Fried Green Witch

by Amy Boyles

  “Yeah,” Reid said. “Because this whole thing started because of the waxing moon or the aligning of the moons or something. That’s why your powers went berserk to begin with.”

  “Yep,” I said. “And then Maisie was going to eat your food. Tina was standing right beside her.”

  Dot snapped her fingers. “Some witches can guess when a person is undergoing a surge or hitch in their power.”

  “And they use it to their advantage,” Roman added. He’d wedged his back against the wall, giving himself a great angle to watch our conversation. Brock stood beside him, a dark expression on his face.

  Which reminded me—I needed to talk to Sera. I didn’t want to spill the beans about Brock planning on proposing, but I did want to push her back into his arms.

  I mean, those two were like peanut butter and jelly—they belonged together.

  “Any witch who knows that you’re vulnerable will use that against you,” Dot repeated. “If you suspect someone may have known, I suggest you start there.”

  I snapped my fingers. “We also need to know what sort of evidence the police had to make them think Sera was involved. I mean, other than just some remnants of food and a few people naming her. Perhaps there was something else, or someone else who contributed. They may be our culprit.”

  Roman quirked a brow. “I’ll see if I can find that out. Last I spoke to the sheriff, he wasn’t interested in giving me any information.”

  I shrugged. “Now that he’s released Sera, he might’ve changed his mind. It’s worth a shot and will keep us from going back and forth like we have been.”

  Roman nodded. “I’m on it. Brock, you with me?”

  Brock nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  Roman fished his keys from a pocket and tossed them to me. “She’s all yours. Just don’t try to leave. I’m afraid my SUV will end up like your car.”

  I shot him an embarrassed smile. “No worries.”

  He brushed his lips against my forehead and left. I glanced around the room, taking stock of my family. I glanced at Reid and Sera. “Y’all ready to get a move on?”

  Sera tucked a strand of chocolate-colored, glossy hair behind one ear. “Where are we going?”

  I zipped up my jacket and lifted the lapels. “We’re going to talk to Tina one more time. There’s something she’s hiding.”

  “How do you know?” Reid said.

  “For one, she didn’t tell us about Maisie being in love with Walter Scales. Tina knows more than she’s saying, and we’re about to find out exactly how much more. Let’s roll.”

  FIFTEEN

  We found Tina at home. She was wearing black and looked like she was about to leave for Maisie’s visitation.

  “We won’t keep you long,” I said. “We only want to ask you a few questions.”

  “I see you got out of jail,” Tina said to Sera.

  Sera rubbed her arms uncomfortably. “I didn’t hurt Maisie.”

  Tina shrugged. “That’s not for me to decide. The truth will come out in the end.”

  I wedged myself between Tina and Sera. “Yeah, about that. I understand that Maisie had a thing for Walter Scales.”

  Tina glanced at us one by one. She then dropped her hand from the door and retreated inside. We followed her. She didn’t sit, so I didn’t think we were invited to, either.

  Tina nodded. “Yeah, Maisie had a thing for him. Don’t ask me why. That leprechaun is a sneaky little guy. Makes wishes for people who give him money, adding constantly to his pot of gold or whatever. Anyway, the guy creeps me out.”

  “And Maisie’s the person who introduced Daisy to Walter.”

  Tina sighed. She sank down into a chair. “It’s a long and complicated thing, as you’re figuring out. Yes, all that’s true. But from what I also understand, Maisie had a thing for Walter. Like an idiot, she told him, wanted to get a relationship started with him, but Walter wasn’t interested.”

  “Really?” Reid said.

  Tina nodded. “It got nasty. Maisie didn’t go into it in great detail, but Walter spurned her and Maisie threatened to ruin his business. She said she’d tell the sheriff exactly what the leprechaun was doing in that shop of his.”

  A thousand gigawatt lightbulb flashed in my head. If Maisie had indeed threatened Walter in such a way, that would definitely be enough of a reason for him to want to get rid of her. But how would he orchestrate it?

  I glanced around the room and noticed a sprig of green on the windowsill. It looked to be the same sort of green that Walter had worn in his suit pocket as a boutonniere.

  “When did you and Walter start your relationship?” I said.

  Tina turned paler than a sheet of paper lying on top of a pile of snow. “What are you talking about?”

  I crossed my arms. “When did you start a relationship with him?”

  Tina shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about the fact that he wears sprigs of greenery exactly like that,” I said, pointing to the window. “Now, either he’s been breaking and entering your house, or you’re lying. Either way, I think you may have something to tell us.”

  Tina rolled her eyes. “Yes, we’ve been seeing each other. That’s the reason he didn’t get together with Maisie. I couldn’t tell her that, obviously. We kept it a secret.”

  “So you wouldn’t hurt your best friend’s feelings?” Sera said. “How kind of you.”

  I hid my smile. “You’re the one who opened the window, Tina, right before Maisie flew out of it. You also stood beside Maisie when Sera and I stopped her from eating the food. You’re also the person hiding a relationship from your best friend. A best friend who threatened to expose the man you love. To be honest, it sounds to me that out of everyone here, you had the most reason and motive to get rid of Maisie.”

  Tina slumped back in her chair. “No, it wasn’t me, I swear.” She rubbed her fingers over her forehead. “Look, I know I had reason to. I know that all of this looks bad, but it wasn’t me. There’s no way I would’ve hurt Maisie like that.”

  “But if it wasn’t you, who was it?” I said.

  Tina shrugged. “I really don’t know. Maisie wasn’t always nice, that’s true, but she wasn’t completely horrible. Did she have any serious enemies? Let me think about it…”

  Tina grimaced.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “Well, several years ago, I think Maisie might’ve had something going on with Scott.”

  My eyes bulged. “Her brother-in-law?”

  Tina nodded. “It was years ago, and I don’t think Daisy ever found out about it.”

  Or had she? “This was years ago?” I said.

  Tina nodded. “Like I said, I don’t think Daisy knows.”

  Deciding that Tina had given us all the information she knew, I motioned for my sisters that it was time to go.

  We left the house and walked back to the car.

  “I’m tired of this whole thing,” Sera said.

  I nodded. “Agreed. All I want is to be home right now, curled up reading a good book.”

  “Not me,” Reid said, snorting. “This is the kind of thing I live for. I love this stuff.”

  Sera and I exchanged glances. Our gazes then fluttered to Reid.

  “You live for this stuff?” I said. “Usually you’re the one trying to find the hottest guy so you can claim him as your boyfriend.”

  Sera choked back a laugh. “That’s true. You’re always trying to find a boyfriend.”

  Reid shrugged. “I’m not interested in a boyfriend right now. I’ve got more important things like school, my family and obviously solving murders with the two of you because it seems that’s what we always do.”

  We hopped into the SUV. I cranked the engine and let the motor purr for a minute. “We do solve a lot of murders, but we’ve got other things going on, too.”

  Reid stretched her legs out on the back seat. “Like what?”

  How could I delicately put th
is without making Sera mad? “Well, we all have a bit of drama in our lives. You know I didn’t want to marry Roman for forever. It took me a while to get that one together.”

  Reid nodded. “Yeah, and it’s about time, too. Listen, I know you wanted to start a service where we help new witches transition into the world of witchery or whatever, but I think we should have a quiet private detective agency instead.”

  I laughed. “You’re kidding, right? A private detective agency where we help witches when someone’s been murdered or something?”

  Reid nodded. “Yeah, that way we’d actually get paid for this sort of thing instead of not, which is what’s happening now. We’re doing all this work, tracking people down, and for what? The two of you are always worried about whether or not you’re going to be able to open your stores the next day because we’re stuck in some rinky-dink town or Castle Witch. Like today. We’ve got a super tornado that won’t let us escape, and you two have businesses that open tomorrow.”

  Sera shifted in her seat, shooting me a look. “You know, she’s got a point.”

  I shook my head. “You’re kidding me, right? I mean, you are joking.”

  No one said anything. I took that to mean that they were not in any way joking.

  “Sera, you’ve always wanted to have a bakery, and I always wanted to have a dress shop. Wait. How did we get offtrack? We were supposed to talk about how Brock isn’t cheating on you with some woman he had lunch with.”

  The cabin went silent.

  I cringed, curling my fingers into fists. “Oops. Was I not supposed to say that out loud? Boy, is it getting hot in here?”

  I turned down the heat and flattened my palm against the window, swiping away a coat of conversation steam that had condensed on the glass.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sera said.

  So most of the time Sera was an open book, but when it came to certain, very touchy subjects, like apparently the one I had just mentioned, she would clam up.

  Reid kicked Sera’s seat. “We all know you’re mad at him. Doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out.”

  “Well, that’s good because you’re not a genius,” Sera said.

  Reid kicked the seat again.

  “Stop it,” Sera said.

  “Make me,” Reid shot back.

  I flared my arms. “Whoa. First of all, this is not your car, Reid. Now that I’m down a vehicle, I’ll get another and I’ll make it crappy enough that you can kick the tar out of it anytime you want.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “You’re welcome.” I took a deep breath of cool air. Deciding it was now getting too cold in the cabin, I switched the heat back up.

  “Thank you,” Sera said. “Are you trying to freeze us to death?”

  “I was hot,” I said.

  “Well, if you took off some of those layers, you wouldn’t be trying to turn us into popsicles,” she added.

  I shook my head, completely annoyed with family. “Okay. Wait a minute. Hold on now. I’ll admit I was completely wrong to bring up the whole Brock thing, but it just slipped out. I did not in any way mean for you to get upset with me.”

  Sera crossed her arms like a two-year-old who’d just been sent to stand in the corner and was trying to argue the point. “I don’t care that you brought it up.”

  I rolled my eyes. She did too care, but I had the feeling the only way to discuss it was to start talking.

  “Sera, Brock told me what happened.”

  Reid popped her head between our two seats. “What did happen?”

  I palmed her forehead and pushed her back. “Will you butt out?”

  “You’re talking about it right in front of me. If you wanted to have a private conversation, you should’ve done that somewhere else.”

  I flashed her a dark look. My nineteen-year-old sister smiled brightly. I guessed she had a point.

  “Brock had lunch with an old friend and didn’t tell Sera,” I said.

  Sera scoffed. “That wasn’t the only thing about it. He was acting really weird. I wouldn’t have thought much about it except for the fact that he was nervous and anxious the whole time.” She ran her fingers through her smooth chocolate bob. “What am I supposed to think?”

  I grimaced. I really—I mean, really—didn’t want to tell her the truth, but what choice did I have? Hmm. Maybe I could circumvent the truth and just kind of straddle it, and jump around it and even weave a path to the surrounding area without actually having to tell her exactly what was going on.

  Because let’s face it, I didn’t want to ruin the surprise.

  “He wasn’t really doing anything bad,” I said. “In fact, he was doing something for you.”

  “How do you know?” Sera said.

  “Because he told me.”

  “And you believe him?”

  I tapped the steering wheel. “Don’t you? You’ve been dating for a while now, and we have no reason to think he’d do anything against you.”

  Sera shrugged. “You weren’t there. It was just weird.”

  “I think they were old friends,” I said.

  “Old friends can become lovers,” Reid shot out.

  I twisted to glance back at her. “If you don’t have anything constructive to say, would you please stay out of it? I mean, honestly. You’re really getting on my nerves with your back-seat driving.”

  She stuck her tongue out. “And you’re getting on my nerves with your front-seat driving.”

  Her words bobbed around my head, confusing me. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re always sticking your nose in other people’s business, Dylan. Always. No one’s asking you to. It’s just like with this case. You’re running off, trying to save everyone.”

  “Sera was put in jail,” I fumed. “Someone had to help. You and Grandma were off running around and getting yourselves thrown in jail, too. What was I supposed to do? Post bail?”

  Reid shrugged. “All I’m saying is Sera will talk about it when she’s ready.”

  I sank back into the seat and thought about it for a moment. “You’re right. Sera will. All I’m trying to do is help two people come back together. Sera, I really didn’t want to tell you this—”

  “Then don’t,” she said.

  “What?”

  She shrugged. “Don’t tell me. Let me figure it out. Dylan, you don’t have to protect us all the time and try to save us. We’re big girls and can deal with things in our own lives. You interjecting isn’t necessarily going to help. That’s why I think your idea of assisting new witches into the fold didn’t work. You rush in without an idea of how to really do things, and then you wonder why everything went wrong.”

  I pressed my head into the seat. Sera’s words buzzed around in my brain. “What?”

  She shrugged. “You can let other people figure out their own lives, Dylan. For once, it wouldn’t kill you.”

  I choked on a glob of saliva as it slid down my throat. I hacked, pounding on my chest until the cough subsided. My face was hot, red from both complete and total embarrassment as well as the exertion.

  “I was only trying to help,” I said meekly.

  Sera threaded her fingers through her hair. “You don’t always have to. You know, Reid’s idea about being a private investigator is a good one. You’d be perfect at that.”

  I shook my head. “Wait. I wouldn’t want to do it by myself. I’d want to do it with both of y’all.” I laughed nervously. “Because, let’s face it, I’ve dragged the two of you into lots of situations, and y’all have helped me out plenty of times. In fact, if it weren’t for y’all, I never would’ve solved several murders.”

  “Like I said, private investigating might be the thing for you,” Sera said. “That way you can help people and deal with the murders that you always seem to get sucked into.”

  I sniffed. “But what about you? I wouldn’t want to do it without you.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but
I think I need a vacation from everyone butting into my business,” Sera said.

  My jaw dropped. “Butting into your business? You got arrested. All I wanted was to help you. Roman and I spent nearly all night tracking down who might’ve done it.”

  She crossed one lithe arm over the other. “And did you figure it out?”

  “No,” I snapped. “Not yet. But we will. We will together.”

  Sera shook her head. “That’s what I’m saying. I want out. I don’t want to be part of this ‘together’ anymore.”

  I flashed her a hopeful smile. “You can’t mean that. We’re sisters—best friends. We’re always in things together.”

  Sera shifted to glance out the window. “Let’s go back. I want to see if they’ve found a way for us to get out of here.”

  “Back to where?” Reid said. “The hotel or the house where Dot’s at?”

  Sera shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. As long as it’s not here.”

  A knot of sadness ballooned in my chest. What was happening? Sera was usually right in the trenches with me, helping and offering sage advice. Now she wanted nothing to do with me. I nibbled my bottom lip. Apparently I’d gone too far when I’d spoken about Brock. Maybe if she knew what he was planning, she’d change her mind.

  “Sera,” I blurted, “Brock’s planning on asking you to marry him. That’s why he was having lunch with that woman. She designed the ring for him.”

  Sera sniffed. “I know.”

  Reid launched herself between the seats. “You know?”

  Sera glanced at her nails. When she spoke, it was with a cool, even tone. “Yep, I know all about it. And I plan on saying no.”

  SIXTEEN

  “You plan on saying no?” I said. “Why?”

  Sera sighed. “Because that’s what I want to do. Listen, Dylan, when I need your advice, I’ll ask for it. But right now I think I’m okay.”

  I pressed my lips together and focused on driving us back to—well, I wasn’t sure, exactly. “Where should we go? The motel or back to Dot’s?”

  Reid called out. “I say we go back to Dot’s. Roman might be back with Sera’s about-to-be ex-boyfriend.”