by Jane Hinchey
“What were you even thinking, going to his house, Harper?” Jackson shook his head as he reversed the car.
“I told you, we were looking for the phone,” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest. I knew he wouldn’t be happy when he found out, and he hadn’t been. When I’d called to say we were at Daniel’s house and had performed a citizen's arrest, he’d been remarkably calm. When Jenna had handed over her phone, which, unbeknownst to me she’d used to record the entire confrontation with Sarah, getting her confession to killing Emily on record, and Daniel’s involvement in the whole sordid affair, he’d gritted his teeth but remained calm. But now? Now I was waiting for him to erupt.
“You didn’t have to do that. You should have left it to us.”
“But you didn’t know it was her!”
“Neither did you!”
“I had a hunch.” It wasn’t entirely true. My hunch was that Daniel was the killer.
“And I had a lead. A solid lead. We would have got her without you and Jenna putting yourselves at risk like that. We caught the guy who assaulted me and stole my phone.”
“What? That’s great, but what does that have to do with this?”
“Because the fox we arrested was all too happy to spill the beans on what he knew for a reduced sentence.”
“Wait! A fox? Who?”
“Leon Johnson. Do you know him?”
I shook my head. “No, not personally. But Daniel admitted that a fox helped him. And that name, Leon, that’s who Jenna said had broken into the Tribune offices.”
“Yeah, Griffin had paid him to plant a listening device in there, so he’d have a heads up if anyone picked up on his connection with Emily.”
“Did Daniel have him attack you?”
Jackson shook his head. “Nope. That was all Leon. He hadn’t planned it, saw me on the street outside your store, figured he owed me one since we arrested a fox recently, so he smacked me over the head with a rock, then panicked and didn’t know what to do with me. He knew he couldn’t take me out to the compound. So he broke into your store and left me there.”
“Why did he steal your phone then?”
“To pawn it. Only the pawn shop wouldn’t take it. No pawn shop will touch a police issue cell phone.”
“So how did the police find it?”
“When Leon took it into the pawnshop, the owner turned it on. That’s when they saw the Whitefall Cove Police emblem on the lock screen—knew it was police issue. Leon bolted, leaving it behind. And IT had been keeping an eye out for when it got switched on. A patrol car was there within minutes. The owner had been expecting them, had the CCTV footage of Leon bringing it in. Boom, busted.”
“And then Leon dished the dirt on Daniel.”
We’d arrived at Brewed Awakening and Jackson turned off the engine, turning to face me. “Daniel has been working with the foxes for years, using them to dig up dirt on other people on the town council, potential business deals, that sort of thing. Emily isn’t the first young girl he’s had a relationship with. Leah Spears was his first. Turns out he’d had a clandestine affair with her for three years, from sixteen to nineteen. Then he broke it off with her.”
“But why didn’t she say anything?”
“I’d imagine he dosed her with the same concoction he’d used on Emily. Only with Emily, he’d accidentally gotten her pregnant.”
“So this herbal brew doesn’t wear off? It’s for life?”
“Undetermined. We’ve got a sample from Leon and sent it to the lab in town. Something like that is like a bad drug on the streets. We need a way to determine if anyone has been affected by it, and if they have an antidote.”
“You think Leon could have supplied others?” I gasped. It was alarming to think what could happen.
“He swears he hasn’t. The foxes frown upon using it. They won’t be pleased when they hear Leon sold not one, but two batches to Griffin. When he gets out of jail they may banish him from the compound.”
Jackson reached his arm along the back of the seat and played with my hair. “Promise me one thing, Harper.”
“What’s that?” I tilted my head to rest my cheek against his arm, loving the warmth of him.
“No more running into dangerous situations. In fact, no more sleuthing, I don’t think my heart can take the stress.”
“Okay.” I grinned.
He frowned. “Really? Why don’t I believe you?”
“No more sleuthing… today.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Knew that was too easy. Come on, let’s go eat.” He shot out of the car and was around opening my door in the blink of an eye. I tucked my hand through his elbow and we walked inside.
Monica greeted us. “Ah good, you’re here. Everything is set.”
“Everything is set?” I repeated, puzzled. What was going on here?
“Excellent. Thank you.” Jackson smiled at her.
“Nothing is too good for my friend Harper.” Monica grinned, then led us to a beautifully set table, complete with tablecloth, silverware, crystal glasses, candles and a single red rose. We were tucked away in a corner, dark and intimate.
“Oh, this is beautiful.” I gasped, smiling in delight when Jackson held out the chair for me.
Monica poured champagne into two flutes, then bowed ever so slightly. “I’ll be back to take your order in a minute.” Then she was gone.
“Jackson,” I breathed, “this is amazing! How did you organize this? There wasn’t time.”
“I was as disappointed as you that we couldn’t keep our initial reservations, but I thought I’d take the chance I’d be free from work by, oh, about now, and called Monica, asked if she could help me out. She obliged. It’s a step up from the usual, huh? This place rarely offers table service.”
We clinked glasses, and I’d just taken a sip, the bubbles bursting on my tongue when my phone beeped. I automatically went to check it but then stopped myself. No. I was on a date. My first date with Jackson. The phone could wait.
I looked up to find him smiling at me, an indulgent expression on his face. “Go ahead. It could be your Gran.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Of course not. My job interrupts us constantly. I’m hardly in a position to complain if someone needs you.”
Pulling out my phone I looked down to see a message from Jenna. I froze, hardly breathing as I read the words. I looked up at Jackson, in shock.
“What is it?” he asked, leaning across the table toward me. I held up the phone, and he squinted at the screen, reading the message.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered.
Jenna had found out who Blake Tennant had been secretly investigating. It was Jackson. Necromancers were banned in many communities for fear of inflicting flesh-decaying magic. B.O.R.D. had ordered Jackson be checked out to see if he had the ability.
“Suffice it to say, I don’t.” Jackson shrugged. “I’m a pretty boring, ghost-seeing necromancer.”
“I didn’t even know that was a thing,” I admitted, slightly horrified that Blake had been investigating Jackson.
“It’s always a worry with necromancers, that we may have the ability to raise an un-dead army.”
“And what then? What if you had that ability?”
He gave me a tight smile. “You don’t want to know. How about a change of topic, love?”
I studied him through narrowed eyes, wanting to take it further, but finally acknowledging he was right. Why get upset over something that hadn’t happened? Jackson was fine. He’d been cleared.
“There’s something about Emily’s case that bugs me,” I said, taking a sip of my champagne and dutifully changing the subject.
“What’s that?”
“How did Sarah get the phone? How did she even know about it?”
“The night she found Emily injured, Emily had been delirious and had told Sarah to call Daniel on his secret phone.”
“But I thought Emily couldn’t talk about Daniel?”
“Seems the herbs weren’t effective when she was in a concussed state.” Jackson shrugged.
“So then what happened? I saw the text from the burner phone on Sarah’s phone. How did she get Daniel to send it?”
“She didn’t. She stole it. Sent the text to herself. She was at Daniel’s house to return the phone—and frame him—when she stumbled upon the three of you.”
“But Jacob—or Daniel—drugged her.” I was still confused.
Jackson shook his head. “She staged the whole thing. Sarah stole the phone from Daniel’s place, and one of the beers Jacob had stashed in his bag. She sent the text from the burner to her own phone, then turned it off and hid it in her room, intending to return it later. Then she swiped two of her mom’s pills, climbed out the window and headed to the beach. She let herself into the beach hut, drank the beer, leaving the bottle there with her fingerprints and DNA and traces of the pills. When she started to feel drowsy, she moved from the hut out to the beach, lay down in the sand, just out of reach of high tide, knowing she’d be discovered before anything untoward could happen.”
“And how did you discover all that? You said you had a lead?”
“I told you, IT were all over the phones, who was texting and calling Emily. We had a trace on the burner. As soon as it turned on, it pinged the closest tower. And that was not near Daniel’s house. And because Sarah lived around the corner from Jacob, it was his house or hers. We were serving search warrants on both. Until I got your call.”
“I’d thought for sure Daniel had strangled Emily with his tie.” I sighed, hating that I’d gotten it wrong.
Jackson grinned. “I know you did. And to be fair, the fiber we pulled from Emily’s neck had been blue, which was the same color as Daniel’s tie, only the tie was silk and this fiber wasn’t.”
“What was it?”
“Satin. The same satin as Sarah’s hair ribbons. We found the one we think she killed Emily with shoved in the back of a drawer in her bedroom. It had Sarah’s and Emily’s epithelial cells and the ME matched it up to the ligature marks on Emily’s neck.”
Jackson cocked his head and studied me across the table. “Any more questions?”
I shook my head. “Nope, I think I’m good.”
“Excellent. In that case.” He stood, came around to my side of the table and held out his hand. I placed mine in it and allowed him to pull me to my feet.
“What’s happening?” I whispered as he swung me into his arms and began to sway to the rhythm of the music pumping from the jukebox.
“We’re dancing,” he murmured, holding me close.
“So we are.” I grinned, snuggled closer and closed my eyes, allowing myself to get lost in the music and comfort of Jackson’s embrace.
“Just one more thing, Jones.”
“Mmmm?” I lifted my head, and he kissed me.
Best date ever.
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#2 Witch Way to Romance & Ruin
#3 Witch Way Down Under
#4 Witch Way to Beauty and the Beach
Still to come… (not yet published)
#5 Witch Way to Death & Destruction
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About Jane
Aussie Author & International Bestseller Jane Hinchey writes sexy, snarky, badass, paranormal romances and funny, witchy, paranormal cozy mysteries.
Living in the City of Churches (aka Adelaide, South Australia) with her man, two cats, and turtle, she would really prefer to live in a magical town where cooking could be done with a snap of her fingers, and her house would clean itself.
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