by Kelly Ethan
“Everyone’s a critic.” Xandie wiped her mouth for chocolate drool. “Agatha wanted a meeting at Winifred’s shop. Turns out she’s positive Marjorie didn’t do it but needs evidence to show the twins before they can release the dragon. She’s gonna track down a guy called old Wolf who was deputy chief of police when Melinda Penne died.” Xandie paused not sure how to word what else Agatha had told her. “Agatha’s sure Marjorie never banished Melinda. As far as Marjorie’s concerned, your mother ran off. Not banished.”
“But the letter. It’s from Marjorie, banishing her. It’s proof she’s lying. And if she lied about the letter, what else is she hiding?”
Elspeth grabbed a slice of pizza. “Yum, rhubarb, basil and apple honey barbecue pizza. The Santos make the best pizza.” She stopped groaning when everyone looked at her. “What? I like this pizza. I can even take my teeth out to eat. It’s perfect.”
“I’m glad you’re pleased with your denture-friendly pizza, but we’re in the middle of something.” Lilac glared at Elspeth.
Holly choked on her mouthful and had to swig water. Eyes watering, she agreed with Lila. “What she said, just in a casual non-confrontational I don’t want to upset Elspeth kind of way.”
“No fun. You’re all so like your mothers. But Xandie’s still my favorite. Besides, I’ve seen that letter young Makepeace is flashing around and it’s not Marjorie’s writing.”
Lila scoffed. “Please, you only want to be the center of attention.”
Elspeth placed her pizza slice on the table and rifled through the small bag attached to her waist. She threw a wad of paper on the table. “Read it and weep, granddaughter. Lila Marie Harrow, I expect an apology.” Elspeth crossed her arms and smirked.
Xandie and her cousins each grabbed a slip of paper. Priss peered over Xandie’s shoulder as she read aloud.
“IOU Elspeth Harrow. Signed Marjorie Penne.”
Lila held hers up. “Mine says the same.”
Holly threw hers back on the table. “Mine is the same but adds that she owes you a foot rub.”
Elspeth shuddered. “Like I’m letting scaly claws at my feet. Besides, she never pays up, the next hand she wins them back. I kept these in case I have to blackmail her.”
“Poker?” Xandie raised an eyebrow. Poker with the social elite of Point Muse. Not what she expected.
Priss ran a hand over the writing on Xandie’s note. “My grandmother didn’t banish my mom. Did she? We’ve had it wrong all these years.”
Elspeth leaned forward. “No, sweetie. She hired investigators to find Melinda, but they never came up with anything.”
“Did she know my mother was coming here to confront her when she died?”
“No. She had no clue your mother was the one hit by the crop duster. The paranormal investigator group and old Wolf kept the incident quiet. No one realized it involved a dragon. She has no clue Melinda was dead. Your grandma and your Aunt Belle were away on a trip. Adelind and Ronald were supposed to go but pulled out at the last minute because Adelind was sick.”
Pulled out. Xandie ran the phrase through her head again. That, combined with the information Aunt Winifred had told her, sat in the pit of the stomach, heavy with the pizza. “I know why they pulled out of the trip. Winifred told me the last time she supplied a cure for dragon shale was around the time of the crop duster incident.”
“And?” Lila and Holly yelled at Xandie together.
“It was for Adelind, picked up by Ronald. And a core ingredient in dragon’s breath poison is a dragon scale. If the crop duster sprayed dragon’s breath, would it have been enough to take out a full dragon? Elspeth?”
Elspeth curled her lip. “Dirty poison to use, hexes are so much cleaner. But yes, if the crop duster carried dragon’s breath, it would have taken out Melinda.”
“Bit of a coincidence that dragon’s breath needs a dragon scale and Adelind had an infection from shedding a scale,” Lila mused.
Holly rolled her eyes. “I don’t believe in coincidences. But Adelind was the heir. Why risk it?”
Elspeth answered before Xandie. “She wouldn’t have been the heir if Melinda had reached Marjorie. Marjorie adored her eldest child. Someone faked Marjorie’s writing and banished her out of the picture. But when she came back, they had to do something more permanent so Adelind could stay heir.”
“Is she capable of killing her sister?”
Elspeth snorted, pushing her teeth back in as they shot forward in her mirth. “She’s a dragon. Of course she’s capable. In fact, she’s more likely to get her claws dirty than either Marjorie or Ronald. Her husband is a weak man who’d do whatever he’s ordered to as long as he maintained his social profile within Point Muse.”
“My dad said Ronald helped them leave Point Muse and gave them money from Adelind. The plan was to disappear for a while and wait for Marjorie to calm, but then Ronald turned up with the letter. It devastated Mom. She contacted Adelind after I was born. She wanted to change Marjorie’s mind.” Priss exhaled a shuddering breath.
“Adelind knew Melinda was coming back to town and couldn’t risk the threat to her position. The dragon removed your mom from the picture so she’d still be the heir.”
Priss stared, shattered, at Xandie as she processed her new friend’s words. “Marjorie, my grandmother, never knew mom died, or that I was born. My aunt took everything away from me.”
“And then you came back. She had to get rid of you. Archibald too, since you’d spoken to him. You’re a target. Anyone who stands in the way of her remaining the heir is in danger.” Xandie bit her lip, her chocolate cravings forgotten as she realized just what that meant.
They were all in danger.
Thirteen
“Whatever you do, don’t touch the man’s begonias. He’s obsessed with them,” Elspeth admonished Xandie and then ruined the caution when she fluffed her hair.
“This isn’t a date. Agatha arranged the interview with the acting chief at the time of Melinda’s death. We want information, not a love connection.”
“I know that!” Elspeth huffed in offense. “We had a thing back in the day before your grandfather and Wolf’s wife. I just want to show him what he missed out on.”
Xandie rolled her eyes. “Revenge dating isn’t on the list either.” Anyone with information on Melinda’s death, not the mating practices of octogenarian witches, would help. “What’s his name?”
Elspeth shrugged. “We used to call him Wolf, and then old Wolf. But he’s a hermit now. He’s obsessed with begonias and grows the flowers in greenhouses. He lives up past Harrow house.”
“So that’s the house?” Xandie pointed. At first glance, the small gray and white cottage with shingles was a picturesque Maine cottage. But if you looked closer, paint peeled off external walls, shingles sagged, the concrete path had a spider web of cracks in it and the porch looked like a fire hazard. And begonias in pots covered every available inch.
“It is.” Elspeth sighed and navigated the porch steps. “His wife died a few years back. The cottage has gotten a little rundown since.” Elspeth banged on the door with a thump of her hand.
“I’m not interested in whatever you’re selling. Leave me alone,” a gravelly old man’s voice rumbled from the other side of the door.
“Um, Elspeth? I don’t think he wants to talk.” Xandie backed up a step. Annoying a cranky wolf shifter hermit wasn’t on her bucket list.
“Open up, you crusty old wolf. My granddaughter needs a word with you.” Elspeth whispered to her hand and slammed it against the door. The cottage groaned and shuddered. But the door stayed shut.
“Look, Elspeth. Maybe we should do this another day?” Before he murdered them and planted flowers around their bodies.
“You’ve got plenty of potted begonias, Wolf. How about you have one less?” Elspeth grabbed a pot and swung. Potting mix sprayed the porch floor.
“Fine.” The door swung open and a tall, grizzled, gray-haired man grabbed the pot off Elspeth and sett
led it on the porch. “What do you want, Elspeth?”
“Not me, old Wolf. My granddaughter, the librarian.” Elspeth clicked her fingers at Xandie and then glared back at him.
Great, upset their one source of information. Thanks, Grandma. Xandie moved up next to Elspeth and extended a hand. Old Wolf stared at it then at her. Xandie lowered her hand. “I’m the librarian. Sera Meyers was my great-aunt and we need your help.”
Old Wolf opened the door further. “Well, why didn’t you say that earlier?”
Elspeth stormed past the shifter and into the house without a word.
Xandie grimaced and followed her grandmother. Considering the unloved exterior, she dreaded to see inside.
Elspeth spun around in place and took in the cottage interior. Every surface gleamed, flowers gathered in vases and pots decorated the cottage in a blaze of color. “Old Wolf, it hasn’t changed.” Elspeth offered Wolf a sad smile. “She loved her flowers.”
“That she did. I do my best inside, but I guess I’m not much bothered by the outside.”
“She’d kick you for the peeling paint and then bake you a cake.” Elspeth patted Wolf on the shoulder. “We need your help.”
He sighed and hunched his shoulders. “You always had a one-track mind. No distracting you when you smelled blood. Fine. Sit and tell me what you want.”
Xandie perched on a cozy little chair in the corner of the room. The old shifter was like his house. Cranky, unloved exterior with a caring warm center. You just had to dig for it.
“Well? Get on with it.”
Elspeth stared at Xandie, encouraging her.
“We need to ask you about when you were acting chief. Around the time of the crop duster incident.”
Wolf dropped into a chair and nodded. “I wondered when that would come back and bite me.”
“What did you do, Wolf? I know that look. That’s the I got caught in dodgy business look,” Elspeth growled at her friend, sounding like a wolf herself.
“Gerald Braun was away. They called me in to be acting chief. A cakewalk, except Janie got diagnosed with cancer.” He paused and swallowed. “It wasn’t the best of times; she lost our first baby and then the cancer. I drank way too much, and the job suffered.”
“The fire hydrant.” Elspeth face crumpled. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
Wolf hung his head, shamefaced. “We were full of pride. Was our business, no one else’s. Janie stayed with a sister in Portland for a while, but we couldn’t afford the cancer treatment. Until the crop duster.”
“Someone paid you to look the other way.” Poor man, what a choice to make. Xandie couldn’t imagine herself in that situation.
“A few days before the incident, someone contacted me, offered money if I looked the other way. We needed money for Janie’s treatment, so I took it. I told her I’d gotten a raise because of the acting chief. She never questioned it.”
“Who gave you money?” Xandie gritted her teeth, not willing to let the excitement build yet.
“I have my suspicions. But I couldn’t refuse or question. I accepted and drank more, creating a distraction by destroying fire hydrants.”
Xandie probed. “There were never any names mentioned? Why they wanted you to turn a blind eye?”
“No, nothing. But then the crop duster happened. And I had my suspicions afterward.”
Elspeth nodded. “It was horrible. Everyone was glad it wasn’t worse. If the crop duster had dropped over town, it would have caused more damage.”
“The damage it caused was bad enough. The pilot of the plane died and so did my friend’s mother,” Xandie chipped in.
“I got the nod the crop duster had crashed. I figured this is what they wanted me to cover up. We were understaffed, so I managed the crime scene, got the fire department in, but made sure they were friends of mine.” Wolf licked his lips. He looked grateful to tell his story. “I found the pilot first. He’d ejected out, but the chute was damaged, and he didn’t clear the blast zone in time. I expected to find debris, but everything burned hot and fast. Too hot for a crop duster crash. And then I found the dragon.”
He faltered before continuing, “Found a mess of scales, but little else. It wasn’t a normal fire. Dragons are immune to fire, so I figured whoever paid me was a dragon rival taking out another one. I sanitized the area, doctored the books and called in favors. The family of the crop duster got paid. You can check them out. There was never any mention of another body in the report, just the pilot. Then Braun came back and the paranormal investigative group poked their heads in, and Janie started her treatments. No one spoke to me about the incident until today.”
“Do you have the name of the pilot’s family?” They might give her more to go on. Then Xandie thought of something else. “What did you do with the scales you found at the scene?”
Wolf stood and disappeared through a door before reappearing with a small, brown engraved chest. “The name of the family’s inside. Along with this.” He opened the chest and a shimmering silver pink scale glowed.
“You kept it,” Elspeth breathed the words out, transfixed by the glow.
“I cleaned it up. Couldn’t stand to bury it. There’s also a copy of the crop duster report in here. I figured the truth would come out and the family of the dragon might want it.” He offered the box to Xandie.
Xandie took hold of the open chest and stared at the scale. It pulsed, glowing brighter all the time.
“Xandie.” Elspeth pointed to Xandie’s necklace around her neck. The pendant was a gift from the library, passed from librarian to librarian over the centuries. A triangular pendant with an open eye inside the triangle shape with a rising sun behind it. The same necklace now blazed gold. The library wanted her to take the scale.
“Her family, her daughter, will want this. Thank you.” Xandie closed the lid on the transfixing glow. “But you might need to head to ground. People are dying and it’s to do with who this belongs to.”
He shook his head. “Nope. Not hiding any more. My Janie’s gone now, and she’s the only one I’d worry about. The Pennes can come find me.” Wolf stood and the years and the weight of guilt poured away.
Elspeth cackled and clapped her hands. “About time, Wolfie. Let’s plan your defenses while my Xandie deals with the scale. I have the best hexes available to you at only half the price.”
That was her grandmother, always a deal to be made when it involved hexes.
Xandie nodded to Elspeth and Wolf and hefted up the chest.
It was time for Priss to have something belonging to her mother.
Fourteen
“Thanks for driving me, Priss.”
“No worries. Besides, you gave me some of my mom back. And that’s priceless.” Priss kept one hand on the steering wheel and the other patted her chest where the scale rested on a necklace. “So why don’t you drive?”
“I never needed to in Andrews, the town I grew up in. When I worked in Portland, I never bothered having a car either. Plus, most Harrows have issues driving. Elspeth and Holly have scooters and Lila has the bakery van she only uses for deliveries. But they’re the only ones. Our powers react weirdly with engines.”
“Fair enough. Who are we interviewing again?”
Xandie took a steadying breath. She wasn’t sure how her new friend would take the news they were seeing the family of the pilot who killed her mother. “Old Wolf told me the family of the pilot of the crop duster might have a name for us. Is that okay? Can you handle it?”
Knuckles gleamed white on the steering wheel before Priss loosened her grip. “I’ll try. I guess I have more pent-up issues and emotions than I thought. But if it will get us a name, I’ll shut up.”
Xandie patted her friend on the arm for comfort. It was a start. Priss would heal, especially if Xandie got Marjorie off a murder rap, and then she’d meet her grandmother. Xandie checked her directions on her phone. Now they’d left Point Muse, her cell phone was working again. “It’s only two hours’ drive al
ong the highway, heading toward Portland, so we’re almost there. The Mason Harbor turn-off should be our next off-ramp in a few minutes.”
“Righto, boss.” Priss waited for the off-ramp sign and steered the car off the highway. Ten minutes later they were driving through the town of Mason Harbor.
Xandie pointed to a small gray detached cottage. “That’s the place.” The house might be small, but the garden was immaculate. Grass mowed, fresh flowerbeds, prepared for planting. The house had a warm, homely feel. Xandie stepped onto the front porch and rapped on the door. Priss hovered in the background. Xandie hoped her friend could keep calm enough for them to get a name or at least a solid clue on their villain.
A smiling silver-haired lady answered the door. “Can I help you?”
“I hope so. A man called Wolf gave us your name.”
The woman’s face paled, and she moved to close the door. Xandie slid a foot inside. “Please. We need your help. It’s important. Life or death.”
The older lady swung the door open. “Come in. I guess it’s time to talk.”
Xandie and Priss followed the woman into a cheerful yellow kitchen. The woman pulled out two chairs and motioned for the girls to sit. “Why did Wolf give you our name?”
“Because he wanted to help us. Help find a killer and bring them to justice. For everyone involved.” Xandie gestured to Priss. “Her mother was the target. She was a baby when her mother died.”
Priss nodded. “I’m not angry. Your family and Wolf were as much victims as my mother. I want the name of the person who planned the murder. Who’s still killing right now. Can you help us?”
The lady opposite them covered her face for a moment before dropping her hands. “The pilot was my eldest son, Ethan. My husband had just left us. We had no money, and I had no job prospects. Crop dusting was my husband’s job. But when he left, Ethan took over.” She paused, tearing. “He was in the army before. Wasn’t right when he came back. We got this anonymous letter, telling us if my husband flew the crop duster into the indicated target, we’d get a lot of money.”