“The killer is here?” he asked, confused.
“I can explain everything, I promise.”
Cedric crossed his arms over his chest. “Give me the two-minute version, maybe. We can go in for more details later, but I don’t want to run in there without a good sense of what I’ll be facing.”
So she told Cedric in a rapid tone what she had seen on Laura Hall’s tablet, the name that had jogged her memory and the conclusions she had drawn. Cedric looked a little overwhelmed to be getting so much information so quickly, and for a minute he had a slightly dazed expression like he wasn’t processing it all fully.
He also looked irritated and perturbed when Ember conveniently didn’t mention how she had stumbled across Laura Hall’s tablet. But all of that could be smoothed out later.
Still, but the time she’d caught him fully up to speed on her thinking, Cedric had a determined look on his face and was watching the shop carefully.
“It’s a good theory,” he said. “I don’t know that it’s enough for a warrant, but I agree with your logic. And I’ll go in there right now for a little talk, all right?”
“I’m going in with you,” Ember said.
“No, you’re not,” Cedric replied firmly. “You’re waiting right out here, where it’s safe and very visible.”
“Why not? Why won’t you let me help you?”
“Because I’m armed,” he tapped his holster, “and you’re not. “And I wouldn’t forgive myself if I let something bad happen to you. Besides, there’s no reason this won’t all happen peacefully.”
Ember had a bad feeling about this, but she didn’t know how to put that feeling into words so that Cedric would understand. So she simply nodded at him, and watched him walk into the house.
Kali, sensing Ember’s fear and anxiety, rubbed lovingly against her ankles, trying to soothe her.
The shop door closed behind Cedric, and Ember couldn’t see anything that was going on. Ember watched, nervous, waiting for any sign that Cedric was in danger.
If the killer saw Ember and Cedric standing together outside, surely they’d know that the jig was up, and their identity had been discovered.
They might have been waiting inside for Cedric to come in, springing a trap for him.
“Oh, forget this,” she said, frustrated, and then took off for the shop door. Promise or not, Ember couldn’t stand idly by when every ounce of her was convinced Cedric was in danger.
Indeed, no sooner had she entered the ABC shop than she spotted Cedric, laid out across the ground in front of a display of dark rum jugs, out cold. There was a broken bottle of wine nearby, which someone had evidently broken over Cedric’s head to knock him out. Its dark red contents were spilled in a graphic puddle all over the floor, staining Cedric’s uniform like blood.
Crouching over his body, attempting to pour something thick, dark, and syrupy from a bottle and between Cedric’s parted lips, was Kara Denners.
Ember didn’t hesitate, not even enough for self-control. In a flash, she had reached out with her magic like two powerful arms and cast the bottle from Kara’s hands. It landed with a thud and rolled rapidly away from Kara.
Then, to keep Kara from harming Cedric any further, Ember’s magic lifted her up and threw her across the room.
Kara landed in a heavy, groaning heap, inert for the moment.
Ember scrambled her phone from her pocket and dialed 911.
By the time Kara was stirring again, Ember had already requested an ambulance and the police. They would be arriving any minute. Already, their sirens were audible in the distance.
Ember was holding Kara down against the ground, waiting for her to be carted away by the police. Kara, looking positively baffled and dazed, was staring at Ember like she couldn’t believe what she’d just seen.
“How did you know?” Kara stammered, fearful.
“Your husband’s name was in Laura Hall’s tablet,” Ember explained. “She was having an affair with him, wasn’t she? You wanted to take her out of the equation for what she was doing to your marriage.”
Kara was crying faintly. “I knew she loved specialty wines,” Kara said. “And the label… I thought it would be certain to draw Lyndsy’s attention when Laura inevitably came in demanding something new.”
“There’s a lot of variables there,” Ember said. “And four people died. Not just Laura.”
“Collateral damage,” Kara muttered. “They were hardly this town’s local heroes, anyway. Really, I did everyone a favor.”
“We’ll let the police sort all of that out,” Ember told her, not bothering to keep her anger from her voice.
At the thought of the police, Ember glanced over at Cedric. He looked badly off, but his chest was still rising and falling with his breaths, so she allowed herself to be heartened by that sight, the slow ebb and flow that reassured her he was still alive.
Just then, to Ember’s immense relief, the shop door opened and the cavalry arrived.
Twenty-Nine
Ember would have liked to stay to watch the entire process of Kara’s arrest. She felt she had earned at least that much, and she thought it would bring her a good deal of satisfaction.
However, when the EMTs who were carrying Cedric to the ambulance asked if she wanted to ride along with them, she took them up on the offer in a heartbeat.
She’d rather stick by Cedric’s side than look on in vindictive pleasure while a murderer got arrested. She felt confident she’d be able to find out what had happened with Kara later on.
The entire ride to the hospital, the EMTs were flurrying around the back of the ambulance, helping get Cedric hooked up to various machines. “He might have ingested belladonna,” she warned them, surprised that she was able to say the terrifying words in such a straightforward way. “She knocked him out with a wine bottle.”
The EMTs took this in, and one of them started digging in a tray of medications, clearly looking for something specific. Hopefully something that would help counteract the potential poisoning.
Cedric didn’t regain consciousness on the ride. When they did reach the hospital, Ember had to watch the nurses who met them at the door wheel Cedric away on a gurney. Even long after they had disappeared down some turn in the hallway, Ember saw the afterimage of him, motionless and slack-jawed, as if it were burned on the back of her eyelids.
Eventually, a kind nurse found Ember roaming the hallways and helped her into a waiting room. The coffee machine was dismal, and the TVs were all set, for some inexplicable reason, to the Home Shopping Network, but at least they were on mute.
And at least Cedric was alive. He had been alive in the ambulance, and she felt certain someone would have come and explained things to her if he’d taken a turn for the worse.
Ember was so set on this conclusion--that no news was good news--that when a doctor finally did come in to find her, she almost fainted from fear.
But the doctor, whose name tag read Dr. Williams, gave her a little smile, and suddenly everything was all right.
“We’ve got Sheriff Jamison settled in a private room,” she said. “Do you want to go in and see him?”
“Yes,” Ember answered, beaming. “Absolutely, yes.”
So Dr. Williams showed Ember through a complex network of hallways, past little hubs of nurse’s stations, taking a handful of turns that completely disoriented Ember, until she wasn’t sure she’d be able to find her way out of the hospital on her own when the time came.
But none of that mattered when Dr. Williams waved Ember through an open door and into one of the patient rooms off the hallway. Inside, Cedric, looking unfairly dignified in a flimsy hospital gown, was reclining in a hospital bed.
“He’s had his stomach pumped,” Dr. Williams said in an undertone. “And he’s had a nasty hit over the head, as you know. We’re keeping him overnight just to make sure he’s okay.”
“Thank you,” Ember said warmly.
Dr. Williams left them alone together. At first, Emb
er wasn’t certain whether Cedric was awake. His face was turned away, toward the window. But as she drew up near the bed, he turned and gave her a hazy, far off smile.
Which almost immediately faded to a frown.
“Didn’t I tell you,” he began, his voice faintly raspy, “to wait outside while I handled it?”
“Because you were doing such a great job of handling it,” Ember said with a soft, grateful laugh. She pulled up a chair next to Cedric’s bed and sank into it, her body feeling uncharacteristically heavy.
“I could have taken care of myself,” Cedric said. “You came bursting in before I had the chance.”
“Excuse me,” Ember chuckled. “You were unconscious and having poison poured into your mouth. I fail to see how you were taking care of yourself.”
Moving slowly, as if through molasses, Cedric reached out a hand from under the hospital blanket and captured Ember’s in his. Her heart lodged in her throat as his warm fingers closed around hers, squeezing gently.
“Let’s call it a difference of opinion,” he suggested, slowly and a little too deliberately for ease, so that she could tell he must be feeling woozy from whatever medicine they had given him. “And next time we’re in a life-and-death situation–”
“Heaven forbid,” Ember cut in, hand to heart.
“--you should do as I say, and keep your nose out of it.”
Ember smiled fondly, hefting their joined hands a little and giving his a gentle shake. “Hey, that’s not a fair request. You know since you’re the one in the hospital gown I can’t deny you anything.”
“I’d better be getting something out of this,” he said. “Or else what’s the use in getting nearly killed in the first place?”
“There’s no use,” Ember insisted. “Absolutely no use at all. In fact, I recommend you never, ever try it again.”
“Ember,” Cedric said, and his voice sounded more grave and intense than she’d been expecting, so she was forced to drop the joking tone and look him in the eye. “I mean it, all right? I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. Not on my watch.”
She held his gaze for a while, trying to take in his warning not as an admonishment but as an expression of his fear. He’d been scared for her.
Well, she’d been scared for him too.
She managed a smile. “I never even listened to my parents. Why do you think I should listen to you?”
He closed his eyes and huffed out a tiny laugh. “I bet you were an impossible child,” he said, voice growing thick and slow. Ember was about to object to this, but he was still muttering. “I can’t imagine why your parents would have wanted to have another one….”
Ember paused, holding her breath for the punchline. But Cedric had gone quiet now. He looked to Ember as if he had fallen back asleep.
Her parents wanting another child? She didn’t understand what he meant.
Oh well, she thought. He must have been exhausted. Didn’t know what he was saying.
Ember did her best to put the stray comment entirely out of her mind, focusing instead on the warm weight of his his hand still resting in hers, the rise and fall of his sleeping breaths.
Thirty
Tonight was the big night. The grand re-opening of the Broken Broomstick. Ember couldn’t be happier that she was going to be back in business and couldn’t wait to kick it off with this event.
“Good morning,” Kali purred as she made her way into the pub. She was swishing her tail back and forth, mischief evident in her eyes.
“What are you up to?” Ember asked her as she checked her list to make sure that everything was lined up for tonight.
“Oh nothing,” she whispered before she sauntered away. Ember didn’t have time to think on Kali’s strange behavior this morning.
Ember was wriggling her finger on her nose when there was a knock on the door. Looking up in surprise she made her way to see who could be here at this early hour.
“Sorry to bother you so early,” Lyndsy greeted her as she opened the door. Jeffrey was with her, and Ember could see a moving truck parked in the lot. “We just wanted to come in and say good-bye.”
“Please come in.”
“Oh, we won’t be long,” Lyndsy told her as they made their way inside. “I just wanted to thank you for everything. I loved working here with you and we will miss you.”
“Yes, it has been a pleasure working with you also,” Ember said to her. “You will be missed for sure, but I’m so happy for the both of you. I wish you both the best of luck with your marriage and new life.”
“Thank you,” Jeffrey said. Once his divorce was final he wasted no time in marrying Lyndsy. They went straight to the courthouse and now they were leaving town and starting a new life somewhere away from his past.
After some hugs and even a few tears, Ember led them back outside and waved to them as they left. Sighing, she made her way back to the bar to resume her list.
Soon, the pub was open and business was booming. Lunch went well with a busy crowd, and Ember couldn’t have been more excited as people piled in to be a part of this event.
“Hey there!” Sage bounded up to her at the bar.
“Hey, how are you?” Ember moved around the bar so that she could give her friend a hug.
“Oh, good. You know, just another day.”
“Really?” That didn’t sound like Sage’s normal joyous self. “How are things going with, oh what’s his name, the guy that you have been seeing?”
“Oh, I cut him loose,” she said nonchalantly. Ember’s brow furrowed at this.
“Why? You liked him so much.”
“He was just a bit too squirrelly for me, ya know?” Sage told her as she leaned her hip against the bar.
“What does that mean exactly, too squirrelly?” Ember asked her. She had never heard of someone being squirrelly before, and with her life she had seen and heard some pretty crazy things.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” Sage told her. Before Ember could probe her with more questions Sage pointed to the open door. “Look who’s here and not dressed for work.”
Ember decided to let the topic go as she looked towards the front door. Cedric was walking in, dressed in street clothes. No police uniform. Ember couldn’t stop the grin that overtook her face when he caught sight of her and gave her a wave.
Pushing through the mass of people, Cedric made his way to the bar where Ember and Sage were standing. “Can I get you a drink?” Ember asked him.
“Just a tea please,” he requested. As Ember moved to get him his drink she could hear the chatter of conversation from Sage and Cedric. Looking around her pub she was so proud that this night was such a success.
“Here you are,” Sage said as she handed Cedric the glass. Their fingers brushed and Ember couldn’t help the warmth that spread up her arm from the contact.
“Well, I’m going to go mingle,” Sage said, feeling the tension building between the two. Ember watched as her friend disappeared among the crowd.
“I’m really happy that your business is no longer suffering from the murders,” Cedric told her.
“Yeah, me too.” Ember smiled. “I was really worried that I wouldn’t be able to recover from the hit. But today has been so great.”
“Would you like to dance with me?” A shy look crossed Cedric’s face as he blurted out his question.
“Yes,” Ember smiled at him as he set his drink on the bar and took her hand. He led her out onto the dance floor, right to the middle of all the sweating bodies out there dancing.
Turning to her, he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her close to him as the song changed from something upbeat to something slower. Fire ignited from his touch and burned her to her core.
Due to their height difference Ember was unable to put her arms around his neck. Instead found herself wrapping her arms under his and pressing even closer to him. Looking into his hazel eyes, she couldn’t help the attraction that she felt for him.
One song led to two,
and soon they were just as sweaty as the rest of the crowd as the music dimmed down. Ember knew that this meant it was getting close to closing time and she couldn’t believe how she lost track of time in his arms.
“Ember,” Cedric said, looking down at her. “Will you go to dinner with me?”
A blush crept up Ember’s cheeks. She couldn’t believe that he was asking her out. She also couldn’t believe how excited the idea made her.
“I would love to,” Ember told him with a shy smile. Something moved in the corner of her eye and when she turned to look she saw Kali and Talako standing close by, a smile on both of their faces.
* * *
To Be Continued!!
* * *
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Dramatic Paws (Kitten Witch Cozy Mystery Series Book 1) Page 10