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The doctor bent her head. “No.”
“Cause of death?” I felt like I was Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day, and I was reliving the same conversation with the physician I’d already had two previous times this week.
She sighed. “Heart failure…same as the others. It will be a while before we get the official autopsy results from the coroner’s office. But the coincidence of three young men, all in relatively good health and in the prime of their life, doesn’t escape me. What are the chances?”
I nodded. What were they, indeed?
I glanced towards Ainsley. A tear fell from the corner of her eye, and she swiped it away.
“Can I take you home?” I offered.
“That’s okay,” she said. “My car’s parked in the lot.”
“Are you sure? Let me at least walk you out.”
“Thanks.”
I reached for the crumpled jacket draped over the back of the chair she’d been sitting in and helped her into it, smelling the scent of honeysuckle and something I couldn’t quite place. Whatever it was, I felt myself drawn to it.
She reached for her handbag and looped the strap over her shoulder.
“Ready,” she announced.
I waved to the clerk at the desk on our way out, an elderly Native American woman with her hair in a long braid that hung over one shoulder. She didn’t respond but stared at us with dark eyes as the sliding doors opened and we walked out into the night.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Ainsley asked quietly once we were alone in the silent parking lot.
We stopped at her car, a black Honda CRV, and I pulled the driver’s side door open for her, meeting her gaze with my own.
“If you’re thinking there’s a good chance we could have a serial killer in Hideaway Hills,” I said grimly, “then yes.”
Chapter One
Ainsley
This was all wrong. I gripped the steering wheel tightly as I drove out of the hospital parking lot to head home for the night. I was a good paramedic, but I hadn’t been able to save any of the heart attack victims this week. There wasn’t any logical explanation that I could see for why three young men would suddenly drop dead, all of them with looks of fear frozen on their faces, besides one—Magic.
My reaper senses were tingling, and my nose twitched, which it always does when I smell a whiff of dirty magic. The traffic light ahead at Main and Sycamore turned red and I slowed to a stop and let my SUV idle. I was the only reaper assigned to the county, and I knew it hadn’t been these dudes’ time to leave. Otherwise, I would never have left them in such suspicious states. It felt weird to hope that it was as simple as a regular serial killer behind the murders, which I was pretty convinced they were, but I did. Because if there was indeed magic at play, something really wicked had this way come, and that would mean Sheriff Logan Grey wouldn’t be able to fight it on his own. Boy, that man was sizzly.
The memory of his warm hands and protective demeanor made my pulse quicken. I punched on the radio to shake off the thought. I was a married woman now, for god’s sake. But I guess it was okay just to admire. That didn’t mean I had to go offering myself up to assist the guy in catching the killer. Then again, if a supernatural had gone rogue, Logan would need all the help he could get.
I turned the dial trying to find a station other than oldies and weather reports. Chance of rain, chance of rain, chance of rain. Being a weather person here didn’t seem like such a tough gig since it rained 364 days of the year. Maybe I ought to consider a change of profession. Especially since I most definitely did not need something else to worry about right now. I had more than enough on my plate already. Behind me, a horn beeped. I glanced in my rearview mirror in time to see the driver give me the finger before they zoomed around me. Oops. Guess the light turned green.
With a sigh I pressed the accelerator and crossed the intersection. This was not my night. Was moving to Hideaway Hills a good idea? It had only been a few weeks since Edward and I tied the knot and moved into the cute little lakefront cottage we’d bought. I suppose cute was a relative term, considering the previous owners hadn’t updated the place since the 1970s and the bathrooms were wallpapered in dancing cats with bows around their necks, but it would be cute one day…hopefully. The outdated cottage was all we could afford on our tight budget, so we’d find a way to make it work. Being an electrician, Edward had luckily been up for that part of the project, at least. I was just happy he agreed to move with me to this out-of-the-way town, even though I was having my doubts about the decision at the moment.
My parents, at least, were thrilled. They’d always wanted me to marry a nice, regular human and move somewhere where it would be easy to keep to myself and not draw attention. I knew they’d both had a rough time growing up as magicals and were just trying to protect me after it became clear that I’d inherited the rare recessive gene. They’d sent me to the academy to learn how to hone my skills and choose a line of work to apply myself. I still felt a bit sorry for the regular humans who had no idea that the big public university was really just a front for the secret underground supernatural academy, but that wasn’t my problem. I’d gotten the best of both worlds and trained as a paramedic as well as earning credits towards my reaper license. Life was an interesting thing to study, especially when one was learning both how to save it and how to take it away.
I was just six months away from graduating when I accidentally blew a fuse in my dorm room practicing a spell and the university maintenance crew was called in to fix it. Edward showed up with a dopey grin on his face, a toolbox in his hand, and the rest was history. He made no secret he was interested right-off-the-bat, and even my parents thought he’d be perfect even though the whole thing felt a little rushed. He was older than I was and a concrete thinker—He didn’t believe in anything if he couldn’t see and touch it. For the first few months we dated, it felt like all he wanted was to see and touch me.
But now…
I flipped on my blinker even though I was the only driver on the road and turned onto Cold Creek Ln., where our house sat at the end.
I’d barely seen hide nor hair of my husband since our wedding day. I had no idea what had changed other than putting gold bands on our fingers and buying a house, but now it felt like Edward didn’t want to have anything to do with me. In fact, it almost felt like he’d been going out of his way to avoid me. He said he was just busy trying to drum up business, but I wasn’t sure. I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Granted, it could be the tuna sandwich I’d eaten for dinner in the hospital cafeteria which did taste rather fishy, or the fact that a supernatural serial killer might be on the loose, but still…
I pulled into our short driveway and parked in the detached parking garage. Maybe everything was fine in my marriage and the string of deaths was really just a random, unfortunate series of events, and my imagination had just run amok due to lack of sleep and being in an unfamiliar place. Edward should be home now. Maybe we could spend some time together and reconnect, maybe watch a movie or something. Anything except Twilight.
I got out of the car and began to pick my way through the overgrown yard to the porch. It had started to drizzle, and I lifted the hood of my coat over my head out of habit since my hair frizzed if there was even the slightest drop of moisture in the air. I grasped the damp porch handrail and climbed up the wide steps, careful to avoid the missing plank on the third one. I inserted the key into the lock and turned the brass knob of the front door. It opened with a slight creak, and I walked into the foyer. The house was dark. Great…It didn’t look like Edward was home after all. Maybe he’d made a grocery store run or something. I dumped my purse on the side table, removed my jacket and hung it on the coatrack. Slipping off my shoes, I padded into the living room and removed my phone from my pocket to text Edward and let him know I was home.
