“I know right? His problem is that he isn’t one of us.”
“It’s weird though that he stayed so long for only one job. Who pays for that?”
“Rich people. You’re rich. What would you pay that much for?”
Gus shrugged and then said, “Anything truly valuable my dad has. The only thing I’ve got is the house.”
Scarlett scooped dough into his hand and then said, “It’s weird isn’t. With them around, it feels like we’re still kids, but then I have all these grownup worries.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to believe we aren’t still little kids and this isn’t your after school job as you wrap up the bakery and prep for the next day. Remember how we used to crank up the music, bake, and play games once I was done working?”
He nodded and then she said, “I miss the simplicity of it. Who’s the town accountant? Abby?”
Gus nodded and Scarlett was sure the others already had figured it out. “She keeps coming back to it, doesn’t she? I suppose it explains things. Somehow Lacey got Abby to be a henchmen. If being accepted by the other popular kids meant that much to her, it makes me feel bad that we weren’t kinder to Abby.”
Gus took another piece of dough and then said, “We weren’t mean to her. She was always sour. This isn’t our fault.”
Lex crossed over to Gus and Scarlett and said, “They gave me three names in less than five minutes. Do you know how long it took me to narrow my job down to those same three names?”
“You should take it as a compliment,” Scarlett said, scooping dough into Lex’s hand.
“How so?” He shook his head and then ate the dough more to get it out of his hand than because he was enjoying it.
“They wouldn’t have helped you if they hadn’t accepted you. Welcome to Mystic Cove,” she told him.
She looked him over. The irritating confidence was gone, the overtly too-charming manner. And what was left was something that was appealing in a way that she wasn’t sure how to feel about. But she knew that he’d be leaving after his case was done and he was cleared of the murder.
She supposed she was grateful for him going even though she liked Lex. In fact, she liked him a lot more than made her comfortable. Especially given what Gram saw in Scarlett’s path. Faceplanting into love didn’t actually sound that great the more Scarlett thought about it. And she didn’t want to faceplant into love with someone who thought he could charm his way around her.
“She’s not wrong,” Gus added, but he didn’t look pleased about it. “If those four accept you, everyone else will.”
Lex’s brows rose and then he said,“Your Gram told me the dirtiest joke I’ve ever heard. Does that mean she likes me?”
Scarlett covered her ears and said, “Yes, but don’t tell it to me. If I know it, I might get conned into telling it to someone and then Luna will be behind me. And it’ll be the only thing I ever say that she remembers perfectly.”
“Mr. Jueavas called your Gram, Sugar Lips,” Lex said, watching Scarlett squirm.
She slapped her hands back over her ears and whined, “Having a vivid imagination is a curse. Can’t you see them in bed?”
“Scarlett,” Gus said, sounding sick. “Stop.”
“Please, can we leave? I have to get away from Gram and Jueavas before I have a seizure.”
Lex nodded and took a box. He shoved all the cookies up into it and they darted for the back door.
Chapter 21
They were laughing and looking back as though they were going to be chased.
“Abby’s office?” Scarlett asked as they hurried through the gate, away from where Lacey’s body had been found and out towards Arbor Avenue.
Lex opened the box, took a cookie and groaned, “Someone would marry you for these cookies alone.”
Scarlett snorted and then said, “That isn’t a fate that interests me.”
“All of this still doesn’t add up for me,” Gus said.
They were walking past Abby’s office to see if she was there, and there was a light on inside. Scarlett caught a glimpse of Abby and Kelly in the office together. Abby’s pointy little face was sour and her lips moved rapidly.
Was she pleading for mercy? Was she talking crap? Was she trying to comfort Kelly over the death of her best friend? Scarlett could see Lacey and Kelly working together maybe. No, she thought, she couldn’t.
“Was Lacey using those breakfasts to order Abby around? Why wouldn’t Abby throw Lacey under the bus now? Why doesn’t Abby discover what was happening and save herself from being blamed later?” Gus nodded at Old Mrs. Lovejoy and raised a hand to a mom with two little kids.
It took Scarlett a long moment to recognize the mom, but by then it was too late to say hello.
Lex was the one who answered Gus and what Lex said made Scarlett pause. “I’m not so sure you two are viewing things right.”
Scarlett and Gus looked at each other and then at Lex.
“You look at Abby and you see her high school self. You aren’t high school anymore. You were a late bloomer with the fangs right?”
Gus nodded once. It wasn’t his favorite subject.
“Scarlett, every single person told me that you were a day dreaming piece of fluff. They’re shocked by you now. They whisper about how you told off Wally instead of wilting. Only your sister and Gus seem entirely unsurprised. Well them and your Gram.”
“She was always stubborn,” Gus said, “Most people didn’t see that behind the quiet little high school baker.”
“So what,” Scarlett said, “Do you think that Abby is the killer?”
“What if Abby was pressured or blackmailed by Lacey into covering up Lacey’s embezzling? That would be a pretty good reason to commit murder.” Lex was leading and they were meandering around the town. Which would have looked a lot less ridiculous if they weren’t adults.
Scarlett glanced at Gus and saw that he was as uncertain as well. She was projecting young Abby on the adult. And Gus and Scarlett both quite a bit different these days in comparison to who they'd been in high school. They should give each other and Abby the benefit of having matured.
“I…I’m seeing high school Abby,” Scarlett admitted. “I don’t know adult Abby.”
“Adult Abby is a business owner who graduated from college, but what I think is most telling…didn’t you say Kelly wasn’t at the breakfasts and lunches with Lacey and Abby?”
Scarlett nodded.
“They wouldn’t have needed Kelly to embezzle,” Lex said. “Not if both of them were working together. Especially if Kelly is the airhead she seems.”
“We need the records of who got money,” Gus said, “Guessing gets us nowhere.”
“I’m trying to keep us from jumping to conclusions on what we think we know.”
“So, maybe Abby was manipulated by Lacey to steal from the city, and Abby had enough.”
It didn’t seem quite right for Scarlett somehow, but maybe that was because she was seeing the high school, pale, quiet little thing in the adult version of Abby. Maybe it wasn’t the druid discernment in Scarlett. Maybe she needed to stop and listen to what all her senses were telling her.
“By the stars,” Scarlett said sourly, “I don’t know what to believe or think.”
“Someone we know killed Lacey,” Gus said. “Someone we’d have trusted a few weeks ago.”
“Let’s get dinner,” Lex said, pointing to Mabel’s Diner. “We’ll wait for Abby to leave and see if we can find anything. It’s not about what could be. It’s about what we can prove.”
Abby left, walking swiftly away from her little office as their food arrived. Scarlett wanted to leave, but Lex shook his head.
“I didn’t know you knew, Lex,” Mabel said, standing by the table for too long.
Scarlett didn’t really blame Mabel. As a group, the three of them didn’t add up. Mabel had to be dying of curiosity. If only Scarlett had a way to explain, but she didn’t. Gus and Scarlett made sense—they’d been buddies since forever. It wouldn’t m
ake anyone pause to see the group of them together. But, with Lex? Lex the charming, arrogant, mysterious stranger? He didn’t fit at all.
Harper called, saving Scarlett from having to chat with Mabel and Gus threw cash on the table for her too, so she could escape and talk to her sister.
“Hey,” Scarlett replied.
“Do you have any idea how irritating that Shiny song is?”
Scarlett laughed. An evil, wicked, thank-goodness-that-isn’t-me cackle.
“I am dying here.”
Scarlett laughed harder. It was possible she snorted. She definitely lost a tear.
“I need to know what Scooby-Doo virus is. Luna is crying about it.”
“Cyber Chase,” Scarlett said instantly. “She loves that one.”
“I’m crying here too,” Harper said plaintively.
Scarlett sniffed.
“Stop it, sweetie, Auntie Harper is putting in the movie. Yes, eat a chocolate. Sure eat those cookies. Oh goodness, in my bed? Can’t you sit on the floor? No? Please? Fine.” Harper’s voice changed and she said, “Hurry up figuring this out. I need to sleep without a foot in my side and another in my face.”
“Cry me a river,” Scarlett countered. “I can sing every song from Moana, Frozen, and Tangled. I could give you a thesis on the evolution of the Disney princesses. Do you have any idea how detailed the art is in Cinderella? I mean…when have I noticed the shading on the walls in a cartoon? And, btw, I haven’t slept through the night since before Ella was born.”
“But that Shiny song gets in your head so hard,” Harper sniffed. “It’s rocketing around in my brain when I wake up.”
“Mmm-hmmm. Well, I’m solving crimes here. So we’ll have to chit-chat about this later.”
“I hate you,” Harper swore, “I’m never babysitting again.”
“Right. Then who will teach your nieces how to be epically, secretly, horrifically naughty?”
Harper sighed then hung up. Scarlett followed Lex and Gus as they walked away from Abby’s office.
“We need to go into the office from the back,” Lex said. He didn’t look over his shoulder, but he said, “Mabel is watching.”
“Of course, she is,” Scarlett said as she slid her phone into her back pocket.
Lex led them three blocks up and then when their awareness charm showed that no one was watching, they slid into the alley that would lead to behind Abby’s office. Lex led the way though it was Gus who seemed to sink into the darkness. Scarlett would have stumbled, but Gus took her hand and somehow the darkness both accepted her and lightened for her.
“That’s new,” she whispered.
Lex glanced back, but she didn’t think he could hear them.
“A lot about me has changed, Scarlett Oaken.”
He didn’t use power with her name, but she felt the tinge of her name’s power all the same. It was that he knew her so well—he formed her entirely with those two words. She shivered and felt as though he could make her again from sand and she wouldn’t know which was her and which was the fake.
Lex paused and even with assistance from Gus’s abilities, it took Scarlett a moment to realize Lex had stopped at a doorway that seemed to blend into the bricks. Or maybe it was the darkness. Perhaps a dark charm? Or maybe she was being a little ridiculous.
“This is it,” Lex said. He held his finger to his lips and then tried a charm. It didn’t work. He went from a charm to lock picks and Scarlett was sure that if he could see her face, it would be shocked.
Lex led the way in, and Scarlett realized that her abilities—her discernment might actually be really good for this. She closed her eyes and let her mind sink into the world around them.
“Leave the door open,” Scarlett said, feeling the wind come in and swirl around her ankles. She wasn’t only friends with the east wind—she loved all wind.
Lex had a penlight out and he was flicking through cabinets. Gus was standing back, but Scarlett didn’t see any reason to use Lex’s method or Gus’s. She closed her eyes and focused her will. When she opened her eyes, she looked for a path. She walked forward and let her hand fall onto a picture frame that she couldn’t see in the dark.
“This was important to her.”
She looked around and then crossed to the wall behind the desk. She laid her hand on it and said, “There’s something here.”
Lex rose and turned. He took what she said at full value, and Scarlett loved that he did. He didn’t pull the picture away. Instead, he looked out the window, considering. When he moved, he walked away from the desk, around the wall, and opened a door that was on the other side of the wall. It was kiddy-corner to the desk but outside of the view of the street. Lex opened the closet door and then reached in. He pulled out a locked box and the look on his face was irritated.
“You small-towners,” he said. “It’s almost too easy.”
The box had been high on a shelf on the other side of where Scarlett had pointed.
“It has a charm on it,” Gus said. “There’s the scent of magic on the box.”
Lex laughed an unamused thing and said, “We’ll take it with us. Is she really this stupid?”
Scarlett took the picture frame from the desk, crossed to Lex’s light and found Lacey and Abby’s face staring back. Abby looked happy. Lacey had her prom queen face on. Scarlett was sure, as she looked down at those two faces, that only Abby really cared. Only Abby was committed to what was represented there.
Did that mean that Abby was manipulated by Lacey? By offering Abby a friendship she’d always craved? How much was Abby complicit? Had she learned that it was all an act? Had she snapped then and murdered Lacey?
Scarlett put the picture back and followed Gus and Lex out of the office.
“Was that all you were drawn to?”
Scarlett nodded and Lex led them away from the back door, quite a ways down the alley and then through the park, so it looked like they had been walking. They caught quite a few gazes. They wouldn’t have got quite so many if it had been Scarlett with only one of the guys.
Scarlett took a deep breath and said, “We’re getting close.”
“That’s when it gets dangerous. We need to be careful.”
Gus said, “I don’t want you to be alone in the bakery, Scarlett.”
Scarlett took a breath to say she’d be fine and then remembered that moment of horror when she imagined her girls' future without her.
“Ok,” she said.
She could feel the shock in her companions. They had expected her to argue. But…she was a mom. She’d have ignored them in a second if she didn’t have the extra responsibility of being a parent.
“Ok,” Lex said quickly. “We’ll be safer together. All of us.”
She almost snorted. They wanted her to be safer. Neither of them was worried about themselves or the other. But then again, they would be safer together. All of them. Even if they wanted to pretend it was all about her.
The bakery was empty when they went inside. The rest of the cookies had been baked up and Henna had cleaned up after Scarlett. She felt a flash of guilt about that before she remembered that she’d have done the same and more for Henna. And that her friend wouldn’t want Scarlett to feel that guilt. She shook it off and led the way up the stairs.
When she walked in, she almost didn’t recognize the place. The cabinets were finished. Someone had tiled the backsplash of the kitchen—it was a series of purples and blues, and she loved it. The floor had bonded with the cabinetry, the musty scent was entirely gone. Though the apartment smelled of paint that was already fading, too.
“Oh,” she said. “Oh.”
It was lovely. Her bed was out of her living room. Her furniture had been brought back downstairs and arranged neatly. It looked like people lived here. Pictures were on the walls, cushions on a couch that had been in her mother’s parlor. There was the wide leather chair from the Oaken house that she’d always loved.
“What happened?” Lex asked, glancing around.
“This is what being an Oaken is,” Scarlett said and felt that guilt again. She’d left them. She’d broken tradition, and it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that she’d only come back to Mystic Cove and not to the family property. They’d given her a home back regardless.
“It must be nice,” Lex said.
“It is,” Gus said for Scarlett.
She was too busy swallowing the lump in her throat to be able to speak. Lex set the box down on the dining room table that had once been in her mother’s house and examined it.
“Can you smell the charm ingredients?” Lex asked Gus.
Scarlett left them to the box. She took a picture of the apartment and sent it to her sister. She got a picture of the crab from Moana back. Scarlett laughed and examined her daughter’s bedroom. They had a home now. There was a garden out back. There was a tree painted on the walls. They had new beds and they were curving wood creations painted white with pink and purple quilts.
She didn’t need to see the charms for peace and comfort to know that they were bound into the quilts. She’d had one like them when she was a kid. Scarlett set down on the bed with the purple comforter and laid down on it.
She looked towards the window and found a flower box hanging inside the glass with flowers planted and blooming inside of it. They smelled lovely and the room felt like it was waiting for the little druid princesses who would be there soon.
“He’s found a journal of payments,” Gus said from the doorway.
Scarlett looked over a question in her expression.
“It looks like someone has been blackmailing. It’s initials and payments. People don't hide honest records.”
“It doesn’t add up,” Scarlett said. “Abby didn’t kill over the payments or whatever that is. That office was full of repressed emotion. The emotion wasn’t wrapped up in money. It was wrapped up in that friendship, or whatever it was, between Lacey and Abby.
“The payments have to be part of things though,” Gus said. He sat down next to Scarlett and said, “What would we have been like without each other?”
“Not like this,” Scarlett took his hand, and their fingers tangled. “We would never have been like this.”
Bedtimes and Broomsticks Page 20