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“Did you dream about your daddy, honey?” she asked. At least when Kirk was around, he played with Stacia. He wasn’t the most devoted father, but he could be fun, playing silly games with their little girl. Too bad he was playing games with Elena, too.
“He was with somebody, Mommy. And then—” she shuddered “—something bad happened…”
The fine hair on the nape of Elena’s neck lifted as foreboding washed over her. Her daughter couldn’t be talking about a vision. She couldn’t be cursed, too. Elena ignored the little voice in her head, reminding her of the Durikken legacy passed from generation to generation.
“What happened, Stacia?” she asked.
Small shoulders lifted in a jerky shrug as fear thickened her voice. “I dunno…I was hiding…”
“It was just a dream, sweetheart.” It had to have been. Her daughter couldn’t be cursed, too.
But if not for the vendetta, perhaps having visions wouldn’t be a curse. Through them Elena had learned what man to divorce…and what man to resist. If not for the killer continuing the vendetta, she wouldn’t be having visions of murder.
“Let me read you a story,” she told Stacia, asking nothing more about her daughter’s dream. She’d like to think she was doing it to avoid upsetting Stacia any further, but it was probably herself she didn’t want to upset. Denial was her oldest, closest friend; she had preferred it to counseling and anti-hallucinatory drugs.
She picked up a book from the table beside the bed. Even though she was only four, Stacia could read most of the words in her books, or maybe it was just that she memorized them from Elena having read them to her so many times. Either way, she was one smart little girl.
Elena pulled her daughter close and opened the book across her lap. She read of princesses and glittery white unicorns, but in her head, she didn’t see those images.
Elena didn’t see Kirk, like Stacia had. She saw a woman with dark, curly hair. The woman from the fire. She was young, only in her early twenties, but she appeared to have lived hard. She was dirty, wild-eyed, staggering along a back alley…until a man stopped her, his arms reaching out of the shadows to grab her.
Elena jerked, and Stacia murmured a protest at the sudden movement. “Shh…” she said, soothing her daughter and trying to soothe herself.
She’d had this dream before, but she couldn’t make sense of all her visions. They came to her in no particular order, some flashing through her head time and time again. She’d seen many images of this woman who might be Irina; dirty, unkempt, probably homeless. Was that where the man found her little sister, in an alley, all alone?
Her arms tightened around Stacia’s warm body. Although her daughter looked nothing like her, she reminded Elena of Irina. Her baby sister had been only Stacia’s age when they were separated.
“It’s okay, Mommy,” Stacia murmured in her sleep, the child offering comfort to the mother. “You’ll find her…”
Elena tensed. How did Stacia know what she was thinking? Had she…
No, she must have overheard some of Elena’s conversations with Ariel. She must have learned about their search for Irina through things Elena had let slip. She wasn’t cursed. She was just an insightful child, like Irina had been. At four she’d had that uncanny ability, too, to figure out what someone was thinking.
What was she like now, as an adult? Was she even still alive? They had no proof. Although Ariel saw ghosts, they usually didn’t seek her out unless they knew her. Did Irina even remember them? She’d been so young….
Guilt nagged at Elena. She should have tried to find her sisters before the killing started. She should have been stronger than Thora’s threats and manipulations. She had to put aside the guilt and fear now, if she was going to be strong enough to stop a killer, and protect her sisters.
The old brick mansion loomed on the other side of the wrought-iron gates, illuminated by security lights, guarded and impenetrable. Maybe to others but not him. He could get inside whenever he was ready, tonight, under the cover of the shadows where he stood now just outside the fence or tomorrow, in broad daylight.
A light, tinged with red, shone faintly in a third- story window. The little girl’s room, but the silhouette of a woman moved behind the frilly curtains. They were there, together. Two of the witches. Mother and daughter.
Could she sense his presence? Did she know he stood below her daughter’s window? Or wasn’t that how her witchcraft worked? What was Elena’s special ability? Was she like her mother and could see the future? Or was she like her sister who saw ghosts?
One of them could hear people’s thoughts. He knew this because when he’d killed their mother, her memories had become his. He’d relived the moment when she’d given them up, bestowing upon each of them a charm before letting them go. He couldn’t quite remember who had which ability though.
Was Elena the telepath? Could she read his mind? Did she know what he was planning? He needed to kill one of them to renew his strength. To keep going until he could reclaim the charms and deal with them all.
Pain throbbed in his shoulder and at his temples, stealing his strength. He didn’t know what hurt worse, the inoperable tumor growing in his head or the wound where the redheaded witch had shot him. His knees wobbling, he reached for the fence and twined his fingers around the iron spires, holding himself up.
Not tonight but soon, before he weakened any more, he had to kill one of the witches. With her death, he would regain some power he lost because of the redhead. Because of her, he’d lost the cult of followers he’d formed to help with the witch hunt. He’d been forced to abandon his church, but he didn’t need it or the cult. After killing another witch, he would be strong enough to take on the other witches, alone, and reclaim the charms that rightfully belonged to the McGregors. He needed the magic of the charms to restore his health.
He’d decided on the witch he needed to kill next—the only one he was strong enough now to kill on his own.
Did Elena know that he intended to kill her daughter?
Chapter 3
“I’m glad you called,” the redhead said, walking at Elena’s side along the cobblestone paths winding through the elaborate gardens on the estate. Even though she didn’t physically resemble their mother, either, Ariel dressed like a gypsy in her long gauzy skirts and laced-up peasant blouses; so different from Elena’s conservative attire of cream-colored linen skirt and sleeveless silk blouse.
“Did you finally talk to your grandmother? Does she know where Irina is?” Ariel asked.
Elena’s focus remained on the flowers, the fragrant blossoms in myriad colors, brilliant blues, blazing reds as well as an array of yellows, pinks and purples. The gardens had won awards for beauty. Her grandmother displayed the ribbons in her parlor, taking the credit when all she’d done was hire the best landscapers, the hardest-working gardeners. As Thora often boasted, she hired only the best, like Joseph. At just the thought of him, Elena’s pulse jumped, her face heating.
“Elena?” Ariel nudged her with an elbow. “So did you talk to her?”
She nodded in response to her sister’s impatient question.
Ariel uttered a little scream of frustration. “So tell me, does she know where Irina is?”
“No, and I actually believe her. She thought Irina had gone into foster care, like you had.”
Ariel had been bounced from home to home because of the curse, because every time she admitted to seeing dead people, her foster parents thought she was crazy and either shipped her off to another family or a psychiatric facility.
Guilt tied Elena’s stomach into knots. Ever since Ariel had found her, she’d struggled to meet her younger sister’s turquoise gaze, not just because of what her grandmother had done but who she was.
Ariel’s brow wrinkled as she narrowed her eyes. Her voice soft, she observed, “There isn’t a lot of love between you and your grandma.”
“You don’t understand.” Elena dreaded explaining, but her sister deserved to know the whole truth, all of the family secrets.
An arm slid around her shoulders as her sister half embraced her, bumping her hip against Elena’s. “I know,” she said.
Ariel couldn’t know everything; she only knew that Thora had been the one to report Myra. Elena pulled away, unable to accept her sister’s affection until she’d told her everything.
“What do you think you know?” she asked Ariel, whose turquoise eyes softened with sympathy.
“I can see that you didn’t have it any easier than I did growing up, maybe even harder,” Ariel commiserated.
“I had my dad,” Elena said, not bothering to claim her grandmother. “He loved me…until he died six months ago.”
“I’m sorry,” Ariel said, lifting her arm again but instead of embracing her sister, she brought it back against her side.
Regret over rebuffing her sister twisted Elena’s stomach, along with the grief she still felt over losing her dad. “He’d been sick a long time.”
Ariel began again, “I’m sorry—”
But Elena waved off her sympathy. She wouldn’t bother Ariel with the details about his health. She had something more relevant to tell her. “His name was Elijah.”
Ariel stopped walking, her long, slim body taut and still. “It was?”
“It’s a family name they kept using even though my father’s ancestors changed their last name years ago, when they first came to America.” That was why Ariel’s search for McGregor descendants who may have resumed the vendetta hadn’t turned up Thora. Or Elena. She’d found Thora only through the complaint sworn out against their mother.
Ariel’s eyes widened, the turquoise the only color in her pale face. “What are you saying?”
From her sister’s reaction, Elena was pretty certain that she’d figured it out. “My grandmother is a descendant of Eli McGregor. She named her son after him.”
“After the man who killed our ancestor, burning her at a stake.” Ariel’s voice cracked with emotion. Their mother had died the same way. Burned.
While Ariel could see her ghost, Elena had witnessed the murder…in a vision. She blinked back tears, saddened that she would never have the chance to see her mother again.
“So you’re a McGregor.” Ariel expelled a shaky breath, stirring the red hair that had fallen across her cheek.
Pride lifted Elena’s chin. “And a Durikken.”
Ariel sighed. “I’ve been trying to find McGregors, trying to figure out which one of them might have resurrected the vendetta.”
“You think I could be the killer?”
Ariel studied her, as if assessing her older sister’s strength. Then she shook her head, tumbling her hair around her shoulders. “No.”
Elena’s pride stung; her sister hadn’t sounded convinced. “Are you sure? After all you really don’t know me. Until just a couple weeks ago we hadn’t seen each other in twenty years.”
A little chuckle sputtered out between Ariel’s lips. “Do you want me to think you’re the killer?”
“No. I want you to really believe that I’m not.”
“You’re right. We haven’t seen each other since we were kids, but I know you, Elena. You’re incapable of murder.” Ariel’s turquoise gaze lifted toward the house.
Elena suspected she didn’t seek her niece’s bedroom window. She’d never invited her sister inside, so Ariel would have no way of knowing which wing was Elena’s and which Thora’s. Elena wanted her sister to have no contact with the bitter old woman. If not for Stacia having been tired from her fitful night, Elena would have taken her along to meet Ariel at the playground where they’d met before.
“What about your grandmother?” Ariel asked.
“Her family changed their name from McGregor because they considered Eli McGregor a madman who should have been punished for what he’d done—”
Bitterness hardened Ariel’s voice when she interrupted, “But the townspeople had revered him for killing a witch.”
“Or feared him,” Elena said. “He was crazy. The vendetta was crazy, and his children changed their name because they wanted no part of it.”
But she couldn’t say the same of Thora, not and believe it. Her grandmother claimed she’d only taken away Myra’s daughters because she was an unfit mother, but Elena had always suspected something other than concern for the children or love of her son had motivated Thora’s actions. Vengeance.
“None of her family wanted anything to do with the vendetta?” Ariel asked.
“My father was her only son.” Perhaps that was why her love for him had bordered on obsessive. Did Elena love Stacia like that, so much that she shut out everyone else? Kirk had excused his absence by claiming that Elena had no room in her life for anyone but her daughter and her father. Not her husband. He might have been right, but Elena hated to think she was more than just physically like her grandmother.
“And your father’s dead,” Ariel concluded, then shook her head. “It’s all so incredible. How’d a McGregor hook up with a Durikken? Coincidence?”
Elena glanced toward the house, not the wing where her daughter slept, hopefully, a dreamless slumber, but toward her grandmother’s wing. She hoped her parents’ meeting had been just a coincidence. She bit her lip, then released it to sigh. “My father was a good man. A loving man. He wouldn’t have sought our mother out to hurt her.”
Ariel’s lips lifted in a wistful smile. “Maybe he only wanted to apologize for what his family had done to hers all those years ago. And when they met, they fell in love.”
Cynicism forced Elena to point out, “It didn’t last.” Not with the conflict and obstacles they’d had. She glanced again toward the house, to the shadow looming behind the gauzy curtains in her grandmother’s parlor.
Ariel’s head turned as she followed Elena’s gaze to the house. “So there’s only you and her?”
“And Stacia.” But Elena had an uncomfortable feeling her daughter was mostly Durikken, cursed.
Frustration knitted Ariel’s forehead. “But maybe your grandmother has some distant relatives. You have to ask her.”
“She’s not going to help me. She doesn’t believe that we’re in danger.”
“Did you tell her about our aunts?” Like their mother, they had been murdered. But unlike Myra, their bodies had been found. Ariel had found them, hanged and crushed to death.
“Thora doesn’t want to believe that someone started up the witch hunt again.”
Ariel sighed. “Because then she’d have to accept that one of her relatives, no matter how distant, is a killer.”
“You don’t know for certain that a McGregor is behind this,” Elena felt obligated to point out.
“Who else would resume the vendetta but a McGregor? Who else would even know about it?”
Elena’s shoulders ached as if a weight had settled on them. “You’re probably right.”
Ariel reached out again, despite all the times Elena had pulled away from her, and squeezed her shoulder. “You can’t blame yourself for this, just like you can’t blame yourself for Thora swearing out that complaint against Mama.”
Perhaps her sister knew Elena better than she’d realized despite her guilt causing her to keep Ariel at arm’s length. “I don’t—”
Ariel interrupted the denial with a shake of her head. “You can’t help who your family is, who you are. You just have to accept it.”
And that was what Elena struggled with the most, accepting her ability and her conflicting heritage. “That’s easier said than done.”
The redhead bobbed in a commiserating nod. “Do you have any visions of your own death, Elena?”
“I don’t know.” She rubbed her hands over her bare arms, trying to chase away the chill, but it wasn’t on her skin; the cold was deep inside her. “Sometimes when I’m dreaming, it’s like it’s me who’s being killed. Then I step back, and I see that it’s someone else.”
Her voice flat, matter-of-fact, Ariel acknowledged, “Me.”
“Or Irina. I’ve seen Irina.”
Ariel remembered, “On the streets.”
Images of her most recent vision played through her mind. “He catches her.”
Ariel’s eyes widened with shock and dread. “Oh, God!”
“And I think he kills her the way he killed Mother.” Unless the image of the woman burning at the stake had been the memory of the vision of her mother dying. The woman had looked exactly like their mother. Unlike Ariel, who had accepted her ability as a gift, Elena struggled to even understand hers.
“We have to find our baby sister.”
“I want to help you,” Elena said. But she didn’t know how to use her ability, not unless the vision was really clear, and that had only happened once, when the killer had nearly ended Ariel’s life. Elena had noted the details of the dilapidated church where Ariel, her fiancé, David, and his friend, Ty, tracked the killer and his cult. But Ty had been hurt, and the killer had gotten hold of Ariel, tying a noose around her neck. David had gotten her away from the madman, but he’d been stabbed. If not for Ariel shooting the killer, David probably would have died. Thankfully they’d all survived. Regrettably, so had the killer, who’d gotten away.
