by Tegan Maher
"Go ahead young lady,” Addy snapped. "Get too big for your britches. I'll make that pimple potion look like a tiptoe through the tulips."
Shelby stuck her tongue out at her. "That worked on me when you had a body because I figured there was about a fifty-fifty chance you'd actually do it. But now it just doesn't carry the weight."
Aunt Elizabeth put on her best witchy smile—the one I prided myself on and had learned from her. "She may not be able to pull it off," she said, wiggling her fingers, "but I still have full use of my body. And a really good garden. We can come up with something worse than a pimple potion for smart-mouthed teenagers with our eyes closed. You’d never see it comin’. Would we put it in your toothpaste? Your favorite cotton-candy-scented lotion?"
Shelby crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at them. "You two are evil."
Addy sidled next to Beth and it was truly terrifying to see them both wearing that smile. "Don't you forget it, sugar."
CHAPTER TWENTY
I had no plans for the rest of the afternoon, so I called Coralee up to see if she had any appointments. Truthfully, I was avoiding Hunter because, irrational as I knew I was being, I was irritated that maybe he only bent the rules because he thought I wanted him to, not because he thought he was doing the right thing despite the typical procedure. There was a world of difference between the two.
There was also a conversation with Olivia in my near future, and I needed to plan that one carefully. I was dead serious when I told Raeann I wouldn't hit her, but that didn't mean I'd be able to keep a civil tongue if she got smart with me. Since I needed her cooperation, that wouldn't do. So, I'd get my hair trimmed and maybe get a mani-pedi to help me get centered and still have plenty of time to catch her before she left her office.
Coralee booked me right in. When I got there, I was shocked to see I was the only client there. I scratched my head, then noticed Coralee and Belle were wearing expressions similar to turkey vultures waiting for cars to pass so they can get back to their roadkill.
I dropped my gaze to her book on the way past the front desk and noticed that the next hour had been cleared. Looked like I was the guest of honor. Alyse barely contained a smile when she saw me look at the book then glare at Coralee and Belle. "C'mon, Noelle. I've got the pedicure bath full already. I used some lavender and orange oils in it seein' as how you've had the day from hell."
That was both the best and worst thing about living in a small town. If you didn't know what you were doing, just ask somebody else. If you needed a detailed itinerary, go to the local beauty shop. If there were any blank spots, they'd use their keen deductive abilities to fill them in. They played a little fast and loose with the word accurate, and I hoped, for their sakes, that the term right hand to god wasn't a binding contract.
Still, Coralee had known my mama, and Belle was, of course, good buddies with Addy, so I sorta fell under protected status. Except in their betting pools—anybody was fair game for those. In fact, I'd been a recent topic. They'd bet on when Hunter and I would have our first date before he even cleared me as a murder suspect in Hank's death.
I kicked my boots off then peeled off my socks and climbed into the chair, sighing when my feet hit the hot water.
"So," Belle said, cutting straight to the chase. I saw you leavin' the courthouse with Raeann earlier, so I assume your sheriff came to his senses?"
I nodded without opening my eyes. The water felt delicious swirling around my ankles and toes and the scented oils were doing the trick already. "He did."
They waited a few minutes for me to continue, but when I didn't, Coralee took the initiative. "Well?"
I cracked an eye open. "Well what?"
"Well what changed his mind?"
Shrugging and closing my eye again, I said, "I don't know. He's as much a hothead as Addy is. I reckon he got his tail all twisted because he thought she was tellin' him how to do his job."
Belle heaved a sigh. "Men. I've been tellin' that girl for thirty years she can't just ride roughshod over 'em and expect good results. It takes a little finesse. You have to convince 'em it's their idea. Calvin spoiled her by just goin' along with whatever she said."
I smiled to myself. Just the fact that she even used the term finesse cracked me up, because she was as subtle as a sledgehammer.
"Well," I said, "Hunter got over it, anyway. He was waiting for me at the farm. I’d put the deed to the farm up for her bail, and he brought it back, along with papers releasing her on her own recognizance."
"Ooh," Alyse said as she dried my feet and started massaging my left arch. "What did he say?"
I was losing track of the conversation because she had magical thumbs, but managed to focus enough to answer. "I didn't talk to him other than to throw him off the property. Raeann stayed outside and he talked to her. She said he apologized and knew he’d been a jerk."
Coralee clucked and shook her head as she swept up hair from her last appointment. "Pride goeth before the fall." She could quote the Bible with the best of them. I figured she musta picked up a Cliff Note's version and memorized the ones she could use the most, because she sure wasn't a regular at Sunday school. Neither was I though, so I didn't have much room to talk.
"I reckon," I said, wondering how best to explain the current situation. I wasn't ready to go into the whole magic thing, but I had to make sure they took care of Reverend Gabe. "Did you talk to Angus?"
She didn't say anything so I forced my eyes open.
"Oh, sorry, sugar," she said. "I nodded but you musta had your eyes closed. Yeah, we ended up goin' with a spider, since it's cold out and there ain't really any bees."
"Brilliant," I said.
She preened, but motioned toward Alyse. "It was her idea, so I can't take credit. But we planted the seed in the most fertile spots. I suspect it's close to making the rounds if it hasn't already. Turns out she's allergic, so that was an unexpected bonus. We had a sit-down with Gabe, too. He had no idea why he did it and his head was a little fuzzy concernin’ the entire episode. With the help of a little subtle persuasion, he believes it, too, or at least wants it to be the truth bad enough that he swallowed it."
I grinned. "Y'all are the best, you know it?"
They waved me off. "Shoot, Sugar," Coralee said and winked. "What's the use of bein' Keyhole's lead information and data engineer if you can't use it to do a good turn once in a while?"
I turned serious as Alyse painted my toenails a sassy shade of purple. "So what about Roberta? How is she?" She may be tight-fisted and a little high-hatted, but Roberta was all right. I didn't wish her ill, especially considering she wasn't acting under her own steam.
Belle heaved a sigh. "She's not so good. You know how she feels about what folks think of her. Now she thinks everybody hates her. And worse yet, she's not far off the mark."
I puckered my lips and pushed then to the side, thinking. "I'm not sure how to fix that one," I said.
"Well, she oughtta be ashamed of herself," Alyse said.
Oh boy; I took a deep breath, then exhaled. No way to get around it, then. I was going to have to fill her in. She knew about me. Alyse's mom had been friends with my mom, but I'd just kinda hoped she'd let the whole Reverend Gabe thing slide as a one-off mishap, not thinking about Roberta. Belle and Coralee both likely had an inkling something was up, but Alyse tended to be more naive.
I thought we'd been in the clear because Gene didn't give a rat's furry behind what people thought of him, and nobody knew about Kirsten, but Roberta was horse of another color.
Just as the chitchat circle worked with a person, it could work against them tenfold, especially considering Roberta'd done her share and then some of passing on less-than-flattering goings-on that folks would have mightily preferred to keep quiet. Folks were gonna chew her up and spit her out in little pieces, and have a good time doing it.
I needed serious information manipulation and as Coralee so delicately phrased it, and I was sitting right in the pedicure chair of
the community affairs and information headquarters.
I leaned forward and put my elbows on my knees while Alyse slicked the top coat onto my last few toenails. "Here's the thing," I said, waiting for Alyse to glance up at me between toes. "There's somethin' y'all need to know about Roberta."
Three sets of sparkling eyes snapped to me. Blood was in the water and I had their attention.
"I'm telling you this because I need your help. In fact, the whole town needs your help." Okay, so that may have been laying it on a little thick, but then again, maybe not. "I need what I’m about to say to stay right here"—I pointed to the floor—"and I don't mean that in the typical, wait 'til she's gone and tell everybody way of keepin' it hush-hush. This is serious. It involves my family and our ... gifts.”
As expected, Coralee and Belle weren't surprised, but Alyse's eyebrows shot up and her mouth formed a little O. She crossed her heart. "I swear." I didn't need the same oath from the other two. I knew when it came down to the brass tacks, they had my back.
I explained the relevant, bare-bones details, leaving out the stuff Corinne had dealt with in Eagle Gap.
Coralee put her arm across her chest, then braced her other elbow against it, chin in hand. Belle floated back and forth with her arms behind her back. After several seconds, Coralee blurted, "She had a fever and was feelin’ a little out of it."
That actually wasn't bad because Roberta was about as big a hypochondriac as I'd ever met; she had some sort of ache or pain every day.
Belle nodded. "Somethin' fierce. She was complainin' that mornin' she didn't feel well. We told her the paperwork at the church would wait, but she said she couldn't bear to let the revver down."
I arched a brow at her. "Really? You don't think that's a little over-the-top?"
"Nope," she said. "Situations like this, you gotta go the extra few steps. Folks'll hear that civic-duty crap and roll their eyes ’cause they know she's a showboatin' blow-hard, but they'll decide that part's the real crock and think she just refused to go home even though she had a fever because she had appearances to keep up."
Damn, they were good.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I decided to skip the haircut in favor of getting my visit with Olivia out of the way. I needed to stop and talk to Hunter, too. I was cashing out when Coralee asked, "Is that what was wrong with Hunter, too?"
I sighed. "Yeah. Which really hurts me. If he didn't really want to help Rae and was only doin' it because of me, then I don't know how I feel about that. She's my family, and as much a part of me as, well, me."
"Honey," she said, touching my chin. "You're lookin' at it wrong. He was willing to help you and yours—he did help her—despite what people would think. He was willing to stick his neck out and make a decision he mighta had to defend in order to help family. That's a slippery slope, but he's got a good moral compass and he knew he was doin' the right thing, else he wouldn't have done it in spite of his fear of backlash."
It took me a minute to process all that.
"Look," she said, "lemme break it down. You're makin' a mountain out of a molehill, or worse. Let him apologize. Trust me. He means it."
She was right, as usual. I left her place feeling loads better. I'd gotten a much-needed pedicure, I'd set the wheels in motion to get Roberta back on track, and I was ready to talk to Hunter. The faded neon-orange for-lease sign in the building next door caught my eye once again. I frowned; it irritated the crap out of me when people didn't return business calls.
The more I thought about it, though, the more I wanted it, so I pulled out my phone and dialed again. This time, I got a message saying the number had been disconnected. I pulled my phone back and compared the numbers on the screen to the ones on the sign to make sure I hadn't transposed a number or something, but it was the right one.
I stared through the window, rubbing the back of my neck. I wasn't sure what to do next. The girls said he wasn't taking their phone calls, and for all I knew, he may have only been renting the place, too. Something beside the display case seemed to flash, but I decided when I moved closer it must have been a trick of the afternoon light.
Turning away from the building, I made my way to the courthouse, thinking over what Coralee had said. I felt bad for being such an ass in the yard, especially now that I was fairly certain he'd been unduly influenced. My brain ground to a screaming halt. He'd been fine just a few minutes before he turned into Superjerk, and hadn't left my sight. I ran through the scenario again in my head. We were talking, Smitty came in, Addy and Belle came in. That was all. The phone hadn't rang, so it couldn't have been that.
I'd known Smitty all my life and he didn't have an ounce of magical blood in him. As far as I knew, he didn't even know about magic. Addy and Belle were incorporeal and had no magic. That left ... me, or something that he touched, or maybe consumed before I got there. But I hadn't even seen any of the other victims so I couldn’t be the common denominator. Well, Kirsten. But not the other three. Still, there's no such thing as coincidence.
I was almost to Hunter's office before a chirpy voice snapped me back to reality.
"Noelle! How you doin' sugar?" Peggy Sue Dalton was the receptionist-slash-everything person in the sheriff's office as well as the county clerk's office. She had a couple girls under her who helped out and worked on her days off, but you could bet your bottom dollar if you needed to know something about the town or the properties in it, Peggy Sue was the girl to ask.
"I'm good, Peggy Sue, how 'bout you?" She looked great—she was wearing a cheery yellow dress and had her hair in her signature bun, but she’d taken to leaving out a couple of wispy curls that softened it and framed her plump face. Had you met her before Hank bit the big one, you wouldn't have recognized her. She’d been a cranky, miserable woman back then. Everybody hated going to the courthouse.
Come to find out, once Hank died and she wasn't being forced to rip people off anymore, she was a real peach. Yet another little way the wonderful person who knocked him off performed a service for the town and the people in it.
"I'm just dandy, sugar." She winked at me. "You here to see that spicy young man you're dating?"
"I am, actually. But I have a question for you, too. You know the building beside the Clip N Curl?"
"Sure, sure," she said as she took a sip of her coffee. "What do you need to know about it?"
"I'm thinkin' about renting it for my new business, but I can't get anybody to answer the number in the window, and now it says it's disconnected. Can you find out who owns it?"
"My pleasure, sugar. I think I remember, but would rather double check than speak off memory. You want me to look now?"
"Oh, no,” I said, raising my hand. “It's not that important. It's been empty this long and I can't imagine anybody interested in it would have any better luck gettin' ahold of them that I have. But just when you get a chance in the next couple days would be awesome."
"Don't you worry about it, honey. I'll have it for you in just a jiff." She got up and waddled off in the direction I knew they kept the tax records.
"I'm gonna head back to Hunter's office, okay?" I called after her.
"Of course, sweetie!" She waved me in that direction and continued down the aisle, her sensible ballet flats slapping against the tile.
"Knock, knock," I said, pecking against the doorframe of Hunter's office. He had his head bent over an open file and startled when I spoke.
I gave him a tentative smile when he waved me in. "I'm sorry," I said.
The warmth in his eyes made my heart stutter. "No, I'm sorry, Noe. I don't know what came over me, but I was a real nimrod.” He furrowed his brow. “It’s weird, but I don't even remember much about what happened. But you gotta know I'd never leave Rae, or any of you, sitting in jail unless I was truly convinced you did it. Shoot, for that matter, I didn't even leave Anna Mae in jail, and I was half certain she killed Hank."
To be fair, I'd considered it, too. Hank had stepped out on her dozens o
f times and he treated her like crap. Shoot, the monstrous moose head he'd hung in their living room would have been justification for murder as far as I was concerned. But Anna Mae just wasn't a killer.
"I know. And I shouldn't have lost my cool with you, either. Thank you for what you did for Rae." He leaned across the desk and I met him halfway for a quick peck—we weren't much for PDA, especially when he was at work.
Peggy Sue cleared her throat from the doorway, but was grinning like the cat that ate the cream when I jerked back into my own chair, red-faced to have been caught in a lip-lock with her boss.
"The paperwork took me a minute to find"—I snorted because it had only been like three and a half seconds—"and it's wonky."
"What paperwork?" Hunter asked.
I explained.
"Okay," he said, "but what's wonky about it?"
Peggy Sue motioned with her head, asking permission to come inside. Hunter waved her in.
"Well, Erol Braxton, the lovely man who ran a sandwich shop there—great fried baloney sandwiches!—also owned it."
"Okay," I said. "So do we know how to get in contact with him?"
"Well that's just it. We have a number and an address, but the file was in one of the piles that Hank had separated out. I keep them in a separate cabinet because I figured something was up with most every one of them, and apparently this one's no different. The tax invoice we sent him several months ago was returned," she said, pulling an envelope from the file and holding it up. "I just tried to call the number we had. It's probably the same one you have, because it's been disconnected."
"All right, so what's the property value so I can at least know whether I should offer to buy or ask to rent when we do find the guy?" I asked.
She chewed on her lip while she dug through the folder. "Ah, here it is." She named a number that made my eyebrows shoot up my forehead so fast I was lucky they didn't vault through the ceiling.