Page 52 of A Curse On Black Lake
“I know. But we’re in it together. You said the Spirits told you we have to work together, right?” I ask.
Her lips roll together, trying to hide her smile, and she nods.
“Do you think Wyatt has some kind of evidence you don’t know about?” she asks.
I shrug, focused on my hand on her thigh.
“I don’t know what there could be because I have more evidence than he does. In the past, these cases have had very little to go on, which is why they’re still cold,” I mutter and peer at her.
Her eyes glaze over, and she blinks rapidly.Theymust be saying something to her. Eliana’s jaw clenches, and then she meets my eyes.
“They think there’s something fishy going on, and we should dig in places we haven’t thought to look,” she says and rolls her eyes.
I chuckle at how irritated she is.
“Because you know that makes total sense, and we live to solve their riddles,” she says to me,I think.
She stills again.
“Yes, well maybe if you were a little more detailed, I could actually do that.”
She’s obviously not talking to me.
“That’s not … no, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says quickly. “Why in the world would I say that to anyone?” she asks them.
“I don’t believe you.”
“That’s irrelevant to the fact that there’s no way it’s true. You can’t see into the future, but youcanmeddle in things, and that’s what you’re doing,” she says.
That’s a weird one.
“What are they saying?” I ask her.
Eliana humphs and crosses her arms. “They … think that you do have something to do with the murder, but not in a ‘you killed the woman kind of way’.”
I frown. “I guess I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
“I don’t know what they’re talking about. The only way that would make sense is if you’re connected to the killer somehow because you didn’t know that poor woman,” she says to me.
“You mean as in, I know who he is?” I ask her.
Her eyes glaze again as she listens to what they are saying. I have to admit it’s different, but there are voices speaking to her, and far be it from me to consider that it’s anything other than real. Her story is too odd not to be real. Why would someone make that up? Regardless, she’s strangely endearing to me. Or maybe I’m the weird one.
My father always told me we have a tendency to discount the supernatural. We finite humans are too quick to dismiss things we don’t understand, like the supernatural. Being faced with it in the form of Eliana in my lap shows me he was right all along. There’s no discounting her connection to the veil. I believe all of it.
“They think it could be someone who knows you personally.”
My mind immediately goes to Wyatt, my cousin, but that’s not possible. He’s a pain in my ass and the Sheriff, but he would never hurt someone like that. He puked the first time he saw adead body. Many people do. At least that’s what I thought he was doing because he walked away quickly. In his defense, the body had been in Black Lake for a week. It wasn’t … pretty.
It can’t be him.
“I don’t know who it could be,” I tell Eliana.
I’m not going to suggest my cousin. That feels all kinds of wrong.
“We can think it through together. I have to get the apothecary opened. Are you going to stick around for a bit?” she asks me.
I absently rub my hand up her thigh, briefly touching her skin. Her cheeks get rosy, and my lips twitch in satisfaction.
