by Sharon Pape
“Sorry I’m late. Turns out there’s a bit of a learning curve with crutches. The doc said it was easier for people who learned to use them as kids. Apparently, breaking bones as a child has its benefits, though I doubt you could convince my mother of that.”
Tilly brought out the customary tiny tea sandwiches and some man-sized fare with roast beef for Travis and Merlin. For the second course, there were the scones with clotted cream and raspberry jam, my personal favorite, and, finally, mini pastries and buttery cookies dipped in chocolate. Tilly had outdone herself—not an easy accomplishment.
She poured the first round of tea and held up her cup to make a toast. “I’m ever so grateful we are all together today. I daresay it might have been a very different sort of gathering. But I don’t want to dwell on that. I want to rejoice. To us, may we continue to gather in good health and celebration for many years to come!”
We lifted our cups and echoed her sentiments with a hearty “amen.” Then we dug in. I could have sworn I wasn’t hungry until my first bite of the moist raisin-walnut bread spread with cinnamon cream cheese. No one uttered a word for the first five minutes of indulging, but then the questions started coming.
Travis suggested he tell the story up to the part where I arrived at the antique shop and then I could tell the rest, with him adding anything I forgot. Our little audience listened silently, except for the slurping and lip-smacking coming from Merlin. At the end of our tale, Travis and I applauded the cavalry who had literally flown in to save us.
“Wait a minute,” Elise said, “if Fletcher and Dwayne Davies weren’t involved in Amanda’s death, why did Dwayne disappear?”
I shrugged. “That’s still a mystery. His poor mother has been going through hell since the day he dropped out of sight.”
“I have the answer,” Travis piped up, “but you have to promise not to breathe a word of this until after the evening news, or I’ll be looking for a new job.”
Tilly, Elise and I all promised. Merlin didn’t seem to be listening, but he promised nonetheless when Tilly gave him a well-placed kick in the shin.
“Okay,” Travis said, “it appears that Dwayne and the accountant at Winterland had been cooking the books long enough to embezzle a couple million. They must have figured their luck wouldn’t hold forever, and it was time to make tracks.”
“For a smart businessman, it’s hard to believe Fletcher didn’t realize what was going on a lot sooner,” I said.
“The men were flying under his radar, so to speak. Stealing small amounts over a long period, banking on the fact that Fletcher was running so many enterprises that he wouldn’t miss what amounted to pocket change in his world. When Fletcher caught on, he sent his henchmen to take them out. They caught up with Dwayne in Aruba and the accountant in Morocco and eliminated them on the spot.”
“Did the FBI trace their deaths back to Fletcher?” Elise asked.
“Yeah, right,” Travis said with a wry smile. “That man knows whose pockets to line.”
“I have a bit of news too,” I said, swallowing my last bite of scone. “When I was leaving my interview with Duggan this morning, Curtis was hauling in Alan Boswell. He was all disheveled and had his hands cuffed behind him. He was looking down like he wished the ground would open up and swallow him. Curtis whispered to me that he’d stopped Alan for driving under the influence, and there were drugs in plain sight on the passenger seat.”
“That part about the ground opening up—I can arrange it, if you’d like,” Merlin offered, selecting a miniature éclair. Tilly and I wasted no time making it clear that he would pay a steep price if he did any such thing.
“You’d think Alan would consider what he’s doing to his daughter,” Elise said. “Everyone knows about the wild parties till all hours, the prostitutes, and drugs.”
“What a sleaze, I said. They should lock him up and throw away the key.” I poured myself another cup of tea and took a sip. “You know who I feel sorry for in this whole mess?” No one ventured a guess. “Rusty Higgins. His only crime was unrequited love.”
“What about painting those awful things on your fence?” Tilly asked. “And trying to run us off the road with his truck?”
“Duggan told me it was all Patrick. He’d been trying to run me out of town even before the Waverly Corporation floated the idea of building in the marsh. He was afraid I’d figure it out.”
“That makes him smarter than I thought,” Tilly said.
We all looked at her, puzzled.
“Patrick actually believes in the power of magick. He was smart enough to fear it would take him down.”
I laughed. “But I doubt he ever imagined it would be in the form of wasps.”
“You gave me the idea,” Tilly said, “when you told me about the fly on Fletcher’s wall.”
“How did you two get inside?” Travis asked.
“We almost didn’t,” Tilly said soberly. “We missed our first two chances, when Chris arrived and again when he ran out in tears, because Merlin the Magnificent was busy pollinating hydrangea.”
“One should assume all the characteristics of a species when transformed into it,” he said indignantly. “Besides, one should always repay nature for its gifts.”
“As I was saying,” Tilly went on, “when I saw Chris coming back, I shoved Merlin out of a big blue flower, and we made it into the building with him by the skin of our teeth.”
“We didn’t have teeth,” Merlin muttered.
“Fine, but I nearly lost a wing in the process,” Tilly reminded him, “and I had no idea how that might translate when I returned to my human form. Fortunately, I don’t seem to have suffered any deficit.”
“How did you know where we were?” I asked her, in part to stop their bickering.
“I was in the middle of a reading for a bride-to-be when she vanished from my mind and I saw Patrick holding a gun on you and Travis. I felt your fear as if it were my own. I jumped up and told the young woman I had to save my niece’s life. I promised her another reading, gratis.”
“You don’t usually get visions of the family,” I said. “You didn’t even foresee the accident that killed Morgana and Bronwen.”
“My best guess is that you were meant to survive and I was near enough to save you.”
Merlin cleared his throat pointedly. “Do I not receive any credit at all?”
“Thank you, Merlin,” I said, giving his arm an affectionate squeeze.
“No question about it,” Travis added. “You and Tilly are the reason we’re alive today.”
That seemed to satisfy the wizard—that and the last cookie he snatched off the plate Tilly was removing. Elise and I got up to help clear the table. Merlin complained of continued exhaustion from his heroic feats of the previous day and went back to Tilly’s house to stretch out on the couch and watch TV.
Tilly laughed. “More like exhaustion from eating everything in sight.”
Travis thumped his way to the kitchen doorway and thanked Tilly for the tea. “Now I’m going to get out of here before I break something or trip someone with these crutches.”
I walked him to the door. “I want to apologize for not asking you to stay at my house last night,” I said. “I could have helped you manage with the cast and crutches. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“No need to apologize. There’s nothing quite like the threat of imminent death to scramble the old neurons.”
“In any case, you’re welcome to stay tonight,” I said, “and for as long as you need my help.”
Travis searched my face as if he was looking for the exact meaning of my words. “Thanks,” he said finally, “but can I get a rain check?”
“Sure,” I said, more disappointed than I’d anticipated.
“I’m standing in for the anchor on the news tomorrow morning. National exposure. You don’t pass up an opportun
ity like that, or you may not get another one.”
“You’re driving back to the city now?”
“Yeah, it’s a good thing Patrick didn’t break my driving foot.”
We said good-bye. I held the door for him and watched him make his way to his car parked in front of my shop. He really was awful with the crutches.
* * * *
At dinnertime I was still too stuffed from the tea feast to think about food. At eight o’clock I decided on ice cream. I was on the couch, making my way through a dish of vanilla when my mother and grandmother popped in from the hereafter. Thankfully their clouds were aglow with a cheerful pink light.
“Please tell me you eat other things than ice cream,” my mother said by way of a greeting.
I didn’t take offense. It was just my mother being motherly. I’d learned that death didn’t eradicate such concerns. At another time the remark might have irritated me, but having come perilously close to my own mortality, it was nice to be reminded of her love and the knowledge I’d be with her again someday, as long as that day didn’t come anytime soon.
“We brought her up right, Morgana,” Bronwen said patiently. “Trust in that. Besides, that’s not the reason we’re here.” I waited for the sparks to fly. But Morgana didn’t get annoyed with her. Both of them were on their best behavior. This really was a special night.
“We missed you at Tilly’s,” my mother said. “We want you to know we’re proud of the way you handled yourself and kept your wits about you during your captivity by that horrid man.”
A spark of lightning flashed in Bronwen’s cloud. “To think I once liked visiting his shop.”
“If not for Tilly and Merlin, it would not have gone as well,” I said.
“Rest assured that we thanked and praised them both,” Bronwen said. “Your aunt Tilly has become quite the daring one. I never would have thought it possible. Perhaps she merely needed to lose the coverage of our protective wings.”
“One more thing as long as we’re here,” Morgana said. “We know your progress with teleportation has been slow and frustrating. But remember, it’s a rare ability that’s occurred only once before in our line. One day it will be worth all the work,” I told them I had no intention of abandoning my efforts, which made their clouds glow more brightly.
They were bidding me farewell when the doorbell rang. I shooed them off and went to see who was at my door at that hour. The peephole showed me a distorted view of Travis. I yanked the door open. “What happened?”
“It seems the anchor made a miraculous recovery. Since I’m due back here tomorrow afternoon, I turned around. The only problem is that I checked out of my hotel room, and they’ve already given it away. Some big festival over in the Glen tomorrow. I hope your invitation still stands?”
“Of course,” I said. “Come in.”
“I just have to grab my bag from the car.”
“I’ll get it. I’ve seen you trying to walk with those crutches and you need both hands.” I left him in the foyer and went out to his car, parked behind mine in the driveway. When I wheeled the overnight case into the house, I found Travis leaning back against the wall, his crutches on the floor and his face a scary shade of white. Oh no, I never looked back to make sure Morgana and Bronwen were gone before opening the door.
“What’s wrong?” I asked with great reluctance.
Travis swallowed hard, his eyes fixed on the spot where their clouds had been. “I...I think I just met the rest of your family.”
Don’t miss the next delightful Abracadabra mystery by Sharon Pape
MAGICK RUN AMOK
Coming soon from Lyrical Press, an imprint of Kensington Publishing Corp.
Turn the page to enjoy an intriguing excerpt . . .
Chapter 1
“I’m going to be a pariah. A pariah!” Tilly wailed. “People will avoid me like I’ve got the plague.” She’d come into Abracadabra through the door that connected her shop to mine. Since it was not yet nine o’clock, she found me at my desk behind the counter paying bills online. She shuffled up to me in ancient slippers she refused to replace because the soft last had stretched to accommodate her bunions and arthritic toes. Merlin was right behind her, like an odd shadow.
“Nonsense, Matillda” he said sternly. “There is naught to be concerned about. On that I stake my substantial reputation. You will never become a nasty little fish with sharp teeth! Besides, were it to happen, I would immediately change you back to your dear self. Kailyn, please tell her that. She refuses to take my word for it.”
“Pariah, not piranha, you old fool,” Tilly muttered. “As if I don’t have enough to deal with right now.” She turned to me. “What am I to do?”
“Why are you worried about becoming a pariah? I asked, figuring she was back to her original plaint. “Everyone in town loves you.”
“They won’t once they realize I’m the angel of death,” she replied miserably.
“Hold on; you want to catch me up?”
“I had a premonition about yet another murder.” Her voice trembled as if with pent-up tears. “First, I stumble across Jim Harkens’s body, then Amanda’s, and now this new murder—well, mentally anyway.”
“What did this premonition tell you?” I asked, coming from behind the counter.
“Just that someone else would be killed.”
“No images of the victim, the location, the time of the murder?”
She shook her head.
“Aunt Tilly,” I said, “please sit down and listen to me.” Tilly settled into the chair I kept there for bored husbands and exhausted shoppers. “You have things a little muddled. First of all, I’m the one who tripped over Jim Harkens; you fell on top of me.”
She perked up. “You’re right! You found him.”
“Second, both you and Beverly discovered Amanda at the same time. And this premonition of yours is probably nothing more than a...a hunch, a bad dream, a figment of your imagination. It could be just another glitch in our magick.”
“What a blessing you are,” Tilly said, popping out of the chair as if she were reborn. She pulled me to her and hugged the air right out of my lungs. “I’m off to bake some of your favorite linzer tarts,” she chirped. “Traditional raspberry or tangy apricot?”
“I believe I’d like some traditional,” I said.
“Never mind. I’ll make both.”
“I am in your debt as well,” Merlin whispered before following her back to Tea and Empathy. He graced me with the modified bow he’d adopted in deference to his age and a growing tendency to fall on his face if he attempted a deeper one.
Sashkatu had been watching us from his private loge on the window ledge. He rose, stretching languidly before he descended his custom-built steps, and accompanied the wizard back to Tilly’s place, the home of fine aromas and finer tastes.
When I looked at my watch, it was ten past nine. I hurried to open the shop for business. Bronwen and Morgana would have frowned at my lack of punctuality, regardless of no one beating down my door in urgent need of a cure or a spell. My progenitors agreed on very little, but on this subject they were united. I could only hope they hadn’t noticed, but, of course, they had. My grandmother’s cloud of energy popped out of the ether first, my mother’s a moment later. Both were calm and white. Maybe I’d be spared a lecture after all.
My grandmother Bronwen spoke first. “You did an admirable job of quieting your aunt’s fears,” she said, “but there is something you need to know.”
I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know what she was about to tell me.
“At least a few of our ancestors were remarkably talented at predicting death.”
And there it was—exactly the sort of thing I didn’t want to hear. “Did they have the ability from the time they were young, or did it come on later in life?” I asked, looking for a loophole to crawl
through.
“I believe it’s happened both ways,” Morgana said, dashing my hopes.
“But this premonition was very vague,” I pointed out. “For all we know, it wasn’t a premonition at all.” I felt like I was pleading my case before a panel of judges.
“The details may fill in over time,” Bronwen said, “or not.”
I was rooting hard for the “or not.”
“If it doesn’t come to pass this time, can we assume she doesn’t have the ability?”
“That would be nice,” my mother said, “but I’m afraid it’s not that simple.”
Of course not. Why would it be? “I don’t suppose there’s any way to turn off or blunt this particular talent?”
“None I’ve ever heard of,” Bronwen said, “but I’ll ask around.”
Ask around? Was there a bartender or a manicurist beyond the veil who knew things? A guy on a street corner who could get you information for a price? Before I could ask what she meant, Morgana said they were being summoned and promptly vanished.
“Don’t forget that punctuality is a sign of respect for your customers,” Bronwen snuck in, her voice trailing behind her as she, too, winked away.
While waiting for customers, I finished paying my bills and caught up on some dusting, trying not to dwell on the havoc my aunt’s nascent ability could cause in our lives. I wasn’t successful until the bells above the door jingled to announce the day’s first customer. She looked to be about thirty, petite and pretty enough to forego makeup and still turn a man’s head. She seemed to be blown into the shop by a cold gust of wind, along with the last of the shriveled oak leaves that skittered across the hardwood floor. She had to put some weight into closing the door behind her, as if the wind were pushing back.
“It’s awful out there,” she said, shuddering in a jacket that was more suited to early October than November.
“Welcome,” I said. “It’s the sun that tricks you into thinking it’s a nice day to be outside. Are you from around here?”
“Sort of,” she extended her hand. “I’m Jane Oliver.”