Bewitched (Betwixt & Between #2) - Darynda Jones Page 0,52

a good twenty years Ruthie’s junior, which would place him in his early sixties, but damn, he looked good. I was beginning to wonder if Ruthie had an anti-aging spell because I wanted in.

“Well, I’m going to wash my hair first, but then I really think we need to talk about this.”

He laughed softly. “Promise.”

I jumped out of his cruiser and waved to Parris, who’d seen us pull up and come out onto her porch, her busy body getting the better of her.

My clothes were muddy and wet and ice cold. Not a good feeling. After running into the house, I started for the stairs and a hot shower. Before I reached the first step, however, a light from the kitchen caught my attention. A glow.

Was it on fire?

I ran toward the back of the house only to find the entire kitchen alight with a luminous yellow-orange glow. I searched for the source and found it sitting on the breakfast table where I’d left it.

The other message.

The glow was so bright it made the kitchen look as though it were on fire.

What in the world could make a fear of male pattern baldness so urgent? A little girl trapped in a house with a sadistic, controlling asshole, I could understand. But a man worried about his receding hairline? Still, it was obviously important.

I almost grabbed it with my unprotected fingers but pulled back at the last second. The last time I tried that, the message burned my fingers. I searched for the salad tongs first. I pulled the message out of the pile I’d left. It was the one from the balding man.

I tried the number to one Leonard Quinn of Ipswich to no avail. Then again, it was a tad late.

After biting my lower lip for a few seconds and weighing my options, I realized I had to change before I could even think about checking on the man. The sense of urgency I now felt had me flying up the stairs. Well, flying if I were a velociraptor. Slow and ungainly with more weight than my wings could feasibly lift off the ground.

Breathless, and not in a good way, I tore off my clothes, wondering yet again if I should wake Annette to come with me. Doing this, helping people, had been her idea. To take all of those messages. To start a business. But it was now after three in the morning. I couldn’t do that to her.

Come to find out, peeling off water-logged wet clothes was not as easy as one might imagine. Gazing longingly at the shower and the bottle of shampoo inside, I dried off, threw on the warmest sweater I could find, brushed most of the dirt and leaves out of my hair, and flew back down the stairs. This time I resembled a less flighty bird. Something along the lines of a penguin. Or possibly an ostrich during a mating dance.

I slid to a stop at the front door, remembered I’d left my keys in the Popsicle jeans I’d just peeled off, did the velociraptor-ostrich dance again, then tried to open the door, my legs and lungs burning from all the danged stairs.

Like the first time I’d tried to leave tonight, it wouldn’t budge.

I stepped back to examine it. No vines were blocking it. It just flat wouldn’t budge. I tried again, pulling harder on the knob. Nothing. I checked the lock that I knew I hadn’t locked. I locked and unlocked it for good measure. Nope.

Was Percy blocking it somehow? He was pretty much the house itself. Maybe he didn’t need the vines to block the door.

I looked up. “Percy, the message is glowing. I feel an urgency, like this guy’s hairline is in serious trouble. I have to go check on him.” I pulled on the door again and sagged against it. “Percy, you are not helping.”

The vine on my wrist tightened softly.

I turned full circle. “What does that mean? Are you blocking the door?”

The rosebuds on the bracelet opened up.

“Okay, open for yes. Close for no. Will that work?”

They opened farther. That was a yes.

“Are you blocking the door?” I asked my wrist.

Opening even more, the petals spread gracefully. Yes, again.

“Wait, really? Why?”

Nothing.

Okay. Yes or/no questions. “Are you blocking the door because, I don’t know, you’re worried about me?”

They opened more, the swirls in the middle revealing the filament tucked inside.

“Is this guy a jerk?” That I didn’t need tonight. Not with unwashed hair. I’d already dealt with a