Mangroves and Murder: An Enchanted Coast Magical Mystery

by Maher Tegan

  That lined up with the vibe I’d gotten from Sandra, so at least I wasn’t going in with my eyes closed. It was always best to be prepared. With a final wave, I left the spa and headed in the direction of the gym.

  On my way, I checked in with Tempest through our mental link. In keeping with our current run of luck, she hadn't discovered anything new.

  She laughed when I told her I was headed for the gym. "Have fun with that. I'm getting ready to order a cheeseburger."

  I scowled because left to her own devices, she'd fill up on stuff that would end up gassing me out of the house that evening. You wouldn't think a creature that weighed eight pounds could give a toxic waste plant a run for its money, but you'd be wrong. My little fox could clear a room and would be doubled over laughing so hard that she wouldn't even be able to escape herself. "No onion rings! I swear if you squeak out even the tiniest fart because you ate a bunch of garbage without me there to stop you, I'll toss you out of the house until it clears your system."

  "I'll take that under advisement." With that, she slammed the door to our mental link.

  I sighed as I stepped into a bathroom next to the gym. I wasn't exactly dressed to sweat, but I didn't feel like running home and changing, either. Instead, I whispered a few words and cast a glamour, then pulled an elastic out of my purse and twisted my still-damp, unruly red hair into a messy bun. That would have to do, because unlike in the sauna, I wasn't planning to go for the full gym experience. I'd put in as little effort as possible to make it look like I was there for a workout, but I didn't plan to break a sweat.

  I glanced in the mirror to make sure the glamour had taken and pulled off my hoop earrings since they didn't exactly match the tank top and bicycle shorts I'd summoned. I didn't take off the makeup though. I happened to find it humorous when I saw women in the gym with a full face of makeup, but I figured that was probably what I was going in to. From what Sheena had said, Bella was high maintenance. That meant she probably didn't go anywhere without her full face on.

  It occurred to me as I pushed through the gym doors that I had no idea what the woman looked like. For the first time in the last hour, luck was with me, though. Aside from a Bigfoot girl who looked to be about my age, there was only one other woman in the gym. She was middle-aged, wearing spendy exercise clothes, and, as predicted, her hair and makeup were flawlessly done in gym-chic. And, of course, she was on a stair climber.

  I sighed and headed in her direction, then climbed onto the machine beside her. Luckily for me, it was a one-button deal. Some of the treadmills in the place took an IT degree to operate, and I wanted to look like I knew what I was doing.

  I had my work cut out for me because she didn't even glance in my direction. I was hoping she'd be one of those women who was chatty while she worked out, but it didn't look that way. That was fine with me, because I excelled at being annoying. It would take a few extra steps, pardon the pun, but I was confident I could get her to talk.

  "Hey," I said as I punched the button to start the machine. "There aren't very many people in here are there?"

  Irritation flashed across her face, but social standards required her to respond. "No, and I like it that way. It means I don't have to wait on machines, and I can get through my workout without having to interact with a bunch of people."

  If she thought I was gonna take that hint, she was out of her mind. "Yeah, I'm not a big fan of working out in front of a bunch of people, either. I just like to come here, get my workout in, and leave." I was proud of myself because I managed to say that with a straight face.

  She kicked up her pace to a speed that would have gotten her to the top of Everest in record time. If I tried to go that fast, I'd keel over dead in about fifteen seconds. I knew it was another hint for me to stop talking, but I wasn't going to give up that easily.

  I raised my voice so she could hear me over the sound of the stair climber. "It's crazy about that murder, huh? This is my first time here, and I wasn't exactly happy about starting my vacation off with a killer on the loose."

  Her lips curled up. "There isn't a killer on the loose. It was one of those heathen merpeople. And watch what you say because the guy that was murdered was my brother-in-law."

  She was beginning to huff with exertion, and I bit the inside of my lip to keep from smiling.

  "Oh, I'm sorry for your loss. I've heard he was a really nice guy." I maintained my snail's pace. I wasn't planning on being sore from head to toe for my vacation just to pull some info from this woman.

  Realizing that I wasn't going to stop talking, she slowed down. Either that, or she had no choice because she was about to drop dead. I was glad because her face was beet-red and I was starting to worry about her.

  "Thank you," she said, her tone and body language stiff. "We weren't particularly close, but I suppose you could say he was an okay guy. I know my sister-in-law cared about him, though personally I don't see what she saw him."

  Wow. Sandra had been right. What little respect I might have had for the woman flew right out the window because the fact that she’d tell a perfect stranger she wasn't a fan when she kept her mouth shut to her richer-than-Midas sister-in-law said a lot about her. The people in my family had no problem telling each other straight up what they thought about the people we each chose to date. It wasn't out of meanness though. It was all about caring for each other and wanting the best for each other.

  "Well, at least they caught the guy. I did hear that there might be witnesses who say the suspect was with them when the guy was killed, so I'm not sure what the Witches Council will do about that." I decided to throw that in because I wanted to see how she reacted.

  She shot me a look that might have killed me had that been possible. "That's not the case, I assure you. My husband was the one who saw that man in the boat with my brother-in-law."

  I lifted a shoulder. "I'm just repeating what I heard."

  She sneered at me. "Well, you heard wrong. My husband's testimony is indisputable."

  She shut off the machine and climbed off of it, then snatched her towel and bottle of water off the nearby shelf and stomped away.

  I stayed on the torture device long enough for her to rush out of the gym even though my calves were burning. It wouldn't do for her to think I was just there to plant a bee in her bonnet. As soon as she was gone, though, I jumped off and hurried after her.

  Once I was back in the hall, I flicked my hand to get rid of the glamour and summoned a floppy hat and oversized sunglasses. I was going to follow her and see where she went because unless I missed my guess, she was headed straight to talk to her husband. It was a bold statement to say his testimony was indisputable, and I knew in my gut she had a hand in the cover-up. Now I just needed to find out why.

  Chapter 13

  It seemed all Bella's time in the gym paid off because it was all I could do to keep up with her as she rushed through the hotel. When she stopped in front of the elevators, I wished I knew where she was going. Instead, I was going to have to tweak my glamour and climb into the elevator with her, then hold my breath and hope she didn't recognize me.

  Thankfully we were at a magical resort, and if somebody saw me do it, they wouldn't even bat an eye. With a quick twirl of my finger, I turned my hair blue. In my experience, even in the magical world, high society people tended to look the other way because they didn't want to be caught staring at somebody who bucked the norm with colorful hair, lots of tattoos, or piercings. I was also counting on her distaste for small talk.

  I had to rush to catch the elevator, and even then I barely did. I slammed out my hand to stop the door, then slipped inside and immediately dropped my head and pretended to look at my phone so that the floppy hat hid most of my face. I also pivoted just a bit so that just in case she decided to break character and be chatty, my body language didn't encourage it.

  Thankfully, my assessment of her character turned out to be right on the money. She jabbed the button for the third floor, crossed her hands
in front of her, and kept her eyes glued straightforward. She didn't even glance my way or ask which floor I needed to go to.

  We rode in silence, me pretending to fiddle with my phone while she looked straight ahead. Once she stepped out of the elevator, I had another dilemma. I couldn't just follow her. She hung a left and I gave her a couple seconds before I headed in that direction too. There was a small public restroom situated about halfway down the hall, so I stepped into it to throw her off. I kept the door cracked so that I could see where she went. She stopped at the third door on the left and tapped her plastic key card to the pad, glancing left and right as she did.

  A man's voice greeted her, so as soon as she went inside, I hustled in that direction. Glancing up and down the hall, I was happy to see that nobody was coming in either direction.

  Since it was the middle of the day, most people were probably out taking advantage of the amenities, hanging out on the beach, or enjoying the cool environment of the trees and freshwater pools in our new faerie area. Just in case, I tossed a spell on the elevators to temporarily stall them. There wasn't much I could do about the hotel rooms because I didn't wanna freak people out if they tried to leave and couldn't get the door open. I'd have to take my chances there.

  During our teenage years, Mila and I had mastered eavesdropping spells, much to Cori's chagrin. She'd always been the good kid in our little bunch, though we hadn't usually had too much trouble convincing her to follow along with our exploits. She wasn't one who could be pushed around, but she had a huge sense of responsibility and tagged along just to keep us out of as much trouble as she could.

  As a result of all my childhood practice, it only took me about three seconds to throw up a spell that would allow me to hear what was being said in the room.

  "Stop worrying so much," a man's voice snapped. "I took care of the werewolves yesterday. That merman can say he was with them all he wants, but they'll not back him up."

  I sucked in an angry breath. Bingo. Proof that I was right to believe Amber and Dax and my own gut feeling about Jackson. I took a second to glance up and down the hallway. My luck was holding, and it was empty.

  "You better be right," Bella said. "I paid a small fortune to the Council and donated enough money to this resort that they'll be able to build a whole new wing in order to make this go away, Xavier."

  Ahh, so it was hubby she was talking to. I'd figured so since she'd had a key to the room, but you never knew. I'd seen more than one spouse slipping into a room that wasn't theirs, so it wouldn't have surprised me too much in this case.

  "I'm aware," he replied, and I could hear impatience and a touch of anger in his voice. "Believe me, you haven't let me forget it since this happened. But remember, without my eyewitness testimony, they'd still be looking for a murderer."

  I raised a brow. Was that a touch of accusation I heard in his voice?

  "Then we’d better stick together, hadn't we?" Rather than sounding like she was trying to get him to present a united front, bitterness laced Bella's tone.

  This was a couple who was beyond even the most intensive marriage counseling, and I wondered how much it would take to get one of them to turn against the other. I realize that was devious, but at this point, I'd take any handhold I could get. Thinking, I decided he was the weak point. I'd already dealt with her, and I couldn't imagine she was going to abandon ship at this point. She had too much skin in the game. Though the Witches Council would gladly take a bribe, they owned you after they did.

  "What about Sandra?" he asked.

  "She doesn't suspect a thing." Again with the bitterness. "Your money is safe, so mission accomplished."

  That didn't make any sense to me. If they were after the money, why hadn't they killed Sandra instead of Marty? The only thing I could figure was that killing her would've been too much of a risk or wouldn't have accomplished what they were after. As much as Sandra had cared about Marty, my guess was that he'd stood to inherit everything if she passed. Her words floated back to me. She'd said she had her own money and hadn't cared what her family thought. I'd assumed she was from old money, but maybe I'd been wrong.

  It was also possible this was step one of a two-step plan for Bella and Xavier. Maybe they’d planned to kill him now so that Sandra'd change the will to leave her money to Xavier, then they'd find a way to knock Sandra off in a couple years. If so, that was hard-core.

  "I'm going to go take a shower," Bella said, "and then go get a massage. I suggest you make yourself scarce until they find that merman and lock his arrest down."

  Xavier barked out a humorless laugh. "Believe me, making myself scarce sounds amazing right now. I'm ready to get this behind us and get out of here."

  "Yeah, but wherever you go, make sure you look appropriately sad." Her voice didn't hold so much as an ounce of sorrow, and I marveled at her utter lack of empathy. "We only have to hold it together for a little bit longer, and then we can leave, and you can do what you want."

  They didn't say anything else, so I assumed the conversation was over. That was confirmed when the door handle twisted five seconds later. Before he could come outside and bust me eavesdropping, I bolted back to the bathroom, thankful it was only a few steps away.

  There was a small bench in the bathroom for women to place their purses or diaper bags on, and I took a seat so I could process the information I'd just gathered.

  What really burned my biscuit was that I now knew for sure that Jackson hadn't killed Marty, but I couldn't prove it. Since Xavier and Bella had shelled out a small fortune to make sure Jackson went to jail, it wasn't like I could take my suspicions to anybody at the Council. Blake already knew he was innocent, and Ari was incommunicado. Those were the only two people close to me with the power to make them listen, so it looked like I was going to have to find irrefutable evidence all my own. That meant I either needed to flip Xavier or one of the werewolves or find another witness.

  Since the murder had happened so early in the morning and nobody had come forward yet to say that they'd seen Jackson playing volleyball when he was supposed to be murdering somebody, I pushed that last option out of my mind.

  At least I knew Sandra wasn't guilty. As much as she'd loved Marty, I knew that if I went to her with solid proof, it was possible she'd even turn against her own brother to get justice for her husband. A little jolt of pity washed over me for her. She'd lost her husband, and now she was going to lose another family member and have to deal with the fact that they'd betrayed her in such a horrendous manner.

  I thought back to Bella's words. She'd told Xavier she didn't care what he did once they left. I had to wonder if there was more behind her words when she told him that, but that wasn't my problem. I didn't care what they did after they were gone either, as long as whichever one of them killed Marty was in jail and Jackson was free. The question was, which one of them did it?

  Chapter 14

  I took a minute to fill Tempest in on what I'd learned. We decided that the best course of action was to track down Xavier. After all, he was the one standing as the witness, so no matter what we could get Bella to say, if he didn't flip his testimony, we still wouldn't have a leg to stand on in our case to clear Jackson. She was still at the tiki and told me she’d let me know if he showed up there.

  I also wanted to track down the best friend and see what he had to say, but right now Xavier was the target. My guess was that Bella and Xavier had engineered the entire thing on their own so I wasn't sure how much I would get from Bobby.

  I might not have had access to all the bells and whistles of hotel security so that I could easily pinpoint where Xavier had gone, but I had something just as good — I knew people who worked in every section of the resort. I thought about where he might go and narrowed it down to the tiki, the lounge downstairs, Marco's because they had a bar, or the casino.

  The reason those places made the top of the list was because he seemed like a man who needed a drink. I had a knack for knowing people, so I hedged
my bets and trusted my own instincts.

  Since we hadn't seen him at the tiki yet and Tempest hadn't mentioned he was there, I knock that one off the list. I tapped out a quick text to Marco and the bartenders at the casino bar in the lounge.

  While I waited for responses, I did a quick search for Sandra on the internet. I needed to know where her money came from and who stood to get it if she died. I had a feeling finances played a big part in why Marty was now dead, so if I could figure out the lay of the financial land there, I'd have a better idea of what might have happened.

  Most of the stuff I found were puff pieces. I had to dig a little deeper and add some words to my search to find out that the cosmetics company I'd assumed she'd inherited was all hers.

  She did have family money, but as it turned out, she and Xavier were only half siblings. They shared a mother but had different fathers, and it was Sandra's dad who was rolling in the bucks via oil money he'd inherited from his people. That meant there was a solid chance that Xavier wasn't in the will at all, or if he was, he probably didn't stand to inherit nearly as much as Sandra did.

  I flipped through a few more articles and found a finance piece about her father dated a couple years earlier. I skimmed the first few lines and realized I'd hit pay dirt. Sandra’s father had adopted Xavier shortly after he’d married his mother, so that explained why they shared a name. Xavier'd had open access to the family money just like Sandra had. A few years ago, though, her father had been all set to retire and had turned the company over to Xavier after Sandra declined.

  The oil market crashed, and rather than rein in their expenses and sit it out, Xavier, who'd stepped to the head of the corporation by that time, had run it into the ground.

  Apparently, there had been a big social scandal about that because even though they were still rich by my standards, they were paupers according to theirs. That just left Sandra's money.