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

strike.
     
    Keith paused, rereading the description of a flashover burn. A link referred him to a photograph. He clicked on it. A close-up picture of Jim’s neck revealed a mark with a red center and branches extending out like those on fan coral reefs. The abrasion didn’t look like anything he had ever seen before, almost as if it were a tattoo. Then something scratched at the surface of his consciousness. A thin memory thickened in his mind. He had seen that mark before. Wasn’t it similar to the symbol engraved on the statue of Rán?  
    Keith opened Google, located the website, Ancient Spanish Artifacts, and typed in Rán. An old painting of what the statue looked like blinked up—the Sea Goddess embellished with gold inlay and jewels. In one hand, she held a snake, its jaw open to long, sharp fangs, and in the other hand, a staff capped with a pointed seashell. Inside the seashell was a large, smoke-colored diamond, one that was supposed to be very rare. On the middle of her chest, above the coil of another snake, was a red spiral of arms that squiggled out like veined branches.
    Keith pulled up both pictures on his monitor, the one of Rán and the one of the mark on Jim’s neck. He couldn’t believe his eyes.
    “What the fuck?”
    The similarities between the two marks jabbed him with a troubling thought. This couldn’t be a coincidence; the odds were too great. Jim had to have found the statue. He must have washed ashore with it, and whoever had taken it, had drawn the symbol onto his neck, for whatever reason. To warn or boast? Even though he couldn’t imagine the coroner mistaking a naturally occurring abrasion over a fabricated one, he could think of no other logical explanation.
    He recollected what Nick had said about the statue’s curse. He hadn’t believed in it then, but now, either someone was playing a gag on them or the curse was real. 

CHAPTER 6
     
    If the heart of a city was downtown, then Portland’s soul was Hawthorne Boulevard, the Mecca, abuzz with quaint bars, specialty restaurants, new age shops, theaters, food pubs, and sidewalks crowded with people that Kate and David called, "interesting folk.”
    Kate turned onto Harrison Street and searched for Thea’s dark green Tudor with mud-gray trim and a matte-black door. When she found the house, she parked one block up. Thea lived alone, as far as she knew, so if she were at work, the house should be empty.
    Before leaving her car, she listened to a message on her phone from David, telling her he had landed, loved her, and would call soon. She put her phone in the glove box, not wanting to risk a chance of dropping it in Thea’s house or him calling while she was inside. She locked up the car and strolled down the street beneath the shade and soft rustle of maples and oak. The rain hadn’t started, but the winds were bringing the moisture in on a cool breeze.
    Kate located Thea’s house and crossed the lawn with a quick stride. A wind chime clanked at the corner of the roof, a soothing sound, yet eerie too. Rosemary and sage lined the walkway and a blue, white, and black evil-eye charm hung above the front door. From outside, Thea’s house looked normal, but Kate imagined it wouldn’t be on the inside. There was nothing normal about Thea, despite the fact that she was human like everyone else.
    Kate trekked carefully alongside a laurel hedge and down a grassy path to the gate at the backyard. She didn’t see any cars or pedestrians traveling by. Thea’s house was dark and silent, and no visible alarms, light sensors, or security stickers informed the onlooker—she presumed Thea would have other means of diverting burglars, but hoped not to find out what those could be.
    “Here goes nothing,” she said, throwing her purse over the fence and then heaving herself up and over the gate. She fell to the ground, landing on her knees in wet, muddy grass. At least Thea didn’t have a dog, Kate thought, scanning the large, grassy