For some reason her words made me choke up. A lump rose in my throat and I reached for my iced tea, hurrying to sip some down, and then coughed quietly into my napkin.
“I told the investigators, but I’m not sure how seriously they took me,” she said. “Over the weeks since Dune’s release from prison, Harvey had been receiving threatening letters. They were never signed and came via an untraceable messenger bird. He brushed them off as nothing to worry about, but I always had a weird feeling about them.”
“You think they were from Dune?”
“The timing fits.”
“That does seem like too much of a coincidence. Did you hand the letters over to the investigators?”
Harriet nodded. “They took them, but like I said, I’m not sure how much weight they gave to them.”
“Did you know that they found a note in the car with Harvey?”
“Yes. They showed me a picture of it. The handwriting was the same.”
I leaned back in my chair, all interest in my lunch gone. “And they aren’t taking that seriously?” It was a bewildering thought. “I can’t imagine a more direct clue!”
Harriet shot a glance around and I regretted raising my voice. The last thing I wanted to do was spook her. “The notes never threatened violence,” she clarified. “They were mostly vague threats. Like the one in the car: choose your allies carefully.”
“Does that sound like something Agent Mache would say?” I asked, merging the two theories together in my mind.
Harriet considered the question for a long moment before finally shaking her head. “I don’t think so. And even if it was, why would he send anonymous letters? He wasn’t exactly shy about making his opinions loud and clear as often as possible to anyone who would listen.”
I nodded slowly, turning the theory around to see if I could find another angle. “What if they were meant to intimidate Harvey? Maybe the author thought they would scare him out of the job?”
Harriet shook her head. “Anyone who knows Harvey knows he’s made of steel.” She paused and her face fell. “Was, I suppose.”
Harriet had stopped eating her meal after the first few bites. The clock was winding down on our time together.
“Can I ask you one more thing?”
“Of course,” she said.
“When Harvey was assigned to be my case worker, he was still at the beginning of his career with the SPA. Clearly he rose quite high in the ranks in the years since. Why did he stay on as my assigned agent? Why didn’t he ever foist me off onto some lower-level agent?”
Harriet gave a watery smile. “He liked you, Holly.”
It was a simple answer but had the force of a knockout punch. I gave a grateful nod but then scrambled to my feet and went to the counter to ask for a couple of take-out boxes. We packaged up our leftovers in silence. I put a few coins on the table—haven currency—and led the way back to the door. As we walked out into the expansive lobby, I realized I hadn’t asked Harriet for advice regarding my chances at getting a second council hearing. As I turned back to ask her, my gaze snagged on someone across the lobby. Ben, the masseuse who worked for Evangaline, was standing at the reception counter, off to one side like he was waiting for someone. I raised a hand to see if I could catch his attention, but quickly snapped it back against my side as he was joined by a woman with long, dark hair and a cold smile.
My heart gave one loud thump and then stopped for a couple of beats.
I reached out, blindly pawing for Harriet. “Harriet—Harriet, who is that woman over there? With the long hair in the purple suit.”
“Ugh. That’s Sasha Pringle,” Harriet answered, her nose wrinkled in disgust. “Do you know her?”
I shook my head. “No, but she sure seems to have some strong opinions about me. She was on the council for my hearing.”
“Oh.”
I glanced at Harriet. I was about to ask her what she knew about Sasha but she was consulting the watch on her wrist. “I’m sorry, Holly, I would love to stay and talk, but I told Si that I would be back at one.”
“Thank you for meeting with me today,” I said quickly. “I’ll stop by and say hello next time I’m in the haven. Maybe we could have lunch again under better circumstances.”
“I’d like that, Holly. You take care of yourself. Harvey would have wanted that.”
I nodded and gave her a hurried embrace. She shuffled back toward the elevators and I ducked behind one of the columns and watched as Ben and Sasha untangled from an embrace. My heart slammed frantically in my chest as a million questions exploded in my mind.
My phone chirped and I nearly jumped out of my skin. It was a text from Adam, saying he was at a restaurant around the corner from SPA headquarters and was holding a table for us. I glanced back at Ben and Sasha as they headed for a set of doors on the other side of the lobby, then made a run for the nearest exit.
Sasha Pringle. I had a name. The witch who was bent on destroying my career was no longer a mystery, lurking in the shadows. She was front and center, and I was going to figure out what her problem was, then get her out of my way.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“What happened to you?” Adam asked as I burst into the restaurant, fuming mad.
“Sasha Pringle,” I huffed, sitting down roughly in the seat Adam pulled out for me.
He sank into his own chair and frowned. “Sasha Pringle? Who is that?”
“The witch that’s trying to ruin my life!”
“Okay, slow down,” he said, holding up one hand.
“Did you ever ask anyone about her?”
Adam looked around and then leaned in a little closer. The restaurant was in the middle of the lunch rush and there were occupants at both of the tables beside us. “I got a list of witches that serve on the council and was digging into each of them. The name Sasha rings a bell, but I couldn’t tell you much about her. At least not yet.”
“Well, she’s at SPA headquarters and she wasn’t alone. She was with Ben!”
“Ben?” His thick eyebrows wrinkled together. “Evie’s Ben?”
“Yes!” I sighed. “How many Bens do we know?”
Adam scowled. “There’s no need to get snippy.”
I forced my hands to unclench. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just—she’s so—” I stopped myself and drew in a slow breath. “It startled me. Seeing her like that.”
Adam’s expression softened, the irritation ironed out. “I wonder how she knows Ben.”
“I have no idea, but I’m definitely going to find out. If they’re friends, maybe Ben can tell me just exactly why she hates my guts so much.”
“You think Ben would help?”
Magic tingled in my fingertips and I swallowed hard. “I’ll find a way to convince him.”
“Holly … .”
I ignored his would-be warning and started crafting the speech I’d give to Ben in order to get him to agree to help me. I didn’t know him very well, but Evangeline might have some insight that could help me find his soft spots.
Adam ordered lunch for himself and I picked at the French fries on the plate, mindlessly nibbling on them as I scanned the streets beyond the large cafe windows. The haven was a big place, but I was convinced Sasha and Ben were going to go waltzing by at any moment. When Adam finished and paid the tab, we bundled back into our coats and headed out. We’d need to go back to the SPA building if we wanted to use the portal back to Beechwood Harbor. My senses kicked up another notch as we hurried down the street toward the glittering building.
“Hold on,” I said, stopping in front of a corner store. I scooped a Haven Herald from the bin outside the shop’s doors and ducked inside to pay for it. I wanted to read the article the two wizards had been discussing that morning in the potion shop.
“It’s been forever since I’ve had one of these,” I said once I rejoined Adam on the sidewalk. “Why don’t we have a subscription delivered to the manor?”
“We used to,” he answered.
“What happened?”
Adam grinned. “A couple of years ago, we had a temporary guest at the manor. They’d arranged to stay for six weeks. Some kind of shifter—he didn’t talk much. We all figured he was just the shy type. Two weeks after he checked out, a piece came out in the Herald that told the story of the manor and the history of the inhabitants. It turned out that his entire stay had been some kind of research trip and he’d been mining us all for a newspaper story. Posy was furious.”
I grimaced. “Did the roof have to be replaced afterward?”
Adam chuckled. Posy’s soul was linked to the manor and when her emotions fluctuated too strongly, the manor itself reacted in her stead. “The manor remained intact, but she refused to come out of the attic for a few weeks She stayed up there stewing. When she finally came back down, she announced we would no longer have the Herald and demanded that one of us cancel the subscription.”
“And that was that,” I said with a shake of my head.
Adam pointed at the paper in my hands. “So you’re going to have to smuggle that thing inside, and if I were you, I’d stash it under the bed until you can recycle it.”
I laughed and tucked the paper under my arm. “Noted.”
Adam didn’t seem to notice my apprehension as we neared the SPA building. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket—a flashy gadget with a shiny silver case. How he managed to walk and type on the small screen at the same time was beyond me. I didn’t ask, knowing he’d give me some “it’s a shifter thing” reply. After a few blocks he swiveled the phone around to face me. “That her?”
I nodded at the image of Sasha Pringle staring back at me. “How did you find that?”
Haven society didn’t use the internet. The Witches Web was the closest thing and it worked more like a catalog service to order supplies from inside the haven and have them sent by carrier bird or courier to cities outside the haven. Most magic wielders found themselves in a constant war with technology; therefore, the Haven Council had deemed the internet to be useless.
Adam grinned at me. “Believe it or not, the havens are moving into the twenty-first century, bit by kicking-and-screaming bit. It’s all very hush-hush right now, but someone high up on the totem pole in the council contacted one of the companies I freelance for to see about getting basic information put onto a website. I think they’re tired of supers nagging them about it. Just because most witches and wizards are technophobes doesn’t mean the rest of us shouldn’t have a database of haven information available at our fingertips.”
I frowned at him. “Are you including me in the former camp?”
He shrugged. “You’re a witch. I’ve never seen you use your phone for anything besides phone calls and texting. I don’t even think you have an email account.”
I wanted to object, just on principle for being lumped into a catch-all category, but he had me pegged.
Adam gave a good-natured laugh and wrapped an arm around my waist. He pulled me closer to him. “That’s okay, Gorgeous. It just means you have one more reason to keep me around.”
I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help smiling at him. “What does it say about the ever-so-lovely Ms. Pringle?”
Adam read from the screen. “Sasha Pringle. Born to Winston Jarvis and Marla Pringle—”
“Bat wings! Winston Jarvis? As in Councilman Jarvis?”
Adam nodded. “Guess so.”
“No wonder she’s got a seat even though she barely looks older than me. Daddy must have swung that for her.” Within witch and wizard families, it was the mother who passed on their family name to their offspring. It made sense that I—and likely a whole lot of other supers—hadn’t made the connection to Councilman Jarvis.
“There’s not a lot about her listed here, but this system is all new. More information will be added in the coming months.” Adam scanned his finger up and down the screen of his phone. “Says she’s been on the Seattle Haven Council for two years. It doesn’t give the specifics of the cases she’s presided over, so we can’t figure out if there’s a connection there.”
“At least not without going to the records office and requesting the files,” I added.
“Guess we know what Teddy’s going to be doing,” Adam teased.
I nodded but wondered if it might be just another waste of time. Without Harvey’s testimony, it would be all-too-easy for the council to rule against me whether or not Sasha Pringle was on it.
“I just want to know why she hates me so much,” I said after a minute. “You should have seen her, Adam. She was ready to attack me right out of the gate. It was like a boxer in the ring or something. I’ve never met her before, or either of her parents as far as I know. Why would she act like that?”
Adam turned off the screen and pocketed his phone. “I don’t know, Gorgeous. We’ll get to the bottom of it though. I promise you that.” He kissed the side of my head and then moved to open the door of the SPA building.
We headed back to the manor and as soon as we made it inside—after a brief attack by Boots—I hurried through the house, going from room to room looking for Teddy. I wanted to let him know what we’d found out and see if there was any way he could go to the records office and petition to see what Sasha Pringle’s history was like. Maybe we could see if there was some kind of connection. Did she always fight so hard against cases like mine, or was it personal somehow? It would be more helpful to speak directly with other council members, but there was a certain amount of secrecy among them. Even if there are disagreements, they weren’t likely to discuss that with anyone outside of law enforcement.
As I was hurrying back for the top of the stairs, Posy floated through the ceiling, directly below the attic. She shimmered and then her translucent form solidified ever so slightly. She gave me a polite smile. “Hello dear.”
“Hello, Posy. Have you seen Evangeline or Teddy today?”
She shook her head. “No one has been here all day. Well, other than Lacey of course.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“Is everything all right, dear?”
“Yeah. I just wanted to talk to him about a development with my petition to the council.”
Posy gave a sympathetic nod. “How are you doing? I know how important potions are to you.”
I shrugged one shoulder, surprised by the swell of emotions her question dragged up. “I’ll figure it out.”
“I’m sure you will, dear.” She smiled, but it was clear that my tough-witch act wasn’t fooling anyone. Without another word, she floated through the floor to the first level of the manor. Boots rammed his head into my leg and I bent to scoop him from the floor. I talked softly with him as I headed back downstairs.
Adam was on the couch, flicking through something on his phone. His expression was pinched and distracted.
“Everything okay?” I asked, joining him on the couch. Boots sprawled out of my arms and lay across both of our laps. I smiled as I stroked my fingers through his thick, tawny fur. He and Adam hadn’t always been best friends but since we’d started dating, Boots had decided that he wasn’t all bad.
Adam glanced over at me. “Yes and no. Work stuff.”
“Oh.”
“What are your plans for the rest of the day?”
I stifled a yawn. The sleepless night was catching up to me. “I don’t have anything in the fridge. I’ve been avoiding the grocery store since I got back.”
“Tell you what, you run out and get groceries, I’ll get this work stuff off my plate, and we can call it an early night and watch a movie or something.”
I agreed, then headed into town to get groceries at Thistle while Adam checked in with work. He worked for himself and could set his own work schedule, but there was inevitably going to be a slush pile of emails waiting for him after only a few hours away from his desk.
On my way back, gripping the handles of two canvas grocery bags, I took a detour and stopped in at The Emerald. Evangeline and Lucy were at the front desk and both gl
anced up when I walked in. “Holly! I didn’t know you were back from the haven,” Evangeline said.
“Hey guys.” I set my grocery bags on one of the plush chairs near the door and made little circles with my wrists to get the circulation flowing again. As always, I’d ended up with way too much food for the two bags but stubbornly insisted on making it all fit. The result was two extremely heavy bags that were going to make the trek up the hill back to the manor harder than normal. “I just got back a little while ago.”
“Anything to report?” Evangeline asked.
“Yes and no. Nothing solid yet. I’ll keep you posted.” I glanced around the shop. “What time is Ben coming in today?”
Evangeline sighed. “I’m not sure. He’s at a doctor’s appointment.”
Lucy frowned at her. “He’s cutting it pretty close getting back. His client is already here waiting. It’s the third time in the last week. I hate to say it, but I think it’s going to cause problems.”
Evangeline nodded but from the look on her face it was clear she didn’t want to deal with it.
I supposed Ben could have been at a doctor’s appointment, but then why was he at the SPA building, tangled up with Sasha Pringle? I wasn’t sure how to go about asking for information, but I planned on confronting him next time I saw him.
I stretched back, working out the tensed muscles in my arms and shoulders, and spotted a glittery new display on the front counter to the right of Evangeline. I reached out and plucked a bottle of shocking pink polish from the pyramid of shiny bottles. “New brand?”
Evangeline frowned. “Some rep came in earlier today. He works for Praxle’s Potions.”
“Praxle’s? As in—”
“Yeah.” Evangeline considered the stack of polishes. “They’re working to rebuild their brand after the recent … tarnishes. They want me to consider an endorsement deal.”
My jaw dropped. “I hope you told them just what they could do with their offer!”
Evangeline sighed. “I told them I’d think about it.”
“Oh, Evangeline.” I shook my head. “You are way too nice.”
Witch Way Home: A Beechwood Harbor Magic Mystery (Beechwood Harbor Magic Mysteries Book 4) Page 12