by Tegan Maher
“Hey, guys,” I replied. “I need to talk to you.”
“Sure,” Cyri replied, then patted a spot beside her. “We were just thinking about going up for dinner. It’s been a long day.”
“Yeah, about that,” I said, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. “I need to ask you about something.”
Aiden tilted his head, his blue eyes concerned. “I know what you want to talk to us about, so you can relax. It’s okay.”
“You do?” I asked, relieved.
“Sure. We know you’re good at what you do, and we know Bob probably heard us arguing earlier,” Cyri said. “Go ahead and ask your questions.”
“Did you know her?” That seemed to be the obvious place to start.
Cyri fiddled with a string on her shorts. “Remember this morning when I told her she looked familiar?”
I nodded. “Yeah, and she swore you’d never met.”
“Right,” she replied. “That was a lie. Aiden recognized her as soon as he saw her.”
“You did?” I turned my gaze toward Aiden.
He nodded, his golden gaze never leaving mine. “We ran into her on a cruise a year or so ago. She wasn’t going by Andromeda then, though. She called herself Charlotte. I don’t remember the last name she was using.”
“So what makes her so memorable?” I asked. It wasn’t like anything about her stood out. In fact, she’d been average in just about every way.
“The fact that several people on the ship including Cyri had jewelry stolen,” he replied. “The thing is, those ships have cameras everywhere. It’s damn near impossible for somebody to just slip into a room and steal something once, let alone a dozen times over the course of a week.”
I thought for a second. “This was a magical cruise line?”
Cyri shook her head. “No. This was a human one. We like to go on those because they go to different places. Plus, humans are entertaining.”
“So maybe it wouldn’t have been so hard for a witch to get away with it?” I saw where they were going with it.
“Maybe,” he said. “But not really. When I say their security is tight, I mean it. What they lack in magic, they make up for in tech. All the jewelry was stolen from in-room safes. I know a lock’s no problem for a witch, but these required fingerprint access rather than a lock or combination.”
That did make a difference, and I was starting to get a sneaking suspicion of what the blue potion was. I needed to get it to Mila as soon as I finished talking to them.
“I’m gonna lay this out for you and let you explain it to me,” I said. “You’re my friends and I know you, but we’ve gotta solve this. Other people probably saw you arguing, but the most important part is that when I vibed the area where we found her, I saw you yelling at her. What went down?”
They exchanged a look and Cyri rolled her eyes. “I told you to leave it alone, didn’t I? Now look where we’re at. If Destiny picked that up, there’s a good chance somebody with real skills will too. And I’m sure they have somebody like that on their team.” She waved a hand toward me. “No offense.”
“None taken,” I replied. I never laid claim to being good at that part of magic and she knew it. “Why were you all the way out there and what were you saying to her?”
Aiden sighed. “We were in the cottages and I saw her walking along the beach when we came back from a walk. The ring Cyri had stolen was valuable, but more for its sentimental value than anything.”
Cyri held up a hand. “That’s only true to us. To most other creatures, it was extremely valuable.” She turned to me. “It was a two-carat princess-cut blue diamond flanked on each side with one-carat pink diamonds.”
“Wait,” I said, “is that the pretty ring your uncle made for you?” She always wore a ring matching that description, but I’d never thought it was something that valuable. She wore it in the ocean, for Pete’s sake.
She nodded. “Yeah, that’s the one. Uncle loves to travel and explore caves, and it makes his day when he stumbles upon shiny rocks. He stuffs them in his knapsack and brings them home with him. Making jewelry’s kind of his thing. He used to make swords, too, but those are all pretty much ceremonial now.”
I was almost afraid to ask, but I figured it was relevant. “How much do you think it was worth?”
She shrugged a tan shoulder. “I don’t know. I don’t really pay attention to stuff like that. Two or three million, maybe? Could be more or less, I have no idea.”
“Two or three million dollars?” I asked, nearly choking on my own spit.
She nodded. “Or a little more. Or maybe a lot more. They were perfect stones. My uncle knows his stuff.”
“That’s what you confronted her about, Aiden?” Knowing faeries, it wasn’t the monetary value, but the aesthetic and sentimental value that had driven him to it. They also had a huge sense of right and wrong, and stealing was a definite no-no.
“Of course it was,” he replied, crossing his arms across his slender body. “She stole from Cyri and she had an obligation to make it right. Cyri’s uncle made that for her for her hundredth birthday.”
“What makes you think it was her?” I asked.
Aiden huffed. “Because when the ring came up missing, I searched the entire ship. She’d magically disappeared during the night.”
“Maybe she just got off at a port and didn’t get back on,” I said, trying to think of a logical explanation.
He scoffed. “We were in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea miles from any port when Cyri realized it was missing. There was no port between when she’d last worn it and when it went missing, and we’d seen Charlotte, or Andromeda, or whatever her name was, at dinner that evening. She definitely didn’t get off at a port. And no more jewelry came up missing the rest of the voyage.”
“What happened when you confronted her?” I asked, brushing a few tendrils of hair from my face as the sea breeze blew it into my eyes.
He scowled. “That dreadful familiar of hers tried to bite me, and she denied everything. I realized I wasn’t accomplishing anything and went back to the forest to walk it off.”
“And she stayed?” Now that I knew what had happened, I was relaxing a little. I slipped my flip-flops off and dug my toes into the sand, sighing as the energy from the earth flowed upward through me.
“I don’t know what she did,” Aiden replied, his expression earnest. “But she was alive and well when I left her there.”
“And you didn’t see anybody else on the beach?”
He shook his head. “But I wasn’t really paying attention, either. I was so angry with her that there could have been a herd of elephants and I might not have noticed.”
“All right, then,” I said, “then I need to figure out who actually killed her. But first, I need to figure out what this potion was for. I have a feeling I know exactly how she was stealing things without getting caught.”
Chapter 7
“C’mon,” I called to Tempest when I got back to the tiki. “We need to go talk to Mila. I need to know what that potion is, and I need to talk to Blake. Find out if she had anything in her vault.”
“Blake’s up at the resort talking to the doc,” she said, pushing to her feet and stretching. “He was just here looking for you and asked you to meet him up there when you were finished.”
“Okay, that works,” I said, scooping my bag from behind the bar. “You coming?”
She huffed out a breath. “I suppose you’re not going to let me nap, and I want to see Calamity.”
Calamity was one of Tempest’s two sisters. The other, Chaos, lived with my cousin Cori.
“Let’s go, then. The faster we get there, the sooner we can get this solved and enjoy the weekend.” I felt guilty as soon as the words left my mouth, but it was what it was. If Andromeda had been a thief, then she’d probably come to the end she’d been crashing toward, eyes wide open. Magical folks didn’t like being stolen from any more than humans did, and we were a tad bit more dangerous to cross.
“I think we should talk to Blake first,” Tempest said. “Maybe the doc got something that will help us out. It’s getting close to quitting time for her unless she stays over.”
“Good point.” Working the schedule I did, it was hard to remember that some people kept office hours. Considering I’d been co-managing the tiki, I was also on call pretty much twenty-four/seven, too, so a forty-hour workweek was nothing but a fantasy. Since I lived on the resort, that wasn’t as big a deal as it sounded, but it was certainly way different than a nine-to-five, Monday-Friday schedule.
“Ready?” I asked, leaning forward so that my knee was a jumping point. “I’m beat and don’t feel like walking.”
She hopped onto my shoulder. “Ready.”
I snapped my fingers and concentrated on the space outside the doc’s office, and five seconds later, we were standing there. I brushed my hands over my tank top and shorts to knock off any loose sand, then pushed the door open. Blake was standing in the front foyer by the reception desk, and the doc had her hip propped against the edge of it.
“Hey, Destiny,” she said, pushing her librarian glasses up her nose. “I assume you’re here for an update, but I’m afraid I haven’t had time to delve too deep. All I can tell you is that she didn’t die from anything external. No broken bones, the small bones in her neck appear intact, which would indicate strangling, and there’s no petechial hemorrhaging in her eyes to suggest she was smothered. So far, I got nothin’.”
“Could it have been a vampire?” Tempest asked. That would be handy considering she was squatting in the kingpin vamp’s suite and using his daughter’s ID.
She shook her head. “Nope. No puncture wounds anywhere. And I didn’t pick up any poison in her blood, either.”
“So that just leaves something magical,” I said. That sucked because I’d been hoping for something obvious. That would have been simple, though, and if I’d learned anything, my luck didn’t run that way often.
Doc nodded. “Looks that way.”
Blake pressed his lips together. “I’m not even sure where to go from here. I have my investigators going through her room now, but I doubt they’ll find anything of use in there.”
“What about Pietra’s mother? Or Pietra herself,” I asked. “They’re witches. It seems logical that either of them could have done it.”
“How?” Blake asked. “This resort is locked down tight as a drum. You know that.”
He was right, and I kicked myself for not thinking of it. Nobody could port in or out; in fact, he, Tempest, and I were the only ones who could port anywhere on the resort, and even I couldn’t port on or off the property. Anybody coming or going would have to do so using one of the official portals, which required registration and identification.
I sighed. “That would have been too easy, wouldn’t it?”
A regretful smile curved the doc’s lips. “I’m sorry I don’t have better news. I have a healer coming in who specializes in curses, but she can’t be here until six. I’ll let you know if she finds anything. At this point, that’s the only thing I can think of that killed her.”
“Thank you,” I replied. “You have my number, and I appreciate all you’re doing.”
“Have you talked to Mila yet?” Blake asked.
“Not yet,” I replied. “I need to see Andromeda’s portal information. It’s in your office, right?”
Confusion flashed across his face because he could easily access that information from his phone, but he schooled it back to a neutral expression almost immediately. I doubt anybody that didn’t know him well would have even picked up on it. I knew his face like the back of my own hand, though.
“It is. Let’s go, and I can get that for you.” He turned to the doc. “Thanks, Blaise. I know this isn’t your thing, so I’m grateful for anything you do. And also sorry I’ve put you in the position to begin with.”
She waved a hand and shoved an errant curl behind her ear. “The only way you put me in this position is if you killed her. I can’t imagine that’s the case if for no other reason than you wouldn’t want to deal with the paperwork and politics.” She smiled at her own joke.
“True, that!” he said with an emphatic nod. “The next few hours are going to be a nightmare, but at least I can tell them what didn’t happen. That’s progress, even if it is in a roundabout way.”
“Ready?” he asked me.
I nodded and took his hand. The warmth of it sent a tingle up my arm, but I pushed it away. I’d once loved him and still did, but not in the same way. Even though I knew the kiss he’d shared with his receptionist had been the result of a spell, I hadn’t learned that for nearly a year. Neither had he, for that matter. By that time, our romantic relationship had ended, at least for me, and I’d moved on to Colin. Blake would always have a place in my heart, but not that place. Still, sometimes my body reacted before my brain had a chance to kick in.
“Ready,” I said, and the brief look of regret that crossed his face told me that he’d felt the zap of attraction, too. There was nothing I could do about that, though, so I shifted my gaze away from his and prepared for him to pull me through the portal of time and space to his office.
A few seconds later, we were standing beside his desk.
“Now, what was so important that you wanted to talk in private,” Blake asked.
“I talked to Cyri and Aiden,” I replied, then launched into my story.
He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, so I studied his face, waiting for a response.
“That explains a lot,” he said, “and it also gives us a concrete suspect aside from Aiden.”
“Does this person happen to be tall, dark, and prone to wearing expensive business suits?”
“Tall, yes, but not dark and definitely not a suit person.”
“What do you mean by that?” Tempest asked, frowning. “Don’t beat around the bush because I want to see Calamity.”
He pulled in a breath and slowly exhaled. “I didn’t think this was relevant until now, which is why I didn’t mention it. A man came to me this afternoon right before I got the notification about Andromeda to file a complaint. His wife’s necklace came up missing, and it wasn’t just an ordinary piece of jewelry. It was an expensive piece that she’d inherited from her mother.”
My mind flashed to the bag of jewelry in Andromeda’s drawer, and suddenly the pieces clicked into place. “That’s it, then. There’s a bag of jewelry tucked in with her fine washables. He’s probably the guy I saw at her door.”
“I doubt that,” he said. “This guy is a giant. I’m pretty sure you’d have mentioned that detail if that’s who you’d seen in the vision.”
I huffed out a frustrated breath. “Yeah, this guy definitely wasn’t a giant. So now we’re exactly where we started.”
He lifted a shoulder. “Maybe not. It’s possible he somehow found out about Andromeda. Did Cyri or Aiden mention whether they’d talked to anybody else about it?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t ask, but I do know they were arguing at the tiki about it. I suppose somebody could have overheard what they were fussing about.”
“You go talk to Mila, then, and I’ll go up to her room and get the jewelry. I’ll take it to him and see if his wife’s necklace is in there, then go from there based on his reaction.” He turned to Tempest. “Will you let me know what you guys find out?”
Unlike me, Tempest had a weird psychic connection to Blake. She’d developed it when we’d been engaged, and even though our relationship had ended, their connection had not. I was also connected to her on a much deeper level, but that didn’t connect me to Blake, at least not anymore.
She nodded and she snuggled closer to my neck. “Will do. Let’s go, Destiny.”
“I’ll see you in a bit,” I told Blake before I took the ten steps out of his office. Even I couldn’t teleport in or out of there; that was a privilege only he had.
As soon as we were out his door, though, I snapped my finger
s and took us to Mila’s. Hopefully, she’d be able to confirm my suspicions about the potion. If not, I wasn’t sure where I’d go from there.
Chapter 8
I knew I’d landed in the right place when the scents of coconut, jasmine, and lime filled my nostrils. Mila’s shop, Potions and Lotions, always smelled heavenly, though the scents varied depending on what she was cooking up at the time.
“After-sun lotion, huh?” I asked, and she jumped about a foot in the air.
She turned and scowled at me, her green eyes flashing. Though we shared those, that was the only physical trait we had in common. Whereas I was of average height at my five-five, she was much smaller at five-one. She also had dark hair and a porcelain complexion, which made me look absolutely rustic with my red hair and freckles.
“Crap on a cracker, you scared the bejeezus out of me! You’re lucky I wasn’t carrying a pot full of boiling potion or else we could have both turned to frogs or something.”
I laughed. “One, you don’t brew anything that would turn us to frogs, and two, you knew I was coming. You always do.”
We’d grown up together, and though we were technically cousins, we were more like sisters. She always sensed me and vice versa.
“Maybe I did,” she replied. “My mind’s been wandering, though, so I missed it.”
She set the basket of empty bottles she was carrying on the table and rushed over to hug me. “I’m glad to see you though. What brings you here? Somehow, I don’t think it’s just for funsies.”
“I’m gonna go find Calamity,” Tempest said, jumping off my shoulder. “I know we won’t be here long, and I want to catch up with her.”
“Go ahead,” I said, “But don’t go far. We don’t have time to dilly-dally.”
Mila opened the fridge and pulled out two bottles of water, then motioned to the table. “Pop a squat and tell me what’s got you all atwitter.”
We were in the area in the back of her shop. She lived in the apartment above it, but she’d turned this area into a combination of a kitchen and work area. The front corner was furnished like a regular kitchen complete with a fridge, stove, and a plank table while the rear of the space had a fireplace and a couple stainless-steel worktables. Shelves full of potion ingredients and oils lined the walls and several free-standing shelves like you’d find in a warehouse stood off to the side to hold excess products.