Read Online Written in Stone (A Books by the Bay Mystery) by Ellery Adams - Free Book Online Page B

the regret in his voice. Steeling herself, she said, “Go ahead.”
    “Did you pay a visit to Munin Cooper last Saturday?”
    Of all the questions Rawlings might have asked, Olivia had expected this one the least. She relaxed. Hudson, Kim, and the children were safe. Her restaurants hadn’t burned down. Except for Dixie, her friends were all here in the lighthouse keeper’s cottage. Haviland was in plain sight. She could let go of the fear.
    “I did,” she said. “Why?”
    Rawlings was studying her intently. “Tell me about it.”
    Olivia paused to consider why she didn’t want to talk to Rawlings about Munin. Yes, she’d found the experience unnerving. It was something she wanted to shelve and analyze later, in the quiet hour before sleep came. She still hadn’t examined the memory jug she’d carried home that day. It was in her bedroom closet, waiting until Olivia’s time was no longer consumed with preparations for the upcoming Foodie Network taping.
    But Rawlings wasn’t making a request. He might have asked her gently, softly, but it was still an order.
    “We might as well sit. This will take a few minutes.” She found a patch of sand unmarred by scraggly grasses or jagged shells and sat, pulling her knees to her chest.
    Rawlings remained standing. He was all cop now. Not Olivia’s lover or a member of the Bayside Book Writers. He wasn’t going to sit cross-legged on the sand as though they were going to trade stories around a campfire.
    Olivia began by telling Rawlings that she’d first heard Munin’s name from Dixie. She recounted as much of her conversation with the witch as she could remember, including Munin’s ominous warning, and only faltered when she came to the moment when she’d given her treasured starfish necklace to a stranger. She did not want to put that exchange into words. It belonged to her and no one else had a right to it.
    Her fingers went to her throat and Rawlings caught the movement.
    “There’s more, isn’t there?” he prompted.
    “I gave her my necklace,” Olivia admitted with a trace of irritation.
    Now Rawlings squatted down next to her, touching her chin and forcing her to meet his eyes. “Why? I know what that meant to you.”
    Olivia could hear the clamor of insects. She saw the crude shack and felt the moist, humid air of the swamp pressing down on her. Again, the old woman’s keen loneliness enveloped her. The terrible isolation. The yellowed newspapers. The jars of knickknacks. Munin’s gnarled hands pouring tea into chipped mugs. “I just did,” she whispered hoarsely. “It doesn’t matter why. I just wanted to.”
    “It does matter,” Rawlings said, surprising Olivia.
    Her patience at an end, Olivia got to her feet, dusting the sand from her shorts. “Why do you care that I crossed the harbor and spent an hour with this woman? How do you even know about it?”
    Rawlings sighed and stood up. “Because that woman is dead.”
    Hearing this, Olivia dugs her toes into the sand, suddenly needing to feel the gritty grains pressing against her skin, to anchor her body to the soft ground.
    Her mind drifted back in time. She recalled Munin’s wrinkled face in the dim light. Had she seemed unwell? No. Weary perhaps, but not ill.
    “What are you thinking?” Rawlings asked gently.
    “I was wondering if she died of natural causes.”
    Rawlings cast his gaze out over the ocean. A pair of gulls swooped low over the waves and then lifted skyward again, crying in disappointment after discovering that the shadow on the water was a piece of seaweed and not an injured fish. “The medical examiner said she’d been bitten by an eastern diamondback rattlesnake, but the cause of death was drowning.”
    Olivia’s throat constricted. “Where?”
    “The stream behind her house. The park ranger who found her thinks she stumbled down the bank and fell in. That she couldn’t think straight because of the pain.”
    Shaking her head in protest, Olivia said, “Munin