Three Witches and a Killer: Wicked Western Witches Book 1 by Kendra Ashe Page B

answers.
    For part of the day, I’d played with the idea of letting Buck or my dad know about the note, but I didn’t entirely trust the sheriff and Dad would have fits if he knew I planned to meet with a kidnapper.
    At five minutes to midnight, I shoved the rest of the pizza in the fridge and flipped off the lights.
    “Good night, Mickey,” I called as I headed for the door.
    The only response I got was a growl, just like old times.
    When I stepped outside, there was a low-lying fog crawling across the ground. We’d had fog twice in less than a week. That couldn’t be a good sign.
    The streets were completely empty, but that was to be expected since it was almost midnight. During October it was different. There was always some kind of Halloween festival going on. But at the moment, Shadow Crossing was as dead as a ghost town.
    As I stepped onto the path that would take me through Specter Square, a chill made its way down my spine.
    Although it took only a few minutes to reach the hanging tree, it seemed like an eternity.
    I was disappointed to find the clearing empty. It was a major anti climax to find that no one was waiting for me by the tree.
    The only thing to do was wait and see if anyone showed.
    It didn’t take long before someone stepped out of the bushes, or to be more precise, three someones.
    The preacher and his bots, also known as sister wives, were standing less than ten feet away.
    Of course I’ve been wrong before, so I wasn’t sure they were sister wives, but they sure looked that way to me.
    “What’s this all about?” I asked, figuring I knew who the real culprits were.
    “You are evil and must be stopped! You cannot be permitted to embrace destiny!” the preacher yelled.
    At that moment, a big net fell from the tree, trapping me.
    “You are totally in for it now!” I bellowed at the top of my lungs.
    One minute the preacher was making his way toward me, and the next he was flying through the air.
    The women screamed and started running.
    I couldn’t believe my eyes. Garrett was my rescuer.
    “Could you help me out of this?” I asked.
    Kneeling down beside me, he smiled. “Well, that depends. Are you going to be nice to me?”
    If he hadn’t just chased that crazy preacher and his bots off, his words might have had me foaming at the mouth. Instead, I returned his smile.
    “I’ll try really hard to be nice,” I told him.
    Pulling a big knife from the sheath that hung at the side of his belt, he started cutting away the netting. Even before he was done, I was scrambling out of the net.
    “Where’d he go?” I asked, running to the location I’d last seen the preacher.
    “I’m sure they are long gone by now,” Garrett said, as he stood up.
    “Damn! I think they might be the kidnappers and maybe even the killers.”
    Garrett shook his head. “They’re just harmless bible thumpers.”
    “How do you know?” I asked, glaring at him through narrowed eyes.
    “I know that because I’m the killer,” he confessed.
    My mouth fell open. “Damn! That was simple.”
    It took a minute to collect my thoughts but then I turned on him. “Where are my cousins? You have thirty seconds to cough it up before I call the sheriff.”
    “I commanded them to go into the woods, but I don’t know what happened to them after that.”
    “Fine then. I’m calling Buck,” I said, pulling my phone from my back pocket.
    “Now wait a minute. You promised to be nice.”
    My jaw nearly dropped to the ground. “That was before you confessed to murder. You can’t really expect me to keep my promise now.”
    He held up one hand. “I did confess to murder, but it’s not quite as simple as that.”
    “Seems pretty straight forward to me.”
    “Let me explain. I killed them, but I was under the command of someone else. I am a tool, no different than a knife or a sword,” he informed me.
    “I’m confused,” I told him, still holding the phone in my hand.
    “My real name is Vidar . I grew up in