Pawsitively Swindled

by Melissa Erin Jackson

  “So … you’re not resigning?” Simon asked, rounding the desk. He looked a bit pained, like he was worried he’d misspoken and offended Jameson.

  “He’ll do it if he knows what’s good for him,” said Daniels, standing in the open doorway. He stepped in, Tillman and Sable behind him. Simon and Jameson both whirled to face them, the crafted resignation letter still in Jameson’s hand.

  “You know this deal is the best thing for the town,” Tillman said. “Cooper won’t be able to resist the payment offer for too much longer. His product was destroyed. He’s drowning in fines and tickets your department is responsible for giving him. He’ll cave. Trust me.”

  “But if he doesn’t cave, you’ll kill him just like you killed Woodbury,” Simon said, his words a little slurred. The drug in his system clearly was interfering with Simon’s knowledge—knowledge Jameson had tried to impart to him earlier—that these three people before him weren’t the type to divulge secrets to. Was this all the drug’s doing, or was it reacting even more strongly because of Simon’s magic? “I figured out that part. Molly is looking for proof. You won’t get your deal if everyone knows you killed that old man. Cooper will testify to the harassment, too. You won’t be able to work in this town soon, Mr. Tillman. You may not be able to work anywhere.”

  Jameson looked at each person in turn. “The attacks in town the night Cooper’s oil was destroyed … who orchestrated that? Was it you, Daniels?”

  Daniels shrugged. “We needed a distraction. I learned that one from you, too.”

  “Don’t put any of this on me!” Jameson snapped, the resignation letter crumpling a bit in his fist. “I’ve screwed up in the past. I’ll be the first to admit that. But this? You two are willing to work with Tillman when he’s murdered someone before? Where do you draw the line after this?”

  “Here,” Sable said. “This deal will change all our lives. Tillman gets a lucrative deal to help further his career; this deal will be part of my legacy when I leave office and seek political power on a grander scale; and Daniels—once you leave this job you clearly no longer want, Eric—gets the promotion he wants.” She took a small step forward. “Do you have any idea how many jobs are going to be created? Your daughter’s name is Wilma, isn’t it? She can have any position she wants at the farm. She’ll make a better salary than whatever she’s making at that dreadful convenience store, move out of those horrible little apartments, and get a better start. Don’t you want that for her?”

  Even Amber could tell that last one had gotten to Jameson.

  “Any position?” Jameson asked, his eyes so red-rimmed, they made Amber’s eyes itch just looking at them. “Management?”

  “Anything,” Sable said. “Resign. Walk away. Let us take care of the rest.”

  “What about him, though?” Tillman asked, jutting a chin toward Simon, who still stood beside Jameson, though it looked like he’d checked back out of the conversation again. He swayed a little.

  “Like he’s going to remember any of this in the morning,” Daniels said.

  “Rohypnol usually causes amnesia for a four to six-hour window,” someone said. “But it’s not always permanent. Only one thing is permanent.”

  Several things happened at once, as if in slow motion.

  Victoria Sullivan stepped into the room with a gun drawn. Sable and Daniels both stumbled back, inadvertently giving Victoria a clearer shot. Which she took. Tillman lunged for Victoria, knocking her gun hand up toward the ceiling. Simon uttered the beginnings of a spell. Jameson darted just to the left, hands out.

  And then time sped up.

  Jameson slumped to the floor. Simon, before he even got halfway through whatever spell he was trying to attempt, collapsed a moment later.

  Then the room erupted in shouts.

  Mayor Sable had her hands pressed to the sides of her head, pacing back and forth as Jameson lay on the ground, a single bullet to the chest. Blood welled up on his shirt, making the black material look shiny, wet. Slowly, blood pooled beneath him. Sable muttered prayers to herself, asking for guidance, but never once suggesting they call the police. The police were already there.

  Daniels rounded on Victoria. “What did you do!”

  “I just saved you all!” Victoria said. Her skin had paled and her eyes were wild. She visibly swallowed. She looked nearly as shocked about this turn of events as the rest of the group was. But the gears in her brain were obviously working overtime and she sobered quickly. “Jameson and Simon have been at each other’s throats for months, right? Enough people saw them bickering tonight, and Simon was still here while the majority of the guests left. It’ll be easy enough to spin a story that the two of them got into a fight, Simon got drunk, and shot him. Neither one of them can speak out against any one of you—one is dead and the other has amnesia.”

  “You just said it wasn’t permanent!” Tillman said, throwing up his hands.

  Victoria shrugged, composed now. “It’s permanent ninety percent of the time. The secrets will stay in this room. We come up with the same story, we all sign our eyewitness statements, and Simon goes down for it. We’ll say he got blackout drunk.”

  “Why did you even have a gun with you in the first place?” Daniels asked softly, dismayed.

  Addressing Tillman and Sable, she said, “You know my husband is a lawyer, yes?” She wiggled her finger to showcase the rock on her finger.

  “Did Sullivan’s daddy buy that for you?” Daniels snapped.

  Victoria flushed a little at that, but clearly chose to ignore it. “Anyway, my husband is working a high-profile case right now and he’s been getting death threats. He wants me to keep a gun on me at all times for protection.” She shrugged one of her petite shoulders. “Guess it came in handy.”

  “My God,” Sable said, hands in her hair again as she turned to look at Jameson, his eyes open and staring blankly at the ceiling. “Oh God …”

  Daniels grabbed her by the arms and lowered his face to be level with hers. “This is more or less what we wanted. Simon’s been a wild card for months. Now that’s taken care of, too. Two birds, one stone. This deal is too big to let go. You said so yourself.”

  Sable considered that.

  “What do you want?” Tillman asked, rounding on Victoria. “No one does something like this without a darn good reason.”

  “I want a cut of the deal,” she said. “Two hundred and fifty thousand and I’ll never speak a word of this to anyone.” She hesitated a moment, as if debating whether or not she should share this next part. “We’re a little hard up for cash until my husband wins his case. He will win it, though. He just needs his big break. This will give us a little cushion until then.”

  Daniels, Sable, and Tillman all stared at her open-mouthed. Sable seemed to gather her wits about her first and pulled the two men into a huddle. Amber could tell that Sable was the person in the trio who was leaning toward the “We don’t comply with terrorists’ demands” side of things.

  While they were discussing things, Amber noticed Victoria fiddling with the gun and her clutch, as if she was trying to decide if she should tuck the weapon back into her shiny little bag again. After a minute, the gun was still in hand and her clutch was tucked under her arm. She dramatically cleared her throat, and when she had the attention of the three of them on her, she produced a cell phone from the pocket of her wrap dress. She tapped the screen a few times, then turned the screen toward them. Five people were captured there. Then Simon’s recorded voice rang out in the room. “You’ll kill him just like you killed Woodbury.”

  Tillman growled under his breath and started for Victoria, but Daniels held him back with his arm.

  Victoria stopped the video. “Oh, and don’t think you can just take my phone. I already uploaded the video to one of my private servers. Another perk of marrying a powerful lawyer is that he’s got all kinds of security measures in place.”

  “Recordings obtained without the person’s consent can’t be used in a court of law,
” Daniels said. “You should know that better than anyone since you’re married to a lawyer, as you keep reminding us.”

  Mayor Sable replied before Victoria could. “Oh, she knows. She’s not thinking of legal matters right now. The media would gladly take it. Which would be worse for us. All of us.”

  Both men cursed.

  “We accept your conditions,” Mayor Sable said, even as Daniels and Tillman blanched. “On one condition. I’m guessing the gun is registered to you or your husband? We keep it. Once Simon is in jail for this, you get the gun back and your quarter million. Then the secrets stay in this room, like you said.”

  Victoria mulled that over. “Deal.” She handed the gun to the mayor, who sneered down at the weapon. Then Victoria headed for the door.

  Sable aimed the gun and fired.

  Click.

  Victoria glanced over her shoulder. “You really think I’m stupid enough to hand you a loaded gun. Tsk, tsk, mayor.” Amber realized then that when Victoria had been fiddling with the weapon earlier, she’d been removing the remaining bullets, which likely were rattling around in the clutch still tucked under her arm. Victoria finger-waved at the trio. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

  Then she strutted out of the room.

  Amber gasped and opened her eyes. She lay on her side, Jameson’s bloodstain only a few inches from her face. She sat up quickly. Swallowing, she found wide-eyed Wilma and Chief Brown staring at her from the doorway. “How …” She cleared her throat. “How long was I out?”

  “About five minutes,” the chief said.

  “Why … why do you … who are you?” Wilma stammered.

  As Amber swallowed again and got shakily to her feet, she saw her long brown hair swing into her vision. Crap. The trauma of the memory spell had knocked Amber’s glamour loose.

  “Sorry about this, chief,” she said. “But can you catch her?”

  “Catch her? What are you—”

  Amber locked eyes with the bewildered Wilma, who had herself smashed against the wall and was staring at Amber as if she were a slimy monster that had just crawled out of a lagoon. “Wilma Jameson—sleep.”

  Wilma’s eyes rolled back in her head and the chief caught her just before she hit the ground.

  “Amber,” he hissed as he softly laid her on the ground. “What on earth are you doing? What happened?”

  Her head was fuzzy, both from the use of magic and from the memories still swirling in her mind. She stood in the spot where Jameson and Simon had been when Victoria had come bursting into the room. The sound of the gunshot replayed in Amber’s head.

  Bang!

  “I know who killed Jameson.”

  Chapter 25

  Amber quickly explained to the chief. “Daniels, Tillman, and the mayor wanted Jameson to drink the drugged champagne. Then, when he wasn’t of sound mind, they were going to convince Jameson to sign the resignation letter Daniels wrote up. They hadn’t planned on Simon figuring out what they’d been up to. Victoria had clearly been listening at the door, and I guess she decided that all of this—swindling Cooper out of his farm and making sure Marbleglen got the Stone Gate Farms land deal—was worth killing over because she needed the money. Simon was a problem because he figured out Tillman’s past, as well as the whole group’s willingness to overlook the alleged murder of Hugh Woodbury, who had also likely been swindled out of his property. Victoria saw Simon as an obstacle in the way of her quarter million. She attempted to shoot him, but Jameson instinctively jumped in the way. They all agreed then to make up a story to frame Simon.”

  “Good Lord,” the chief muttered, still squatted beside the unconscious Wilma. “What do we do about her? She saw you change forms.”

  Amber scoffed. “I’m not a shapeshifter!”

  “Now is not the time for semantics, Amber!”

  “Fine,” she said, joining the chief beside Wilma. “Did I shift forms while I was passed out or after?”

  “After.”

  “Okay, I can wipe the last five minutes from her memory, change back into Cassie, and then I can wake her up.”

  The chief visibly swallowed, but didn’t say anything, just nodded.

  Amber video-called her aunt and then handed it to the chief. “Can you hold it up so she can see me? I’m going to need both hands.”

  The chief took the phone gingerly, between forefinger and thumb, as if the device were soiled. Though he held it facing Amber, he flinched and leaned back when Aunt Gretchen answered, as if Aunt G were Medusa and if he made even the barest of eye contact, he’d turn to stone. Amber rolled her eyes.

  “Hi, little mouse,” Aunt Gretchen said. “Do you have more cat treats? Tom Cat is yowling his head off as if he’s being starved to death.” She paused and cocked her head. “Where are you, dear? Good heavens! Is that a body? What did you do?”

  “Why did she ask that so casually?” the chief whispered. “Does this happen often?”

  “Who was that?” her aunt asked.

  Then Willow’s face squeezed in next to their aunt’s. “Are you with Jack? Oh gosh! Who’s on the floor, Amber? What did you do?”

  “Oh my God,” Amber grumbled. “Aunt G, I need your help with a memory erase spell. I’ll explain later. I need to lift five—probably ten, now—minutes out of her head. Can you walk me through how to do it?”

  Her aunt pressed her lips together, then nodded.

  Amber was too focused on the task at hand to check in with the chief, but she assumed he wore an expression of complete horror.

  Once the task was done, Amber thanked her aunt and sister and Amber told the chief he could hang up.

  He turned the phone around and yelped.

  “Hi, chief!” Willow said.

  “Hello, Chief Brown,” Aunt G said.

  “Uhh … hello.”

  Rolling her eyes, Amber took the phone from him. “You make him nervous because you’re both witches,” she told her aunt and sister. “I once threatened that I’d turn him into a hamster and feed him to Alley, and now he’s scared every witch he meets might turn him into something small and fuzzy.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Aunt Gretchen said. “Alley would never eat a hamster.” She winked and hung up.

  “Your family seems … nice,” he said after a beat.

  Amber stuffed her phone into her pocket. “Give me a second and I’ll turn back into Cassie.” Transformation complete, she placed a hand on Wilma’s arm. “She’ll flail awake like she’s coming out of a bad dream. Just stay calm.”

  The chief didn’t say anything, which Amber figured was as good as she was going to get from him right now, then she sent a jolt of magic into Wilma, waking her up.

  “Ahh!” Wilma yelped, waving her arms around wildly. Amber just narrowly missed getting an elbow to the face. “What the … why am I … how did you …”

  “You fainted, Wilma,” the chief said from beside Amber. “Cassie told you she found out what happened to your father, and I think the news shocked you so much, you lost consciousness.”

  Wilma pushed herself up so her back was against the wall. She rubbed her head. After a moment, she looked up at Cassie, searching her expression. “It wasn’t Simon, was it?”

  “Nope,” Amber said. “They intended to kill Simon, actually, and your father jumped in the way. Your father saved Simon’s life.”

  Wilma’s eyes welled with tears. “What can I do to save it again?”

  Amber gave her hand a squeeze. “I think I have an idea.”

  Once Amber had assured Wilma that she would be back soon to do a cleansing—which, in reality, would entail Amber calling every psychic she could find and conducting a truth spell on every one until she found someone reputable—and that they’d call her if they needed any help, Amber and the chief quickly got into his cruiser.

  “All right. What is this idea of yours and how much will I hate it?” the chief asked once he pulled away from the curb.

  “We need the gun—that will tie the murder bac
k to Victoria. The storage unit, based on what I heard Daniels say, isn’t under any of their names. It more than likely belongs to Daniels, though,” Amber said. “If we can spook Daniels enough, he might go to the storage unit to get rid of it—either to chuck it in a river or plant it on Molly. He might even try to find a way to implicate Victoria.”

  “Right, but their plan is to lay as low as possible. They haven’t so much as sneezed in the wrong direction in over a week,” the chief said. “What’s going to spook him now when they’re so close to getting what they want?”

  “Victoria. Or at least, her voice,” Amber said.

  The chief grunted. “I have a feeling that the less I know, the better.” He was quiet for a moment. “Reyes said his FBI pals have the location narrowed down to a few places, but they can’t pinpoint it for sure. Even if we get his boys out there to stake the places out and wait for Daniels to show up, there’s a possibility they’ll choose the wrong location.”

  “I have witch GPS, remember?” Amber asked. “Between Willow and Aunt G, they can figure out how to alter my voice so I sound like Victoria. I will call Daniels and say enough to spook him so he goes after the gun. We’ll watch the maps and I’ll relay his location info to you, and you relay it to Reyes so they end up at the right facility. Low-budget surveillance and not super dangerous for us civilians. Win-win.”

  The chief fell silent for a while. “While I hate that plan less than I thought I would, there’s still a lot that could go wrong.”

  “I know,” she said. “But Simon’s going to end up on trial for a murder we know for sure now he didn’t commit, and Marbleglen is going to be run by Daniels and Sable, who have friends like Tillman and Victoria. The FBI was already looking into Daniels. Victoria killed Jameson and has falsified who-knows-how-many test results—both solely for money. Tillman may or may not have killed an old man all for the sake of a land development deal. And Mayor Sable knows all of this and doesn’t care—all she’s worried about is her political career.”