WITCH BREW

  What happened in the Northwoods?

  Former homicide cop Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels has two vacations planned. One at a bed and breakfast with her old pal Chandler. Another, a visit to a themed escape room with Phineas Troutt, her daughter Sam, Harry McGlade, and his son Harry Junior.

  Vacations are supposed to be an escape.

  But what if you can’t escape?

  When both trips go terrifyingly wrong, Jack and those she loves must fight for their lives against a collection of villains too horrible to comprehend.

  And the maniacs running things aren’t nearly as bad as the killers from Jack’s past who have plans of their own…

  WITCH BREW by J.A. Konrath

  The only escape is death…

  WITCH BREW

  A Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels Thriller

  J.A. KONRATH

  CONTENTS

  Witch Brew

  Author Note

  Begin reading WITCH BREW

  Jack Daniels and friends will return in PINK LADY

  Joe Konrath’s Complete Bibliography

  WITCH BREW

  1-½oz Empress 1908 Indigo Gin

  1oz Blue Curaçao

  6oz Dole Pineapple Orange Banana Juice

  One Bourbon Cocktail Cherry

  Crushed Ice

  Fill a highball glass with ice. Add cherry, curacao, and juice. Pouring over the back of a spoon, float the gin on top. Double double toil and trouble while you spit curses at your enemies.

  AUTHOR NOTE

  The Jack Daniels thriller series doesn’t have to be read in order. Each book functions as a stand-alone, and no knowledge of any previous adventure is necessary to enjoy WITCH BREW.

  That said, all of my books interconnect into a larger shared universe.

  If you’d like to see how, please visit my website, www.JAKonrath.com.

  A big shout-out to my frequent collaborator Ann Voss Peterson for letting me use her character, Val Ryker, in a few scenes. Check out her series. Jack and Harry McGlade often show up, among other surprise cameos.

  Big shout-outs as well to my longtime readers and fans, and though I haven’t dedicated a book to anyone in a while, WITCH BREW is dedicated to several specific fans that I know on Facebook, specifically the J.A. Konrath Fan Page; Katie Geers, Drea Collis, Wendy Latham, Kelli Lyons, Jim Munchel, David Blaylock, Rita Goodall, Melissa Lawrence, Andrea Eskridge, Barbara Fanning, Christine Bock, Ian Atkinson, Matthew O’Sullivan, and Tonika Shantel. (Dizzy, You Might Recognize That I Borrowed Your Wonderful Capitalization Writing Style For One Of My Villains. Thank You!)

  As always, thanks for reading!

  Joe Konrath

  SOMEWHEN

  Maybe we’re still in Wisconsin, but we’re hallucinating about the escape room. Or… maybe we’re still in the escape room, and hallucinating about Wisconsin.”

  “Or both memories are real, and we’re just having cognitive problems.”

  “Or both memories are imaginary, and nothing is real.”

  “How could that even be possible?”

  “Maybe you’re not here.”

  “So who are you talking to?”

  “No one. Because I’m dead.”

  THE WITCH

  Destiny, Colorado

  Sometimes she wasn’t sure what was memory, and what was brain damage.

  The witch had a lot of brain damage.

  But it didn’t really matter. Either way, there would be revenge.

  Revenge served so cold that icicles dripped from it.

  She couldn’t see inside Jack’s house through the rifle scope. Besides the blinds being drawn, the windows were opaque.

  Probably bulletproof, she thought.

  A hard lesson, well-earned. Congratulations, Jack, on learning from past mistakes.

  The surveillance van where the witch sat also had bulletproof glass. Jack and her husband Phin were dangerous.

  The witch knew this intimately well.

  A nondescript car pulled up behind the van, and a familiar figure parked and stepped out.

  The paladin.

  A scarf around her face, her hat brim pulled low to shield her eyes. She limped over to the side panel of the van and knocked four times with one disfigured hand.

  The witch opened the door and let the paladin in, reflexively checking the street to make sure no one was paying attention to either of them. No one was. The solar farm occupying the twenty acres of land boasted an after-hours shift of skeleton workers.

  “She’s still inside?” the paladin asked as the witch slid the panel door closed.

  “Whole family is. Sleeping.”

  Not much scared the witch. But the paladin was scary.

  Scarier than Jack and Phin. Maybe even scarier than me.

  “We could go in right now, kill everyone,” the paladin said.

  “That isn’t the plan.”

  “We could restrain them. Cut off their eyelids so they have to watch while we torture their daughter to death.”

  “Fun. You’ve given this some thought.”

  “Revenge is all I think about.”

  “Me, too. But that isn’t the plan.”

  After a short silence, the paladin said, “We could make it the plan.”

  “The wizard has other plans.”

  “Since when is he our boss?”

  The witch considered it. “We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the wizard.”

  “You know he is probably even crazier than we are, right?”

  “Crazy is a relative term,” said the witch. “Everyone is crazy. Some of us embrace it and benefit from it. Enjoy it.”

  “I don’t enjoy being crazy,” the paladin said. “I just enjoy the crazy things I do. It makes it easier to be crazy.”

  “We’ll stick with the plan.”

  The scar tissue around the paladin’s eyes narrowed. “How are your headaches?”

  “Bad.”

  “Mine, too.”

  “Life is pain,” said the witch, looking at the paladin’s hands. “We endure it, so we can cause it.”

  “Or we could forgive and move on,” said the paladin. “I’ve forgiven you.”

  “Have you?” The witch didn’t trust the paladin in the least.

  But the enemy of my enemy is my ally.

  At least for the time being.

  “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead,” the paladin said.

  The reverse is also true. We’re both experienced. We’re both deadly.

  But for the moment, we both have a common goal.

  “If we have any scores to settle with each other, let’s wait until we finish up the current business.”

  After a brief, intense stare down, the paladin nodded, then reached for the rifle. The witch handed it over.

  “Jack is leaving tomorrow morning,” the witch said. “I’ll follow her. You stay here and watch Phin and the girl.”

  “I know the plan,” the paladin said.

  “Then don’t muck it up.”

  The witch left the van, got into the car, and drove back to the hotel.

  I’ve caused so much pain.

  And I have so much more to cause.

  Both thoughts were equally pleasant, and the witch smiled even as her headache felt like her brain was turning inside out.

  Which, in a way, it was.

  JACK

  I opened my eyes and stretched out in bed, my palms pushing against the headboard.

  Phin stirred next to me, looping his arm around my waist and snugging me closer. “Sleep okay?”

  “I did,” I said, tilting away so I didn’t assault him with my morning breath.

  “Nightmares?”

  “Not too bad. You?”

  “Not too bad.”

  We were quiet for a bit. I peeked at the clock.

  “What time is it?” I asked. It was a game I played with my husband. He had an almost supernatural power when it came to guessing the time.

  “We have sixty seconds before our daughter and dog barge in.”

  He was off by thirty seconds.

  Samantha knocked on our bedroom door, came in after we invited her, and climbed onto the bed between us.

  Duffy the hound, her sleeping companion, also jumped up, laying across my legs.

  “I know where we should go when we visit Uncle Harry and Harry Junior in Los Angeles,” Sam announced.

  “Disneyland?” I guessed. “Knott’s Berry Farm? Universal Studios?”

  Sam shook her head and showed me her cell phone. I squinted at the screen.

  “The Escape Room of Terror,” I read aloud from the website.

  “It’s one of the best-rated escape rooms in the world, Mom.” Sam’s tone was deadly serious. “Less than point one percent of people solve it. Not one percent. Point one percent. That’s one out of a thousand. But we could do it. I’m really smart. And you and Uncle Harry used to be detectives. And Dad is really tough.”

  “I also have a brain,” Phin said. “I’m not just hunky man candy with big muscles.”

  “I’m not a big fan of being scared, munchkin,” I told her.

  “It’s not real, Mom. It’s all puzzles and brain teasers. And if we escape we get our pictures on the wall of fame.”

  “Maybe Uncle Harry has the trip already planned,” Phin said, trying to help me out.

  Sam touched her phone and Harry McGlade popped up on a Zoom call.

  “Actually, Jackie, I did some research and this place looks hella fun,” Harry said.

  His son, Harry Juni
or, was sitting on his lap. They were dressed in identical white suits, like Mr. Roarke and Tattoo from the old TV show Fantasy Island.

  “Didn’t we have enough fun the last time we saw each other?” I said, hoping McGlade got the hint.

  But McGlade never got the hint.

  “Hell, no. That was nothing but horrible deaths. And the time before that, horrible deaths. And the time before that, horrible deaths. How about we get together for once and not have any horrible deaths?”

  I glanced at Phin. He shrugged. “I’d be up for something that didn’t involve horrible deaths. But it’s on you, Jack.”

  “Please, Mom?” Sam begged. “It’s a make-believe escape room. There won’t be any horrible deaths.”

  I sighed.

  “Fine,” I acquiesced. “We’ll go to the Escape Room of Terror.”

  Because what were the chances that, once again, we’d wind up dealing with psychopaths who wanted to kill all of us?

  I mean the chance had to be close to zero, right?

  “I’ll grab tix,” Harry said. “This is supposed to be scary, so you may have to wear your big girl diapers.”

  Sam laughed. “Uncle Harry, I don’t have to wear big girl diapers.”

  “I was talking to your father,” Harry said.

  Phin gave Sam’s phone the finger.

  “So how is everyone?” Harry asked. “I got this court-appointed thing I need to do.”

  “We gotta go, Harry,” I told him. “We’ll catch up when we see you in a few weeks.”

  “You aren’t curious about my court-appointed thing? The devious crimes I committed in order to have a court-appointed thing?”

  “I’m curious about your court-appointed thing,” Sam said. “Did you kill someone?”

  “Lots of people,” Harry said. “But this is for something unrelated to all of those premeditated deaths weighing hard on my conscience. Like that one guy I killed, with that name, because he did that thing. The guilt sometimes keeps me up at night, for minutes, wondering what his name was. Or that could have been an ayahuasca trip. The devil was there. I can’t ever remember if Satan is real or not. I have all sorts of weird memories. Or that could have been the meth. Hey, I quit taking meth. It’s not that hard. All these folks say it’s impossible to quit meth, but I thought it was easy, with the right combination of fentanyl and cigarettes. And cocaine.”

  “We’re eating in five minutes we gotta go the soup is burning talk later,” I said, snatching Sam’s cell and killing the call.

  Sam frowned at me. “Mom, you can’t burn soup. It’s nonflammable liquid.”

  “Your mother lied to Uncle Harry so she didn’t have to talk to him,” Phin explained, not wrongfully. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for his bathrobe on the floor.

  “That’s mean, Mom.”

  “She’s very mean,” Phin said. “Sometimes, when you’re at school, she hits me with a ruler.”

  “A ruler, Dad?”

  Phin played it stoneface. “It’s true. She beat me within an inch of my life.”

  I offered a polite laugh. Sam held firm. “Not funny, Dad.”

  Phin went for seconds. “It was a three-foot ruler. Guess where we got it?”

  “Where?” Sam asked.

  “A yard sale.”

  I forced another sympathy laugh. Sam did not.

  Phin tried one more time. “Your mother told me not to put glue on my revolver, but I’m sticking to my guns.”

  “I’m too old for your lame dad jokes,” Sam said, looking as serious as a precocious nine-year-old could look.

  “Go clean up the dog poop in the backyard,” her father said.

  “Are you punishing me for not laughing? That’s petty.”

  “That is petty,” Phin said. “And yes.”

  Sam paused.

  “Mom? Dad? Before I pick up all of Duffy’s stinky fecal deposits, I have a serious question.”

  “I can’t promise a serious answer, sweetie,” Phin told her. “I have no control over the dad jokes when the situation arises. I’m like a werewolf in a full moon. Do you know where werewolves go when they want to be in the movies?”

  Sam didn’t take the bait.

  “Howlywood,” Phin said.

  Sam looked at me, desperate. “Mom? Can you be serious?”

  “I’ll give you a serious answer, Sam.”

  “Okay. I’ve been thinking about this a lot.” She inhaled deeply then blew it out like I do when I’m trying to fully empty my lungs of carbon dioxide before some breathing meditation. “When do I get to have my own adventures?”

  I blinked, then looked at Phin. He spread his hands and lifted his shoulders.

  “What do you mean, pumpkin?” I asked, hoping for clarification.

  “You have adventures, where you’re the star. So does Dad. Even Uncle Harry does. When do I get to be the star?”

  “You’ve been in plenty of adventures,” Phin told her.

  “I’ve been in your adventures. Like a sidekick. Do I ever get to do my own?”

  “When you’re older you’ll have lots of adventures, all on your own, where you’re the star,” I reassured her.

  “Do you have to die first?”

  That one took me by surprise. “Die?”

  “You know how in the Marvel comic books there can’t be a new Black Panther until the old Black Panther dies? Is it like that?”

  I was at a loss, but Phin stepped up. “Not at all, Sam. You know how Peter Parker is Spider-man, and he doesn’t die, but Miles Morales is also Spider-man? It can be like that. No one has to die for you to have adventures. Got it?”

  She nodded.

  “Now go pick up those nasty dog dumps.”

  Sam got to it, with that childish spring in her step informing us she was on a mission to do something with purpose. I shot a glance at Phin.

  “She’ll be fine,” Phin assured me. “Surveyor said the backyard is safe.”

  We’d had a pretty scary sinkhole issue a while ago, and I was happy for the constant reminders that our house, and child, weren’t going to be swallowed up by the earth.

  “I’m fine with the yard,” I told him. “Not so sure about me having to die so she can have her own adventures.”

  “No one is going to die,” he said in a way that didn’t sound reassuring at all. “You all packed?”

  I nodded.

  “Happy to be going?” He cinched the ratty bathrobe around his waist, but still managed to look sexy.

  I didn’t reply, verbally or physically. My husband sensed my reluctance.

  “You haven’t seen Val in forever.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “When was the last time you went on a girls’ trip?”

  “It’s been a long time.” I considered it and sat up. “Never. I’ve never gone on a girls’ trip. I want to see Val, and the Airbnb she picked out looks fun.”

  “Damn right,” Phin said. “Going to the Wisconsin Northwoods to see the autumn leaves turn colors? That’s more excitement than any person should be allowed to have in a lifetime.”

  “She said it’s gorgeous. And she said she needed to talk to me about something.”

  “So why are you dreading it?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “You don’t want to leave us alone,” Phin stated.

  He was correct. But I didn’t want to put that on him.

  Phin walked around the bed and stood beside me. “You know I’m a certified badass, right?”

  “Are they certifying people these days?”

  “They are. I was top of my class at badassery. Want to feel my muscle?”

  He flexed his biceps. I reached up and squeezed his arm. Not bad for a forty-something stay-at-home dad. “Impressive, Mr. Troutt.”

  “Me and the progeny can take care of ourselves. You go up north with your friend. Talk with her. Take five zillion pictures of trees that you can bore us with. You need a vacation before we have to go to California and have a vacation with Harry.”

  I nodded, then stood up and held him. My cell rang and I glanced at it.

  Number Unknown.

  I let it ring, and then Number Unknown blinked and became Pick It Up Jack.

  My spine stiffened because I had a good idea who it was.

  “Chandler,” I answered.

  “I’ve been using your phone to listen to your conversation,” she said in a near monotone. “It was so wholesome it made me uncomfortable.”