Salem Falls Read online

  "Yes."

  "I see two charges listed for April twenty-fifth--one for $47.75 at the Wiccan Read and one for $10.70 at CVS. Nothing from the Gap. Are you sure you're looking at the right month's billing statement?"

  Selena was furiously scribbling on the corner of Jordan's newspaper. "Oh, God, I feel like such a loser. This is my MasterCard," she said, and giggled. "Like, duh."

  "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

  "Not today. Sorry about that," Selena added, and hung up. CVS--not an extraordinary place to spend ten bucks. A nail polish, Kit Kat bar, and pack of gum probably cost that much. Or even, perhaps, a pack of condoms.

  The Wiccan Read was a bigger mystery. "Wiccan," Selena said aloud, meandering into Thomas's room, where the big Webster's dictionary was kept for homework assistance. She scanned the W's, but found nothing. Wicked was the closest, and although that might have described Gillian Duncan, it wasn't what Selena was looking for.

  But she'd heard the word before; Selena would have bet on it. She logged onto the computer again, this time as herself, and settled into a search engine.

  Wiccan, she typed.

  After a moment, the first five hits of 153,995 came up.

  Pagan and Wiccan Sites. The Wiccan and Faerie Grimoire of Francesca Celestia. How to Contact a Local Coven. Bright Blessings--the Awesomest Teen Wiccan Home Page.

  And one that caught Selena's eye: Why are we afraid of witches?

  Now Selena remembered where she'd heard the word. "Why, Miss Gillian," she murmured, clicking on the site to find a graphic of a cauldron, fathomless and bubbling black. "What have you gotten yourself into?"

  Thomas had his hand up Chelsea Abram's shirt and was thinking of British monarchs. James I, Charles I, the Cromwells ... Charles II, James II, William and Mary. It was the most boring thing he could call to mind, thanks to a class in European history--God knew if he thought of the softness of Chelsea's skin or the scent that rose from it, he was going to come right then and there and have to suffer the humiliation of explaining the wet spot on the front of his pants.

  She knew how to kiss. Boy, did she know. Her tongue curled into his mouth, dancing and retreating until he could not believe that an hour before, he'd never tasted this ambrosia. Who would have guessed that Thomas would get to second base with a girl two years older than he was? Who would have guessed that this girl would have even agreed to go out on a date?

  They were underneath the bleachers at the football field, a long-established makeout place for Salem Falls High. Because Thomas didn't even have a learner's permit, Chelsea had picked him up in her parents' car. They'd gone to a movie, and out for coffee after that--Thomas paying, as if that might make them both forget that she was older than he was. Now, they were stretched beneath a stadium bench, mapping each other's bodies with the slow and wondrous discovery that comes only the first time you touch someone. "Thomas," she breathed, "like this." Reaching up between her breasts, she unclasped her bra.

  Oh, Jesus. Anne and George I and II and hell, all the Georges and William IV and Victoria ...

  Suddenly Chelsea drew back. Could a girl get shy when she was only half dressed? "Do you ... do you want to stop?" Thomas choked out, although he thought he might fling himself off the nearest cliff if she said yes.

  "Do you?"

  He couldn't see her eyes in the dark. Was she nervous ...or did she think he was? "Chels," he said with absolute candor, "I'd like to keep doing this for my next three lifetimes."

  Her smile caught the light of the moon. "Only three?" she whispered, and her breasts spilled, soft as snow, into his hands.

  Oh my God, Thomas thought. Chelsea tugged his shirt off and pressed against him, a line of fire licking their bodies where skin met skin. She bit his ear. "Who are George and Elizabeth?"

  "Good friends," Thomas gasped, as she rolled him onto his back. A medallion that hung between her breasts swayed over his face. He reached for it.

  "Leave it," Chelsea said.

  But it swung and clicked against his teeth, just when he was hoping to connect with something softer, pinker. Thomas held it up and squinted. "Pretty," he said. "A Jewish star?"

  "Those have six points. This has five," Chelsea said. And then, "Do you really want to talk about it?"

  "No, I want to take it off."

  "I can't."

  "I'll hold it in my pocket. I swear I won't lose it." He kissed the side of her neck and began to work the clasp.

  "Thomas, stop. I promised to wear it all the time."

  "Promised who? Some ex?"

  She didn't say anything, and Thomas stared at the little silver charm on her chest. He'd never seen one before--but maybe it was some funky religious symbol, a Hindu equivalent of the cross or something. Not that Chelsea looked particularly Indian.

  Chelsea was watching him intently. "Do you like me, Thomas?"

  He could barely breathe ... was this leading where he thought it was? He didn't think all the regents in the British Empire from the beginning of time would help him control his overloaded hormones if he actually started to have sex with Chelsea.

  Nodding furiously, he swallowed hard.

  "If I shared something with you, something I've never shared with anyone before, would you swear not to tell anybody?"

  Holy cow. She was a virgin, too. Thomas felt all the blood in his body pool in his groin. "Sure," he croaked.

  Chelsea lifted her hand and trailed it from her throat, over her breast, to the funny little necklace. "I'm a Pagan," she whispered, and kissed him.

  The word echoed, fuzzy, in his mind. "A Pagan?" Thomas repeated. "Like those guys at Stonehenge?"

  "Those are Druids. A Pagan believes in God ... and the Goddess. And the pentagram ... this star ... shows the five elements we celebrate. Spirit, Air, Water, Fire, and Earth." She stared soberly at Thomas, waiting for him to pass judgment. "Weird, huh?"

  "No," he said quickly, although he wasn't sure he believed himself. "So ... you're just, like, really into nature?"

  Chelsea nodded. "Yeah, but that's not how a lot of people see it. When Gillian and Meg and Whit and I formed a coven, we knew we had to keep it to ourselves. We figured if people heard about it, they'd take it totally the wrong way." Suddenly, she grinned. "My God, Thomas, do you know how good it feels to tell someone this?" She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply. "Nine out of ten guys would be looking for my broomstick now, or expecting me to cast a love spell."

  Suddenly Thomas went still inside. "You mean you're--"

  "A Pagan, a witch, whatever you want to call it," Chelsea said. "All four of us are."

  His hands stopped roaming over Chelsea's back, and he suddenly realized that even if she ripped off her pants right now and climbed on him, he would be too distracted to do anything. For Christ's sake, there was a beautiful, half-naked girl next to him, and all he could think about was his father's case.

  The crime scene was different in the still of the night. Owls called to each other from dark places in the sky, a symphony of crickets tuned their bows, and small creatures tangoed in the pine needles at Jordan's feet. He didn't really know why he'd come here. For inspiration, maybe? Certainly, he had a leg to stand on now for his defense ... but it was shaky. The discrepancy in time and distance here didn't effectively exclude Jack as a rapist--it only suggested that Gillian Duncan was covering something up.

  If Jordan were a betting man, he'd lay odds that Jack and Gillian had had sex and after the fact, she'd been mortified and had spun this story to explain away what had happened. But why wouldn't the other girls have heard the sounds of their passion? Why wouldn't Jack have told him, if that was the way it had gone down?

  He said he hadn't touched Gillian. And there was also the strange fact that the other girls who had been there would have seen something--a look, a smile, a touch exchanged between Gillian and Jack that flirted with the possibility of sexual attraction. Yet not a single one of them had mentioned it. Were they protecting their f