie things, and to be honest—”

“She is already wrapped up in ghoulie things. Besides, aren’t there apartments that the Deacons own—?”

“Um, no. Not like that. And it would just be the same as the one she is in now.”

“I have a suggestion,” Silvia said, lifting a hand.

They looked to her.

“It takes a bit of witchcraft, but it works,” Silvia said.

They both leaned back and stared at her.

“What kind?” Daniel asked, his eyes narrowing skeptically on her.

Smirking, Silvia wiped her mascara drips from under her eyes and explained it all. And listening in, Audry really felt like she had fallen down a rabbit hole.

 

Audry’s head felt foggy after Silvia’s oration. Daniel and Matthew had genuinely listened to it, but it was all hokum and creepy weirdness.

Magic.

Spells.

Counter spells.

Something called Shadowing. And it required ‘an Innocent’ to help her—as well as a change of location. But for it to work, they needed some interference—the kind that only Tom Brown can provide. None of it made sense to Audry.

Her temples throbbed as she sat in the lobby. Officer Joshua Johnson had been called in and she was sent out of the interrogation room as the details were just too much. Something about ghosts had been mentioned again, and air seemed colder when JJ had arrived. It was warmer in the lobby.

“Are they in there?” Rick Deacon strode across the open floor to where Audry was sitting. “Which interrogation room are they in?”

Lifting her head, Audry just gestured.

Meeting her gaze, Rick immediate sat down next to her. “Are you ok? You look… I don’t know if this is rude, but you look worn out.”

She was worn out. Mentally exhausted. It was just ridiculous. Talk of witches and curses and spells.