"If you're standing here asking us about these texts that, admittedly, are eery foreshadowing for what has befallen them," Crystal said slowly as her slim fingers lightly tapped on the rim of her iced tea.
He nodded slowly catching what she was insinuating. "The texts were posted on social media by one of the students in the text group and they tagged Bess before the incidents."
Anyone could have read these texts, including a certain group of women.
"But we're old biddies. We don't know how to use technology," Eloise smiled at him with wide innocent eyes. He narrowed his but she could see a smile hidden in the corner of his mouth.
"So, you are looking into Bess being bullied, I assume?" Ursula asked, her words heavy and pointed.
He paused, which was answer enough.
"Ah. So we are concerned more for the boys than the girl," Eloise said and when Taylor's eyes hit hers, she felt a jolt. She got a sudden whiff of his particular scent but it had an underlying tartness to it that reflected the regret in his blue eyes. He understood their frustration. Did he empathize, or did he simply understand the injustice?
"Someone is pink and another boy is in a psych holding," he said by way of explanation.
Three women lifted their heads, nearly imperceptibly, merely a few centimeters of movement but the way their eyes held the detective was enough to give him warning to tread lightly. Their silence and their steadiness was that of a lioness holding herself still in the presence of a predator encroaching on their territory and their pride, their family.
He sighed and gestured to the empty wicker chair in question to which Ursula nodded and Crystal passed him a glass of iced tea ignoring his earlier refusal. He held the amber class in his large hand and softened his stoic face.
"Listen. The new chief is," he looked down briefly and Eloise got the impression this wasn't a man prone to losing his words, but one to take his time with them when it mattered. "Well, he has something to prove and we have a divided force where it comes to this town's," he paused, "peculiarities," he finished as he looked at Crystal, something silent passing between them. Ursula and Eloise watched the exchange, a word turned into a silent sentence which then turned into her clear blue eyes deepening in understanding as she nodded once.
He looked into his glass, a thoughtful look on his handsome face before he looked at the three of them. "You need to be careful, is all I'm saying."
"Officially?" Ursula asked.
"Officially I asked about your connection, if any, to Kyle Sandman and or Justin Ashford."
"To which there is none," Ursula responded.
He held her eyes for a beat, then his gaze shifted to Eloise's where they held for a moment that felt like a touch. Oranges and smoked hickory flickered through her nose and she had to hold her breath.
"Unofficially?" He set the untouched glass of iced tea on the coffee table as he stood. "You need to be very careful." It wasn't a threat, but a warning. "It was nice seeing you ladies. If you hear anything, or know anything, please call me," he said as he handed out his card.
"See you later, Taylor. Tell your momma I'll stop by with my famous brownies soon."
He flashed her that smirk, seriousness melted away, and Eloise tilted her head watching him be charmed by Crystal, or was it Crystal by him? The woman smiled as he winked at her and found his way out.
Once he and his truck were down the winding way, the trees covering his taillights, Ursula turned to Crystal.
"You have famous brownies?"
She smiled.
Later that evening, a spring storm washed over Salem gracing the waking ground with a gentle baptism. The smell of fresh cotton and secrets filled the kitchen with the open windows that brought in the mesmerizing sound of the pitter-pattering fingers. Ursula lit a few of her favorite vanilla and tobacco candles while she, Bess and Eloise ate fettuccine with fresh basil and pine nut pesto, fresh tomatoes blistered with black garlic and flaky sea salt.
Bess was lamenting over the whispers and stares at school, the talk of her and heroldcoven hexing the two boys. Never mindthat these two boys were bullies and treated other teenagers with an unrelenting mean spirit.
Never mind that they had targeted Bess, painting her in the light of a young woman who dared to sayno.
"Kyle was nice to me, at first," she said, looking sullenly into her bright green pasta, pushing around the tomatoes with her fork. "But when I wouldn't, you know," and they did, "he ghosted me. Which, wasn't the worst, but when he gets with Justin, who is a complete ass, he's just mean and ghosting turned to reputation-bombing."
Ursula and Eloise shared a look between two friends who knew that story well, had lived it. Unfortunately, a tale as old as time, a young woman at a tender age learning how many boys at that age are like water: flowing where there is no resistance and the harder lesson of where to draw her lines.
"Sounds like the little twerps deserved it," Eloise remarked, receiving raised eyebrows from Ursula. "What?" she asked with a shrug. "I'm not saying I would hex them. I am saying, in the privacy of this home, that it sounds like they need to learn a lesson."
Bess was half happy, half miserable as she nodded along to Eloise's sentiment.
"I'm sorry, honey," Ursula said softly. "I wish I could say it gets better, but you only get better at recognizing when someone wants you for you, or not."
