In Alice Blanchard's The Witching Tree, Burning Lake is a small, isolated town with a dark history of witches and false accusations. Now, a modern-day witch has been murdered, and Detective Natalie Lockhart is reluctantly drawn deep into the case...
Release date:
December 7, 2021
Publisher:
St. Martin's Publishing Group
Print pages:
320
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Mornings were dark in March, cold and foreboding. Chilly floors, hurrying downstairs for coffee, shivering and gazing out the French doors at the purple-black sky. For Natalie, living with Hunter Rose inside his enormous nineteenth-century mansion was like curling up with a leather-bound Charles Dickens novel—deliciously comforting. She loved getting up early, before Hunter was awake, and sneaking downstairs to sit at the end of the absurdly long mahogany dining table, built for a family of twelve, where she had a magnificent view of the manicured backyard and the wild woods of upstate New York.
Last night there had been another snowstorm, but it was dissipating now. She watched the gently falling snow. The backyard was pristine—like an untouched canvas. She could paint the day in any direction she pleased. The plows were making their rounds, and the utility trucks would soon be repairing any fallen lines. Order was slowly being restored.
Natalie relished the quiet of early morning, before Hunter was up with his scratching and yawning and exaggerated gestures of emerging from the cocoon. He was gorgeous to look at. Gorgeous to touch and explore, but this morning she didn’t want that. She needed a separate space where she could think, because she had an important decision to make.
In the cradle of winter, March’s lullaby, Natalie Lockhart was considering quitting the police force. She’d had enough of the dark side. Four months ago, she was almost killed by a twisted individual who liked to drug and embalm young musicians, and six months before that, she’d solved one of the biggest serial killer cases in the American Northeast. Now, the more time she spent inside the Rose mansion, playacting the lady of the manor, the more she kind of liked it.
And what was not to like? Dinner parties with fascinating people, weekend jaunts to Manhattan to buy art, and basically having enough money and time to do whatever she pleased. An opportunity to explore her creative side. When she was little, Natalie used to love to draw and paint. Hunter had offered her a large room on the third floor to use as a studio space. No more scraping by to pay the bills, no more broken dishwasher, no more waking up in the middle of the night because she’d forgotten something vital to the case she was working on.
Living with thirty-three-year-old Hunter Rose, the founder of Rose Security Software, had given Natalie a chance to hide out from the press. His personal security team was highly skilled at performing background checks on persistent reporters and serial-killer fanboys, screening visitors, and examining the mail. They used closed-circuit TV to monitor the house and grounds. There were alarms and panic buttons. The only thing missing, Hunter joked, was a designated safe room. And he was thinking about that.
Natalie was grateful for the protection. She hadn’t asked for the notoriety. It was a fluke, an unlucky turn of events—her being in charge of two sensational murder cases within the span of a year. It would’ve given any other detective wet dreams, and yet it had happened while Natalie was trying to come to terms with the tragic death of her sister, Grace, and the shocking revelation about what Grace had done. And so it became Natalie’s worst nightmare.
As a teenager, Grace Lockhart and her close group of witch-curious friends had killed Natalie’s older sister, Willow, by ritualistically stabbing her twenty-seven times and pinning it on Willow’s boyfriend, Justin Fowler. Justin had gone to prison for twenty years before the enormity of the truth had been revealed.
The horror and sorrow Natalie had experienced during this past year had calcified into disillusionment. It was like waking up from a bad dream, only to discover that you were still living inside the same bad dream. A hall of fucking mirrors.
Recently, tensions had eased for Natalie when the national media finally left Burning Lake for greener pastures, feasting on brand-spanking-new tragedies in other areas of the world. At last she could breathe again. She could sit there and process her feelings and not feel resentful or defensive each time she stepped out her door.
Hunter, for his part, wanted Natalie to quit her job and pursue other interests—to draw or paint or take up photography, to run a marathon or scale a mountain. He wanted her to evolve, to become more of herself. A bigger, better, improved Natalie. And so, these early-morning retreats to the downstairs dining room with its ornate woodwork and incredible view of the backyard that was more like a manicured park out of Downton Abbey were vital to her well-being. Because now she had to decide whether or not to quit the force. And as of this moment, everything was up in the air.
With a determined sigh, Natalie opened her laptop on the dining table and started to type: “Dear Chief Snyder, Please accept my letter of resignation from the position of CIU detective, effective two weeks from today. It’s been an honor to work for you, both as a police officer and as a detective for the Burning Lake Police Department. I will greatly miss all my colleagues. My only regret is that I was not able to better protect the citizens of Burning Lake. During the next two weeks, I will help in any way I can to make the transition as smooth as possible. Please let me know if there’s anything specific you’d like me to do. It has been a pleasure working for you. Sincerely, Natalie Lockhart.”
Her fingers lifted off the keyboard. She felt light-headed for a moment. Was she actually going to hand in her resignation today? Due to budgetary constraints, the town council had passed a motion that, starting in April, the police department would freeze all hiring. It would be in effect from April until the end of September. Natalie had another week or so to decide what to do, because she wanted to give the department enough time to train her replacement. She would have to make her final decision this week.
Footsteps overhead.
She sighed. He was up. She closed her laptop, brushed a casual hand through her hair, and smiled.
Hunter came shuffling down the stairs, talking on his phone and issuing orders to his second-in-command, an older man who was clearly intimidated by the founder and CEO of the biggest software company on the East Coast. Hunter pocketed his phone and stood in the doorway, smiling broadly at her. “Damn, you look pretty.”
She smiled. “You’re such a charming liar.”
“I tell no lies.”
“How’d you sleep?”
“Like the dead. You could’ve driven a stake through my heart.” Handsome and disheveled, he crossed the room with catlike grace—feline as a mountain lion—and lifted her out of her chair and folded her into his muscled warmth, breathing his sour-smelling morning breath in her face. “I’ve got a brilliant idea,” he whispered in her ear. “Let’s take the day off. Okay? Please? We’ll watch old movies and fuck like bunnies and have French toast for lunch. Can’t I tempt you?”
She gave him a wry look. “One of us has to earn a living.”
“Actually, that’s not true. You and I could both quit tomorrow and we’d be fine until we’re a hundred.” He arched an eyebrow at her. “We are going to live to be a hundred years old, aren’t we? That was the deal, wasn’t it?”
She laughed. Despite her best attempts to have her own space in the morning, she abandoned all her worries and melted into him. Hunter was like a drug, and she wanted to do nothing for the rest of the day but live within the span of his hug.
“We could order that take-out pasta you like for dinner,” he said, picking up her coffee mug and taking a few sips. “Mmm. You make the yummiest coffee.” His bathrobe was open, and he was shirtless, wearing pajama bottoms and a pair of suede bedroom slippers that had seen better days. “You know, the pasta with the shrimp and fresh basil and aged parmesan … where’s the delivery menu?”
“In the kitchen drawer with the others.”
“Is that a yes?” he asked, drawing her close, the surface of his skin twitching like a racehorse. There was an earthy, peppery scent to his sweat.
She thought about what was waiting for her at the police station—an in-box full of paperwork, more notes to review, digital files to be archived, an accumulation of busywork. This winter had been slow going down at the BLPD. Most criminals didn’t like the cold. “I guess I could take a mental health day,” she hedged, warming up to the idea—no, scratch that, sliding into it like a hot bath.
“You deserve a mental health day. You of all fucking people. God, I love you.” He kissed her face all over, making playful smacking sounds.
She squirmed and laughed, trying to escape his sloppy kisses. “Okay, but only if you make the French toast.”
“Bah. Who needs French toast when I’ve got this?” He nibbled on her earlobe, then progressed down her neck toward her collarbone.
She became acutely aware of the blood pumping through her veins, the weakness in her knees, the magnetism of his body and their core physical attraction. Sex with Hunter was frankly earthmoving. Her body was drenched in love chemicals and her mind floated in an atmosphere of euphoria. Total brain fog.
Her cell phone buzzed, interrupting them. It rattled on the dining table.
“Don’t answer that,” he pleaded, drawing back and staring at her admonishingly.
The sound was so jarring this early in the morning that she swung out an arm while reaching for it and accidentally smacked her hand on the table. “Ouch!”
“Your physical grace never ceases to amaze me,” he said with a wry grin. He took her hand and kissed it.
“Fuck you, I know what a klutz I am.”
“How very charming of you to bump into things and then swear at me whenever I politely point it out. Double scoops of goodness there.”
She tried not to laugh as she picked up her phone. “Hello?”
“Natalie, it’s me,” Luke said in a solemn voice. “Something’s happened. I need you over here right now.”
2
Although Burning Lake tended to cling to its holiday season for as long as it could after New Year’s Eve, the post-holiday blues had descended upon the town. A month packed with social events had given way to the empty calendar of January and February. This winter had been especially harsh and unrelenting, beginning with an ice storm in November. Even though it was March, there was still a long way to go.
It was seven thirty on a Tuesday morning, March 8. A small army of plows had been sent out after the storm had tapered off around six A.M., and most of the roads on the north side of town had been cleared. The sheer edges of the embankments revealed where the plows had dug into the lawns, exposing clumps of brown earth beneath the white drifts. Shivery cold inside her Honda Accord, Natalie turned the heat on full blast, then found the weather channel. The storm was rapidly heading northeast, according to the weatherman, but outside a light snow was still falling. Her tires hummed on the slippery asphalt as she drove toward the outskirts of town.
Everyone in Burning Lake knew who fifty-eight-year-old Veronica Manes was—a respected Wiccan priestess, head of one of the oldest covens in town. She lived in the historic Bell House at 8 Plymouth Street, and many years ago, she’d written several books under a pen name, Corvina Manse—a clever anagram of her own name. She was known to host quarterly moonlight rituals on her property. She was the best person to talk to if you wanted to understand modern-day witchcraft. She had shoulder-length gray hair and wore informal, mismatched clothes—turtlenecks, cardigans, stretch pants, New Balance sneakers. Her face was kind, with more than a hint of melancholy about it. She was a perfectly ordinary person who just so happened to be a witch.
Now she was dead. Hit by a train.
The last time Natalie had seen Veronica was about four months ago, during the investigation of the Violinist case. Veronica had briefly encountered the victim, Morgan Chambers, and provided the police with helpful information. Since then, Natalie had bumped into Veronica a few times around town—twice at the grocery store and once at the bank, where they’d exchanged pleasantries before going their separate ways.
Over the phone, Luke had skimped on the details and Natalie didn’t know the whole story. She didn’t know if this was an accident or a suicide, but it was certainly terrible news. Also, quite mysteriously, he’d hinted at foul play, which puzzled her. Was she pushed onto the tracks? Veronica struck Natalie as someone so intelligent, practical, generous, and tolerant, she couldn’t have made very many enemies in her life. Certainly, she was beloved by the Wiccan community. But as her father, Joey, used to say, Accuracy is more important than speed. Don’t get ahead of yourself, Natalie. Facts first. Speculation last.
The northern edge of town consisted mostly of woods—conservancy lands, state lands, privately owned property, and railroad easements. The tracks ran east to west, with a handful of passenger trains running routes several times a day. Most of the vehicular-train collision accidents that occurred along this route happened on Snowshoe Street or Bellflower Hollow, two places where the back roads crossed the tracks without any drop-arm gates or warning signs to deter drivers from thinking they could outrun a locomotive.
The last collision had occurred at the Snowshoe Street crossing two years ago when a woman’s Toyota Highlander got stuck on the tracks and was struck by a westbound passenger train. Fortunately, although the SUV was totaled, she came out of it totally unscathed. There had been other victims over the years who weren’t as lucky—car accidents at the crossings, or people on foot, who for whatever reason decided to walk along the tracks, believing that the train would give them plenty of warning. Over the past three decades, there had been a dozen collisions, but only five fatalities. An unfortunate few were suicides.
Natalie pulled over to the side of Copperhead Road, an isolated stretch of asphalt surrounded by dense woods on both sides. Other members of the police and fire departments were already there. Loose stones crunched under her tires as she parked behind a police cruiser, got out, and took a fire road toward the railroad tracks.
“Shit.” She’d forgotten her winter gloves at home. Natalie shivered and breathed on her fingers to keep them warm, then burrowed them into her coat pockets.
The gravel road stopped at the edge of a clearing. Since this dead-end street didn’t cross the tracks and continue northward, there were no warning signs posted here, no drop-arm gates or flashing lights, no bells or crossbuck symbols to warn drivers or pedestrians away from the tracks. The road simply ended in a ditch full of silvery winter weeds.
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