by Nova Nelson
I nodded. “We’re victims to being seen as victims.”
“And it starts to seep in.”
“I know.”
His arm tightened around my shoulders. “I hate self-pity.”
“Me too.”
“And yet here I am, wallowing in it.” He chuckled. “The irony isn’t lost on me.”
“I think it’s fine, Tanner. Sometimes you can let it in when you’re by yourself or with someone you love.” I realized instantly what I’d said and scrambled to think of a way to recover, but before I could, he said, “I guess you’re right.” Then he kissed the top of my head. Where did that leave us on the L-word exactly?
“For what it’s worth,” he continued. “I don’t see you as a victim. I just see you as an amazing woman I couldn’t keep up with to save my life.”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” I said.
He laughed, and I could feel the muscles in his chest relax. “Same here.”
“I don’t think of you as a victim either, Tanner. To me, you’re just a man who’s so thoughtful and caring it makes me a little paranoid that you’re hiding a dark secret.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I get that from women a lot.”
I smacked him playfully on the stomach. “Oh yeah? From all your other girlfriends?”
He laughed. “There are other women in this town? I hadn’t noticed. Far as I’m concerned, they all disappeared the day you stumbled out of the Deadwoods, covered in dirt and leaves with a stick poking out of your hair. You were the most beautiful thing I’d ever set eyes on.”
I craned my neck to look up at him. “Good answer.”
He stared down at me, a soft smile resting on his lips and creating thin lines at the corners of his hazel eyes. “I know. I’ve been working on that line for a while now. Glad I finally got a chance to use it.”
And for the following minutes while we kissed, and in those that after when he held me until I fell asleep, Tanner Culpepper was the only man in Eastwind.
Chapter Five
James Bouquet’s copy of the Eastwind Watch mocked me from across the room as I bussed a table where two teenage werewolves had just spent an hour drinking milkshakes, playing footsie, and making an unbelievable mess while trying to feed each other strawfuls of milkshake.
The headline today was no surprise: Who Attacked Zoe Clementine?
But no matter what, I would not involve myself in this. I was done.
This psychic was out. I was out of the profession, if you could call it that; I wouldn’t since I only ever seemed to lose money in the process.
I only had three priorities, now. First, running Medium Rare. People depended on me there—employees and customers alike. At a very close second was spending time with Tanner. The talk we’d had the night before and the slow, easy morning after I woke up, still in his arms, was a closeness I didn’t know I’d been missing. But now I knew, and I needed more of that, please. And perhaps it was through that deep connection that I managed to not have a repeat of my recent dreams and slept soundly, the sound of Tanner’s calm heartbeat soothing me to sleep and greeting me again when I woke up. He was such a good man, and if I didn’t get my head out of the past and start focusing on the present or better yet, my future with him, even a great man wasn’t going to stick around.
And my third priority was, of course, learning to harness my powers so I didn’t accidentally kill someone who would then undoubtedly haunt me indefinitely. It would also be an added bonus if I could keep from getting myself killed, which had already nearly happened a few times in my short stay in Eastwind.
Although, when I thought about it, the fact that there were no cars in this town probably indicated that, statistically speaking, it was much safer than Austin. After all, I’d almost been killed in traffic on a daily basis when I worked at my restaurant downtown. Who knew it would be in a little rural town, rather than the big city, where my death machine on wheels (and a giant tree) finally got the best of me?
“Nora, dear!” Hyacinth called in her songbird voice, holding up her cup of coffee and shaking it slightly.
It was the international sign for a refill, but I knew that wasn’t what Hyacinth wanted most of all. I’d done a good job of either avoiding her or cutting her off before she could get started, but this was definitely a trap. In the spirit of good customer service, though, I had to walk right into it.
I brought over the coffee pot and braced myself. She didn’t disappoint.
“I heard you and Tanner found Zoe’s body.”
I cringed. “I don’t think you’re supposed to call it a ‘body’ in that context unless she died, which she didn’t.”
“Oh, well, you know what I mean. For all we know, she could have been dead before Sheriff Bloom breathed life back into her.”
“Wait, Gabby Bloom can do that?”
She shrugged coyly and smiled, which led me to believe this was just a rumor about angels that Hyacinth enjoyed perpetuating for whatever reason.
“Paper says they found her wand clogging the fountain.” It was James who said this, and he shook the paper and lowered it just enough to peer over the top of it at me. The implication of what he was saying wasn’t hard to catch.
“I don’t think she did it to herself,” I said quietly but firmly. “Can people even drown themselves without putting rocks in their pockets or tying their ankles to a cinderblock? I mean, doesn’t the survival instinct kick in?”
Hyacinth’s thin elven eyebrows rose up toward her hairline as she stared wide-eyed at me. “My oh my, someone’s feeling morbid this morning.”
I poured her coffee. “Your husband started it.”
She flapped a hand at him. “Oh, well, James is always morbid. Part of the whole werewolf thing, I suppose.”
“Creaturist…” mumbled James, and Hyacinth rolled her eyes.
“Promise me one thing, Nora,” Hyacinth said. “When you figure out who did it, you’ll give me a firsthand account. I’m so sick of having to hear about it fourth-hand from Janet Timberhelm, or worse, from the Eastwind Watch. They never get any of their facts straight.” She leaned forward and whispered louder than I thought a whisper could be, “You know the Watch reported that you and Donovan Stringfellow were seen sprinting from Sheehan’s hand in hand only a few weeks ago?” She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “Now, I know you would never do anything hand-in-hand with another man while you were dating Tanner, let alone hand-in-hand with his best friend.” She patted me gently on the arm. “Right?”
“Of course not, Hyacinth. And you’re right. It sounds like the Watch only reports part of the story and can’t keep its facts straight.”
“So, you’ll tell me once you find out who tried to murder Zoe? You’ll give me the scoop?”
I sighed. “I would, but I won’t have the scoop myself. I’m done sticking my nose into other people’s problems. Besides, this doesn’t even look like a specifically Fifth Wind matter. Anyone could handle it. In fact, that’s why we have a sheriff’s department, so us average citizens don’t have to handle this sort of thing.”
I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince more, me or Hyacinth.
“You’re telling me,” she began, blinking rapidly, her brow creasing like I’d just informed her diner coffee was made from unicorn blood, “you’re not going to help out when this town needs you most?”
Wow. Really pouring it on thick. I tried not to take it personally. “Yes, that’s what I’m telling you. I’m done with it.”
Her mouth dropped open and she swatted her husband’s newspaper to get his attention. “You hear that, James? Nora says she’s—”
“I heard,” said James. “I’m sitting right here.”
“Well, you didn’t say anything.”
“Because it’s none of my business.”
Hyacinth made an exasperated clucking sound and rolled her eyes so hard her head went with them. “Oh, please don’t act like you’re not interested in other people’s
business, James. That’s all that’s in the Watch! Other people’s business! And you don’t take your snout out of that thing for a second.”
I jumped in with, “I think the Flannerys are ready for their check. I’ll be back in a bit.” Then I scurried off.
The Flannerys weren’t even close to ready for their check. Anton was still whipping up their meals in the back. But I knew Hyacinth would be too busy chastising her husband to notice. “Can I get you a refill on coffee, Ginger?”
Ginger Flannery smiled. “Sure. And while I have you here, Nora, I was wondering … Well, Kensington and I were having a discussion about who we thought tried to drown Zoe, and I thought maybe you would have the inside scoop?” She was much more polite about it than Hyacinth, so I tried to return the sentiment.
Admittedly, I did a poor job of it. “It wasn’t me, so I couldn’t tell you who it was. I bet Zoe would like to know, too. And Manchester. And Bloom. So if I knew, I would probably tell them, and the person would already be arrested.”
Ginger leaned away from me in her seat, and I realized I’d snapped. “Sorry, sorry,” I said, “that was a perfectly reasonable question. I haven’t gotten the best sleep this last week, and it’s just that I was chatting with Hyacinth and—”
“Say no more,” Kensington said, nodding patiently. “We’ve all snapped at someone after speaking with Hyacinth.”
Ginger nodded her agreement. “But the sleep thing, you okay? Or have you and Tanner … had a busy week?” She winked.
Not for the first time that day, I thought about all the missed opportunities the previous night to turn talking and cuddling into something more. At the time, I’d been content with it as it was, not wanting to take it further, but now? Yeah, I was kicking myself just a little bit. “I wish. No, I’ve just been having these crazy dreams.”
“Nightmares?” Ginger said. “Never a good sign when a Fifth Wind witch is having nightmares.”
“No kidding,” added Kensington. “Might mean it’s time for Ginger and I to take that vacation to Avalon we’ve been talking about forever. Skip town until your nightmares go away.”
I chuckled. “No, not nightmares. Just vivid dreams.”
“I’d bet Ruby has a cure for that,” said Ginger. “Necromancy and dreams go hand-in-hand. Actually,”—she squinted and tapped a finger to her lips—“I remember Ferris Descartes was having a bad spell of nightmares for a while, and I think Ruby was the one who made the potion for him that cured it.”
“Really?” I said. “Ruby helped? Just like that?”
“Oh, well I’d assume she charged him for it. She wasn’t a philanthropist like you, Nora.”
Is that how people saw me? A philanthropist? It shouldn’t have bugged me, except it put me in the same category as Count Sebastian Malavic, the town’s favorite philanthropist and my least favorite vampire (admittedly, the only vampire I’d had one-on-one interaction with, but still). Although, it made sense that if people assumed I had a philanthropic streak—and why wouldn’t they believe that after I hadn’t once charged people for my help with the spirits—there was little chance of me making money off my skills. I would have to consciously change that perception if I wanted to stop losing money every time I helped someone out with a little ghosty problem.
Or. Wait. No, I didn’t need to change that perception because I was done with all that. For fang’s sake, if I couldn’t even get it straight, how could I expect anyone else to believe it?
The rest of the shift was the same song, different verse, with everyone assuming that if I didn’t already know who tried to drown Zoe Clementine, I was actively working on it and close to solving the case. It was like they’d forgotten that Eastwind had law enforcement. And as annoying as it was to hear myself repeat the same phrases over and over to each new inquiring customer, I appreciated the opportunity to get the word out that I was no longer a Fifth Wind philanthropist.
No one was buying what I was selling, though, and by the time I’d finished my side work mid-afternoon, I knew there was only one thing I could do to make everyone leave me alone about solving this mystery.
I went into the manager’s office in the back, wrote a note that said, “Drink at Sheehan’s in an hour?” And sent it off to Zoe Clementine.
For your information, I was totally not getting involved. Nope. Definitely not. Not even a little bit.
Chapter Six
Did I feel bad that Zoe dropped whatever afternoon plans she had to meet me at Sheehan’s on such short notice? A little. But I knew she would do it, and I had a feeling that if I just asked her a few questions, maybe I could then hand off the information to Stu Manchester or Gabby Bloom and be done with it. I’d wipe my hands clean. I’d excuse myself from the situation and go back to my three priorities.
Okay, yes, I was involving myself in the case a little, but it was for the sole purpose of not being more involved later on. That was legit.
Zoe was already seated at the bar, chatting away with Fiona Sheehan when I arrived. The East Wind witch wore a bright green tunic down to her knees with sunshine yellow tights. Surely she hadn’t been working at the animal sanctuary in that, right? But that would mean that once she got my owl, she took the time to clean up, change, and still beat me here. I supposed it was possible, but she would have had to drop everything she was doing immediately to pull it off. And even still, she didn’t look thrown together. How did she manage to look so good all the time?
Magic. That was the only possibility. I, meanwhile, was wearing what I’d worn to work, sans messy apron: charcoal gray capri pants and a white boatneck tee with three-quarter-length sleeves. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” was the theme for my wardrobe. And as the autumn weather began to roll in, I was anxiously awaiting the opportunity to bring my overcoat out of the closet again, but that was about as much excitement as I ever felt toward the things I wore.
“Nora!” Zoe shouted upon spotting me.
Stella Lytefoot fluttered midair at the end of the bar, scribbling intensely on a sheet of paper, formulating another new potion, no doubt, when Zoe yelled my name, and the pixie looked up, blinked as if surprised to discover herself in Sheehan’s, and waved a quick hello to me before stooping over the bar again.
“Hi, Zoe.” I smiled and grabbed a seat next to her, and she slid over an icy metal tankard. “Here you go. I asked Fiona what you usually drink, and she gave me this. I didn’t want you to have to wait for a drink.”
I looked around the empty bar. “Thanks. I hate waiting.” I nodded to Fiona, who nodded back and then left to do absolutely nothing at all.
“When I got your owl, I dropped everything. I mean, not everything. I was holding a bobcat kitten at the time, so I set her down gently in her enclosure. But then I hurried home and got ready. I assume you wanted to meet to talk about what happened to me.” She clapped her hands excitedly. “I always hear about you interviewing people, but I’ve never gotten to do it myself. Eee! This is going to be so fun.”
Whoa. This was a little much, even for Zoe. “Um, okay, slow down there. I’m not trying to be the one to solve this. I’m just trying to get the ball rolling, then I can pass it off to the real deputy and move on with my life.”
Her ecstatic smile deflated. “Oh. That’s not as fun.”
“Maybe not. But I really want to focus on other things. Eastwind managed its business without me for a long time. It can do it without me again. I just want to run Medium Rare the best I can, be a good girlfriend for Tanner, and learn to control my powers so they don’t get me or anyone else in trouble.”
Zoe nodded slowly. “Uh-huh.” She paused. “So, like, I don’t mean to give you unsolicited feedback, but if you’re going to make people believe you when you deliver that little speech of yours, you’re really going to need to practice it a few more times.” She sipped her beer as I tried to recover from the out-of-nowhere shade she’d just thrown my way.
“I— I mean it, though.”
She chuckled. “Okay.�
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I took a long drink from my beer to avoid saying something mean, and she took the opportunity to add, “Go ahead and ask me those questions you had that totally weren’t you getting involved in this case.”
My drinking turned into chugging. When I remembered that I hadn’t eaten lunch and drinking an entire beer on an empty stomach was something I should have learned not to do at least fifteen years ago, I stopped, set the tankard down, and ordered some bangers and mash from Fiona before returning my attention to Zoe.
“For the next half hour, I’m on the case, okay?”
Zoe smiled victoriously. “Yes!” Then she folded her hands in her lap, sat up straight on the barstool and said, “Hit me with the questions.”
“Start by telling me anything you may have remembered since the incident. What happened that morning? Do you remember Oliver leaving the sanctuary? Was he walking with you through Fulcrum Park?”
“Oh,” she said, leaning forward, her voice low. “No, you don’t think Oliver did it, did you?”
“Huh? No, of course not.” And yet I’d asked. My instincts had taken over, and I’d started at the first logical suspect given the information I had, forgetting that this was Oliver we were talking about. Oliver was secretly obsessed with Zoe, at least according to the spirit that had possessed him in our lessons. He wouldn’t hurt her.
But a little voice inside me said, Oh really? A man has never tried to murder a woman he was obsessed with?
Good point, cynical voice.
So, I suppose I did suspect Oliver, in an objective sort of way. Was this my Insight speaking?
“It wasn’t him,” Zoe insisted. “He wouldn’t do that.”
I wondered if she felt so strongly about that because she knew how he felt about her or because she felt the same about him. It couldn’t be both, or else they would be together.
“Okay, so I assume you remember him leaving?”
“Yes.”
There was just a moment’s hesitation before she said it. She was hiding something. But there was no telling what, and no point pressing the issue, so I moved on.