So if she didn’t place the curse and Hale was the first person killed, did that by necessity mean we were dealing with a summoning? Or was the hone-onna’s presence here simply a matter of bad luck? Had she, perhaps, simply been passing through at the exact same time as Marian had been physically rather than magically cursing her ex?
“Would there be anyone in your immediate circle who could have placed such a curse?” Aiden asked. “A family member or friend, perhaps?”
Marian was shaking her head even before he’d finished the question. “There’s just me and Bonny here in the reservation. My family lives interstate.”
“Bonny being the dog,” Aiden said, with a glance at me.
I smiled. “Dogs are utterly loyal to their humans, but it’s rare for them to get involved in curses. Cats, on the other hand, are extremely untrustworthy when it comes to such matters.”
“I take it your familiar isn’t a cat then?”
“No, thank God.”
She laughed and drank some more of her coffee. “If a curse is responsible for calling Hale’s killer here, could it have been placed by his lover?”
I hesitated. “Maybe, although it’d be extremely unusual.”
Mainly because revenge spirits generally weren’t drawn to women involved in the act of betrayal.”
“Hale was a smooth operator. I don’t believe his bit on the side knew I existed until the fatal evening I answered his phone. Her shock was too raw—too real.”
“Do you know anything about her?” Aiden asked.
Red flickered briefly through her aura’s gentle pink. “No, and I think it best it remain that way. I still have his phone here, though, if you’d like it. It’s not in great condition, because I threw it at the wall multiple times, but you might be able to resurrect the database and get the list of his contacts. She’s there, though knowing him he probably has her listed under a false ID.”
“If we could have the phone, that would be great,” Aiden said.
“Hang on a sec, then.”
She briefly disappeared down the hall but wasn’t gone all that long. When she’d said the phone wasn’t in great condition, she’d actually been understating it. The casing was cracked in multiple places and the glass screen so spiderwebbed I doubted anything would be visible even if the phone still worked.
Aiden pulled a small plastic bag out of his pocket and motioned her to drop it in. “Do you want this returned with the rest of his effects?”
“No. I’ve plenty of other things of his to destroy should the urge take me. But thank you for asking.”
He finished his tea and then rose. “We’ll be in contact if we have any further questions.”
She nodded and led us back to the front door. “You know, there is a part of me that hopes you never catch the thing behind these murders. The world in general is a much nicer place without men like my ex.”
“Problem being,” I said, “is that sometimes the innocent get hurt.”
“That’s the way of the world in general, I think.” She shrugged and closed the door once we were through.
I walked over to the truck and climbed in. Once Aiden had done a U-turn, I asked, “Can werewolves smell pregnancy?”
He glanced at me, eyebrows raised. “That’s an extremely odd question—you’re not pregnant, are you?”
I snorted. “Heaven forbid. I was just curious.”
He turned onto the highway and headed back to Castle Rock. “I take it you smelled hers?”
I nodded. “My olfactory senses have been sharpening for a while, but I wasn’t expecting something as personal as pregnancy to have a smell.”
“It’s the hormonal changes a pregnant woman’s body goes through that you’re smelling.”
“Does that mean a pregnancy is obvious from the point of conception?”
“No. It generally happens from about three months on.”
“I’ve never actually thought about it, but I’m guessing that means you’re also sensitive to menstrual cycles? I can’t imagine that would be pleasant on a day-to-day basis.”
A smile tugged the corner of his lips. “You learn at a very young age to basically turn off certain scents. I’m well aware of your cycle and can generally tell a few days out when it’ll happen, but that’s only because we live together.”
“Huh.” I studied the street ahead for a moment. “Do you think Marian is aware she’s pregnant?”
“I think when she stopped menstruating it’d have been pretty obvious.”
“There are women who continue to menstruate all the way through their pregnancy.”
“Then their past selves must have done something pretty shitty to be stuck with that. But yes, she knows.” He glanced at me again. “Why the curiosity?”
I shrugged. “Just found it odd that she didn’t seem fazed by the fact that, with her husband dead and no family here, she hasn’t anything in the way of a support system.”
“Some women don’t need all that. I can’t imagine you ever would.”
“Except I have more help and support here than I ever would have up in Canberra. Between Belle, Monty, Ashworth, and Eli, I’ll never have to worry about a sitter for my daughter when she pops along.”
“Daughter?” His eyebrows rose. “Not a son?”
“Nope. Not first up, at any rate.”
He glanced at me. There was something in the blue of his eyes that spoke of longing, and it made me angry and sad all at the same time.
“So says your psychic self?”
“Multiple times.”
“Huh.” He paused for a long moment. “I don’t suppose those same dreams gave you any idea who the father will be?”
“No, but what does it matter to you if they did?”
“That’s unfair, Liz.”
“Why, when sooner or later we’ll both move on to other partners?”
“Moving on doesn’t mean we can’t remain friends. Moving on doesn’t mean I will stop caring about you. Moving on doesn’t mean I will ever cast you from my life.” He glanced at me, his gaze fierce. “I’d hope that you feel the same way.”
I sighed. “Of course I do.”
But hope was a fickle lover at the best of times, and I wasn’t entirely sure I had the strength to keep him as a close friend, to see him happy with another woman, day in and day out.
But maybe that was fear speaking. I’d seen that blonde-haired little girl, after all, and if she wasn’t Aiden’s, she had to be someone else’s. Which meant I was absolutely destined to find happiness in the future, even if my present was falling to pieces.
Silence fell, but it was haunted by what-ifs and far from comfortable. At least for me.
As we neared the café, his phone rang sharply. He pressed the switch on the steering to answer it and then said, “I take it there’s a problem?”
“There certainly is” came Monty’s reply. “We’ve got ourselves another goddamn body, and this time it’s a woman.”
Aiden swore and briefly scrubbed a hand across his eyes. “Where are you?”