Sweet Magic

by Connie Shelton

  So far, all of her business dealings with Stan Bookman and Book It Travel had worked out well. In the couple of years she’d been supplying handmade chocolates for the passengers on his private charter service, she’d received high accolades. The volume of business had required a separate facility and more employees than she’d begun with at her downtown bakery, Sweet’s Sweets, but the offset had been financially very lucrative.

  A mile later, Beau turned onto the smaller county road that led to their ranch property, and within a minute they were entering the long driveway to the large log house where Beau had lived before they married. He swung the cruiser in a loop, delivering Sam right to the door. The dogs, Ranger and Nellie, raised their heads and their tails began to wag.

  “I’ll be at the office unless I get some fantastic break in this robbery case,” he said. “Come by for lunch if you’re finished by then.”

  “Let’s play it by ear. It could take a couple hours to read this thing and make notes, then I’ll probably want to run it over to Nancy Olgado’s office.”

  “You seem a little stressed, darlin’,” he said with a concerned look on his face. “Is it just the wedding, or does this new contract have you worried?”

  She opened her door and shrugged. “Some of each, I guess. The wedding is over now, and once I get this new contract done, I’ll relax.” She leaned over and kissed him. “I miss helping you with your cases. Life has gotten too busy.”

  He caressed the side of her face. “Yes, it has. Let’s plan a little trip or something just for the two of us.”

  She nodded, knowing it wouldn’t happen right away. Summer, with the huge influx of tourists in Taos, was a busy time for the sheriff’s office second only to winter when the weather played a big factor in traffic problems. This time of year it was a whole other set of crimes, such as this recent outbreak of robberies at several of the merchants on the Taos Plaza.

  Their fingertips lingered together, another kiss, and he was on his way.

  Sam tickled the border collie’s ears as the dog rose to go inside with her. Ranger, the black Lab, stayed on the porch, watching Beau’s cruiser leave. She deposited her bag on the sofa and headed for the kitchen to heat the kettle for tea. She needed comforting. Maybe Beau was right—her only daughter’s marriage was a big step, even though Kelly had been on her own for more than ten years. No, it wasn’t that.

  The weariness that had settled over her recently was most likely due to Sam’s overextending herself. She loved to stay busy, but this was something more, and the secret source of her energy didn’t seem to be having the same effect these days.

  While the kettle heated, she went upstairs and picked up the carved wooden box she’d left on her dresser. The antique piece had been given to her a few years ago when an old woman told her she was meant to have it. All Sam knew was that she’d experienced a reaction between herself and the box every time she’d handled it—until recently.

  She cradled it in her arms and waited. The wood warmed slightly, and the dark color lightened a little. But five minutes later, when the tea kettle began to screech, the box still hadn’t changed much. Was the artifact losing its power? Was she losing hers?

  Just when she could have used some spare energy to deal with the new cruise line contract, it appeared her old standby wasn’t going to provide it. She set the box aside and went downstairs where she brewed a cup of very strong tea and grabbed a cereal bar Beau had left months ago.

  A caffeine and sugar boost was most certainly not what she needed, but it was handy at the moment. She carried them to the dining table in the great room and stared out the wide French doors at the open fields beyond. The thick contract waited. Finishing the cereal bar and taking a few sips of her tea, she began reading the first page. By page three, she felt herself nodding and realized she would need to have legal advice to interpret it.

  This was a far more complex document than her previous agreements with Book It Travel. Although he had described the cruise line as a small company that ran boutique cruises to exotic places, the parent company behind it was mega-big and they wanted all sorts of assurances from their vendors. She’d picked up the phone, hoping to get an appointment with her lawyer on short notice, when the dogs began barking.

  A glance toward the driveway showed that a white sedan had pulled up near the front door. A woman in her forties and a man who was probably a bit younger were getting out. When the woman turned to face the house, Sam recognized her.

  Isobel St. Clair from The Vongraf Foundation. What on earth would the antiquities expert want here? Sam had a sinking feeling.

  Chapter 3

  “Samantha. It’s good to see you again.” Isobel St. Clair wore a deep plum dress that flattered her slender frame, her green eyes, and shoulder-length dark hair. She indicated the man with her, a twenty-something who wore black jeans and T-shirt, his hair sticking out in the random angles favored by his age group. “This is my assistant, Tony Robards. May we come inside?”

  It took Sam a long moment to shift mental gears, to get her mind away from chocolates, cruise lines, and contracts and remind herself of Isobel’s position as head of the world’s leading institution that studied ancient artifacts, especially those with unexplained powers. On the woman’s last visit to Taos she had delivered a warning, to save Sam from some evil people who wanted to take the wooden box. Sam would have believed the visit to be a prank, except that Isobel provided the credentials, even spoke the correct words to let Sam know she was legitimate.

  “What’s this about?” Sam asked.

  “I’d rather not discuss it out in the open. If we could just …”

  Sam stepped aside, mainly because neither of the dogs seemed overly concerned. Nellie had nudged Tony and the young man smiled easily as he offered his hand for a sniff of approval.

  “Can I offer you some tea, a soda or something?” Sam asked, her inner hostess speaking up before she had the chance to think it through.

  “Nothing, thanks. I’m afraid I have some rather frightening news.”

  Sam felt her muscles tense, her expression freeze in place. She ushered them to the sofa and chairs near the fireplace.

  Isobel perched on the edge of a chair. Tony studied Beau’s collection of arrowheads, framed in a shadowbox, on the mantel.

  Sam tried to behave as if she was patiently waiting, but she couldn’t maintain it. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Marcus Fitch is back.” Isobel pulled a photo from her small shoulder bag and placed it on the coffee table. It showed a candid shot of a dark-haired man with blue eyes, sitting at an outdoor bistro table.

  “Back—here in Taos?”

  “Not yet, as far as we know, but he is definitely back in the US.”

  “I wasn’t aware he’d left.”

  “Sam, please don’t take this lightly.” Isobel’s expression was more pleading than scolding. We—The Vongraf Foundation—enlisted the help of the CIA after the incident here.”

  “More than a year ago, isn’t it?”

  Isobel nodded. “He was tracked to Italy last winter, then to Vatican City. Apparently, OSM maintains its connections there and Fitch has enlisted some powerful help.”

  “I thought you told me this Offici … the … whatever OSM stands for … I thought you told me they were a very powerful group. Why do they need help from the Vatican?”

  “Let me backtrack a moment. We at The Vongraf have documented two carved boxes—one is yours, the other belonged to your uncle. Mr. O’Shaughnessy brought his to us for testing when he bought it in the late 1960s. Despite the fact that yours has small colored stones on it and his didn’t, apparently the two boxes tested positive for the same types of powers.”

  Sam leaned back into the depths of her chair. “Uncle Terry was planning to tell me more about the box, there in his study in Ireland. He died before we had the conversation. I took the box with me, hoping to learn more, but it disappeared from our rental car. I had hardly turned my back on it
…”

  “Some of our staff members have attempted to trace it, but with no luck. So, you’ve no idea where it is now?” Tony asked. Obviously, he was privy to at least some of the information about the carved boxes.

  Sam looked back at Isobel, who shook her head. “However, the point of our visit now is not about the box missing from Ireland. We know there is a third box.”

  If Sam thought she’d heard all the surprises, this one took her breath away. “Three?”

  “We believe it was hidden away deep in the Vatican archives for a very long time, possibly hundreds of years.”

  “You told me you had carbon dated mine to somewhere around the 12th century.”

  “Yes, and your uncle’s, as well. If all three boxes were created by the same woodcarver, the third must be the same age. The carver had scratched names inside the lids. The one at the Vatican is called Facinor, which means ‘evil’.”

  Sam digested this bit of information before she spoke. “That’s a long time to keep something like this in hiding.”

  “The Church is a very old establishment,” Isobel said with a wry grin. “It’s entirely possible the box was there all this time.”

  “You said it was hidden. What has changed?”

  Tony took a seat on the sofa, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He looked at Sam and spoke frankly. “Marcus Fitch. He has declared himself on a mission to get his hands on all three boxes.”

  “And you know this … how?” Sam asked.

  “I’ve been in touch with the leader of OSM in Washington, a man called Elias Swift.”

  “I thought this was a super top-secret organization?”

  “It is, but things have changed. Fitch appears to be acting on his own to some extent. Elias Swift is being very cagey about it.”

  Sam blew out the breath she realized she’d been holding. “What does any of this have to do with me?” And why now? I’ve got my hands full with way too much already.

  “We only wanted to caution you. Watch for Fitch, but also keep an eye out for anyone prowling around—we don’t know who else he might have enlisted as help.”

  Sam stood. “Would you like to take my box with you? Maybe I’m not the person who should be responsible for such an artifact.”

  “Oh no, Sam. You are absolutely the right person to have it. The boxes have always come into the right hands at the right time in history. When Bertha Martinez gave it to you, it was meant to be.”

  Tony had followed Sam’s lead, standing and moving toward the front door. The discussion was nearly finished, she sensed. Isobel rose from her chair and hitched her thin purse strap to her shoulder. Together, they walked out to the log home’s covered porch and Isobel fished a car key from the purse.

  “Please take great care, Sam,” she said. “We’ve uncovered clues that the boxes are most powerful when together. If Fitch has managed to locate the one from Ireland, and we’re fairly certain he has the one from the Vatican—well, he only needs yours to complete the trio. I hope you have been careful with it, making certain to keep it under lock and key—you might want to consider a safer place, a bank or somewhere.”

  Tony had taken the car key and unlocked the sedan. Isobel stepped toward the passenger side, pausing a moment to reach into her purse. At that moment a shot rang out.

  Tony fell to the ground, a neat round hole in the center of his forehead.

  Chapter 4

  “Quick! In the house!” Sam shouted, grabbing for Isobel’s sleeve. Her heart was pounding louder than a boom-box as she shakily dialed Beau’s cell phone. “Keep away from the windows,” she told the other woman.

  Isobel moved like a robot, stiff and compliant to Sam’s directions. Her eyes never left the locked front door and the window beside it, where she could see Tony’s body lying still and pale next to the rental car.

  Sam quickly told Beau, in a few terse words, what had happened. He asked no questions. “I’m on my way. Stay indoors.”

  Five and a half minutes later, his cruiser roared up the drive with full lights and sirens. A short distance away, the sounds of more sirens surrounded the property. He’d made the fifteen-minute trip in record time. She took a deep breath, finally, and opened the front door a few inches.

  Beau took one glance at the body on the ground and positioned himself behind his cruiser, gun drawn, while he surveyed the open fields, the barn, and the trees beyond. Sam had already scanned the property before he arrived, standing at the edge of one window then another, but seeing no movement.

  “Did you see anyone moving out there?” he asked Sam after he’d holstered his service pistol and checked the body for a pulse.

  She shook her head and Isobel did the same.

  “Nothing. We were standing by the car. It happened instantaneously—one shot.”

  Isobel spoke up. “I wonder if I was the target. I’d dipped my head, looking at something in my purse, a split second before the bullet passed over the roof of the car and got Tony instead.”

  “It could have just as easily been me,” Sam said. “Considering the things you just told me.”

  Beau stared at her.

  “No—it’s just too weird to think about. I mean, here in Taos?” Sam couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea that some international killer would come here, would try to murder her.

  “You can give me all the details later,” Beau said. He was already pulling out his phone, giving orders to his dispatcher to bring a forensics team from Santa Fe and the medical investigator from Albuquerque.

  Another cruiser came up the drive and Deputy Rico got out. “I drove the county road down to the point where it intersects 64. No sign of any vehicle but Hector Martinez in his old pickup. Waters was out near the Gorge Bridge so he set up a checkpoint. So far, he hasn’t stopped anyone of interest.”

  “Damn. Well, we can’t even make a guess as to what direction he took until we figure out where he fired the shot from.” Beau stared toward the woods at the edge of his property. “There are a million places out there.”

  “But not that many where he could have quickly gotten to his vehicle to get away,” Rico said.

  Beau looked down at the body. “That was a precision shot, the kind a sniper makes,” he murmured.

  “He could’ve been lucky,” Rico said. “Or maybe he was closer than we think. How about over by the barn?”

  “We’ll have to check the whole property. He would’ve had to park on the county road and walk in. There’ll be evidence.” He ordered Sam and Isobel to remain in the house to avoid adding footprints and messing up the ground.

  Within an hour, more vehicles began to show up. Lisa, the department’s local forensic technician, came first followed by Deputy Evan Richards. Someone from the Office of the Medical Investigator arrived soon after. Sam felt a pang of sorrow over the body of Tony Robards lying on the ground in the summer heat, although Evan had erected a hasty awning above.

  There didn’t seem to be any quick way to properly conduct a crime scene investigation, what with all the technology, chain of evidence, and special handling to pass muster in court. Long gone were the Old West days of throwing a blanket over the dead man and digging him a quick grave.

  Sam watched the proceedings for a while but became restless. She couldn’t see Beau or Rico and assumed they were circling the perimeter of their land in search of evidence. It was going to be a long day.

  Isobel had settled on the sofa in the great room and was making calls, first to her office in Alexandria, Virginia, where she informed the office manager of Tony’s death and asked him to withhold an announcement until she’d had time to call the next of kin, his parents. Isobel dropped her phone on the coffee table and rested her head in her hands.

  “I don’t know how to do this,” she said when Sam passed through the room to stare out the French doors again. “He’s their only son.”

  “Would you like Beau to make the call? It’s the hardest part of his job, but at least he has some experience.
”

  Isobel shook her head. “I should do it. I just need to decide if calling on the phone is all right, or if I should wait until I return to Virginia and pay them a visit. Either way, I dread it.”

  Sam patted her shoulder and made soothing noises. “I’m going to make a platter of sandwiches. The team will be here a long time and it’s almost noon already. Want to help?”

  “Sure.” She gathered her hair into a low ponytail and reached into her purse for an elastic band.

  Her fingers pulled out a business card. “I was going to give you this, Sam. It’s Tony’s—his contact information in case you couldn’t reach me.” Her face crumpled. “I was looking down when the bullet got him. This card probably saved my life.” Tears flowed in streams down her face. “I can’t … I …”

  Her words were lost between sobs and she leaned into Sam’s shoulder, accepting the embrace. Sam held her and patted her back, feeling completely at a loss for words of comfort.

  The front door opened. “Ms. St. Clair? Could I ask—?” Beau paused until Isobel raised her head and wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

  “Certainly. Sorry about this …” She waved a hand in front of her face.

  Beau gave her a moment to compose herself. “Lisa and I have some questions, about the moment it happened. I’m sorry to put you through it, but the quicker we put together the events, the quicker we can start after the killer.”

  Isobel pulled a tissue from the box Sam kept on a nearby dresser, blew her nose delicately, took another tissue, then followed him out to the porch. Sam listened from the front door as he asked Isobel to recreate for him the exact positions where everyone had been at the time of the shot. Isobel approached the passenger side of the car. She mimicked ducking her head and showed exactly where Tony had been standing. Using a long dowel rod, Lisa indicated where the bullet had most likely come from—a stand of trees somewhat separated from the rest. The nearest spot to where the county road passed the north side of the property. It would have been less than fifty yards for the shooter to dash from the tree line back to his waiting vehicle.