“What?” I asked through clenched teeth. “What do you mean she kept their body parts in her apartment?”

“I found the first two women before anybody else, but I knew if I handled it you wouldn’t believe me. You wouldn’t take me seriously.”

I held both hands to my head. “You saw both girls?”

“Yes. When the first girl was killed, you were gone away on that business trip. What else could I do? I called Reece, but first I took certain parts. The most important one for women. The womb. It can bring a direct line to the gods. It births spirits into the world and sends them away. When I can send these innocent women’s spirits back, I’ll have their wombs to—”

“You cut their vaginas for a spell?” My hands were now closed fists of tension.

Grandma nodded like I was a crazy person. “But you’re missing the point.”

“I’m missing the point?”

“Stop yelling. I gave their wombs and my plastic gloves to Reece. She kept them somewhere in her apartment. Later we decided to put them in a small metal cooler in Dayanara’s room.”

My legs wobbled a little. I had to stumble to her small kitchen and collapse into a chair. “This night just keeps getting more interesting. You found a dead girl and instead of calling the police you think, ‘Oh. Let me cut out her vagina first. Then I’ll call for help!’”

“Al—”

“Then you let me discover her the next day, as if that is something I needed to see in my life. Why in God’s name would you not tell me about this?”

“You wouldn’t take me seriously.” She returned to her counter and began stacking butter knives. “Only Reece would help.”

“And Reece doesn’t tell me about this at all. Why would she work with you?”

“That is her reason to tell.”

I jumped up from my chair. “Why the hell did she work with you?”

“For the gods’ sake, stop yelling at me.”

“I’ll send you back to Cuba tonight. I’m done with this entire situation. You’ve gone too far. If I’d known about this information, Reece would not be in jail, perhaps we would even know who is actually killing these women. All this time we’ve been thinking some crazy serial killer is walking around the property cutting up girls and it’s you and your goddamn spell preparations.”

“Snyder is—”

“That’s enough! Why did Reece work with you and hide these things from me?”

Grandma stared at the ground. “She asked me to make a love charm, a powerful one, something that would make you fall in love with her. I told her I would.”

Poor Reece.

I didn’t know much about grandma’s religion, but upon returning to find a mentally destroyed Hex in the hospital due to some sick spell my step dad and mom started, I read several books on corazón muerto. There were three things that weren’t possible to gain from magic. The gods simply did not possess the power to make someone immortal, all powerful, or have another fall in love with someone else. It was the basic don’ts for attempting magic. The fact that my step-dad had searched for years to discover some sick enchantment of immortality banned in all countries practicing corazón muerto exemplified how crazy and fake he was. The fact that Grandma had agreed to make Reece a potion or whatever to have me fall in love with her showed how desperate Grandma had become.

“Why would you lie to Reece like that?” I asked.

“I thought you liked her and were just being too stubborn. I figured this would be a simple solution.”

“A simple solution? By telling someone you would get me to fall in love with them, all they have to do is hide a few vaginas for you?”

She shifted her activities to putting up all of the utensils again, one by one. “Reece also supplied my blood to me. The blood I used to talk to the gods with Dayanara on the night of the second girl’s death. Reece brought the blood to me. I covered Dayanara and myself in it. When I ran to my cottage to get the rest of the items, that’s when I stumbled upon the other girl in my garden.”

“But you didn’t say anything?”

“No. I had Dayanara outside and covered in blood. I had to cut this new girl’s vagina with Dayanara next me. I was already busy. Then Reece and I saw you on the dance floor with Elle. I couldn’t disturb you with the problem. Your face that night was magical. I’d never seen you so captivated before.”

“So you decided to let someone else find the dead girl?”

“No.” Grandma waved my comment away. “No one was supposed to find her. I was going to take Dayanara back upstairs after we finished the spell, but then that poor dead girl’s friend discovered her body. Everyone ran and jumped around, screaming. Reece and I decided to just let you know I was out there with Dayanara because there was no way I would be able to sneak both of us by everyone, with all that blood over us.”

Tags: Kenya Wright Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net