Free Grave Echoes: A Kate Waters Mystery by Erin Cole

looked old. It had a lock and Kate felt a small rush of excitement as she tried the key. The key slipped into the hole, but the spacious fit came as a disappointment. Then she remembered Jev’s key ring on the kitchen table. She went back down the hall, retrieved the rest of her keys, and came back into the room, feeling both apprehensive and curious. She tried a few keys until one fit. The lock clicked and Kate lifted the lid. Expecting to find magazines and old clothes, she gasped, completely unprepared for the nature of its contents.
    Resting in the middle of a black cloth with a deck of tarot cards was a black book, titled Witchcraft. In the center of the book was a red pentagram. The smell of something dank and rancid provoked a sense of dread in Kate as she gaped at the chest full of occult possessions.

CHAPTER 5
     
    The once peaceful and mystic craft room suddenly felt shrouded with evil. Kate sat on the floor in front of the bi-fold doors, stunned by Jev’s chest of occult supplies. Afraid to touch anything, she prodded through the items with her fingertips, shocked to discover a wealth of ominous objects: red and black candles, shriveled organics, horned statues, sticks tied into gruesome human figures, wisps of hair, tarot cards, a dirty copper plate dusted with burnt material, and several books related to the occult. Toward the back, a rectangular box stood on end. She held her breath as she opened it. Tucked in black velvet was a large double-edged knife, gleaming brightly like a miniature sword with a black handle.
    Kate’s throat tightened and she let out a small cry. She slammed the lid to the chest shut and backed away from it in horror to the other side of the room, away from the shadows, where a view of the garden, green grass, and golden maples contrasted with the sinister items in the trunk.
    It couldn’t be Jev’s things, she tried to convince herself. They had been close sisters, best friends, who’d told each other everything. How could she be unaware…no, oblivious to her sister’s devil-worshipping activities? There had to be a reason why Jev kept these items. Maybe she was storing the chest for a friend and was unaware of its contents, Kate reasoned, or someone gave Jev the trunk and she hadn’t opened it yet?
    Kate shook her head. She realized Jev must have known about the trunk’s contents, probably intimately, since Kate had found the key for it on her key chain.
    Since this morning, Kate felt as if her life had exploded into an awful, distorted reality—everything shifted to wrong, everyone seemed different, and the blows were multiplying. Her worst nightmare had emerged from hell and become hers—Jev was dead. Now, she’d discovered that Jev had kept a dark secret from her.
    Just then, the front door clicked open and Kate quickly wiped at her eyes. “I’m in the back room,” she called out to David, shutting the bi-fold doors. She didn’t want him to know about the occult supplies, not yet.
    It was quiet in the front room. Kate stood, pausing in the doorway of the craft room, and looked down the hall. There wasn’t any sound of movement. Certain she had heard the front door open, she headed into the living room. Rays of daylight spilled through the front door onto the living-room carpet. Kate stopped.
    “David?”
    A crash in the kitchen startled her. She froze in mid-step, heart pounding. It wasn’t the kind of crash when something accidentally fell on the floor. It had energy behind it.
    Kate called again. “David?”
    The house buzzed with silence. She crept over to the door where a large, wooden beach stick lay against the wall, waiting just for the purpose Kate hoped she didn’t have to use it for. Trying her best to look like a dangerous woman holding a weapon instead of a scared girl clutching a stick, she inched towards the kitchen. She questioned whether she’d mistaken the wind for an intruder, overreacting after seeing the chest of dark belongings she’d just