“Uh-oh,” Starla said.
Cherise grabbed my arm. “What are those doing in there?”
“Terry,” I whispered. “He’s never been too keen on this whole election thing.”
Dorothy smiled arrogantly at Ve. “I do believe you owe me an apology.”
Ve’s face had lost all color. She looked upward toward Terry’s windows and pursed her lips. Her hands stayed clenched at her sides.
“I’m waiting,” Dorothy said.
Ve didn’t say anything. She simply stomped away, and the crowd parted, letting her through. She stomped up Terry’s front steps and threw open the front door. A second later it slammed behind her.
I winced.
Dorothy stepped up beside me. “I’ll be expecting a written apology or you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.” She walked off, her hips swaying the whole way.
Starla said, “I have to get back to work. You’ll tell me how this ends up?”
I nodded.
The rest of the crowd slowly dispersed, leaving Cherise and me standing alone in the driveway. She continued to stare at Terry’s house. Her hands, too, were clenched at her sides.
“What do you think is going on in there?” Cherise asked.
I tipped my head back and forth. “Either she’s killed him by now or broken up with him.”
Cherise’s face lit. “Really?” She coughed. “I mean, really?”
Laughing, I grabbed her arm and headed back toward As You Wish. “Dorothy’s going to milk this incident for all its worth.”
“Yes she is,” Cherise said. “She’s . . . I don’t even have words.”
I stopped and looked at her. “She’s not the Elder, is she?”
Cherise burst out laughing. “The Elder? Oh heavens no. That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in forever. Dorothy, the Elder.” She kept laughing.
I didn’t think it was that funny.
“No, no. She wishes. Or maybe not, because that would mean she was d—” She abruptly cut herself off. Eyes wide, she clamped her lips closed.
“Mean she was what?”
“I’ve got to go. Tell Ve to call me!” She bolted.
“Mean what?” I shouted.
She waved.
I stared after her, wishing her lips were as loose as Finn’s. I’d been so close to finding out a vital piece of information.
Yet I’d never felt further from knowing the truth.
Chapter Twenty-two
“Higher,” I said, jerking my thumb upward.
Perched on a ladder, Nick lifted the curtain rod. “Here?”
“Higher still.”
He moved it up a tenth of an inch.
“Don’t make me get up there,” I threatened.
“The top of the window is here,” he said, motioning. “Why do we want the rod a foot above it?”
“Men,” Mimi murmured from her spot on the couch. She was flipping through one of the mythology books she’d checked out of the library. Higgins snored at her feet, and Missy lay curled next to her.
The little dog finally wandered home shortly after Ve’s showdown with Dorothy, none the worse for her latest jaunt. One of these days I was going to put a tracker on her to see exactly where she went.
“It gives the illusion that the window is bigger than it is,” I explained. Outside, rain splashed against the pane, and the only light came from the lamppost alongside the front walkway. A glowing beacon in a very dark night.
Ve still hadn’t returned from Terry’s by the time I left for Nick’s house and it made me wonder if she was busily cleaning up a crime scene or if they were . . . reconciling. I left her a note reminding her that I wasn’t going to be home tonight, and told her to call immediately if she needed me.
“Why don’t I just put in a new window?” Nick asked.
“Because lifting the rod is much more affordable.”
Laughing, he said, “Okay, okay.”
After marking holes, he grabbed a drill and in no time flat he hung the new curtains we’d bought hours ago.
Standing next to me, he tipped his head this way and that as he contemplated the finished product.
“What?” I asked.
“Are you sure about the fabric? It’s a little flimsy.”
I glanced at Mimi. I was pretty sure the expression on my face mirrored the one Scott Whiting had been shooting me the past couple of days. Help me.
It turned out Nick wasn’t one of those guys who had no opinion on home decorating. It had taken us several exhausting hours to find a shower curtain and accessories for the master bath, curtains for the living room and Nick’s bedroom, and a throw rug for his bedroom floor. He liked dark. I liked bright. He liked heavy textures, I preferred lightweight. Much bickering and compromise had taken place.
“I like them,” Mimi said, giving me a sympathetic look.
Delicately embroidered with a scrolling design that reminded me a lot of whimsical hourglasses, the ivory cotton sheers were modern yet classic. “Wait till morning,” I said. “See how much light comes in. Anything darker and this room would look like a cave.”
I’d compromised on the bathroom accessories—he’d had his heart set on a black-and-white theme to go with the beige walls and I’d given in. The shower curtain was a color-blocked black and white. The ebony toothbrush holder, tissue box, and soap pump were a no-frills, nonpatterned matte ceramic. Granted, that toothbrush holder was a step up from the glass tumbler he’d been using, but still.
And it wasn’t as though the black and white wasn’t pretty. It was. Very classic, crisp, clean. Yes, it just needed a feminine touch, but I already planned to hang black-and-white floral prints.
However . . . if the choice had been solely mine, I’d have brightened the space. Used a more soothing palette, like a pale blue-green paint and brushed nickel accessories.
He was winter, whereas I was summer.
As I thought about it, I had to remind myself for the hundredth time that this wasn’t about me. It was about us. Compromise was the name of this game, and it was his turn at bat.
Nick continued to give the curtains the hairy eyeball.
The sheers were perfect, and I was ready to do battle for them if need be.
When he glanced at me, he must have seen the warning in my gaze because he looped a hand around my waist and pulled me close. “You’re right. They’re just what this room needs.”
He was lying through his teeth just to appease me.
Compromise.
I nodded against the hollow of his neck. “I know.”
It hadn’t struck me how independent I’d become since my divorce. Making my own choices. My own decisions. Letting go of some of that independence was proving to be more difficult than I ever thought.
I suspected he felt the same.
Kissing the curve of my neck, he said, “How about we postpone the rest of the curtain hanging until tomorrow? Watch a movie instead?”
“Sounds good,” I said. It did, too. Curling up with him, letting my mind be occupied with something other than color palettes, political campaigns, and death sounded perfect. It had been a long couple of days.
Mimi said, “Circe was kind of a nut-job, wasn’t she? Turning men into pigs one minute, then changing them back again after she and Odysseus got really friendly, if you know what I mean. She turned someone into a sea monster out of jealousy, too. But, she was also known for purifying spells. Good, bad, good, bad. Which was the real her? Good or bad?”
She was really getting into that book. “Maybe she was both,” I said. “Ve would call her complex.”
Looking older than her years, she said, “Can people be both good and bad?”
I thought of Andreus—good and bad. Complex. “I think so, yes.”
“But how can someone be so . . . divided?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes people do bad things and then they try to atone for them. Rinse. Repeat.”
It was the biggest issue I’d had with Glinda, and why it was so hard to forgive her. She did horrible things, but she had never atoned. Never even apologized.
“Eventually, the hope is that the bad cycle is broken . . . and stays broken,” I said.
Sagely, she nodded, and I wondered if she was thinking of Glinda, too.
In the kitchen, I grabbed a jar of popcorn from the pantry. I hoped Nick had extra butter, because Cherise and Starla had me craving it after mentioning it this afternoon.
Nick came up behind me and whispered, “Maybe that book isn’t such a good choice for her.”
I turned. “You’d rather Goodnight Moon?”
Smiling, he said, “Yes, yes, I would.”
“Poor Dad, seeing his baby growing up.” I kissed his cheek.
“What am I going to do when she starts dating? Goes to college? Gets married?”
I laughed. “You’re getting ahead of yourself a wee bit.”
“Am I? Because time is flying by. She’ll be grown before we know it and we’ll be empty nesters.”
“Or maybe not,” I said, thinking about that fertility charm.
“What do you mea— Oh. I hadn’t thought about that.”
“No?” My stomach suddenly flip-flopped. What if he didn’t want more kids? We really had never talked about it.
He hadn’t had the ye olde snip, snip had he?
I started to panic until suddenly, his lips began to curve into smile that grew and grew until it had transformed his whole face into the picture of joy. “I like that idea. A lot.”
“Me, too,” I said quietly, baring my heart to him. I’d always wanted to be a mom.
Nick reached for me just as my cell phone rang—Harper’s hound dog ringtone. Arroooo.
He mumbled something about lousy timing, and I pushed the jar of popcorn into his hands. I fished around in my bag for my phone, wondering if Ve would check in sometime tonight. I was worried about her.
When I answered, Harper’s voice was filled with excitement. “He’s back.”
“Who’s back?” I asked, reaching for a big bowl from an upper shelf. “Where?”
“Andreus. At the Tavistock house. I see a light over there.”
Why did I have the feeling she’d been staking out the place? Marcus needed to come back ASAP before she petitioned the Elder for a job as a Craft snoop, too.
I put the bowl back in the cabinet. “We’ll be right there.”
“I’ll meet you outside.” She hung up.
“What’s wrong?” Nick asked and cursed under his breath when I told him.
He grabbed the phone, made a call, and within minutes we were in the car on the way to Spellbound. We’d left the pups behind with a dejected Mimi. She’d desperately wanted to come with us. Definitely too much time with Harper, I decided.
Nick parked in front of the bookstore, and sure enough, Harper was standing under the shop’s awning. “Look,” she said, “the light is still in there.”
It was. It was a small pinpoint from this distance, but there was no mistaking it.
We started across the green, avoiding lamplight in case Andreus happened to look out the window.
Rain soaked into the hood of my sweatshirt as I splashed through puddles, enjoying the rain on my face and smell of spring in the air. As long as it wasn’t thundering and lightning, I loved playing in the rain.
I looked ahead at Nick, who led our little pack. It was just about a year ago that we’d danced in the rain right here on this green, hand in hand, heart to heart.
Suddenly, squabbling over bathroom decor seemed so silly. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. I hoped Nick would come to the same conclusion once he had time to think on it.
At Mrs. P’s bench, we huddled under the beech tree canopy. Nick said, “Keep watch on the front door in case he comes out. I’m going around back. Patrol should be here any minute, so don’t do anything foolish.”
Harper said, “Can we take the guy down if he comes out?”
Nick’s jaw jutted. “I think that would be classified as foolish. He could have a weapon. Let patrol take care of it.”
It was times like these that proved he still had reservations about my snoop job. Concerns that had nothing to do with police protocols and everything to do with wanting to protect me.
“What if they’re not here?” she pressed.
“Let him go,” Nick said.
I was okay with that. It was dark. The thought of seeing Andreus’s Crypt Keeper face up close and personal was enough for me to keep my distance.
Nick looked at me. “Make her stay here.”
He knew her well.
“I’ll try.” I glanced up to see if the light still shone in the Tavistock windows when out of the corner of my eye I caught movement by the driveway. It was hard to tell what it was because of the weather. “What’s that?” I whispered, grabbing Nick’s arm and pulling him up short. “Near the arbor? A dog?”
Harper squinted and lowered her voice. “No, someone’s crouched down and sneaking around to the backyard. Hoo boy. This place is a hot spot tonight.”
I wished she didn’t sound so excited by that.
But she was right. It was a hot spot. Two intruders. Desperation had obviously set in. It appeared as though more than one person wanted to find those diamonds before the house’s official sale tomorrow.
Nick repeated, “Stay here.” He kept low as he darted across the street and went the opposite way to the back of the house. I was glad that at least this time he had his gun with him.
Harper said, “So what do you think is going to happen when he shouts at the person out back to stop and identifies himself as a police officer?”
The Roving Stones tents flapped in the breeze, metal grommets clanking ominously. A shiver went through me. “Hopefully the person stops.”
Even in the dim light, I saw her roll her eyes. “No, I meant with Andreus upstairs?”
“What if that’s not even him? What if he’s the guy out back?”
“Don’t try and confuse me.” She gave her head a swift shake. “Doesn’t matter who it is. That person upstairs is going to bolt. I say we get closer so we can stop his getaway.”
“But Nick—”
Any protest I had died on my lips as she took off running.
Right this very minute, I was questioning why I’d taken this snoop job in the first place.
Then I remembered.
I hadn’t taken it. It had been given to me.
And yes, it was true that most of the time I loved it. Just not right this minute when my baby sister was putting herself in harm’s way.
I went after her.
She was duckwalking along the front walkway. “If he comes running out, I just stick out a foot and blammo. He’s down for the count.”
“Blammo?”
“It’s a word.”
“Only in one of Mrs. P’s Scrabble games.”
“I have no idea what that means.” Looking befuddled, she turned her attention back to the doorway.
I strained to hear any sound of what was going on in the backyard. So far, nothing seemed amiss. Glancing over my shoulder, I hoped to catch sight of a village police car, but the wet streets were empty. The rain had started coming down harder, and my clothes were now soaked through.
“You know what?” Harper whispered.
“I never like when you start a sentence that way.”
She ignored me. “I was just thinking that the element of surprise would really be on our side if we waited at the bottom of the stairs for the intruder.”
“No.”
“It’s dry in there.”
“I doubt it. The
roof leaks like crazy.”
“I’m going in.”
Before I could even think to stop her, she was up the steps. She tried the front door handle. It was apparently unlocked, because she looked back at me and waved me in.
I went. I couldn’t very well let her go in alone.
If I had any luck at all, the intruder would kill me before Nick did.
She pushed her back to the stairway wall.
I blinked, trying to adjust to the dark.
“What’s that noise?” she whispered.
“Sounds like sawing.” It was coming from upstairs. Someone was taking their search for the diamonds very seriously.
Harper tiptoed across the room and grabbed the fireplace poker from a stand on the hearth. “Just in case,” she said, tiptoeing back again.
Oh great. Now she was armed.
The longer we waited for something—anything—to happen, the more my blood pressure skyrocketed. The leaking ceiling didn’t help, either. The splat of the raindrops on the floor was getting on my last nerve. The roof had to be a complete mess for so much water to be coming inside. I could easily picture rivulets of moisture sliding right down the studs to the floor joists and pooling on the living room ceiling. I hoped the new owner had roofing plans at the top of his or her renovation to-do list.
Suddenly Nick’s voice rose up, and though somewhat muted, I could still hear him clearly say, “Stop! Police!”
“Get ready,” Harper whispered, craning her neck to look up the steps. She held the poker like a baseball bat.
The sawing continued.
Harper looked at me.
I shrugged.
“Maybe he didn’t hear the noise outside because of the saw?” she speculated.
“Maybe.” The rain on the roof would be loud, too.
“I’m going up.” She neatly pivoted and started climbing the steps.
I reached for her sleeve through the spindles but she evaded me.
“Come on, Darcy,” she whispered.
Yep, Nick was going to kill me. Her, too.
I crept up behind her and snatched the poker out of her hand.
She turned, her face full of outrage.
I gave her my best don’t-even-think-about-arguing-with-me look. I mouthed, “I’m going first.”
Some Like It Witchy: A Wishcraft Mystery Page 20