To Catch a Witch

by Heather Blake

  Snow had started falling, thick and heavy. It dusted his coat, his hair.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said, not worried. He didn’t bill Crafters unless they visited his office as a regular patient. I would, however, come up with some way to thank him for everything he’s done. Maybe tickets to a Celtics game or to the theater. I’d check with his wife, Amanda, to see what she recommended.

  As soon as I hung up with Noelle, I texted Stef to tell her I was on my way the hospital due to a family emergency and sent my apologies that I wouldn’t be able to make it back to Balefire tonight. I’d then run the rest of the way home and grabbed Dennis to help with Vince’s infection, which must have been from when he cut his hand on Harper’s window frame.

  Dennis grumbled something beneath his breath. “Of all the weeks for my mother to leave town…”

  “She’ll be back soon enough, and you can go back to your normally scheduled grumpiness. But you know you’ll miss me. And Harper too.”

  He glanced my way, and I caught his half smile. “You two do kind of grow on a witch. Like mold. Fuzzy mold.”

  “You always say the sweetest things. We don’t call you Dr. Dreadful for nothing.”

  He made a strange noise, and I realized he was laughing.

  “That’s a good one,” he said. “I might put that on my license plate.”

  We stomped our feet on the mat by the doors and went straight to the registration desk, where he fed the clerk some line about being Vince’s family doctor. It wasn’t long before we were whisked back to Vince’s room.

  Noelle paced the hallway outside Vince’s door. Worry creased her forehead and darkened her eyes. “Thank goodness you’re here.”

  I had never seen her upset, never mind frantic, and it made me all the more worried. “How’s he doing?” I asked.

  “Not good. They’re saying he’s septic? I don’t even know what that means, but they’re getting ready to transfer him to the operating room to remove the infection from his hand. The nurse is in there with him now. Who are you?” she asked Dennis.

  “They call me Dr. Dreadful.” He walked past her and went into Vince’s room.

  Noelle probably got whiplash when she snapped her head to look at me.

  “He’s Vince’s doctor,” I said. “Has a wacky sense of humor.”

  Her eyes were wide. “I’ll say.”

  “I’m going to go in for a second. Maybe if Vince sees me, he’ll stop saying my name.”

  She practically pushed me to the door. “Yes, go.”

  The door opened soundlessly into a bright room that smelled of bleach. There were at least three machines hooked up to Vince.

  My gaze quickly went to the nurse who was slumped in a chair, her head tilted downward on her chest. I glanced at Dennis. “What did you do to her?”

  “She was a bit tired. A power nap will do wonders.”

  “Darcy?” Vince murmured.

  “I’m here,” I said, rushing to his side. He looked worse than Harper had on Saturday morning, which was saying something.

  “Hand,” he said.

  “Yeah, Mr. It’s Fine. Look at you now. Next time, maybe take my advice when I tell you to go to a doctor?”

  “Bossy,” he mumbled.

  “Tell me about it,” Dennis said. Then he looked at me. “Block the door.”

  I stood in front of it, planted my feet, and shot my arms out to the sides.

  No one was getting in.

  Dennis rubbed his hands together, then placed them on Vince’s chest right above his heart. One of the monitors started chirping like crazy. Then he moved his hands to cover Vince’s injured hand.

  Dennis closed his eyes. A moment later, he murmured a spell and blinked his left eye twice. The spell had been cast.

  Vince’s eyes fluttered closed, but his chest rose and fell steadily. His coloring was immediately better.

  Dennis opened his eyes and said, “His hand will still need surgery to remove the damage caused by the infection, but I’ve stopped the infection in his blood. He’ll be asleep for a little while my spell works its way through his circulatory system. Speaking of sleeping…” He walked over and gently touched the nurse’s temple.

  She nurse woke up, blinked, and looked around. “What’s happening?”

  “The monitor is going off,” I said, trying to distract her from the fact that she’d been out cold for a couple of minutes. “Is he okay?”

  She stood up, opened her mouth, then closed it again. She silenced the beeping monitor, then quickly checked Vince’s blood pressure, then his temperature. “Normal,” she said, staring at the thermometer like it was defective.

  “I’m going to make a call,” Dennis said. “I’ll be out in the vestibule should you need me.”

  The nurse eyed us suspiciously.

  I smiled wide and pointed to the hallway. “I’ll just be out there.”

  Nothing to see here. No magic happening at all. Nope. No, sirree.

  As soon as I stepped into the hallway, I heard her using the intercom on Vince’s bed to ask someone to page a doctor.

  It wasn’t long before a doctor came running, his hand holding his stethoscope close to his chest as he rushed into Vince’s room. Two nurses followed.

  “What’s going on?” Noelle asked.

  “I don’t know,” I lied. “The nurse in Vince’s room said his fever had broken and his blood pressure had stabilized.”

  “Really?” Noelle took a deep breath and leaned against the wall. “Thank goodness.”

  We stood there pressed to the wall for a few minutes before the doctor came back out.

  “I’ve never seen such a turnaround,” he said. “I need to run more tests, but it appears his body is fighting off the infection on his own. He’ll still need surgery, however, the sooner, the better.”

  It wasn’t long before Vince was taken off to the operating room, and Noelle and I went to find some coffee while we waited for news. I hadn’t seen Dennis since he went to make his call and hoped he hadn’t left me behind, since he was the one who’d driven here.

  Noelle talked as we walked. “We were going to a movie, then dinner. He told me he just had a cold. Men. He collapsed and an ambulance came, then the doctor kept asking me how Vince hurt his hand, and I had no idea. That’s when Vince started saying your name over and over.”

  “I was there when he cut his hand. It was in Harper’s apartment. He’d been trying to get the window open. It was stuck.”

  She winced. “I’m glad he’s going to be okay.”

  We found a snack bar near the OR waiting room and ordered two coffees. “I’m glad you were with him. So, dinner and a movie? And the playhouse yesterday…”

  Giving a little shrug, she said, “He’s an interesting guy.”

  The mama hen in me started pecking. “Is he still going to be interesting after he buys a house?”

  She smiled. “I think so. I don’t know. Maybe?” Color rose up her neck. “Has he said anything about me?”

  “He likes you.” I took a sip of my coffee. “How do you feel about fixer-uppers?”

  Her smile turned into a wide grin. “I adore them.”

  “That’s good. Really good. Remember that,” I said as my phone rang. “Sorry, I should take this. It’s Nick.”

  “Go, go.” She shooed me with her hands.

  Since no cell phone calls were allowed inside the building, I answered and hurried toward a nearby exit. Snow continued to fall steadily.

  “Everything okay?” Nick asked. “I got home and Harper said you’d rushed in here, grabbed Dennis, and dragged him out. Something about Vince?”

  I quickly explained, then said, “Now tell me what happened with Duncan?”

  “Officers found some footprints in the snow but eventually he hit pavement and they lost track of him.”

  “Did you check Ben’s place?”

  He chuckled. “Ben’s place is being watched. Duncan can’t hide forever. His face is all over news reports and papers.”<
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  I questioned why Duncan—if he hadn’t killed Abby—was hiding at all. His actions weren’t those of an innocent man.

  “And Balefire?” I asked. “The blanket fuzz? The jump rope?”

  “I’m working on drafting a search warrant for Joe and Madison’s house right now. I’ll get it before a judge first thing tomorrow.”

  “Do you have a team watching Joe and Madison?” If Joe killed Abby because she found out about his tax fraud, then he threatened me with the noose because I was asking questions about the bookkeeping …

  “Unfortunately, no. I’m out of manpower. Between the search for Duncan, watching Ben and Quinn…”

  The hazard of a small-town police force.

  I tried to console myself with the knowledge that Joe couldn’t possibly think silencing me at this point would help him in any way. The information I’d discovered was already out there.

  Unless he simply wanted to seek revenge because of what I’d uncovered.

  Giving my head a good shake, I tried not to think too hard about it.

  Nick said, “Be extra careful, Darcy. Don’t take any chances, okay?”

  I was beyond grateful that Dennis was here at the hospital with me. “I promise. Now,” I said taking a deep breath. “Enough of the Bryants. Tell me what you know about Harper and Marcus. He’d already left when I ran in and stole Dennis. What happened?”

  “I don’t exactly know,” he said, dropping his voice. “But he came back. He and Harper are upstairs talking. And laughing. There’s been a lot of laughing.”

  I did a little jig. A person walking by widened the distance between us.

  “You should see Mimi dancing around the kitchen.”

  “Oh, I can imagine,” I said. “Easily.”

  “Are you going to be home soon?”

  “I’ll probably wait until Vince is out of surgery. I should call Glinda, too.” I hadn’t thought about it, that he had family who could be here to support him.

  Somewhere along the line I’d come to think of myself as part of his family, which I suddenly realized was why I had such a soft spot for him. Family was everything to me.

  Vince was the pesky little brother I’d never had.

  I fought a sudden wave of tears, said my goodbyes, and went back into the hospital.

  “Everything okay?” Noelle asked as I sat back down.

  “It’s been a rough few days,” I said, not really knowing how to answer that question. There was still so much unresolved.

  “I still can’t believe what happened,” Noelle said. “It feels like yesterday that Abby was sitting in my office, talking about selling her house. You, ah, haven’t found out who inherits the house, have you?”

  She and Vince might just be a match made in heaven. “No. As far as anyone knows, there’s no heirs and no will.”

  “Rats.”

  “Hey, you mentioned the other day that Abby asked you to hold off on listing the house until Wednesday.”

  She bobbed her head. “That’s right.”

  “Did she happen to say where she planned to move to?” It was one of those little details bothering me. Ben lived in such a tiny apartment. It didn’t make sense she’d move in with him, when he could easily live with her.

  “Oh, sure. She had me looking for a new house. I found a charming little Gambrel not too far from a training facility she planned to rent. Sadly, she was supposed to be looking at it today.”

  “Really? Where is the house? Here in the village?”

  “No, no. In Wakefield.”

  I found myself repeating what I’d said the other day. “Wakefield? As in twenty minutes away Wakefield?”

  “Yeah. Why? Is that important?”

  I wasn’t sure.

  But I highly doubted it was a coincidence that was the town where Duncan Cole lived.

  * * *

  It was after midnight by the time I left the hospital, and I was beyond grateful Dennis hadn’t seemed to mind staying so late. As I exited the emergency room doors, I tried to remember where Dennis had parked—he’d left a few minutes before me to clear the snow from the car and get it warmed up.

  I blinked against the heavy snow and spotted him in the distance, the glow of the taillights a dead giveaway to his location.

  I was lost in my thoughts as I hurried along, thinking about the bombshell Noelle had dropped about Abby moving to Wakefield and how it had to be connected to Duncan.

  But how?

  I cursed him for not coming forward. By now, he had to know the police wanted to talk to him. So why was he still hiding? Or better yet, what was he hiding?

  “Darcy! Look out!”

  I barely registered Dennis’s words and the fact that he was sprinting toward me before I heard the footsteps crunching in the snow behind me. I spun around in time to see someone dressed all in black—their face covered in a three-hole black ski mask—raise a tire iron above their head. I threw my arms up to block the blow and cried out in pain as the tire iron hit my arm.

  The attacker quickly ran off, dodging parked cars. A moment later, Dennis was at my side. He threw a look in the direction the attacker had gone, but didn’t give chase. It would have been pointless, since the person was already halfway across the lot.

  Even in the deep snow.

  Obviously, it was someone who had great speed and athletic ability.

  Pain washed over me, making me nauseous. I cradled my arm as tears filled my eyes. If I hadn’t turned around, that tire iron would have landed on the back of my head.

  My knees went weak and Dennis grabbed me. Carefully, he lowered me to the ground and knelt next to me. “Let me see your arm.”

  I grit my teeth, and with his help, I wiggled out of my coat.

  My forearm was already swollen to nearly twice its normal size, and just seeing it made me dizzy.

  “Close your eyes,” he said.

  I didn’t need to be asked twice.

  “It’s a good thing you had on a thick coat,” he said.

  I felt his warm hands on my skin, and immediately the pain ebbed. My arm was healed.

  I opened my eyes. “Thank goodness you were here.”

  “I’m not sure who you’ve been hanging out lately, but I think you need some new friends.”

  I blinked, then burst into tears.

  Awkwardly, he patted my back, then ran a thumb across my forehead. “Take a deep breath.”

  I did as he said and felt warmth flood through me. I heard sirens in the distance and noticed a hospital security guard running toward us.

  “You’re okay,” Dennis said.

  And I was. Thanks to him. “You’re angling to have Harper’s baby named after you, aren’t you?”

  He smiled. “Yes, yes, I am.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “It was Ben,” Mrs. P said late the next morning as she sat on the kitchen island, her tail dangling. The tip of it was wrapped in a strip of white gauze. “Quinn didn’t talk to him long, but she clearly said his name.”

  Pepe and Mrs. P had stopped by to give me a full report on their nighttime adventures, which apparently had proved quite rewarding.

  Fighting a yawn, I propped my elbows on the countertop. “What did she say?”

  I’d been up most of the night dealing with the aftermath of the attack. Nick had met Dennis and me at the hospital, and I was pretty sure Nick had promised to name one of our future children after the man. There was no doubt we owed him a lot.

  The police had a copy of the surveillance video, but it didn’t give much insight into who the attacker had been.

  Between the snow and darkness, there was nothing much to be seen. The attacker was taller than I was, thin, and fast. It could have been any of the Bryants, except Madison, since she was my height. Or Duncan.

  “Very little,” Pepe said. He was eating a bite of cheese Danish. “There were many tears shed.”

  “And she was a little loopy,” Mrs. P added, “thanks to a sleeping potion Ve had given her.�
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  “Who called who?” I asked.

  I looked out the window and smiled as I watched Higgins and Missy play in the snow with Mimi, who was out of school for a snow day. She was trying to make a snow angel, but every time she lied down, Higgins would jump on her. I’d been out there with them until my little mouse friends had shown up.

  I was trying not to worry about someone possibly being out there, watching them. They were safe as long as they stayed in the yard. And Missy and Higgins had proved to be good guard dogs. They’d be the first to raise an alarm if someone approached.

  We hadn’t told anyone what had happened last night. Not yet. There was no need to scare them when I was fine. Thanks to Dennis.

  My nerves were shot, however. Two threats on my life were two too many. I could not—and would not—take any risks where the Bryants were concerned. I wouldn’t be interviewing any of them alone—I’d make sure Nick came with me. One of them was guilty. I just didn’t know which one quite yet.

  Harper and Archie were both still asleep. Harper because she was still healing, and Archie because he had found the bottle of rum last night. I hadn’t had a chance to get Harper alone yet for a full rundown on her meeting with Marcus, but I knew the basics. He was staying in the village (though soon to be homeless), he was thrilled about the baby (yet worried about a miscarriage), and they were back together.

  Nick had left for work already. He was on the warpath and planned to question all the Bryants again as soon as he could while he waited on the search warrant for Joe and Madison’s house. But first he had to deal with the warrants that had finally come through for Duncan’s car and apartment. We both hoped Nick would find something to explain why Abby had planned to move to Wakefield.

  After they eloped, were she and Ben planning to partner with Duncan to open a training facility? Had they been keeping the big picture secret, fearing a backlash from Joe and Lucinda?

  I could see them fearing such a thing. I could see it quite clearly.

  But did it factor into why Abby was dead?

  Ben hadn’t given any insight into the matter, either, when Nick questioned him yesterday. He’d lawyered up, and Nick hadn’t had enough evidence to arrest him. His hands were tied.