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Veronica Tucker
Folded in the letter was a homemade business card.
I waved the letter at Adam. "She wants to help me. She's not trying to kill me at all. Certainly not by leaving this letter, hoping I'm dumb enough to show up at her meeting so she can attack me or poison my coffee."
"Well, that's good to hear. I'd hate for something like that to happen. Almost as much as I'd hate for you to decide you're going to that meeting to turn the
tables on her."
"Duh, no. Now who thinks I'm stupid? I'm not going to that meeting. We are."
Picture a place called the Karma Kafe and it'll save me the bother of describing it. There was nothing in it you wouldn't expect, from the Buddha flowerpots to the wallpaper decorated with symbols that probably said, "If you bought this just because it looked pretty, may Buddha piss in your coffee, you culturally ignorant moron." Even the servers were decorated with symbols. I have no idea what they said, but I'm sure there was a henna artist down the street laughing her ass off every time they stopped by for fresh ink.
I ordered coffee. Oh, sorry, "koffee" made from fair trade beans grown in some place I'd never heard of--probably Hindi for New Jersey. From the taste of it, my guess on the wallpaper message was right.
Right after that first sip, my head started to hurt. When I turned, I saw Veronica Tucker.
"I didn't think you'd come," she said.
"Is that why you're ten minutes late? Better have a good excuse, because making me wait isn't the right way to start this conversation."
She babbled something as she sat. I just stared at her until she trailed off and started folding her napkin, fingers creasing the edges.
"You called me here to talk," I said. "The meter's running."
"I didn't try to kill you."
"Heard that already. Now go back and start at the beginning. You went to Columbus to kill Tiffany Radu . . ."
"That was my mission. I'm sure my aunt told you that the witch-hunters have changed. It's a lie. Some did. But my family wanted revenge for my mother's death, so they only pretended to go along with the others. Secretly they were raising us to follow the old ways. We didn't want to. I think that's why Amy died."
"I hope you mean that's the reason you think she killed herself, and not that her mother murdered her because she refused to go witch-hunting. Grounding, yes. Cutting off her allowance, sure. But I ain't buying murder."
Roni shook her head. "No, Aunt Annette wouldn't kill her own daughter. But I think someone in our family did kill Amy. There's my aunt Rachel, too, and her daughter Chrissy. Chrissy did her tour two years ago and it wasn't easy, so when Aunt Annette considered letting Amy and me get out of it, they really weren't happy."
"Your tour? Seriously. That's what you call it? As in tour of duty? Or post-grad tour? See the country, kill a few witches . . ."
"I--"
"Whatever. So Amy dies and you decide to toe the line by letting your aunts send you to Columbus to off Tiffany Radu."
"I didn't kill Tiffany. I planned to. Kill her and get it over with. I heard the rumors. She was using her powers to help her husband's white slave trade, and she probably helped him kill those girls when they wouldn't go into slavery."
"Because every slaver wants a couple of drug-addled party girls like Ginny Thompson and Brandi Degas. That illegal business Tiffany was helping him with? Importing cheap prescription drugs from Canada. A sleazy way to make money, but nothing anyone deserves to die for. Next time you want to justify murder, do your research. Of course, that could mean you lose your justification, so I can see why you didn't."
She flushed. "Okay, I was wrong about Tiffany, but I didn't kill her. Like I said, I was going to. My aunts told me how. Sneak in while she napped and inject her with poison. But by that time, you'd come to town. I could tell you were a witch. I was curious, so I followed you around a bit. That's all I did. Only my aunts found out and they ordered me to kill you, too. But you were trying to stop Tiffany and Cody, too. That's when I decided I couldn't go through with it."
"Yet Tiffany still ends up dead. During her nap. Injected with poison."
"Because that was their plan. They did it. I tried to talk to you at the hospital, but you blasted me right off my feet. Even in your sleep you knew I was there. So I took off. I found you again at the motel. I was trying to figure out how to tell you without getting attacked. When you came after me, I panicked again and ran."
"And tried killing me in Seattle. Shoving me into traffic. Oh, wait. That wasn't you. It was them."
"Did you see me?" Her chin lifted. "Have you ever seen me trying to kill you? Did the nurse catch me doing something to you in the hospital? Were the cookies I brought poisoned? No. Someone is trying to kill you, but you have no proof it's me. They want you to jump to that conclusion. They want you to kill me."
"Right. Of course. Because if they kill me, I'll kill you. I can come back as a ghost and haunt you to death. Good plan."
She shook her head, shifting in her seat, frustrated by my refusal to buy into her perfectly rational story. "How did they kill Tiffany? Lethal dose of poison. Then they push you onto a busy street? What are the chances of you dying from that?"
