She realized the chief wasn't talking. When she looked up he was watching her with the look of a man who had made his case.
She paled. Her heart beat faster.
Her hands were wringing together hard underneath the cold table. The room was suddenly warm but she kept her composure.
"So, I'm confused and I don't like living in the land of confusion so help me out," he said leaning back. "Were you kidnapped after this surveillance was taken at 1:04 this morning and you confused a few hours with days? That seems odd."
She didn't answer.
He waited.
"What's even more odd is that you already have a file here. From a couple of decades ago. But you know what gets odder still?" He tapped a large index finger against the table. The thump thump collided with her galloping heartbeat. "You used to live in The Lost Souls House. Hmm. Now that's just odd." He looked at an older file. "Quite the rap sheet, Miss Parker. Accusations of some really dark things." He read for a few moments. Her hands wrung in sweaty movements. She kept silent. Words and lies would not find their place here. Then he looked up at her. "Did you really steal Joanna Burns's chickens and leave the chicken hearts strung up on her front porch?"
Her hands were tightly clenched together but she kept her body as still as possible and her face was no longer trying to convey extreme fear mixed with trauma.
She had. Joanna had told her to stay away from her husband in the grocery store when she'd caught her talking to her stupid husband and thought she was flirting. She had been, but that was beside the point. Joanna needed to learn her place. The string of small chicken hearts had been genius. She'd put dried flowers between them to make it more macabre. She almost smiled at the memory.
Chief Landry watched without emotion as the woman across from him transformed from a meek, scared woman to one holding her shoulders straight and head back, pulling on a strength that he could only guess was from some kind of darkness he wanted no part of.
He knew people like her.
He'd dealt with many.
He moved here because of that.
"I don't think I'll answer any more questions for now," she said.
He nodded. "Wisest thing you've said yet. No matter. No amount of money you pay a lawyer will get you out of the evidence we've collected. My partner here will take you to your temporary quarters until you're processed."
He stood and put his phone in his pocket.
"Doesn't exonerate Eloise Willow," she said. "Their use of dark magic will only continue unless you make a deal with me and I stop it," she said lifting her head trying to stay above the water starting to drown her.
He tilted his head. "I've already taken care of exonerating her. And so has Isla Tierney."
He leaned down just the slightest, a mere two inches but it did its intended job by making her push back, losing a piece of her ground. "And as far as magic goes, I have seen a lot of strange things since moving here to Salem, but I have seen a lot more evil, traumatic broken things where I come from and as far asI'm concerned, locking you up might just take care of any 'dark magic', and if we're left with strange things instead of evil?" He nodded easily and stood straight again. "I'll take that with my cup of black coffee in the morning without concern."
"You're making a mistake," she tried again.
He tilted his head, considering her. "You don't even care that you've killed." He said it as an observation, a fact. Like he'd dealt with her kind before. She doubted it. But then something lit in his eyes and he flashed her an unkind smile and she reared back at the shock of it. At what she was seeing in his smile. But just as quickly as he shocked her, his face slackened into his stoic composure making her reel, questioning her reality.
For the first time she lost her composure and surged to her feet with a screech, reaching out both hands formed into claws that he easily avoided by stepping back leaving her belly down on the cold table kicking and growling.
"See you in court, Miss Parker."
And with that he left her to the officers with a pair of handcuffs and her rights.
He stepped into the waiting room where Eloise Willow was being hugged fiercely by Ursula Cambridge and watched as the two friends smiled and laughed the way that women have a particular gift for; in relief and respite.
He'd seen evil, too much in his time, and while he moved here for a purpose and a hope to get away from it, he had no qualms about staring it in the face and giving it no ground in this strange town.
29. A New Chapter
Spring was warming up now, and as Eloise had been released the day before, a frenzy of statements with the police and going to the hospital, she was ready to crash in exhaustion. It was a combination of her lack of sleep and knowing that Bentley Goran was no longer a threat, once and for all putting to rest those demons that tended to wake her.
It was a week later now.
She walked into the celestial room that Bess used when she stayed at The Lost Souls House.
