“Jade and Summer,” I wondered aloud, “they know something’s up. Don’t they?”
“It’s hard to say,” Dave said. “On one hand, this is a show, they’re entertaining people. How much they believe is my question. We should be careful. We can’t let on that we think it’s anything more than entertainment. You understand?”
“I do,” I said. “And I really need to get home to Gran and tell her about all of this.”
“And I need to pick up my daylight potion.”
“And I need to know more about my magic so I can figure out what happened between my mother and the Faction.”
Dave’s head jerked around so he could gape at me. He pulled it together and went back to watching the road and the growing tendrils of thick fog.
I thought the serious talk must be over. I sort of wanted to go back to the way things were the other day at the park—to Just Dave and Constance.
“Your mother,” Dave said slowly. “Did you just say she joined the Faction?”
No such luck.
Like the day slipping to night, the mood in the car darkened. “That’s what Gran told me. I don’t know much about it. Or her. It happened when I was young.”
“Creel Creek is outside of Faction territory,” Dave said. “The whole continent is, really. But there’re cells in most big cities—New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, and the biggest, in DC. So we’re not too far from where they operate.”
“What do they do?” I asked.
“A little of everything. Just like politicians, they’ve got their hands in many pies.” He shook his head. “Just like witches.”
“It’s only witches?” I asked. Gran hadn’t explained anything. I’d assumed all paranormals were welcome.
“You’ll find that most supernatural beings like to stick with their own kind. The Faction is made up of witches and warlocks.”
“Warlocks? Really?”
“Yeah.”
Trish had put the idea in my head that warlocks were like the Slytherins of the Harry Potter Universe. Mostly bad apples, and always looking for the catch.
But Gran had said the Faction wasn’t all bad. These opinions were contradictory.
“What do you think? Good guys or bad guys?”
“It depends on your point of view,” he said.
“Pretend you’re me. My point of view.”
“I think you need to make up your own mind,” he said.
“Bad then. At least that’s the vibe I keep getting.”
He smiled. I could see the white of his teeth.
“When this blows over,” I said, not meaning the fog, “the murder case, I mean. Do you think maybe you can help me find out more about my mom?”
“You want me to help you find dirt on the Faction?”
“I guess so.”
Dave pulled into Gran’s drive. “It sounds not very smart,” he said. “Then again, I’ve never been good at saying no to a pretty girl.”
He thinks I’m pretty?
My hair was a mess. I felt grimy. And I didn’t put on any makeup this morning.
“So, yes, then?” I asked.
“Probably,” he answered. “You be careful at work around Jade, all right? Actually, just be careful in general. There really might be a hunter.”
“You do the same, Sheriff.”
For a second, in that SUV in front of Gran’s house, it felt like the end of a long date. I wanted to kiss him, to feel his prickly stubble on my cheek. I wanted to know how soft his lips were.
But then a raccoon clambered up and perched on the porch railing, ruining the moment.
I knew I’d be walking on eggshells around Jade. I just wasn’t expecting them to crack so soon.
The next morning, she called me into her office as soon as I set foot in the store. She wasn’t going to give me a pass, not after an attempted robbery at my register—or the police interview and its aftermath.
“I haven’t clocked in,” I told her.
“There’ll be no need for that,” she retorted ominously.
Eggshells be damned. I was going to crack them. “What? You’re firing me?”
“That’s about the gist of it.” Jade steepled her hands atop Mr. Caulfield’s desk. She looked as cool as a cucumber, as comfortable as one could be in a vampire’s chair.
“But… but, why? I’m a good worker. I’m punctual. I’ve memorized half of the produce chart. Is this about yesterday?”
“It’s not about the robbery,” Jade said. “And you’re not punctual, whatever you believe.”
I was five minutes early. Aside from the day I was stopped for speeding, I’d never been late.
“Are you serious? Did someone tell you that Cyrus offered me this job?”
Jade’s glare was as sharp as she probably kept her knives.
“Don’t play innocent,” she sneered. “It’s not a good look on you. I told you on day one I had a hunch about you. I know the sheriff was at your grandmother’s house a few days after the murder. I know he stopped you the day before.”
“For speeding.”
She wasn’t having it. “You must have a record for him to get involved so quickly. Then whatever happened yesterday—another death? I know you were there.”
“To help.”
“There’s something off about you, Constance. You’ve heard our show. You know we get to the bottom of everything. I wish you’d just tell me what’s going on.”
I really didn’t need this. At that point, I was happy to be fired and get out of there. But I couldn’t leave without having my say.
Jade was ready. “I was suspicious of you the day you started,” she said. “And I did some digging. You know what I found?”
She was waiting for me, so I said, “Obviously I don’t.”
“You had a traumatic childhood.”
This was getting silly. “Oh, that’s your evidence, is it?”
Enough was enough. I turned to leave.
“Tell me, what did Eric do to you to deserve such a gruesome fate?”
She did not just say that.
My fingers began to burn, a lot like the sensation after touching a hot pan. “I didn’t kill Mr. Caulfield. I didn’t even know him—not like you and your friend Summer.”
On the podcast, she’d intimated he was the Creel Creek Bloodsucker.
“You knew him well,” I said. “And you’re obviously hiding something. Give it up. Or just shut up.”
Something fiery leaped from my fingertips in Jade’s direction.
Did I just cast a spell? By rhyming up with up? I grimaced—I always hated when songwriters did that.
But where had the spell gone? There was no fire that I could see. But the coffee pot behind Jade was glowing. And her face was blank, expressionless.
“Blood,” she said.
“What about it?”
“Blood,” she said again.
“What about blood?” I clenched my fist. “Dammit, this is getting old.”
She shook her head, a little dazed. “You’re still here?”
“I never left,” I told her. “What were you just saying about blood?”
She shook her head forcefully, like she was pushing something to the back of her mind. “I was saying that you’re fired, Constance. We’ll mail your last check. Now, leave. Don’t force me to call your friend, the sheriff. I doubt he wants to see you so soon after your last visit.”
25
In Witch I Wait Three Days for a Phone Call…
And maybe Jade was right. Because Dave didn’t want to see me after our last visit. A few days went by without him so much as calling or texting.
Isn’t that what friends do?
I thought—I hoped—we were friends. Maybe I’d been mistaken about the nature of our relationship.
Then again, he did have his plate full. Three girls. A murder to solve. Maybe two. And I realized that there was also a full moon to contend with.
So, I cut him some slack.
; At least I had one real friend in Trish. With so much going on at the grocery store, she needed help at the bookstore and was kind enough to offer employment. It wasn’t much. Few hours, less money, and a lot less to do.
She showed me the system for orders that came from the online store, then how to package and ready them for the post office.
She told me not to worry about anything else, insisting I wasn’t to waste my time cleaning, despite the cobwebs in every dusty corner. The floors needed an industrial pressure washer.
I searched for a broom anyway, but I didn’t find anything conventional. Tucked in a corner, I found an old ornamental broom, twisted and forgotten. If this was Harry Potter, it’d be one of the old school brooms, not a sleek and aerodynamic state-of-the-art broom like the Firebolt.
I wasn’t going to try to sweep with it, but I did ask Trish about it—like was it used to fly.
“I guess it might do in a pinch,” she said coyly.
“Have you flown before?”
“Constance, someone in town would notice.”
“I thought everyone in town was under some sort of spell or something.”
“Not a spell. Not exactly. It’s just, there’s history in the earth. They grow up aware something is off about Creel Creek, but they don’t know what.”
“Oh.” Not exactly how Dave had put it.
“As long as we’re careful, they won’t be any the wiser. But I think they might notice a witch flying a broomstick.”
“I think Jade and Summer have noticed a lot.”
“Yes, well, with the solstice coming, we should be extra careful.”
“What happens on the solstice?”
“Equinoxes, solstices, and cross-quarter days are when shifts occur. Shifts in perspective. On Halloween—a cross-quarter day, by the way—it’s a little worse. That’s the one day of the year when our true forms show. It’s not just in Creel Creek, either. You can go anywhere, and people will see you for what you are. Hence it was declared a day for everyone to dress up. When everyone is pretending, we don’t have to.” She smiled.
“Okay.” That was a problem for another time. But the solstice was approaching fast. There were flyers up advertising the Midsummer Festival, the one Dave’s little girl had told me about. They’d already started to decorate Main Street.
I watched them from the store. Stuck there with nothing to do but read or listen to Jade’s podcast, I listened to every episode, hoping for more information about the town and its strange inhabitants. But most of the tidbits were about Jade and Summer—or rather, their alter egos.
I went back to books.
Weird, I’d dreamed for so long magic was real. I thought I’d be a Hermione when I was really a Harry or Ron. Spell books weren’t my jam. Fiction was.
I combed the shelves, looking for a mystery that suited my taste—which of course brought my mind back to the murder. If it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Jade or Summer, then who was it?
Cyrus Tadros had an alibi. When Mr. Caulfield was killed, he was wrapped up in bandages.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was going on there, some other lie, something I couldn’t put my finger on. And speaking of fingers, I thought, what did they do in Jade’s office?
I stared down at my hands like they were going to tell me.
The door chimed. Maybe it was Dave with news or just wanting to talk. I’d take anyone to talk to. Sometimes, Twinkie peeked from her hiding place at the register. She and Brad frequently went off to the shadow realm to do whatever familiars do there. Today, she was asleep and Brad was nowhere to be found.
And aside from a few online orders, I hadn’t had any customers for days. As far as I knew, the last person to enter the shop was Cyrus.
It was neither Cyrus nor Dave. It was a hook nosed, redheaded reporter.
With the words hidden agenda practically written on her forehead, Summer Shields simpered in my direction. She took the first left and went down the romance aisle, pretending to browse. Like everything else in the store not having to do with magic, those shelves were filled with old mass market paperbacks with yellowed pages. She picked one at random, then strode toward the counter, her eyes locked on mine with the sort of confidence required of a TV personality.
My fingertips tingled. It was my fight-or-flight response reminding me that magic coursed through my veins. I could use it at will.
“We looked you up,” she said, slamming her book down next to the register.
“So I heard.”
It seemed I had brought down the wrath of both women.
“You have quite a history,” she said. “Lost your mom at the age you needed her the most, got married in Vegas, then there must’ve been a dozen articles about the little startup you worked for. I found your divorce petition too. It seems you’re still married. Does your boyfriend know?”
“My boyfriend?”
“The sheriff.”
“I wouldn’t call him that.”
He hasn’t called.
I wasn’t going to let her get to me. If she was just here to be petty, then why waste anything—my magic or my time. Summer Shields wasn’t worth it.
“Will this be it?” I asked her, flipping the book over. Mass market books were seventy-five percent off their cover price. This one had a cheap imitation Fabio on the cover, not the real thing.
“You probably think you’re hot stuff, don’t you,” Summer sneered. “A hotshot city girl from California, moving here to the sticks. If you plan on outing us, well, I’ll beat you to it. I’ll announce it on the next episode. I don’t care.”
“What are you even talking about?” I had no plans to out anyone.
“I’m talking about the podcast,” she spat. “I know that you know—I mean that you know it’s me and Jade.”
“So? It’s just a podcast.”
“It’s not a joke, even if everyone thinks it is.”
I knew it wasn’t, but I couldn’t tell her.
“We’re going to expose Creel Creek for what it really is,” Summer said. “That’s always been the plan. We expose this place, we introduce ourselves to the world. Then we monetize. Books and merchandise. Maybe even a TV show—I have the connections.”
If that’s the case, I wondered, then why aren’t you already on the Discovery channel?
“Just what is it you think Creel Creek is, exactly?” I asked her.
Summer wanted to expose Creel Creek for the payoff. Investigative journalism, the podcast, and even the paranormal town she lived in were just a means to an end. She didn’t care about any of them.
“I think it’s…” The snarl in her voice unsnarled. The sneer on her face unsneered. She glanced over her shoulder, then whispered. “I think it’s haunted.”
I rolled my eyes, and her momentary honesty was gone. “You’re just like everyone else. This town is tricking you. You can’t see what’s really going on.”
“And what’s really going on, Summer?”
She squeaked and grabbed my arm as I jumped, both of us startled by someone else in the store.
Cyrus Tadros had evaded the chime on the front door.
“Cyrus!” Summer clutched her chest, relieved.
Normally, I’d be doing the same. But in my surprise, I’d sent a spark flying. My magic had taken over my instincts.
I checked for damage and found Twinkie glaring from her hiding spot in the drawer under the register. A little singed, the rodent folded her tiny arms.
“Sorry,” I mouthed.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Cyrus said. “You two were arguing, and I thought it best not to interrupt.”
More like he wanted to eavesdrop.
Summer was more taken with his charm than I was. “Cyrus,” she said again, “what brings you here?”
She said it with disbelief, like no one actually shopped here—not even her. The romance novel was sure to be left behind as she inched closer to the too-handsome man.
He had a bo
ttle of wine in one hand and a book in the other. “I’m returning a book,” he said. “For store credit, of course. Maybe someone else will find it useful. And I brought a bottle of wine as an apology. I heard about what happened the other day at the grocery store.”
He tucked the book under his arm so Summer couldn’t read the cover. If she did, she’d probably be thrilled that someone else shared her suspicions about Creel Creek.
She had to see that he was a major player. After all, it was his vineyard with a mummy in the cellar.
“Are you still going on about this stuff?” he asked her. “The strange happenings of Creel Creek?” He graced her with a smile.
His charm was apparently overwhelming. “You’re right,” she said. “It’s silly.”
“Although I’m sure the little joke I played didn’t fool you for a second.” Cyrus turned to me. “It sounded plausible, yes? The key was not letting either of them in on it—until after, of course.”
Summer nodded earnestly.
“It’s not that I didn’t trust your acting ability,” Cyrus said, pouring it on, “but Jade, she’s more local theater to your Hollywood.”
Now I was lost.
Cyrus turned to me. “I had to fool them, you see.”
“We were fooled,” Summer agreed meekly. “I really thought the vineyard was haunted. I thought I’d seen a mummy. That is, until Cyrus came forward the next day and offered a sponsorship. He explained how he’d been listening to the show—he knew we’d surely investigate. He caught me on camera that morning when I got the gate code. He staged that too. You know the rest.”
“It was a little fun,” Cyrus teased. “And great marketing on my part. Sales are up forty percent this week.”
“I’m glad,” Summer said, not looking it. Every ounce of steam she’d stormed in here with had vanished. All that remained was Summer Shields, ordinary Creel Creek citizen.
“We’ll have to do it again sometime. I’m sure next week’s episode is a doozy.”
“It is,” Summer replied. “It was good seeing you, Cyrus.”
And just like I said she would, she left without imitation Fabio. I set the book and its man-chest aside and took the one from Cyrus.
Midlife Curses: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Mystery (Witching Hour Book 1) Page 15