Dance By Midnight Read Free Page B

few months later he was in the middle of a divorce and discussing the custody of his daughter. She'd been fourteen at the time. Brendi. I remembered her because when he brought her into the bar where I worked and she always asked me to make her a Shirley Temple with extra cherries.
    When Mike looked away I knew Brendi was the reason he was here in Savannah. "What happened—"
    "Teresa's dead." His voice was flat and he moved away to the window. I watched him, aware of Sam's eyes on me. "Remember how we came to the agreement? That Brendi would stay with me while Teresa chased her job?"
    "Yeah...that was after that Cozen doll tried to take your soul."
    "Yeah. Little fucker. Well, Teresa moved, ended up in Seattle. Brendi and I were happy. The store did pretty good for a while, but just when the economy tanked and I found myself in a sort of financial straight, I called Teresa to see if she could help take care of Brendi till I got back on my feet. Teresa didn't answer my calls and she always had before. I really started worrying when Brendi's birthday came and went and Teresa didn't send anything, she didn't even visit, and before then she never missed our daughter's birthday."
    I put my hand to the wall, my knees shaky. I already sort of knew what he was going to say and I didn't want to hear it.
    "Seattle Police contacted me. They found Teresa's body in her home, ripped apart. Said it looked like some kind of animal had mauled her. I had to account for my whereabouts…." He looked at me. "Like I could ever do that to Teresa?"
    "No."
    "I didn't know how to tell Brendi. She was at school when I got the call. I'd put her in a private school—that's what I needed financial help with. So after I hung up with the police I called the school to arrange to pick her up early. But they told me she wasn't there. She'd been counted absent." He looked down. "I dropped her off that morning, just like I always did. I walked inside, kissed her cheek, and watched her go into her room. There was no way she wasn't there."
    "What did you do?"
    "I raised holy hell is what I did. I stormed into that school—I was so angry, Darren. I terrified teachers and students when I demanded to know where she was. I pointed at the kids that'd greeted her that morning and they lied to my face. They said they never saw me. So did the teacher. And my performance didn't ingratiate me with the police. They arrested me and then held me pending finding my daughter. When they coordinated with the Seattle PD, they decided I had something to do with Teresa's murder and my daughter's disappearance.
    "I tried calling you but you didn't answer. I did get hold of Stella and she arranged bail. Hired me a lawyer and then told me you'd vanished. You told her you were meeting up with friends to head over to Maureen's apartment and never came back. All your things were still over in her garage."
    I remembered that. I'd gone over to Nona Martinique's botanica because of the Grimoire and Bonville and…
    That's where those memories ended.
    But I remembered Stella. So…why hadn't I called her? I'd actually forgotten her name until Mike brought her up.
    "You don't remember Stella?" Mike watched my face.
    "Yeah I do. I just…so what happened?" I needed to get the focus off of me.
    "I'm technically out on bail. They ruled Teresa's death not a homicide because the ME there insisted she'd been killed by an animal, not a man. And too many witnesses placed me in Georgia at the time. They shipped her body back to South Carolina, but her parents wouldn't let me attend the funeral. They're the ones pressing charges. They say I killed Brendi, Darren. But I didn't."
    Shit. Fuck. All of my troubles, magic-book-fused-to-soul aside, seemed ridiculously petty. Mike had lost his ex-wife, someone he'd considered a close friend, as well as his daughter. I'd never married or even considered having kids…so I couldn't imagine the heartache he felt.
    I thought Sam was going to approach Mike, but