Planned ahead. She don’t owe a dime to nobody. The only insurance she has is on the property and the horses.”
I let that settle inside me, realizing that I needed life insurance to provide for Mud. And a will . . . “Okay. That makes sense,” I said, mostly talking to myself. I hated that I no longer lived off the grid, that I had to think like townies, like city folk. To them, I said, “What can you tell me about Stella’s romantic life?”
Tondra stiffened and shot a sharp glance at her daughters. I knew that look. It was a mama’s warning to keep their mouths shut and let her do the talking. “My girl’s a good girl.”
“I’m not saying she isn’t,” I said, softening into a smile.
“Stella ain’t been dating no one in particular,” Tondra said. “She takes a different singer to every event, like the CMAs, but she ain’t picked a man to settle down with.”
The sisters glanced at each other but didn’t comment.
“One of the gossip magazines—which I do not read, in case you’r’un wondering—says she’s been dating Clyde MacMahan again,” I said. “The race car driver? She dated him before?”
“Lies. Her’n Clyde’s been friends since they was in middle school,” Sophee Anne said, ignoring her mother’s glared warning. “They dated a couple years back, but there wasn’t no passion, you know? Stella said it was like dating her brother. ’Cept she ain’t got a brother. It was a joke a hers. ‘Like datin’ my brother, ’cept I ain’t got one, so wha’d I know?’”
At the shared memory, all three women teared up again. I waited while they passed tissues and wiped their eyes.
“She broke up with him?” I clarified.
“Yeah. But she took him to an award ceremony last spring and the press went nuts. Clyde’s datin’ that actress what’s in the new Disney movie. Don’t bother looking his way,” Sophee said. “He ain’t no witch. He’s a man through and through.” Most people didn’t know witches could be male. And that was our problem. Whoever our killer was, she—or he—either was a new kind of witch or had obtained a trigger from a witch to power unknown magical energies. We hadn’t released that. So far as I had been informed, the coven hadn’t let it slip either.
“Ain’t no special man in her life right now,” Tondra said. “But if you’un don’t mind, can we talk later? It’s jist so . . .” She burst into noisy weeping. Her daughters joined her and they all piled up like puppies. I said my thank-yous, told them they’d likely be asked questions by other agents, and to not take it personally if the same questions were picked at again. I wasn’t sure they had heard me until Tondra handed me a business card with the security firm name and contact info. She said, “Like I said. You’uns find the murderer who kilt my baby. That’s all we want.”
Stella’s sisters nodded.
I slipped outside the room and down the hallway, taking photos, looking for other people, and generally snooping. As I worked, I wondered how Tondra and her girls would fare in an interview with Tandy or Margot. Because I had a feeling they hadn’t been particularly honest with me about Stella Mae’s love life.
* * *
* * *
I was slumped at the kitchen bar, my laptop open and a pad and pen at my elbow, typing up my report when I felt a prickle on my skin, like a cold rush of wind followed by the stillness preceding a lightning strike. Wild magic. I knew it was my boss before FireWind blew toward the house. His emotions and magic were riding high, electric, contained but explosive, like a bomb, primed and ready but confined behind steel walls.
I sat up straight, going on guard, and was watching the door, meeting his eyes as he entered. My up-line boss was a Cherokee skinwalker, soft-spoken, controlled. The frozen gust of magic rolled back and vanished, leaving him just a man, but paler than his normal golden skin tones. Hungry looking.
“Ingram,” he murmured in his almost-a-whisper way. And as usual, that was all the greeting I got. He dove right into business. “Update. I understand you have spoken with the family.”
“I have food in my car if you want. And while someone stopped using the inside coffeemaker due to death and decay, there’s coffee in the percolator on the camp stove outside,” I said, knowing he had to have seen the command center,