The Fourth Power Read online

  “I drove by it yesterday hoping you’d ask,” Bobby admitted. “I already have some ideas. I can get out there Wednesday to measure.”

  “Perfect.” Heather dropped her arms to the side and said, “You’re a good man, Bobby. Thank you.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Bobby winked at her before kicking his foot on the ground like a scolded child.

  “Now I have to go tell my mom you’re not an escaped convict.” Heather sighed. Yep, this was her life.

  “For the record, it wasn’t prison. It was jail. DUI. Me and some of the boys got drunk and decided instead of driving we’d borrow a few horses and ride them home like cowboys.”

  “Cowboys?” Heather arched an eyebrow. Bobby didn’t exactly look like the up-on-a-horse type. “You got charged for driving a horse while intoxicated?”

  He patted his stomach. “Yeah, who’d have thought. The horses did most of the steering. That was about sixty pounds and sixteen years ago.”

  “I see.”

  “We didn’t hurt anything, and I think they would have let us off with a warning, but Grandpa wasn’t exactly the forgiving type. It was a small town, and he had his buddy the sheriff throw us in jail for the night to teach us a lesson.”

  Bobby shuffled his feet as he went back to the mower.

  Heather wasn’t surprised when the front door to her mother’s home opened before she could touch the doorknob. Bonnie Warrick waved her daughter inside. The ceiling lights were dimmed, and with the curtains closed it became difficult to see.

  “Mom, what are you doing in the dark?” Heather crossed over to a lamp and turned it on.

  “You told me to close the curtains when they come by,” her mother stated.

  “Wow, okay,” Heather muttered.

  “I wasn’t expecting you to come by today,” Bonnie said. “This is a nice surprise.”

  Heather refused to point out that her mother had called her minutes before to complain. “Well, I wanted to see you. I’ve missed you. How’ve you been?”

  Bonnie made a small noise and waved her hand. “You know me. I’m never one to complain.”

  “Speaking of which, I spoke to the guys. They won’t be making any more inappropriate jokes when they’re over here. Of course, I checked them thoroughly before hiring them.” Heather patted her mother’s arm. “They might not be funny, but the lawn does look nice, don’t you think? I ran into Mrs. Jennings at the market the other day, and she asked if I’d give her Bobby’s number. I think she’s jealous of how your hedges are trimmed.”

  That perked her mother’s mood. Mrs. Jennings and her mother had been locked in a strange nicety war ever since Heather could remember. They smiled and flattered each other, but the words never really sounded like a compliment. Each Christmas they would try to outdo each other’s lawn decorations, and each summer they tried to compete for the best flower garden award.

  “You didn’t give it to her, I hope,” Bonnie crossed to the curtains and pulled them to the side, not hiding the fact she looked at the lawn. “It does look good, doesn’t it?”

  “I wouldn’t dare give her the number. I told her they were booked solid,” Heather answered.

  “Good girl.” Bonnie nodded in approval. “That woman is always trying to steal my ideas. Whoever said imitation is the biggest form of flattery was a complete idiot.”

  “It was good seeing you. I’m sorry I can’t stay longer, but I have a lot of work—”

  “Oh, wait, I have something for you.” Bonnie crossed to a sideboard and pulled out an envelope. “I found these, and I thought you might want to go through them.”

  Heather lifted the flap to the envelope to see the top edge of a stack of photos. She began to reach inside to pull them out.

  “They’re of our boy,” her mother stated. Lightly reaching to touch the envelope before retracting her fingers. “He would have grown up to be such a handsome young man.”

  Heather pushed the photos back down, only catching a glimpse of the top of a head. Her heart squeezed in her chest. She had not been expecting this.

  “Do you ever talk to Ben?” Bonnie asked. “Maybe we should send him some copies. What do you think?”

  “Uh, yeah, maybe.” Heather closed the envelope flap. She held them tight. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Don’t you want to look—”

  “Mom, I would, but I have so much work I need to do. I just wanted to drop by and say hello.” The envelope felt like fire in her hand. Her ring vibrated, and she felt her magic trying to build as her emotions fought for an outlet. The last thing she wanted to do was spend the afternoon crying on her mother’s couch and talking about what might have been. Bonnie would try to comfort her, but would inevitably criticize the Warrick beliefs, or start in on how Heather was still young enough—barely—to give her more grandchildren. “Maybe we can get together for lunch this weekend? What do you think?”

  Together-time in a public space would be a better bet for both of them.

  “This weekend?” She was shaking her head before the words even finished leaving her mouth. “I can’t this weekend. I promised Mary I’d go shopping with her Saturday.”

  “Ah, that’s too bad. Maybe another time.” Heather hurried to the door before it could occur to her mother to ask her to go shopping with them. She opened the door, calling as she stepped out of the house, “Love you. Call you later.”

  Chapter Six

  “This place is amazing.” Lorna walked through the ground floor level of Anderson House on a self-guided tour. She went up the stairs to the first landing and disappeared. Heather heard her going back down the second set of steps toward the kitchen.

  “Did you bring everything?” Heather asked Vivien, glancing at one of the bags she carried.

  “Book, candles, wine,” Vivien answered. She patted the messenger bag. “I had vodka, but Lorna took it out.”

  Heather chuckled. “Can’t say I blame her.”

  “Yeah, me either.” Vivien gestured to the second bag. “She made cupcakes, so we’ll have sugar after.”

  Sugar always helped replenish their energy after a séance. Calling forth spirits could be physically and emotionally draining. Besides, any excuse to eat cupcakes was a good excuse.

  Vivien glanced around and set the bags on the floor. “It looks bigger empty. What did you do with all the old furniture that was left in here?”

  “A couple of the pieces I found shoved in a storage closet are being restored. The rest are in my storage unit.” Heather frowned as she thought about it and pulled the notepad out of her back pocket to jot down a note to plan a storage unit sale. Every time she bought a new property, all of the treasures left over from former residents were transferred to storage to go through later. Only, later never really came. “Actually, it’s in my second storage unit. I’m beginning to look like a hoarder.”

  “I hear your cry for help,” Vivien stated. “I know an auctioneer. We’ll set up a meeting. You tell his team what’s going, and they’ll organize the whole thing and hand you a check at the end of it.”

  “How do you know an auctioneer?” Heather arched a brow. “You’ve never mentioned that before.”

  “You don’t know everything about me,” Vivien answered. “I have secrets. I’m a lady of great mystery.”

  “This coming from the woman who’s told me about every single one night stand she’s ever had in her life whether I wanted to hear about it or not.” Heather chuckled. Before she had met Troy, Vivien hadn’t been shy about enjoying a varied sex life.

  “You love my stories.” Vivien grinned. Ever since she’d allowed herself to admit her feelings for Troy, there had been a shift inside Vivien. She’d always been vivacious and fun, but also a little erratic and wild. Now, whenever Heather touched her, there was a calm undercurrent to Vivien’s emotions. Troy’s easygoing nature acted like a stabilizing force to Vivien’s whirlwind.

  “I do love your stories,” Heather admitted. A tiny pang of lonely jealousy hit her, and
she instantly suppressed it. She was happy for her friends, and her brother.

  “And I love this house.” Lorna came from the opposite direction, having moved around the downstairs in a circular pattern. “Boss, can I get an advance on my paycheck? I want to take out a mortgage.”

  “I’ll look into it.” Heather laughed. “Want to see the rest?”

  “Yes, please.” Lorna instantly went to the stairs, reached the halfway mark, and turned the corner to go up the rest of the way instead of back down into the kitchen like before. The evening sky darkened the stained-glass window. A light came on upstairs as Lorna reached the top.

  Vivien lifted the bag and asked, “Where are we setting this up?”

  “Second floor.” Heather ran her hand over the railing as she climbed to follow Lorna. “That’s where I felt the activity.”

  “Still want the house, Lorna?” Vivien called. “It could be haunted.”

  “That’s why you should move in with me,” Lorna teased. “We can all live here. One floor for each of us.”

  “Dibs on the kitchen,” Vivien said.

  “I imagine you’d want to move in with my brother at some point.” Heather stood near the top of the stairs as Lorna explored the home.

  “He can live on my floor,” Lorna answered, disappearing to explore one of the bedrooms.

  “I don’t really want to live with my brother again,” Heather said, remembering what it had been like when they were kids. She’d seen ghosts, and he’d been more like their mother—anti-supernatural everything. Though, to be fair to William, he had changed a lot in adulthood.

  “What?” Vivien put the bag on the floor next to Heather before lifting her hands to encompass the room. “You don’t think William’s pleather couches and football posters would look great in here?”

  “Where is my brother tonight anyway?” Heather asked. He rarely left Lorna’s side if he could help it.

  “I told him we are having a girls’ night,” Lorna answered. “I promised to call if we did anything dangerous. I think he only half believed me.”

  “Just picture it,” Vivien continued as if they hadn’t digressed from her teasing. “Flat-screen television in every room. Teal pleather as far as the eye can see. Mini fridges installed on each floor with a microwave on top. Maybe a beer keg fridge. Posters of chicks in bikinis held up by pushpins—”

  “Hey, no, he doesn’t have half-naked women on his walls,” Lorna protested as she crossed to the bedroom Jan had been playing tic-tac-toe in earlier.

  “You didn’t know teenage William,” Heather said. “What was the name of that woman on the car in the music video? The one he—”

  “Heather, Viv,” Lorna called, sounding concerned.

  They instantly rushed to the room to join her.

  Lorna stood next to where the tic-tac-toe boards had been drawn on the floor. Someone had swiped them away. She held a piece of paper that looked as if it had been crumpled then smoothed. “Look what I found.”

  Lorna turned the page to show a child’s drawing on it. Heather stiffened. It looked like a picture of her if the hair and style of clothing was any indication. It was the same pattern and color of the shirt she’d had on earlier in the day. In the picture, Heather stood in front of Anderson House crying while it was on fire. Blue tears dropped and gathered in a puddle at her feet.

  “What the hell?” Vivien demanded, snatching the page from Lorna. “Who drew this? Where did you find it?”

  “Shoved behind that plaster bucket,” Lorna said. “I don’t know why I checked there. I just did.”

  “Because that’s your power. You’re a finder,” Heather said.

  “But I wasn’t consciously looking for a picture,” Lorna said. “Every other time I had to be thinking about what I wanted to find. It took concentration. I found this just walking into the room.”

  “Your gifts are becoming stronger, like ours,” Heather said.

  “Heather, do you know where this might have come from?” Vivien asked.

  She frowned. “I have an idea.”

  Jan. Who else could it be? The girl was the only child that had been in the house—or at least Heather could reasonably assume so—since Heather had bought the property.

  “Well?” Lorna prompted. “Who drew it?”

  “Martin Edwards’ daughter, January.” Heather took the picture from Vivien and carefully folded it before shoving it in her back pocket. She had no idea what she was going to do with it. As a parent, she would have wanted to be told if her son had been drawing disturbing things. As the subject of the drawing, she wasn’t sure how to broach the subject with Martin. Things were already awkward between them.

  “Martin, the cute contractor?” Vivien asked.

  “Wait, isn’t that the kid you said you saw in the truck and you thought… uh, saw in the truck?” Lorna asked.

  “Yes. The one whose reflection on the glass I thought was my son’s,” Heather answered, saying the words Lorna refused to finish. She thought about what Julia had started to tell her.

  “What?” Vivien demanded.

  “Julia indicated that it might not be my son, but a warning from my magic to get my attention.” Heather thought of Jan. She seemed like a sweet kid—precocious and strong willed sure, but sweet.

  “Do you think something is wrong with the girl?” Vivien asked.

  “Of course not, she’s just a child,” Heather denied. Anything else was unthinkable.

  “I’m not a child phycologist, but as far as I’m concerned, she’s thinking of setting this house on fire,” Vivien insisted. “That says disturbed to me. What do you know about her?”

  “Not a lot. Jan’s sweet,” Heather said. Was Vivien right? Was there something wrong with the girl? “Her mom died when she was born. She’s articulate and smart, a little sassy. I can tell her father loves her. He said she’s a tomboy and likes working on the houses with him.”

  “What else?” Lorna’s voice was softer than Vivien’s, but she could hear the concern in the tone.

  “Martin told me that he has her in an online school, not public. He said she was imaginative and did better that way, and that her teachers didn’t appreciate how she was. I assumed it meant that she learned differently and thrived better at home.” Heather tried to dismiss the sense of worry building inside her.

  “Or that he knows something is wrong with her, and he’s trying to control it,” Vivien said.

  “Let’s not gossip about a ten-year-old girl.” Heather furrowed her brow. “This isn’t us.”

  “Fighting demons wasn’t us either until we summoned one and it attacked Lorna,” Vivien countered.

  “Do you honestly think that Martin’s daughter is a demon?” Heather shook her head, not buying it. “She’s just a kid.”

  “Who knows what kind of things can get in during tragic events?” Vivien countered.

  “What does that even mean?” Heather frowned.

  Vivien began to pace as she tried to reason. “Maybe all the emotion and panic surrounding her mother’s death let something undesirable slip inside the baby. Julia was able to slip inside of me and wear me like a skin suit. I had no control over my body. Maybe it’s like that. Maybe she can’t control it.”

  “We’re talking about a real girl here,” Heather insisted. “Not some horror movie plot. Julia was able to slip inside of you because we’re…” She held up her forefinger to show the ring. “Because we’re us. And you’re implying something lived inside Jan for over a decade. Julia is the most powerful ghost I know, and she could only keep you for a few minutes.”

  “If you won’t take an otherworldly answer, then maybe it’s simpler than that.” Vivien crossed her arms over her chest. “All psychopaths were children once. I’m sure their parents thought they were great too. You see it on the news all the time. Some bewildered neighbor going on about how they didn’t understand how this could happen because he was such a nice, respectable man. Well, that nice, respectable serial killer was a kid on
ce probably setting fires, and doing God knows what else.”

  “Now you’re saying Jan is a budding serial killer?” Heather mimicked Vivien’s defensive posture.

  “Or a firebug,” Vivien said. “She’s clearly fantasizing about pyromania. This is a reason to be concerned.”

  “Oh, hey, come on ladies,” Lorna interrupted. “There is no reason for this to get heated. I raised three kids. My boys were always doing stupid things in order to shock people. Even my daughter sometimes did. This could just be some expression of anger. Maybe she resents that her dad has to work and wishes the house would burn down so he’d have more time with her. Ten-year-olds aren’t always the most logical creatures. Or, if what Vivien’s psychic senses have been picking up is true, then maybe Jan realizes that she might be competing for her father’s attention and—”

  “She would have no reason to think that Martin and I are anything more than employer and contractor,” Heather denied. “I’m not dating him.”

  “Yet,” Vivien said.

  “Ever,” Heather insisted.

  “Why? Because you’re his boss?” Vivien laughed. “So what? Like that scenario has never been played out. Because he’s a dad? You’re great with kids.”

  “Either she’s a demon-possessed serial killer or a great kid,” Heather said. “You can’t have it both ways.”

  “I said you’re great with kids. I didn’t say she was a great kid.” Vivien walked toward the door. “I don’t know her. I’m reserving my opinion but erring on the side of caution because I love you, and I’m worried.”

  “There is another possibility,” Lorna said, following Vivien out of the room. “The same reason we’re here, to detect if something is haunting the house that Heather can’t see. Maybe that is who drew the picture. You said someone was drawing in the dust.”

  “If a ghost had enough energy and time, it’s possible they could learn to manipulate all the elements it takes to draw.” Heather spoke loudly so they could hear her. “From what I’ve seen, though, affecting the physical world isn’t easy for spirits.”