Wisteria Wyverns (Wisteria Witches Mysteries Book 5)

by Angela Pepper

  I kept my expression neutral and nodded. Old people say the darndest things.

  I asked, “Are you here at the castle because you were visiting the young woman?”

  She looked through me, eyes unfocused. “I have a chair here, in the beauty salon. I’m up here a few days a week during the summer season.”

  “That’ll keep you busy,” I said, groaning inwardly at the forced small talk.

  “Pretty busy.” Her eyes brightened as she focused on me. “You should come in and see me.”

  I fluffed my hair. “But I just got a trim from you. It hasn’t been that long.”

  She made a tsk-tsk sound and reached for a lock of my hair. “Dry ends,” she pronounced.

  “I use conditioner,” I said. “Sometimes.” Zara tries to take good care of her hair. Zara tries to do everything, but there are only so many hours in a day.

  “Come see me for a deep conditioning treatment,” she said. “It would bring me such joy to have you in my chair.” She tugged on my hair. “Promise?”

  “Sure,” I said. When a sweet little old lady is tugging on your hair, it’s okay to cave in to her demands. It doesn’t make you less of a witch.

  She released my hair and turned away, her layers of clothes swooshing. I set off in the opposite direction, back toward the ballroom to find my mother. I walked past a take-a-book display on a rustic wooden bookshelf, which reminded me I would need to let my boss know I probably wouldn’t be in Monday morning. And maybe not Tuesday, either. I pulled out my phone, and was scrolling for Kathy Carmichael’s home number when I walked into a someone. It was Chet. Again.

  “You must like me.” The tall, dark-haired man gazed down at me with a bemused expression. “It can’t be a coincidence that you keep throwing your body at mine.”

  I snorted. “You’re the one who keeps getting in my way. Just like the other day when I was returning some of your friend’s stone critters to your back yard by casually tossing them over the fence, and your big head kept getting in the way.”

  “What are you even talking about?”

  “The petrified mice. Don’t you remember? I guess I hit you pretty hard with the big one.”

  “Not that I know of.” He rubbed the back of his head. “No dents.”

  “That’s good. Can you tell Charlize to stop throwing her critters into my yard?”

  He narrowed his eyes briefly before making an ah-hah face. “Perhaps I should introduce myself, since you’ve apparently mistaken me for someone else.” He extended his open hand. “My name’s Archer. Archer Caine.”

  Chapter 10

  Why was my neighbor introducing himself to me as Archer Caine? Something was up. But then again, with Chet, something always was up. He did work for a top secret agency disguised as a municipal water department, after all.

  “Your name’s Archer?” I gave him a sly wink. “Okay, I’ll call you Archer.” Another wink. “Working undercover. Gotcha.”

  He turned his head to give me a sideways look. “We, uh, don’t know each other.”

  “Then how do you explain having my shoes?” I pointed to his armpit, where he was still carrying the pair of shoes I’d slipped out of a few minutes earlier, on my way out to catch Nash.

  “You told me to watch them for you,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “Good boy.” I winked a third time.

  He continued to look bemused. He also seemed to be in no hurry to get away from me. Either Chet was deep under cover, or he was a whole different person outside of Wisteria town limits. The last time he’d been this friendly had been during our drive up the coast to get ice cream.

  I pried one of the shoes out from under his arm and put it on my foot. He watched me closely, which made me awkward. I lost my balance and did the Shoe Dance on one foot, nearly dropping my phone, which was still in my hand because I hadn’t yet called my boss. As I was looking down, I saw my phone screen light up with with an incoming text.

  The message was coming from Chet Moore, or from his phone at least. How could that be, if Chet was standing right next to me, holding nothing in his hands except my second shoe? I checked the time on the message to see if it had been delayed, perhaps by the thick stone walls. According to the time stamp, transmission had been instantaneous. I noted to myself that the cellular phone coverage here was surprisingly good, considering we were inside a castle. More importantly, if Chet Moore had just sent me a text message, that meant the man standing in front of me wasn’t him. So, who was he?

  Chet had mentioned a brother before. He hadn’t specified that the brother was an identical twin, but that wasn’t odd, since Chet could be secretive about things. But no. This guy couldn’t be his twin. It wasn’t just that he’d introduced himself with a different last name. I knew that Chet didn’t have a twin because I hadn’t seen one come out the night his mother gave birth to Chet. Granted, I hadn’t even been born myself at that time, but I did have the memories of my house’s former resident, and there’d only been one baby boy born on her wood floor that night.

  The mysterious man was staring at me, an expression of amusement on his face. He was enjoying this! Was it someone I knew, using a glamour for a disguise? Had Frank gotten hold of some powerful magic? That didn’t seem likely. Frank wouldn’t be able to keep up a ruse this long without laughing.

  I took the other shoe from the man, and smiled sweetly at him while I did the Shoe Dance on my other foot.

  “You do seem familiar,” he said slowly. “Perhaps we know each other, after all. Perhaps we met long ago.”

  “I’m not from around here, so I doubt that.”

  “Very well.” His green eyes seemed to twinkle, as though he was in on some joke. I wondered again if he might be Frank in disguise.

  “Do you know a guy named Frank Wonder?”

  He didn’t blink. “Should I?” He tilted his head, catching a dark shadow in his hollow cheeks. “Do I remind you of someone you know?”

  “Just a little.” Understatement of the year. Should I tell him, or wait for Chet to break the news in person? Or should I assume the guy in front of me knew exactly what he was doing and was there on some nefarious business? There had been a suspicious death, after all. I remembered Josephine’s body on the couch. The crime scene investigators might have been bagging her body right at that very moment. A chill like ice water trickled down my spine. I took a step back and touched in with my peripheral vision. I could see into the lobby, which meant they could see me, as long as I didn’t stray too far from that spot. As long as I didn’t go somewhere more private with the man standing before me.

  He noticed me step back but didn’t move himself. He asked, in a convivial tone, “Have you been here at the castle for long?”

  “Just a few hours. How about you?”

  “A while. A few days. Not very long, compared to other places.”

  “Oh?” I reached into my purse and blindly grappled/scrabbled around for my sunglasses. They would still have some of my aunt’s vision-enhancing gel on them, which would help me see through whatever glamour this person in front of me was using. In theory, anyway.

  The man glanced around at the stone walls and rubbed his arms. “Sometimes it feels like you get yourself bottled up somewhere for an eternity.”

  “Hopefully we won’t be here too long.” I finally located my sunglasses. I pulled them on and looked at the stranger through the lenses.

  He was tall, with nearly black hair, a long face, prominent cheekbones, thick yet tidy eyebrows, and green eyes. This guy, however, despite looking exactly like Chet, also didn’t look like him. This guy’s two-and-a-half forehead wrinkles weren’t deep. This guy looked fun.

  He tilted his head and gave me a funny look. “Why are you wearing sunglasses?”

  I played dumb. “These aren’t my reading glasses?”

  “The lenses are dark.” He leaned in and sniffed the glasses. “And you’ve got something dribbled all over them. Is that suntan lotion?”

  “Prob
ably. It must have exploded in my purse.” I reached up to remove the sunglasses, pausing with my fingers on the side arm while I gave him a thorough inspection. My aunt’s charmed sight gel had worn off in all but one spot on the left lens. When I looked through the spot, the edges of everything glowed, so I knew it was working. I scanned up and down his entire body, twice. No sign of glamours or control strings on his body. I took off the glasses and dropped them in my purse.

  “Much better,” he said. “Now I can see your lovely eyes that keep changing color on me.”

  “They’re hazel,” I said. “The color depends on the light.” I waggled my eyebrows. “And possibly my moods.”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “Not magic?”

  I laughed. Whoever this Archer Caine guy was, I couldn’t help but like him. There was still a chance he was Chet, playing some elaborate prank on me—not that the Chet I knew would do something like that. At least I had a simple, nonmagical test I could run.

  “Archer, can I ask you something?”

  He smiled. “Anything you wish.”

  “How do you feel about hiding vegetables inside other foods? Specifically, how do you feel about zucchini chocolate cake?”

  He frowned. “What’s a zucchini?”

  I laughed. That certainly answered my question. The real Chet Moore was proud of his ability to get nutritious foods into his unsuspecting family. I felt the direct approach was the better way to parent. And by direct approach, I mean putting cheese sauce on the veggies. And, if you want to get really fancy, you can put a wheat-based crust and tomato sauce underneath the veggies. Everybody wins!

  “You’re easily amused,” Archer said. “If you think it’s funny I don’t know that word, you should stick around. There are so many things I don’t know.” He tilted his head and rubbed his temple. “Wait. It’s coming to me. Do you mean a courgette? The long, green vegetable?”

  “Yes, that’s it! Would you put it in a chocolate cake?”

  He looked at me and pursed his lips, as though giving my question serious consideration. “No,” he finally answered. “Do I pass your test?”

  “Who said it was a test?”

  He grinned. “You’re a woman. There are always tests.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. Talking to someone who looked exactly like my neighbor but wasn’t him was incredibly disorienting. Having him be so charming and flirtatious was disarming. But I couldn’t let my guard down. He could be dangerous.

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  “A person has to be somewhere.”

  “Why do you look like that?”

  He crossed his arms. “Why do you look like that?”

  A cart full of equipment toppled over in the lobby. I turned my head to see what was happening, and when I turned back again, the man who called himself Archer Caine was gone. Or was he just invisible?

  I lunged forward and waved my hands through the air. There was only air.

  I pulled the sunglasses from my purse, squeezed out a few more drops of vision enhancement gel, and searched the whole hallway. He wasn’t there.

  Add another note to the report, I thought grimly. Suspect disappears into thin air.

  Chapter 11

  After my curious meeting with the vanishing Chet lookalike, I returned to the ballroom. My mother didn’t appear to be there, though it would have been easy enough to miss her in the crowd and the chaos.

  I ran up the stairs to her suite, my heart pounding, partly from the exertion of taking the steps two at a time, and partly from the irrational fear that I’d find some other person in her room. Could I have been hallucinating, or under some spell all afternoon? Was it possible that the woman I’d nearly finished grieving could be back in my life? With trepidation, I knocked on the thick, wooden door. When the door opened, and I saw my mother standing there in her crisp white blouse and tailored slacks, I was so relieved, I could have hugged her.

  “Finally,” she said with a sniff. “I was getting ready to leave for dinner without you. The girl at the front desk tried to tell me that in spite of everything that’s going on, the meal service will continue as usual, but I seriously doubt that.” Instead of letting me into the room, she let herself out. “Come on. We’d better get seated for dinner before the kitchen runs out of everything.”

  “Mom, I doubt the kitchen is going to run out of everything.”

  “Chaos makes people hungry.”

  I couldn’t argue with her on that point. All food is comfort food during times of uncertainty.

  The castle had three separate dining areas, and we were in the smallest one. It had not been my mother’s first choice, and she’d made a bit of a fuss, but now we were seated at a table for two, and the hostess assured us there was plenty of food.

  The room had low ceilings held up with wooden beams. Its stone walls were decorated with faded tapestries and framed etchings of other castles. The space was downright cozy, like an old pub.

  I took another admiring look around the warmly lit room and commented, “All things considered, there are worse places to be imprisoned.”

  My mother didn’t say anything. She kept peering around the small table at my frayed jeans.

  “Stop judging my outfit,” I said. “When I left my house, I didn’t imagine I’d be having dinner in a castle, let alone having it with my mother, the recently undead.” Her eye twitched at the word undead. I’d gone too far and needed to compliment my way out of the hole I’d dug. “You look very nice, by the way. Nobody wears a white blouse like you do.” I dropped the pitch of my voice and put on an East Coast accent. “Lady, I hope you don’t mind me saying, you’re the classiest broad in this joint.”

  She glanced around the dining room, which was filling with skinny rich ladies and their husbands, who came in more varied shapes and sizes. A smile spread across her lips. She agreed with my assessment.

  A woman sitting at the table nearest us was staring at my clothes with curiosity. I looked down at myself as well. Why had my closet chosen this outfit? Usually I could count on my wardrobe spell to serve up the perfect outfit for the day, but I was woefully underdressed for the occasion. My jeans weren’t too scruffy, but the T-shirt had seen better days. I’d put a hole in the armpit the day my daughter and I had moved into our Wisteria house, and, previous to that, several moths had dined on the cotton. It did, however, carry the catchy slogan My Weekend’s All Booked, scrawled above a stack of books. Librarian humor.

  I gave the stranger a friendly wave then scanned the dining room for my old friend Nash. I hoped he hadn’t absconded after all.

  My mother asked, “Looking for your friend? He probably took off. That Penguin boy always could tell when trouble was coming his way.”

  “His last name is Partridge, and I’m sure he’s around.”

  “Remember that old car that he and his father were restoring? It was a Lincoln, and they had a funny name for it. Bellatrix.”

  “It was a Cadillac, and they called it Lucille. They actually had a number of Cadillacs, and they were all named Lucille.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Odd family. A single parent plus an only child can become so strangely insular.”

  “No comment.”

  She glanced around the dining room again. “I hope the young man is around, as I’m sure they’ll be eager to question him. The boyfriend is always the primary suspect. I knew that even before I started dating a detective.”

  “Nash didn’t do it.”

  She wrinkled her nose again. “Someone did. Do you think it was one of these husbands? Someone whose room the girl was in when she wasn’t supposed to be?” She made an O with her mouth. “Or did one of the wives catch her?”

  I took another look at the women around us. Their features became sharper, their eyes more darting and paranoid.

  “Possibly,” I said. “But Jo’s death isn’t the only strange thing going on around here.”

  Her eyes widened with interest. Before I could tell her about the
Chet lookalike I’d bumped into, our waiter arrived with two menus. It was Oberon, the same young man who’d brought us room service and captivated my daughter. His sand-toned curls were visibly damp around his ears. He breathed rapidly as he warned us there’d be a longer-than-usual wait for dinner. My mother shot me a told-you-so look. I shot her a but-at-least-there’s-still-food look.

  Oberon continued to pant. “We’re short-staffed,” he said. “Not that Jo was much help when she was alive.” His eyes suddenly bulged and he stopped breathing. “Uh, forget I said that,” he choked out.

  He filled our water glasses, spilling water and ice cubes on the tablecloth without apology, and fled the area.

  I tried to read my menu, but the words kept swimming around. Not by magic. Just the regular word-swimming that happens when your mind is elsewhere. My mother, on the other hand, perused the menu calmly. She’d forgotten our conversation, but I hadn’t. I planned to cast the sound bubble spell and tell her all about Chet’s lookalike as soon as we ordered.

  Several minutes later, Oberon returned, his surfer-boy curls still damp with sweat.

  “Madams, are you ready to order?”

  My mother raised her thin, black eyebrows at the young man. “Madams? Does management encourage you to address ladies in that manner?”

  “Uh…” He glanced around for a column to hide behind. Alas, unlike the ballroom or foyer, the dining room was lacking in columns.

  “I happen to like the two of us being called madams,” I said to my mother. “It sounds like we might be running a high-end brothel. Super classy.”

  She slow-blinked at me, turned to Oberon, and ordered a bottle of wine as well as her dinner.

  Oberon asked, “How would you like your steak cooked?”

  “I would like it rare.”

  I muttered under my breath, “I bet you would.” With brains on top.

  She kicked me under the table. Her under-table aim was as good as ever.

  Oberon turned his youthful good looks my way. “And for you, madam?”

  I picked something at random from the menu. “Linguine with seafood.”