Pawsitively Secretive

by Melissa Erin Jackson

  “I inherited my mother’s artistic nature,” she said to Connor now.

  He watched her carefully. She really had no idea what to make of Connor. There had been some semblance of a spark between them when he asked her to come to his birthday celebration last month, but he also had a spark with Willow. A spark that the two had been ignoring since high school. Amber couldn’t get in the way of that—she honestly wasn’t even sure if she wanted to.

  “I wonder what else you might have inherited from your mother,” he said, taking a slow slip of his coffee without taking his eyes off her.

  She swallowed. He couldn’t possibly know anything about her witch traits, could he? “Meaning?”

  He shrugged nonchalantly. “You Blackwood women seem to have so many more layers than I first thought. Just curious what else there is to know about you.”

  Was he flirting? Was he here for a story?

  “Not much,” she said, then turned away, heading down Russian Blue. She was sleep-deprived and was in desperate need of coffee. Her gut told her this wasn’t a social call. All she knew was that if he found a way to interrogate her about Chloe’s disappearance, she was likely to snap.

  As predicted, Connor jogged to catch up and walk along beside her. “The nearest coffee is two miles away. You planning to walk there?”

  “Yep.” The exercise and brisk morning air would keep her awake long enough to mainline some caffeine. After the search in the woods, Amber was sure to be so exhausted, the nightmares just might give her a night off.

  He jogged ahead of her and whirled around, a hand out. Amber came up short.

  “Let me drive you. Consider it a happy coincidence that I happened to be in the neighborhood when—” he started to say, but when Amber crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow, he sighed. “Okay. Fine. I’ve been looping your block for the past half hour hoping I’d run into you before you left for the search.”

  “Why?”

  “My editor—”

  Amber groaned and stepped around him.

  “Wait,” he said, and hurried to catch up. “There are several reporters in town from other areas, and my editor wants the Gazette to have the upper hand and land the story before anyone else.”

  “We don’t even know if there is a story yet,” she said.

  “We have to prepare for the possibility that there is,” Connor said. “The more information we get out to people about what may have happened, the better chance we have of finding Chloe. She might not even be in Edgehill anymore. A thorough, well-researched story could get traction online, and that traction could make all the difference.”

  Dang it.

  They stared at each other.

  “What do you need from me?” she finally asked. “I’ve retold the story a zillion times already.”

  He fought a smile, clearly knowing he’d won. “Make this retelling one zillion and one? Being able to use a couple of direct quotes from you would really help. I’ll buy the coffee.”

  Amber supposed if telling the story again could help Chloe, she couldn’t say no. “Fine. But I also want a muffin. Maybe two.”

  Connor chuckled. “Deal. Jack made these—”

  “Not Purrcolate,” she said quickly. Likely too quickly, given the cocked brow Connor aimed her way. “I was thinking Coffee Cat.” She mentally winced just saying it.

  Connor wrinkled his nose. Coffee Cat was a bit more hoity-toity than most Edgehill residents preferred, but the place was wildly popular with tourists. They sold elaborate coffee concoctions, artisanal waters, and overpriced snacks and sandwiches. It had opened two years ago, and while most Edgehill residents had been convinced the place would fold in six months tops, it had thrived. And now it was even in the running for Best of Edgehill at the Hair Ball. “Coffee Cat it is. But, uh, my car is back this way.”

  His slate-gray Jeep was parked in the lot by her building, taking up the space where she had once parked her own car.

  Amber liked to think the inside of one’s car said a lot about them—or at least the current state of their life. The inside of Connor’s car was immaculate. She wondered if his desk at work was this orderly. She imagined him living a minimalist lifestyle, his apartment sparsely furnished.

  Amber’s own car had always been in a state of mild chaos.

  Once they were buckled in, he smoothly maneuvered them out of the lot and down Russian Blue. Their silence felt charged, but Amber couldn’t say with what. He was, at least, a much more relaxed driver than her brake-happy friend Kim.

  What had Connor been like in college? Given his goofy friends—particularly the drunken Wesley Young—she had to imagine he wasn’t as rigid as his car’s interior would imply. Not that she was one to judge.

  Coffee Cat was in one of the more business-heavy parts of Edgehill, on Chartreux Way—home to the Milk Bowl, the Edgehill Gazette, and Sadler Accounting, among others. Amber wondered how Derrick Sadler was faring after the events of a couple months past. He’d lost his mistress and his unborn child to his wife Whitney—and now Whitney was in jail. Did he visit her? Did he bring their daughter Sydney? He’d gone from living a double life to being a man on his own, raising a ten-year-old.

  Amber couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in town this early in the morning—especially on a weekend. A few people wandered around, but Amber figured many of them were tourists. Most residents likely were trying to catch as much shut-eye as possible before they had to be on Korat Road.

  Because of this, parking was exceptionally easy to find, and soon they were walking up the sidewalk to the café. In silence. Still. He’d left his coffee cup in the car; Amber wondered if he would be unable to sleep later, due to all the caffeine he was putting away this morning.

  Two doors down from the accounting office, and next door to the Milk Bowl, a black-and-white awning stretched over the sidewalk, shading the heavy wooden door. In the large plateglass window to the right of the door, a giant white logo took up most of the space. “Coffee” was written in looping cursive and arched over the top of a white coffee cup, a black cat with its paws on either side of its face peeking out from the depths of the cup. The C in the word “Cat” made up the coffee cup’s handle, the rest of the word following in the same looping font.

  Connor pulled the door open for her. As she stepped over the threshold and onto the rustic, creaky wooden floor, she was hit not with the scent of coffee, but of sugar and spices. It smelled more like Purrfectly Scrumptious than a coffee shop. The color palate was all warm brown, deep green, and soft beige. The dark-wood counter stood to the right of the space and took up most of the wall. Gleaming planks of wood with wide gaps between them were overlaid on the front of the counter. It reminded her of the side of a log cabin. The walls behind the counter and directly across from the front door were painted with black chalkboard paint. Someone with even more impressive chalk skills than herself had drawn the menu items of the day on the wall, interspersed with drawings of leaping, sitting, and sleeping cats. The wall opposite the door was slowly being turned into a chalk mural of a meadow filled with cats.

  The wall to the left was lined with a single dark brown leather bench seat and round wooden tables were spaced out periodically before it. In the available space in the middle of the room were plush deep green chairs positioned in front of small tables.

  Amber was very annoyed by how absolutely inviting and cozy it felt, despite the fact that it was her given right as a lifelong resident to despise this place on principle, simply for being the kind of over-the-top artisanal café she would expect to find in a city like Los Angeles or even Portland, not in a tiny town like Edgehill.

  “Do you know what you want?” asked Connor, startling her. She had been so taken in by the charm of this snooty place that she’d forgotten all about him.

  “Not a clue,” she said, and led them around the maze of chairs and toward the counter where two thirtysomething men with matching ridiculous handlebar mustaches manned the counter. There were two cou
ples in the far corner, near the chalk mural, but no one at the counter.

  As Amber and Connor walked up, one of the mustachioed men spotted them and smiled wide, placing his folded arms on the smooth wooden surface.

  “Good morning, you two!” he said, even more chipper than Kim when relaying a juicy piece of gossip. “Is this your first time to Coffee Cat?” Then he stood to full height, gaze focused on Amber. “You’re Amber Blackwood, aren’t you? You’re on the Here and Meow Committee? What an honor! We’re so excited to be in the running for the Best of Edgehill. Your coffees are on the house this morning!”

  “Oh, no, you don’t have to do that,” Amber said.

  “I insist,” he said, waving away her protests. “I know a lot of the locals are a little reluctant about this place but give me a chance to turn you into a Coffee Catter.” He turned to the side so he could address them and look at the menu board at the same time. “We have your standard choices, of course, but if you want the true Coffee Cat experience, I suggest you try one of our signature mochas or lattes.”

  Amber eyed the board. Under mochas, she saw, “Raspberry white peppermint, toasted marshmallow, Black Forest cherry, and strawberry white mocha.” She had no idea how to feel about any of those. The lattes sounded more like dessert flavors than those of a drink. “Brown sugar cardamom, snickerdoodle, spiced pecan maple, caramelized honey, white chocolate toffee nut,” to name a few, as well as ones that were truly baffling, such as “iced oat milk matcha latte,” and a concoction with ginger, cinnamon, and vanilla that was blended with something called “moon milk.”

  The man at the counter laughed. “Your eyes glazed over there for a second. How about you tell me if you want something sweet or something with a unique spice array, and I’ll choose one for you.”

  Amber was terrified. What in the world was a “unique spice array” and why was it in coffee? “Sweet,” she said.

  “Same,” Connor said, though his tone was mildly ashamed, as if he’d just admitted to committing an atrocious crime.

  “Coming right up!” the man said and turned toward the machines and ingredients laid out behind him.

  Amber and Connor shrugged at each other helplessly and found a spot on the bench seat—Amber in the booth, and Connor across from her in a wooden chair positioned on the other side of the round table. She wiggled out of her belted trench and draped it on the seat next to her.

  They both folded their arms on the table’s surface, looked at each other, looked away. Amber slid her arms off the table and sat up straighter, her hands in her lap.

  “So … uhh … why don’t you tell me about last night,” Connor said. Amber wondered if the guy did better talking about his stories than he did making “normal” conversation. That, or Amber just made him deeply uncomfortable. She supposed either one was likely. “Start with arriving at the mayor’s house and then what happened through to finding Chloe’s car. Is it okay if I record this?” He reached into the pocket of his black peacoat—which he hadn’t taken off—and pulled out his phone. He placed it on the table.

  Amber stared at it a moment, then nodded. “Sure.”

  He tapped his phone a few times, got to the app he needed, then hit record. She went through the whole story again, only stopping briefly when the barista brought them their drinks.

  Amber’s came in a small glass mug, the drink inside beige with a half inch-ring of what might have been cream or foam. The lip of the glass was ringed in a thick layer of what Amber guessed was cinnamon.

  Connor’s looked more like a milkshake than a coffee. It came in a tall glass, the drink inside a dark brown that was swirled with darker lines of chocolate. A light brown-colored foam filled the top inch of the glass, and a healthy dollop of whipped cream crested high above the rim. The cream was dotted with a cherry and a few chocolate chips.

  Though she knew he was mostly listening to her, he was also deeply engrossed in his drink. He had muttered a soft “Oh my God” after the first sip, though she suspected it had been involuntary. Amber’s drink had been gone in five minutes flat. She guessed hers had been the snickerdoodle latte and desperately wanted to order ten more.

  But she would be vigilant. She would not be a traitor. She was still rooting for Purrcolate, after all, regardless of how things had gone between her and Jack.

  When she got to the end of her story, she hesitated. She remembered the mayor’s anger and the hurtful things he’d said to her. Was that the kind of thing to share with Connor? Would it paint the mayor in an unfair light? Especially when she knew what he’d said had been fueled by fear more than anything else. She didn’t want Connor to take anything she said and twist it out of context. Yet something about the whole exchange hadn’t set well with her.

  “Can I ask that this next part not be on the record?” she asked.

  His brows furrowed, but after a moment’s hesitation, he reached out and hit the stop button on his phone. With his glass empty, he folded his arms on the table again. “What is it?”

  “Well … Frank was really upset when he got to the site. I mean, it’s completely understandable, given that his daughter was missing in the middle of a storm. But Frank has always been such a mellow guy, you know, and he … he said some really nasty things to me. Got right in my face. I can’t explain it but there was something really off-putting about how … vicious he was. I swear, if he wasn’t the mayor and had a reputation to uphold, he very well might have hit me.”

  Connor’s brows shot up. “Really?”

  “He apologized as soon as he realized he’d crossed a line. He admitted that he’d gone too far with her and given her an ultimatum that she clearly didn’t like. Which sounds like the reaction a teenager would have … but in a storm? I can’t help but wonder if that conversation had been a bit more tense than he let on.” She sighed, shaking her head. “I know he loves Chloe. But …”

  “But who knows what things are really like in that house,” Connor said.

  Amber nodded.

  Had Frank threatened more than Chloe’s access to her phone and internet? Had she run away not to be with this mystery boy, but to get away from her own father?

  “Do you know anything about Chloe’s mother?” Amber suddenly asked. She supposed all the theories she’d heard lately had burrowed their way into her mind. “Any idea how she died?”

  Connor shook his head. “We’re looking into it. The details around her death are sketchy at best.”

  Amber recalled the mayor being nose-to-nose with her. “Don’t pretend you have some lasting relationship with my daughter just because you’re lonely.”

  His words had been meant to wound. He’d searched for Amber’s weaknesses so he could make her feel as low as he did. He had been around her enough and heard enough about her to know she led a fairly lonely existence here in Edgehill. Somehow, the man who would listen to your smallest of problems with attention and compassion, could also be the type of man who could take those same details and throw them in your face.

  Had the mayor turned that quick anger onto Chloe during their talk? Had his actions and biting words scared her enough that she’d lied to his face and then crept out a window? Had Frank’s wife been scared of him, too?

  Connor spoke up, giving voice to the thought Amber already had forming. “It makes you wonder if Frank Deidrick fled to Edgehill to escape painful memories of his young wife’s death or if he was running from something much worse.”

  Chapter 5

  On the way to the meeting spot on Korat Road, Amber’s phone chirped. She’d been clutching it, her keys, and her wallet tight in her fists, and gave a start when the sound interrupted her thoughts. It had been silent in the car again except for a classical music station kept at low volume.

  “Sorry,” she said to Connor, though she wasn’t sure why she’d said it, and found a text from Kim.

  Morning, Amber! I didn’t wake you, did I? I’m still putting on my face, but I can pick you up in twenty if you want to ride over with me.


  Shooting a quick glance toward the driver’s seat, she typed, I’m actually riding there with Connor right now.

  Connor DECLAN? So my sources were right!

  They were not! You need to fire them all.

  We’ll talk about this later.

  Hoping to redirect her, Amber asked, Has there been any news since last night?

  Not that I’ve heard. We’re hoping NOT to find anything today, right?

  Guess it depends on what that something is.

  Ugh. Right. Well, I’ll see you soon, okay?

  Cars lined both sides of Korat Road, soft sunlight glinting off hoods and windshields still dotted with morning dew. Connor had to drive past both the Sippin’ Siamese and the turnoff for Blue Point Lane to find a spot. The trek back to the bar where everyone was meeting took nearly twenty minutes. Connor, mercifully, had finally started to talk. Amber had brought up Willow and suddenly the guy had all kinds of things to say. Amber would have to call her sister later to share this little tidbit of news.

  Edgehill police cruisers were mixed in with civilian cars. Amber was mildly surprised to see police vehicles from both Belhaven and Marbleglen. Even a couple from Portland. Had the chief called in favors to his old cop buddies from the city?

  The Sippin’ Siamese’s patio was scattered with people bundled down in coats and hats and nursing cups of steaming coffee. More still were inside, given the murmurs coming from beyond the bar’s propped-open front door. A gaggle of police in uniform, including Chief Brown, stood talking on the sidewalk in front of the windows of the Siamese’s front room. The mayor stood with them, his brow furrowed and arms crossed as he nodded periodically at what the officers were telling him. Perhaps he was being debriefed on how the search would go.

  Amber’s gaze skirted over the collection of officers, then snagged on their feet—they all had muddy shoes and pant hems. Chief Brown didn’t notice her as she and Connor walked past them, nor when they stopped a few feet away. Her traveling partner had clammed up again. She pulled her phone out of her pocket to text Kim so she would know where to meet her, and also to give Amber something to do other than scrounge for another conversation topic that lit the guy up as much as the topic of her sister did.