Wicked Tempest: A Kate Waters Mystery (Kate Waters Mysteries Book 2) by Erin Cole

she said with her back still turned.
    “You know him?”
    “I know of him.” Thea turned around, squeezed a lemon wedge then dropped it into the glass and set it in front of Kate.
    Kate supposed that on a night like tonight, she was going to need more than water. She picked up the glass. “Don’t think this will persuade me to your side,” she said taking a sip.
    “That’s not my agenda.”
    Kate let the burn of the gin settle on her tongue before she spoke again. “Andre threatened me tonight.”
    “Sounds like him.”
    “He thinks we stole a statue from Brooke’s house. You mentioned a statue.” Kate studied her face for any hint of secrecy, but Thea’s expression remained as straight as a fault line. “I told him we didn’t know anything about a statue. He didn’t believe me.”
    Thea collected a three-dollar tip next to Kate and set the empty glass in the dishwasher. She grabbed a towel and wiped the area clean. “He won’t do anything. He’s just a little dog with a big bark.”
    “I’m not so sure about that,” Kate said. “He waltzed right into my house without an invitation and seemed to know a lot about me, where I worked, my title, even Detective Wells.”
    “All to intimidate,” Thea replied.
    “So what do you know about the statue? What is it, and where is it?”
    “The statue is dangerous, and we should all keep our distance from it. That’s all you need to know.”
    “Why?”
    “It’s cursed.”
    “The curse, right.” Kate had no desire to return to that conversation. Curses were fantasy and mythology, fabricated acts devised by vengeful teens, not matters that thirty-something women believed in. Though she had experienced an unsettling ghost-like encounter in the last house she had lived in, which she still half-blamed on her narcolepsy, it was a far reach from real-life curses.
    Three young women in heels and skirts walked up to the bar. “Hold on,” Thea said to Kate. She poured them three glasses of white wine, swiped one’s card, and slipped the receipt in the cash drawer. She came back over to Kate.
    “Could Andre’s visit have been driven by your dislike for Brooke?”
    “Maybe. It’s complicated. You know how relationships are?”
    Kate eyed her, wondering if somehow she knew about her troubles with David. She sipped her drink. No, she thought. Only a coincidence. Thea was avoiding something.
    “Andre doesn’t like me,” Thea admitted at Kate’s silence. “No secret there.”
    “Why?”
    Thea shifted on her feet, her gaze scanning the back wall of the bar. “Why should I care? He’s an asshole.”
    “You should care because Brooke is dead, and you wanted to curse her?”
    “Andre’s feelings about me have nothing to do with Brooke’s death or the fact that I may have wanted to curse her.”
    “Don’t you think it’s coincidental that you were concerned for Brooke’s life, and then she just happened to be dead five minutes later?”
    “She was struck by lightning. Hardly foul play.”
    “We don’t know that for sure.” Kate changed the subject. “Would anyone else have known about the statue? What if someone was in the house before us? The door was open, remember? Seems as though someone could have stolen the statue before we arrived.”
    Thea shrugged. “Brooke was a social butterfly. It could be anyone.”
    “What about the other women in your coven, like Donna.”
    Thea shook her head. “Donna? We both know Donna well enough to know that she’d never steal anything from anyone.”
    No, but maybe you would? A suspicion, which seemed to only grow more. She hadn’t directly asked Thea if she had stolen the statue, but didn’t think it would do any good. Thea only admitted what she wanted to.
    “Look,” Thea said, as if on second thought. “I’ll talk to Andre. Make sure that he doesn’t bother you again. You don’t need to be dragged into this. You have enough going on.”
    “It’s already too late. I’m a part of the