Be Careful What You Witch For (A Family Fortune Mystery)

by Dawn Eastman

  “I heard about Rafe. I’m so sorry.”

  Diana nodded and attempted a watery smile.

  “What have you heard?” I asked, wondering if the whole peanut thing was common knowledge.

  “Only that he collapsed and by the time the ambulance guys had hiked through the woods, he was . . .” Alex glanced at Diana and stopped.

  She stared at her drink as if she didn’t know what it was. I put my hand over hers, and thought quickly of a way to shift the subject.

  “How’s Dylan doing?” I asked her. Dylan Ward was Diana’s brother—Diana had changed her name to Moonward after she opened her store—and until that week, I’d only seen him once in the five years since their parents had died. He’d arrived just in time for the festival and I’d seen him briefly at a couple of the events.

  “He seems fine. He and Rafe never got along very well, and he hadn’t seen him in years.” Diana shrugged.

  I nodded, but wondered just how well Dylan was doing in other ways. From what Diana had told me over the years, he’d been drifting from place to place, picking up odd jobs along the way. He was an artist and followed the art shows around the country, trekking his wares in a beat-up old Suburban that had been his dad’s. He made leather boxes, clocks, and switch plates. Diana said he did a lot of couch surfing, but it often sounded as though it was more likely he did a lot of squatting in abandoned houses until the neighbors complained. Dylan was seven years younger than Diana and was only eighteen when Elliot and Fiona had died. He had taken it hard and left Crystal Haven the day after the funeral. I’d never fully understood the relationship between Diana and her brother. She was very protective of him. She sent him money whenever he had an address and always had a ready excuse for him when he disappeared for months at a time. I would have thought they’d stick together after the death of their parents, but Diana didn’t seem to mind that he went his own way.

  “Dylan was in here earlier talking to Lucan Reed,” Alex said. “It didn’t seem friendly.”

  “Lucan? I didn’t know they knew each other,” Diana said. “He’s only been in Rafe’s coven for the past year or so.”

  “It didn’t look like a happy reunion. More like a Mexican standoff.”

  Diana’s brows drew together. “I wonder what that was about.”

  Just as Alex shrugged, the food arrived and he was called back into the kitchen. He headed back to work after promising to stop by the festival for its last day.

  * * *

  That night, after a trip to the park with Baxter and a reheated casserole from the last time I was at my mom’s, I checked my phone for messages from Mac. He’d texted to say he’d stop by later. I sat on the four inches of couch that Baxter allowed me and picked up the remote. He groaned and fixed me with his droopy stare. After almost losing him over the summer following his superdog heroics, I had spoiled him. Now he demanded the prime space on the couch and persistently tried to take over the bed.

  I’d just clicked onto an FBI missing persons show when I heard a knock on the door. It wasn’t Mac’s usual four-beat rhythm, but I hopped up and swung open the door.

  “Finally, you escaped!” I said before I saw who was on my porch.

  “I guess you could say that.” My nephew, Seth, slouched in my doorway. Tall and gangly, with blond bangs hanging in his eyes, it was clear he was Grace’s son. He’d always had her coloring, and now his cute-kid looks were morphing into handsome charm. Tuffy, his ill-tempered shih tzu, glowered from where he was tucked under Seth’s arm. Baxter became aware of his buddy and leaped off the couch. He almost knocked Seth over in his enthusiastic greeting. After coating as much of the teen as he could in dog slime, he turned his attention to the dog. Tuffy was wagging his tail so hard that Seth had to put him down. Both dogs bounded into the living room to complete their greeting ritual.

  “What are you—how did you—”

  Seth cocked his eyebrow and gestured toward the living room.

  “Come in.” I swung my arm wide and watched him push past the dogs and drop his backpack and duffel bag on the floor.

  “What are you doing here?”

  My older sister and I didn’t communicate often, but whenever she sent her fourteen-year-old son to visit Michigan, she definitely called to make arrangements.

  “It’s nice to see you, too.”

  “Don’t get snippy with me. Does your mother know you’re here?” Grace was going to freak when she found out he’d traveled half the country.

  He dropped his eyes.

  “She thinks I’m at a friend’s cottage for the weekend.”

  “Where does she think this cottage is?”

  “Upstate New York.”

  I crossed my arms and took a few deep breaths. I felt a twitch begin in my right eyelid.

  “Since you’re now in Western Michigan, I can only assume you took a wrong turn.”

  “Actually, I took a car to Ann Arbor, then a bus to Kalamazoo until they found Tuffy in my duffel bag, then I caught a ride here.”

  “You took a car? You can’t even drive yet.”

  “I got a ride with a friend’s older brother who goes to U of M, and then I took the bus with one of his friends. That guy had a girlfriend who was picking him up at the bus station and they drove me here.”

  “We have to call your mother.”

  Seth held his hand up. “I just texted her to tell her I’m having a great time—can’t we wait until tomorrow?”

  “But, why?”

  “I can’t go back there, Clyde.” He pulled his mouth into a sad expression that he probably practiced in the mirror. “I want to stay here with you.”

  More deep breaths. Some counting. It was late, and I knew Grace worked long hours. She didn’t need to know tonight that Seth was halfway across the country and not simply a few hours away. Plus, now that he was in my house, he was safe.

  “You can stay tonight. I’ll wait to call your mom in the morning and then we have to figure out what to do with you.”

  “Great!” Seth flashed his grin. “Do you have any food around here?”

  He walked toward the kitchen with both dogs trailing behind.

  I spent a few moments alone in my living room pacing and trying to calm down.

  By the time I joined them, Seth had emptied almost the entire contents of the refrigerator onto the counter.

  “Don’t you have any pickles? How about soda?”

  “No pickles. I threw them away after you left. You know—to go home and go back to school?”

  “Pickles last a long time; you didn’t have to dump them.” He chose to focus on the food, not the lecture.

  I snagged a bag of chips out of the pantry and tossed them at Seth. He and the dogs had settled into their usual places at the kitchen table: Tuffy jumped onto the seat to Seth’s right, Baxter rested his head on the table to his left. The dogs patiently waited for Seth to share.

  I sat down in my usual spot—as far across the table as I could get.

  We had fallen into this pattern over the summer. After I’d inherited the house, Seth and I moved our few belongings from the ancient Victorian shared by my aunt and parents to this much smaller home. It worked out in everyone’s best interests. I needed my own place and the dogs were only welcome by my mom as temporary visitors, not permanent residents. Seth came with the deal—the dogs insisted. Early August had been filled with relaxation and recovery from the events of July and by the time we were all back on our feet, Diana had recruited us to help with the festival. I suppose it wasn’t that surprising that Seth had shown up just in time to attend the last day of the festival—he’d been part of the planning from the beginning. I latched on to that thought as the reason for his sudden arrival. The other possibilities were less pleasant.

  I worried about Seth ever since he admitted to having some sort of burgeoning pet psychic talent
earlier in the summer. I never managed to get him to talk about it after he confided in me, and that concerned me. Having that sort of a secret could wear on a kid. I knew, having been that kid myself. He was a gentle person who seemed more interested in time alone with animals than with teens his own age. I wondered how much he had shared with his parents. My sister, incapable of seeing anything awry in her life, clung to the fantasy that leaving Crystal Haven would solve all of her problems and she had never backed away from that stance.

  I sighed without realizing it and three sets of eyes turned to me.

  “Want some?” Seth pushed the bag of chips in my direction, and continued to devour his triple-decker sandwich. I would have thought that he had been starved on his cross-country trip but he ate like that all the time. By the time he left at the end of August he had reached his life goal of surpassing me in height. I was sure I’d be craning my neck soon to look him in the eye.

  After everyone was done with his snack, I told Seth to dump his things in his old room. He and the dogs padded up the stairs and returned a few minutes later, wanting to go for a walk. We clipped their leashes on and headed out the front door.

  Tuffy and Baxter were delighted to be back together again. Tuffy ran next to Baxter to match his gait, his short legs blurring with the speed. Baxter slowed his pace for Tuffy, something he never did for me.

  “The last day of the festival is tomorrow, so you didn’t miss it all.”

  Seth looked surprised and said, “Right, the festival. Cool.” My shoulders slumped. He hadn’t come for the festival.

  “You can go with me to Diana’s booth after you check in with your mom tomorrow.”

  “’Kay.”

  Seth kept up a running monologue about a new electropop fusion band inspired by video game theme songs. Ever since he had discovered my stash of boy band CDs in a box during the move, he had been on a mission to improve my taste in music. I had no idea what he was talking about and suspected this was his attempt to control the conversation.

  When we returned to the house, Seth’s heavy tread on the front steps conveyed his fatigue from the day of travel. We unlocked the door and released the dogs from their leashes.

  “I think I better go to bed,” he said.

  Tuffy was at his side in an instant. Baxter threw an apologetic glance in my direction and slumped off after his friends.

  I sat on the couch alone, wondering what to do with a runaway nephew.

  6

  A few minutes later, Mac’s signature knock sounded on the door. “Great, now he’s here,” I muttered to myself. I had hoped for a romantic evening at home before I acquired a teenager. Mac and I hadn’t had much time together since we decided to try again with our relationship. Our plan for secrecy made it all the more difficult. Seth was the only person who knew we were dating—he’d seen Mac giving me a good-bye kiss one evening and straight-out asked me about him. Then in the fall, Mac got involved in a murder case in Grand Rapids. An extended stay in Saginaw followed while he wrapped up old business before resigning from that force for good and joining the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Department full-time. We’d been on a couple of dates in the past few weeks before the festival duties had sucked me back in. We were elevating the “taking it slow” idea to a whole new level.

  Mac didn’t wait to be invited in but drew me into a long kiss on the front porch. My knees started to feel like liquid as he steered me inside toward the staircase.

  “Oh man, this again?” Seth said from the landing.

  Mac jerked away from me and I almost fell backward onto the bottom step.

  “Seth?” Mac peered up the stairs.

  “Hey.” Seth raised one hand and let it drop. It had taken a long time for Seth to not snap to attention in Mac’s presence. A few moments like this one had led him to believe Mac was just a guy after all and not someone to be feared.

  Mac looked at me.

  I shrugged. “Surprise?”

  “I didn’t know you were expecting Seth,” Mac said, a formal note creeping in.

  “It was a last-minute thing—”

  “I wanted to surprise—”

  Seth and I began at the same time. I held my hand up like a traffic cop.

  “Seth wanted to come to the last day of the festival. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision.” I looked at Seth as I said this so he would know it was my rapidly cobbled cover story. As usual Seth caught on right away.

  “Huh. Well, it’s good to see you again, Seth. Is that Tuffy up there with you?”

  “Yeah, he’s here.” Seth gestured behind him where the dog was cowering.

  “He did okay on the plane? I thought he freaked out when you flew home with him in August.”

  Leave it to Mac to remember every detail I wished he would forget.

  “They came by car,” I said, and tried to steer Mac back into the living room. I hadn’t prepped Seth about not telling anyone, especially Mac, that he had basically run away. Law enforcement officers take that sort of thing seriously.

  “Well, I’m going to bed. Night.” Seth and his companion retreated down the hallway.

  Mac craned his neck to be sure they were gone.

  He put his arm around my shoulder and leaned in to whisper, “This kind of puts a dent in my plans for the evening.”

  His proximity and scent of pine trees had me cursing Seth’s timing.

  “Mine, too.” I turned toward him and was just settling my arms around his neck when the doorbell rang. My porch hadn’t seen this much traffic in one night since Mom, Vi, and Diana had marshaled the neighbors to do a smudging to remove any traces of the old owner’s spirit after I moved in.

  I opened the door to Tom Andrews. Tall and lanky, with dark hair and brown eyes, he flashed a sheepish grin.

  “Clyde, sorry to bother you so late but I . . .” He trailed off as Mac stepped into the doorframe.

  Tom did snap to attention when he spotted his boss.

  “Detective McKenzie! I didn’t know you were here.”

  “What is it, Andrews?”

  “Oh, well . . .” He looked from me to Mac and back again. “I wanted to ask Clyde about something.”

  “You know I don’t want you including civilians in another murder case. This better not be about the death in the woods.” Mac took a step forward, not that any further intimidation was necessary. I cleared my throat to remind him not to threaten.

  “No, sir.” Tom stepped back. “I just got a report about a young teen traveling with a small dog. I came to see if Clyde thought it could be Seth.”

  My shoulders slumped, and I could feel the heat of Mac’s stare on the back of my head.

  “Why would you get a report about Seth?” Mac asked.

  “I’m not sure it was Seth.” Tom warmed to his tale and stepped inside. “The report just said a bus driver in Kalamazoo reported a teenager had smuggled a dog onto a bus. He thought they looked a bit lost. He went to find the kid at the bus station but couldn’t. Then he got to thinking about it and reported a possible runaway.” Tom took a breath to continue, looked from me to Mac, and stopped.

  “Clyde, did Seth run away from home?” Mac asked.

  “Not exactly.” I gave Mac my most winning smile. “He came to visit me . . . without his parents’ knowledge.”

  Mac smiled back, but in a threatening way. “Call your sister—I don’t want the NYPD dealing with a false missing persons claim.”

  “She doesn’t know he’s missing yet,” I said.

  Mac closed his eyes for a few seconds.

  “Seth told her he was staying with a friend,” I said.

  “When are you planning on telling his mother where he is?” Mac’s jaw was clamped so tight, I was worried about his molars.

  “I’ll call her tomorrow.” I glanced at Tom, who looked devastated that he’d caused trouble. “It
’ll be fine. Seth is safe, he’s with family. Grace won’t mind.”

  Mac stared at me for a moment to let me know he didn’t buy that for a second.

  “Um, I’ll just be going now.” Tom backed onto the porch and tripped over the large pumpkin left over from Halloween. He caught himself on the porch railing before squashing it.

  After watching to be sure he’d made it safely off the porch, I shut the door and turned to Mac. “Do you think he suspected?” I asked.

  Mac shook his head. “I doubt it. His detective skills are still in the . . . development stage.”

  “Wanna beer?” I asked.

  Mac shook his head. “No, I should be going.” He looked up the stairs. “And I have a lot of interviews lined up tomorrow on this Godwin case.”

  He pulled me in for another kiss and I was just forgetting everything else when I heard feet pounding on the stairs.

  “Clyde—oh . . . still? I thought I heard the door close.” Seth stood halfway down the stairs examining the walls, the ceiling, the banister, anything to keep from looking at Mac and me.

  Mac released me. He sighed, saluted Seth, and went out the front door.

  7

  Even with the extra hour that the end of daylight saving time had given us, the next morning was more hectic than usual with another dog to walk and a teenager to wake up. It took more than one try. Calling pleasantly from the hallway didn’t work. Calling less pleasantly from the doorway didn’t work. Then I tossed some dog treats onto the bed and watched the melee ensue. It brought back memories of when Seth and I had been thrust together as partners in a dog-walking business engineered by Vi. Though I gave up the dog-walking when Seth went back to New York, I regularly missed hanging out with Seth and the dogs.