Something Wicked by Evelyn Vaughn Page B

knew more than I’d remembered I did.

    I received a package from my second cousin Eleni in Greece—or maybe she was my first cousin once removed? Her grandmother had been my YaYa’s sister. The package included a blue glass disk with a golden eye painted on it, and the note simply said, “Perhaps this can help.”

    Strange. But YaYa had hung a similar disk in her front window when she was alive, so I did, too.

    Finally, I got my cousin Fran, Ray’s sister, to help me look up everything possible about the Fishers on her computer.

    I didn’t like what I found.

    For one thing, they were orphans, too. But instead of an accident, like the one that had claimed my mom and dad, Ben and Victor had lost their parents in a home invasion. The actual newspaper reports about the stabbing deaths gave me chills. The twins had been six. The killers had never been brought to justice.

    For another thing, Al Barker hadn’t lied. Victor had a much better reputation than Ben did. Victor had gone to Yale. He’d worked at Prescott & Sons, one of the leading law offices in the city, before expanding into political consultation. His old firm proclaimed his innocence and offered a reward for information implicating the real killer. Victor had a wealthy girlfriend, who now stuck to her story of having withheld a valid alibi until she realized the weight of the charges.

    In contrast, Ben Fisher had no degrees. And he was self-employed, studying conspiracies, secret societies and the occult.

    By the day the preliminary hearing started, exactly ten business days since Diana’s murder, I was half doubting my own sanity. What if Ben was the killer? What if Victor really was the innocent victim?

    Then I saw them together. Victor stood by the defendant’s table. Ben waited in the gallery immediately behind him with an older couple, probably the grandparents who’d taken them in after their parents’ deaths. The immediate resemblance between the two brothers was remarkable. Identical. But Victor had a fresh shave, his hair had been gelled neatly back and he wore a three-piece suit; the whole dog and pony show for the hearing.

    Ben’s attempt at formality meant khakis instead of jeans and a brown corduroy blazer over his maroon T-shirt. His hair still flopped in easy curls over his forehead, curls he occasionally pushed back with one impatient hand.

    I couldn’t see auras. But if there’s one thing magic teaches, it’s that there’s a definite reality beyond what we can see and hear. And whether I could name the source of my certainty or not, I could see the innocence in Ben and the through-and-through evil in Victor as clearly as if each of them radiated neon signs.

    Ben’s eyes brightened when he spotted me, and he started to smile, then turned back to his grandparents with one last, sidelong glance.

    I saw him touch his brother’s shoulder, saw Victor flash Ben his charismatic grin—and saw Ben give his brother a bracing squeeze before removing his hand. They really were a pair, whether Ben had helped that stupid drunk driver the other week or not.

    I felt sick all over again. I hoped everything went quickly. This hearing, choosing the jury, the trial, the sentencing. I needed closure. I needed to see Victor Fisher convicted.

    Then the lawyers got started.

    As Mr. Jennings, the prosecuting attorney, had explained it, a preliminary hearing exists to try out the charges against the accused. It’s a lot like a trial but with two big differences. One is that there’s no jury; the judge alone makes the decision. The other is that, instead of finding guilt, the judge only has to find that there’s enough evidence to warrant the case going to a full trial. Clearly, in a case like Diana’s, this was just a formality.

    That first day, in which Mr. Jennings walked us through Diana’s murder, was both disturbing and encouraging. Di’s head had been smashed in with a hammer, after all. How could anyone hear that and not see the