Wiccan, A Witchy Young Adult Paranormal Romance by M. Leighton

wonder if he’d even heard me
when he finally said, “A red hair.”
    “ And that’s why you believe
me?”
    He looked over at me as we
walked, his expression inscrutable. When he turned his head back to
face straight ahead, he hesitantly admitted, “A red hair was found
on the body. That alone would’ve made you appear a little less than
nuts, but finding one here at the scene…” he trailed off, shrugging
as if to say You do the math. “That either makes you credible,” he said,
pausing. Then he looked back at me. “Or involved.”
    He watched me intently and I could tell
he was gauging my reaction. I looked him right in the eye, honest
and deadly serious.
    “ I had nothing to do with
her death. I have an alibi, remember? I wouldn’t even be in this
position if I hadn’t tried to do the right thing. I didn’t have to come and talk to
you. In fact, I didn’t want to, but what choice did I have? Trust
me, if I could get rid of this…this… thing that makes me see stuff, I
would.”
    Grayson said nothing, just looked ahead
again. We walked in silence the rest of the way to my house. When
we got there, he stopped at his blue unmarked Dodge Charger. A
little chirp sounded when he hit the button to unlock the doors.
“Do you still have my card?” he asked as I turned to walk
on.
    “ Yes.”
    “ Call if you think of
anything else, ok? Anything at all.”
    “ I will.”
    He nodded and then opened the door and
slid behind the wheel. I heard the engine roar to life as I closed
the front door behind me.
    My parents descended on me as soon as I
slid my shoes off.
    Mom fired first. “Where was she killed?
Is it on the route you walk to school? Do they think you’re in
danger?”
    Then Dad chimed in. “Do they have any
idea who did it? Is this a serial crime? Do we need to be concerned
about getting you transferred to another school?”
    “ Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I said,
carrying my shoes into the living room and plopping down in Dad’s
recliner. “I can tell you right now that I don’t have the answer to
most of those questions and the ones I do have are ‘no’,” I said,
then adding as a casual afterthought, “Except the one about my
school route.”
    As I knew it would, that started a hail
storm of questions, concerns, warnings and postulations.
    “ Look, maybe I can put your
mind at ease, but you just can’t go telling people what I’m about
to tell you. I mean, I doubt the police want everything they know
to get out.”
    “ No offense, Mercy, but I
doubt that young man told you everything he knows. The police
usually play their cards pretty close to the chest,” Dad argued,
ever the pragmatist. He’s pretty smart for a marketing executive.
“And he seemed far too intelligent and competent to make sloppy
mistakes like that.”
    “ That’s probably true, but
still…”
    “ Alright, alright. We won’t
say anything.”
    “ Ok. They think she was
murdered in the woods on the edge of campus, and, yes, it’s the way
that I walk to school. They don’t seem to think anybody else is in
danger, though. Lisa was most likely intimately acquainted with
whoever killed her. You know, a crime of passion and all
that.”
    “ But do they think it’s a
good idea for a young woman to be walking that path alone until
they catch the person responsible?” Mom’s worried frown was firmly
back in place.
    “ They say it’s fine, Mom.
Really. Plus, it’s always broad daylight when I walk that route. I
would never walk through the woods alone after dark, even if this
hadn’t happened. That’s just stupid.”
    They asked a few more
questions. Some I couldn’t divulge the answers to (for obvious
reasons) and some I just didn’t know the answers to. We talked for a
little longer then I excused myself to my bedroom. I closed the
door and flopped face down on the bed to go back over the events of
the last week and run through Lisa’s murder one more
time.
    There was a tiny little tickle in the
very back of my