“The truth. That I’m doing the daily mail route. They said that was allowed, but they’re probably going to inspect the trunk,” he explained.
“Leave that to us,” I said.
He looked skeptical. “Just pull the blanket over you. I imagine that’s your best shot at getting to the Quill Bookstore, and mine of not getting fired.”
He closed the trunk, leaving us in darkness.
“Stop poking your elbow into me,” Greer huffed.
“I can’t help it. There’s no room,” said Charlie. “Lemmi, can you magic the trunk into being bigger?”
“I don’t think so,” I muttered. My wand was stuffed up the sleeve of my dress where I could reach it when I needed to, but right now it felt as though if I moved an inch the whole dress would rip.
When the car’s engine started, Charlie let out a little squeal.
“What are you worried for? This was your great idea,” said Greer.
Charlie didn’t bother to reply.
The car lurched forward and I heard the crunch of gravel beneath the tires.
“Do you think Simon Simone killed Mason?” Charlie whispered.
“Why are you asking that now?” Greer demanded.
“Now feels like as good a time as any,” said Charlie. “Takes my mind off the fact that I’m scrunched into the trunk of a car with you two.”
“I don’t think he did it,” said Greer after a momentary pause. “Goldie likes him too much.”
Whether Simon Simone did or didn’t kill Mason, we still had to investigate. I didn’t think he did it, but we didn’t have and other suspects at the moment either.
“She might be a horrible judge of character,” said Charlie.
“Paws would argue that she’s a horrible judge of character because she likes Greer.” I heard Charlie laugh and I grinned into the darkness.
“It must have been someone else,” Greer said, ignoring our jokes.
“Like who? Not even Mason himself can think of anyone who disliked him enough to kill him.”
Just then the car started to slow and Charlie took in a sharp breath.
“For the person who came up with this ridiculous idea, you’re awfully worried about being caught,” said Greer.
The car stopped and we could hear the sound of footsteps approaching.
That’s when I knew there must be a car in front of ours. Not long after we came to a halt I could hear arguing.
“I’m a very important person! You can’t keep me here! I have work to attend to!”
“Boss said no guests are allowed to leave the resort,” said a second male voice. “What’s your name?”
“Reginald Hamlit,” said the voice in pompous tones.
“Hamlit of the shipping family?” asked the police officer.
“The very same. Now if you please, I’m leaving,” said Reginald.
“I don’t care what you ship or to where. You aren’t living this resort, and if you try I’m going to arrest you here and now. Are we clear?”
Charlie gripped my wrist as we listened to the sputtering guest, followed soon by the sounds of an engine roaring to life and the crunch of gravel as a car sped past us.
I tried to exhale, but listening to that encounter hadn’t made me feel any better. Reginald Hamlit was a powerful man, and he’d just been turned around in his tracks.
The male voice said, “Anything in the trunk?”
“Definitely not,” said Eben. If he was fazed by one of the guests being told off, his tone didn’t let on. “You think rich folks would try to get smuggled out that way?”
“No way, but maybe the murderer knew which car you were taking and slipped in,” said the police officer. “I’ll just have a look.”
Charlie’s fingers came like vise grips around my arm again and I flinched in pain.
I tried to pry her hand loose but it was no use.
The trunk popped and sunlight streamed onto our faces. I blinked furiously, but my eyes didn’t adjust fast enough. Squeezing them shut again, I yanked my wand out of my sleeve just in time and whispered the only spell I’d been able to think of. Through barely slitted eyes I could see bright sparkles spew out and rush and flow over us like thrown blankets.
I didn’t realize I was still holding my breath until I felt my chest hurting. I started to exhale, but since I didn’t want to make any noise I had to let the air out ever so slowly. No one was saying a word, and when I was unable to take the suspense any longer I squinted one eye open to see what was going on.
Peering into the trunk was a man dressed in plain clothes. He didn’t appear to see us, and it was a good thing, because I was clutching my wand in front of my face like an idiot, while one tiny pale hand appeared to be coming out of nowhere from deeper in the trunk to clutch my arm.
It was a scene straight out of a horror movie.
Or just my average Saturday.
“You’re good to go,” I heard the man say as his arm reached up to grasp the trunk door and slam it back down. The whole vehicle shook with the impact, and Charlie let out another whimper.
“Can’t even imagine what Eben is thinking right now,” said Greer. I was sure that if there’d been room, Greer would have been shaking her head.
I grinned into the darkness. “He’s thinking that’s some blanket.”
We had only been driving another couple of minutes when the car came to a stop again.
“Uh oh! The police followed us! Your spell didn’t work completely and now we’re sunk!” Charlie said frantically.
Light flooded the trunk again and I squinted up into the round face of Eben.
“That was amazing! Literally the best day of my life! I should be a spy!” He was downright gleeful.
“Are we there yet?” Greer asked.
“We’re a minute away, but I thought you should get out of the trunk and ride with me now. It’ll look really weird if I let three women out of my trunk in downtown Iriswood,” said Eben.
“Good thinking,” I said.
None of us could get out of the trunk fast enough.
“I’ve got the front seat,” Charlie said, waddling to take it.
“Did you lose circulation already?” Greer asked.
“No, but I felt like it was a hardship,” said Charlie.
Greer just rolled her eyes.
We piled into the car like normal people this time, energized by the picturesque spring afternoon. The sun was shining, the leaves on the trees were a bright pale green, and the road looked like it would carry on for miles.
“Iriswood is the cutest town,” sighed Charlie.
“Second cutest,” I told her.
“Nothing beats Mintwood,” Charlie agreed.
Iriswood had a bustling downtown, with several shops strung along the main thoroughfare. I had rarely ever made it to Iriswood, and not at all in the past few years. Now I saw a gold and blue sign for the Quill Bookstore and noted that the store was flanked by a tourist shop on one side and a clothing store on the other.
“We don’t like that store. It competes with Mavis’s place,” sniffed Greer.
“We won’t like it either then,” said Charlie as Eben found a parking space right outside our destination.
“I’m going to head over to the post office so I can at least look like I’m doing something official,” said Eben, climbing out. Before Greer could move, he pulled her door open.
“You’re doing us a favor. You don’t have to act like you’re working,” she informed him.
“I’m polite whether I’m being paid or not,” he responded.
The four of us split up, Charlie, Greer, and I heading for the bookstore while Eben crossed the street and left us to our own devices.
The Quill’s big glass front windows were brightly lettered, advertising the notion that any kind of book imaginable could be found inside.
“The people in Iriswood sure are different from the people in Mintwood,” Charlie said, looking around as if she had never seen anything
like it before. Women were walking around wearing large white hats, shades, and designer dresses and carrying handbags large enough to conceal half a grocery store’s worth of stolen food. Lucky for them they probably never had to use them for that purpose.
“Look at the sky. It’s so pretty,” Charlie breathed.
“Charlie thinks everything is pretty right now,” said Greer. “That’s because all of it is better than the trunk.”
“No, seriously, I love the sky,” said Charlie.
She was right. The sky was a rolling billow of bright yellow, pink, and blue clouds in patterns I’d never seen before.
“Let’s get inside and find the information we need so we can come back out and take pictures of it,” said Charlie with excitement. “If I had known that Iriswood’s sky was that pretty I’d have come a long time ago.”
The Quill smelled like books and coffee. I took a deep breath and realized I was glad we’d come.
“I’m going to follow the aroma of caffeine to bliss,” said Greer, sniffing the air.
“What, are you stressed or something?” Charlie said, trailing after her.
“Why would you possibly think that?” Greer asked.
There was a little coffee bar in the back of the shop with a cool-looking barista. She sported a black sleeveless top, tattoos, and a streak of red hair that had nothing to do with her nose ring except that they worked together to make her look punk.
Once we had our coffees we wandered around the aisles, seemingly aimlessly.
“What are we looking for?” Greer asked Charlie at last.
“I’m not sure, but I’ll know it when I find it,” said Charlie. “This place is famous for its documentation of local history section.”
“That’s quite the mouthful to be famous for,” Greer said, taking a sip of her coffee.
“You had to get up pretty early today, didn’t you?” said Charlie sympathetically.
“Yeah, someone wanted to do a lot of investigating,” said Greer.
“Goldie will appreciate it when we find the killer,” Charlie assured both of us.
“Here it is,” I said. In the back of the bookstore was a high shelf stacked with lots of dated, leather-bound volumes. Charlie eagerly reached up and pulled down the one with the latest date.
“This is from ten years ago. Perfect,” she said, and looked around for a table. The small one near us had only two chairs, so I went looking for a third. There were chairs tucked around the sides of the store, but most of them were occupied. I finally found an empty one next to the fan and grabbed it.
By the time I returned to the table and sat down, Charlie and Greer were poring over old town secrets.
“Here’s the thing,” said Charlie, keeping her voice low so as to not disrupt other customers. “Mason has been working at the Country Club for the past twenty years. For the first half of that time he was a horrible boss, then he suddenly became a lot nicer. We need to find out why.”
“You mean why he didn’t just go on being unpleasant to his employees? Why do you think?” Greer asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe he saw the error of his ways,” Charlie mused.
“Maybe he was guilty of something and he decided he’d better shape up to avoid getting caught,” I said.
“Wouldn’t he have told us that?” said Greer.
“He probably doesn’t think about it that way. He also probably doesn’t think it got him murdered, whatever it was. If he’d had any inkling that his life was at risk, he’d have been somewhere else on Friday night,” I went on.
“Here it is!” Charlie leaned forward, her manicured finger tracing a paragraph in the latest Iriswood history.
“It says that membership at the Country Club exploded when Mason arrived. He did a lot for enrollment by making the Club more fun. At first he did it by making the employees work harder, which they weren’t happy about, but the Club was such a success it stopped mattering. Once enrollment rose, he was given free rein.”
“Who owns the Club in the first place?” I asked.
“A trust,” said Charlie. “The board of directors are the ones who have the most say in Club policies.”
“That board includes Jasper’s grandfather,” I muttered.
“For someone so smitten, you do a good job of not talking about him all the time even if you’re thinking about him a lot,” Charlie smirked.
We sat there for another half an hour leafing through the books Charlie had chosen. Finally she sat back in frustration.
“There’s nothing here,” she said in frustration. “If I’m not careful I’m going to have to start looking to the Chronicle for information!”
“The Caedmon Chronicle?” said a woman. She was dressed much like the strange women I’d seen around town the first time Ellie had been in Mintwood. Alarm bells started going off in my head.
“Yes, him. I mean, it. The Chronicle.” Charlie stumbled.
“Don’t worry. All the ladies agree about what a dish Hansen Gregory is. The fact that he’s also an amazing writer is the icing on one very hot cake.” This woman had to be in her sixties, and she was looking more delighted by the moment.
Charlie rolled her eyes. “He looks fine and he writes fine. I wouldn’t say he’s anything special.”
“Enjoy that island you’re on, girlie,” said the woman, cackling. Then she walked off, three books in her hand and a cane in the other.
“Really, who has noticed that Hansen is good-looking?” Charlie muttered to the table.
Both Greer and I raised our hands.
Charlie looked flustered and tried to get back to the task at hand. But we had run into a dead end, and Greer was just the girl to point it out.
“We should be getting back,” she said, checking her watch. “Mom will start wondering where we are.”
Charlie was no happier when we left the bookstore than she’d been when we arrived.
“We found out some of the history of the place, but how does Mason fit in?” she wondered out loud. “He must have done something or changed something ten years ago. I wonder if the seeds of his murder were planted before he changed and became a good guy.”
Neither Greer nor I had an answer.
Eben was waiting by the car, eating ice cream and looking happy, as one should whenever ice cream is involved.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
“Super productive and fun! Thanks for getting us away from the resort,” said Charlie brightly.
Eben clearly wanted to know what we were up to, but he knew better than to ask. Maybe it was his resort employee training, or maybe he had sisters.
“Hey, by the way, I like that you three have the same jewelry and you split up the pieces,” he said as we climbed into the car and he started the engine.
“What do you mean?” Charlie asked.
“Yeah, the green jewelry was my grandmother’s. We all wear a piece of it in her memory,” I said quickly.
A little late, Charlie realized that Eben was talking about the jewelry that allowed all of us to see ghosts.
“That’s nice,” said Eben.
Before we left the little Iriswood downtown I took one last look at the brilliant sky and wondered what had caused it, but then I told myself that I didn’t have to understand it to enjoy it.
A minute later Eben pulled over to let us get back in the trunk. Before we climbed in he said, “By the way, that blanket really must be magic. I thought for sure when the police went and looked in the trunk that we were done for.”
“As close to magic as it comes,” I smiled.
Chapter Seventeen
Eben let us out of the trunk once we were safely back in the garage and he had checked to make sure no one was around. He said he had to stay and clean up the car, and Charlie thanked him again for his help and led us back outside.
We were just approaching the entrance to the Country Club when Deacon Grate appeared in front of us. Greer’s boyfriend had dirty blond hair pulled into a sleek ponytail,
and bright blue eyes. With his height and his square jaw, he was often looked at with appreciation by women strolling past. But he only had eyes for one lady.
“What are you doing here?” Greer asked, brightening.
“Hi yourself,” Deacon smiled.
The day was still filled with sunshine and by now quite warm. The sky was still gorgeous, but it had mellowed a little since we left Iriswood, the bright colors smoothing out and fading to pastel as evening approached. As Greer had said, Goldie would not tolerate bad weather on the most important weekend of the year. Given the opportunity, she would probably take credit even for the incredible colors of the sky, which seemed to have followed us from town.
“Where have you three been? I’ve been looking all over for you,” said Deacon. He pointed toward the Club as if that explained everything.
“We took a stroll around the golf course,” I said.
“Strange, I was out golfing earlier and I didn’t see you,” said Deacon.
“It was a long stroll,” said Charlie.
Deacon nodded, but his attention had already turned back to Greer, at whom he was gazing with warm eyes.
Greer was trying to put herself together, as subtly as possible. She reached up and touched her hair to make sure there weren’t too many fly-away strands, then pulled her green cardigan tighter around her shoulders.
“Hi,” Greer, said. She sounded super happy, so happy that after a moment’s hesitation she let herself go, squealed in delight, and darted forward into her boyfriend’s arms. The open expressiveness was a measure of how far the usually reserved Greer had let Deacon back into her heart.
“Jasper said he’d be here this weekend and I didn’t want to miss all the fun,” said Deacon, giving his girlfriend another affectionate squeeze. He was just swinging her around a second time when he stopped and slowly lowered her. I couldn’t see behind me, but I knew what had struck fear into his heart. “All my friends and my girlfriend go away to the Country Club and leave me to work? No, thank you.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Grate,” said Greer’s mother.
All of us froze.
“Afternoon, Mrs. Dice,” said Deacon, keeping one arm around Greer’s waist as their smiles faded.
Witch Way Round (Witch of Mintwood Book 6) Page 13