Ripper (Hunter #1)(6)

“I like this car.” I’d had the blue Jeep since I was twenty. I’d gotten her after saving up for two years, and even then my mom had chipped in. Jamie had done the needed mechanical work to get her running at full speed and still did the upkeep on her. I had zero desire to drive anything nicer than the navy blue Jeep I’d lovingly kept running for the last six years.

Liv laughed as I started looking for parking. “Do you ever get rid of anything? Okay, how about this? How about you get a couple of big paychecks and we replace the sound system in here?”

“That’s a deal.” I had no idea where she thought those big paychecks would be coming from. Mrs. Taylor had given me a five hundred dollar retainer and I wasn’t sure she could afford much more than that.

Liv liked her music loud and very rock and roll. Though she dressed like the high school teacher she was, her tastes tended toward hard rock and punk. I wondered if her students knew how much time we used to spend in clubs banging our heads and drinking beer. I always got wistful when I thought of those days. It seemed hard to believe they were gone. I was only twenty-six. I should still feel young, right?

“Will you just park, please? The building is right there.” Liv pointed to the stately looking dormitory.

“I have to look for an open visitor space. The campus police are always on the lookout for a ticket writing possibility.”

She pointed. “Take that one right there.”

It was a prime spot and obviously reserved for staff. I pulled in anyway because Liv can be bossy at times and I didn’t have the energy to argue with her over how far she had to walk. “I’m sending you the bill for the ticket.”

She reached into her stylish bag. She pulled out a piece of plastic. It was shaped like one of those parking stickers that hang from your rearview mirror, but it was completely blank. “Oh, ye of little faith.” she said as she placed it properly.

“New charm?”

Liv was a practical witch. She was always looking for new ways to use her talents to make our lives less expensive.

“They’ll see exactly what they expect to see,” she said with a proud grin on her face. “I already tested it out. I left my car at Love Field when Scott and I went to Vegas. I parked in the arrivals section for three days and presto…no ticket.”

We got out of the car and started to walk up the lovely tree-lined sidewalks toward Joanne Taylor’s campus home.

I reached in my bag and pulled out a business card. I hoped Helen Taylor had done her job as we approached the front desk. It was manned by an efficient-looking girl in her early twenties.

“Hello, how may I help you?” Her nametag identified her as Sharon.

I smiled my most professional smile as I handed her my business card. “Hi, Sharon. I’m Kelsey Atwood. Helen Taylor was supposed to call and inform…”

Sharon’s eyes went big and tears started to form. “Yes, absolutely she did. The director told me you were coming. We all love Joanne. I can’t believe this is happening. Do you think it’s a serial killer? Do you think she’s just the first? How should I protect myself?”

The questions were rapid fire and hit me with the blast of a machine gun. It was all I could do not to step back because she was leaning forward over her desk. I shot a look at Liv. We sometimes communicated silently.

“And you call me overdramatic?” my eyes said.

Liv shrugged because she had nothing for that.

“Sharon, we have no reason to believe Joanne has done anything but freaked out a little and took an impromptu vacation. Really, that’s the likeliest possibility.” I was lying through my teeth, but if I didn’t then the rumors would run wild. “Her mom just wants me to look into it. How well do you know Joanne?”

I wanted to smack Liv because she was staring at me with a maternally proud look on her face. I might be out of practice, but I knew how to handle a freaked-out girl. It was my experience that the most innocent of people tend to be the ones who freak out first. If you never struggled while growing up, it was harder to deal with the realities of the world when you got older. Sharon was obviously a child of privilege, and from her open face, I suspected that Mom and Dad loved their baby girl. I wasn’t about to begrudge the girl her happy childhood. The world needed Sharons to keep it a pleasant place.

“She’s in my Spanish study group,” the blonde said. “We’ve also lived in the same dorm for two years. She’s a super-nice girl. She even gets along with that roomie of hers and let me tell you, that’s a job.”

Interesting. I leaned closer. “Bitchy?”

Sharon shook her head. “Try witchy.”

Liv tensed beside me. “What do you mean?”

Sharon was a fount of gossip. “You know, Cassie’s a Goth, but not like cutesy. She’s all pretentious and stuff. She talks about the goddess and Wicca and cursing people who do her wrong. It’s all weird, but I’m a Presbyterian and we’re supposed to be tolerant so I just smile and let her talk. It kind of freaks me out, though. It didn’t seem to bother Jo.”

I bet it didn’t. I wondered how much Joanne’s roommate knew about her. It all depended on whether Cassandra Lydell was a real witch. I doubted it. Two things gave her away. Wicca is a religion and not one where the followers tend to curse people. They have their threefold laws and stuff. Wicca had nothing to do with actual witches. The real things tended to not run around talking about the goddess, but I was grateful Liv was with me. She could tell me in a minute flat if I was dealing with the real thing or not.