He grinned just as she wanted him to. The coffee was as perfect for him as she wanted to be.
“Emily around?”
Ingrid shook her head before explaining. “She’s off for food. She doesn’t cook. Ever. And my kitchen smells like smoke. Though come to think of it, I don’t cook either.”
“Burn your toast?”
“Spell gone awry.” He froze as she spoke, but she wasn’t going to play coy about her magic. She’d pretended she wasn’t a witch for Harrison. It made him uncomfortable. She wasn’t denying an intrinsic part of herself any longer. Not that she wanted to get good at magic. She didn’t. But she wasn’t going to pretend she wasn’t part of the coven and able to set things on fire with her mind. Besides, she really did want babies, and the man needed to know that her children would set things on fire when they threw a tantrum.
“You guys do a lot of spells?”
She knew the question for what it was—a piece of his investigation—but she answered honestly. “I don’t think Emily has done a spell in years. Skin isn’t as perfect as mine,” Ingrid said, “without magic. Nor are high heels as comfortable as mine and clothes as unlikely to experience stains.”
“You could cure disease with magic.” He said it like a question, so she answered.
“Some witches could.”
“But you make your high heels comfortable.”
“I like shoes.” Ingrid took another sip of her coffee. “My makeup doesn’t smear either. We can’t all be geniuses.”
“What were you doing last night?”
Again with the interrogation. That wasn’t how she wanted the flavor of this to be at all. “We were trying to clear Emily’s aura. We’re not very good at magic.”
“Really?” He didn’t sound as if he believed her.
Ingrid kinda wanted to flick him. This was a confession. He shouldn’t act like it was a joke or she was just messing with him.
“Honestly.” She crossed her heart, sat down, crossed her legs and watched his eyes glaze a little bit. She hid her smile before she said, “Emily is a lot of things. She’ll knock you down for a designer bag that’s on sale. She’ll never go jogging unless she is actually running for her life, and any Thanksgiving you spend at her house is going to involve take-and-bake pizza. But,” Ingrid added carefully and precisely, letting her cultivated laziness drop to tell him, “she’s my friend. I know her better than I know anyone, ever, and that includes my late-husband. If she was going to kill Owen, she’d have asked me to help her.”
“That’s your defense for her?” He sounded baffled, as if he couldn’t believe she was essentially telling him that Emily was capable of murder. It was Ingrid’s firm opinion that anyone was capable of taking another person’s life. They just needed the right incentive.
“I’m just saying, I didn’t help kill him, so it wasn’t us. Besides, if we were going to do something to dickhead, it would involve the loss of a certain desirable piece of anatomy, followed by a loss of his fortune, and then a loss of his looks. If I were going to help Emily kill him, I would insist on it being long and slow because he was, my friend, a real a-hole.”
Gabe set his coffee down.
“Don’t pretend like you haven’t figured that out yet.”
“Even if I have—” Gabe started, but Ingrid interrupted.
“That means that you have more suspects than you know what to do with. How many women in relationships did he screw? A lot. How many significant others hate him because of his cheating? Dickhead cheated on Emily all the damn time. He didn’t care if the other person was married. Dickhead never had friends. He had connections. Even his parents didn’t like him.”
Gabe shot her an irritated look.
“Really,” Ingrid crossed her finger over her heart again before she stepped into his personal space and looked directly into his eyes.
“Um,” he said, starting to stand, but Ingrid pushed him back down to his chair with the tip of her finger.
“If we’re going to have a relationship,” she began.
“If what?” Gabe stuttered. “This is an investigation…”
“Then you’ll have to love my best dove, Emily,” Ingrid continued, ignoring his interruption. “You don’t have to love her as much as you’ll love me, but you’ll have to be willing to help me bury a body for her. And that means, my pretty sheriff, that you should keep looking for suspects.”
“What makes you think I’ve stopped?”
“I don’t think you have.” Ingrid grinned at him and took another sip of her coffee. “I’ll give you perfect coffee every day for the rest of your life if you find the real killer. And that’s another of my abilities.”
“Making perfect coffee.”
“You’ll be spoiled in no time.” She grinned again, walking toward the pretty espresso machine and running her hand over it. “This baby is going to make us a killing.”
“Aren’t you rich already?” He had set down his cup and was preparing to leave. That was okay. He needed to find dickhead’s killer so she and Emily could go stress shopping.
“I might be rich,” Ingrid said, following him to the door. “But everybody loves money.”
•
Emily came back with tacos. The fresh smell of cilantro mixed with coffee. It might be a match made in heaven. Ingrid bit into her carnitas taco with the super-hot sauce on it before she said, “Sheriff Hotpants was here.”
“To take me away?” Emily played with her tacos until Ingrid was forced to scowl at her.
“Maybe he missed me.”
“Do you believe that?” Emily took a bite of her taco, spilling ingredients out and chewing woodenly.
Ingrid shoved another bite into her mouth and talked around the food. “I think he wanted to see what we were up to. Eventually he’ll miss me.”
“Tacos for breakfast and a customer-less store. That’s a real selling point in my favor. I look like an idiot.”
“We look like idiots. I’m going to hire someone to get this place cleaned up. Maybe when we’re in the tropics, and then we can come back to a clean store.”
Ingrid ignored the whine in Emily’s voice, considered opening a bottle of that pretty pink wine she’d purchased recently, but she told herself to behave. If she was going to bear Sheriff Hotpant’s babies, she’d have to give up the wine and the coffee. So she pulled out her stash of chocolates and set it next to the pile of tacos as she said, “I probably shouldn’t have told him that you were innocent because you didn’t ask me to help you kill dickhead.”
Emily snorted and then coughed, choking on her bite. She gagged and then gagged again, fighting to not vomit up her two bites.
“You’re a real lady,” Ingrid said around another mouthful of shredded pork and tortilla. She was ravenous since she’d forgotten to eat most of yesterday and forgotten to buy easy food when she’d bought the herbs and funny-shaped pastas.
“So, you think I’m going to jail?”
“Well, I fluttered my lashes at my sheriff,” Ingrid said, setting down her food to be serious for a moment. “And I asked him to keep looking. So probably not. Even though he has no idea what to do with me, he’s definitely interested in me. I can always tell. If dickhead hadn’t died so inconveniently in our shop, the sheriff would be trying his pickup lines on me.”
“And that helps how?” Emily sighed, picking apart her tacos.
Ingrid nudged her with a toe and said, “I don’t know. But I do know this…” she paused, glancing around the dust covered shop, the rackety bookshelves and flea market furniture. “I love this place. I love being here with you more than I ever loved London with Harrison. And we’re not total idiots.”
Emily snorted again, and Ingrid met her friend’s eyes. They burst into laughter as they looked again at the garbage heap of the bookstore that they’d been fixing up for months.
There was little sign of improvement beyond the espresso machine and the area around it. Of course, just beyond were the shelves that had bee
n shoved together and books that were in too tall of stacks and threatening to fall over.
“Okay,” Emily conceded, “maybe we aren’t stupid. Maybe we could dig out that part of us that graduated from college with honors. I had a career and you were totally the spoiled, airhead housewife who out-maneuvered freaking UW collegiate staff for Harrison at dinner parties and whatever.”
“Well, yeah,” Ingrid agreed, fluffing her hair. “But just because I never cared what Harrison’s peers were saying didn’t mean that I didn’t understand them. What I’m saying now is, let’s just solve this ourselves.”
“But you’re an idiot most of the time. A spoiled one. You are a spoiled rotten idiot lazy whore-face.”
“You’re the one who married dickhead. Let alone slept with him. Gross. You are the idiot. And remember, you can’t speak ill of my husband because he’s dead.”
“My husband is dead. And I could speak ill of Harrison if I wanted. It seems to be what we do lately. Speak ill of the dead. Maybe they deserve it.”
“Yes,” Ingrid agreed. “But I didn’t kill my husband. And you’ll make me cry if you speak ill of Harrison and then my mascara will run.”
“Chicken,” Emily said, flicking cilantro at Ingrid but letting Harrison out of their half-hearted fight. “And, I didn’t kill my husband, whore.”
“You have yet to prove that. Prove it to me and maybe I’ll believe you and tell the sheriff for you when I decide to make him my own.”
“Nancy Drew it?” Emily’s next bite was taken with more relish, so Ingrid grinned, spun her chair in a circle before taking another massive bite.
“Absolutely,” she said around her food, nodding for emphasis and then spun again. “Plus I think I’m gonna get fatter.”
“Why?” Emily set down her taco for a chocolate. “Also you ordered me to get rid of your fat clothes.”
“Fatter than those,” Ingrid said. “I like food and I like shopping. If I’m a new size from food, I can get new clothes.”
“Or you could just get new clothes ‘cause your stupid rich.”
“True,” Ingrid said. “I’ve already got the sheriff hooked, but once you’re done with thinking about mourning dickhead, you’re going to have to hook someone new yourself. That means that I get the rest of the chocolates.”
Emily took another chocolate and then shoved the box at Ingrid. “So let’s unearth our college and career brains and maybe solve this crime. If we do, we need to go somewhere tropical. And I want stress shoes and a stress swim suit.”
“Okay,” Ingrid said. “I’ll need a new one, too. A one-piece. Since I’ll probably be fatter by then. Unless I decide to stress workout instead. What do you think? A punching bag over there?”
Em looked at Ingrid, at the corner she was pointing too, and then said, “You realize you’ve never stress worked-out. Ever. Possibly you’ve never sweated before except when your air-conditioning failed.”
“That’s not true,” Ingrid replied. “I sweated that one time I went to the beach and it was hot and I went outside anyway.”
“That didn’t happen,” Emily declared.
Ingrid thought for a long moment before saying, “It’s possible that I just considered walking outside but decided it was too hot.”
“That happened,” Emily said. She didn’t need to be there or wonder to be sure. She was absolutely certain that Ingrid had never, once, gone for a walk when it was hot enough outside to sweat unless she was walking to a shoe store or feet from ocean waves.
Ingrid kicked Emily’s chair as she swallowed the last of her tacos.
“You have to make me a promise,” Ingrid said. This time there was no joke in her voice.
“Okay,” Emily said. She didn’t need to hear it.
“You will practice magic. You will get a handle on it enough that you have your freaking signature de-frizzing hair spell or whatever, and you will do it every damn day.”
Emily took a long breath before she said, “Okay.”
7
Friday Night
Once Ingrid left, Emily decided she would try to work some magic, if for no other reason than to get these witches off her back. She looked around the disaster that was their store. She realized that learning to clean with magic would be a very practical use of her time. But this room was a big mess. Maybe she should try something up in her apartment.
She took the elevator up to her third floor apartment and stood in the middle of her living room, trying to decide what magic she wanted to make. The pass-through fireplace was just begging to be lit. The dining room was on one side and the living room on the other. The stone surround stretched from floor to ceiling. It was Emily’s favorite feature of her new apartment. Maybe of her whole new life.
That’s perfect. As soon as enough time had passed after Owen’s death, which would probably be in about six hours, Emily would need to be able to entertain a hot guy. And her living room was set up for entertaining.
She poured herself a glass of wine and sat on the couch. Her mind tried to stay focused on lifting a log with her magic and setting it inside the fireplace. She dropped it six times before she finally just picked it up and threw the log into the fireplace. A sharp pain in her finger drew her attention. Six splinters. Are you kidding me?
“Damn it all to hell. Magic is not easier. Or faster for that matter.”
She could imagine Ingrid scolding her, “You don’t get splinters doing magic, Em.”
“Shut up, Ingrid.” Even though Ingrid wasn’t there, it still felt nice to yell at someone. “Magic sucks.”
Then she decided it was time to light a fire. Ingrid always made that look so easy. Emily looked around the room, and her gaze came to rest on the fire extinguisher. She grabbed it and set it near the hearth. Just in case.
She concentrated. Stared at the wood. Looked intensely at the kindling and thought about hot things. Nothing.
Ugh. She started pacing in circles around the massive fireplace.
Burn, baby, burn. She closed her eyes and concentrated. Then she heard the crackling of wood and the faint smell of smoke. Yes! She did it.
She opened her eyes and cried out in horror. The bookshelf next to the fireplace was burning, not the wood in the fireplace. Damn. Damn. Damn.
She picked up the extinguisher and put out the flames. Damn it. And Ingrid. And her whole “I can light fires in my sleep” thing she had going on.
Once the small fire was out, Emily looked at the scorched paint and the burnt wood and sighed. She walked to the kitchen, poured herself another glass of wine while she considered her options.
Finally, she gave up. Screw magic.
She pulled the lighter fluid from under her sink, doused the logs with it, and then threw a lit match into the fireplace. The flames grew taller and taller as Emily sipped her wine.
Magic was overrated. She’d have to get a contractor in to repair the fire damage.
Belatedly, she thought about the wasted opportunity. I could totally have called the fire department and watched some hot guys put out my fire.
Maybe it wasn’t too late. She picked up her cell phone and called 911. “I’d like to report a fire. My bookcase is on fire.” She faked concern. “Please hurry.”
Then she carefully pulled a partially burning piece of wood and tossed it onto the bookshelf.
There. Now maybe something good would come out of this.
•
Saturday Morning
Emily’s phone buzzed on her nightstand, waking her up from a restless sleep. Restless because it was filled with glorious dreams of Sam. The name sounded lovely. Almost as lovely as the so-named super-buff firefighter had looked last night when he put out the fire she intentionally set to her bookcase. He had totally flirted with her. She sensed a rebound in her future. Now that Owen was dead. Maybe his murder would be convenient after all.
The phone buzzed again. She picked it up and looked at the screen. She groaned, but answered anyway.
“Hey, Meli
nda. How’re you doing? Did you make it home okay last night?”
She heard sniffling into the phone. Melinda was certainly taking this hard. Emily wouldn’t have thought that Melinda would be so emotional over Owen. They’d fought at more than one family Christmas dinner.
“I’m all right, sweetie. How are you holding up?”
Emily smiled. They’d already gone over this. She was better than fine. Owen was out of her life, finally. As soon as they could get this mystery solved, she and Ingrid could get on with their plans to finish renovating the bookstore and magic shop.
“I’m doing okay. I wish you would have stayed last night,” Emily lied. “Which ferry are you guys coming over on? I can pick you up if you want.”
“That’s why I’m calling, honey. I’m just not going to be able to make it.”
“Oh.” Emily wasn’t sure why that bothered her, but it did. It made her want to smack Melinda, even though she didn’t want to see the whiny woman. “Why not?”
“Well, I really didn’t want to burden you with this, but it turns out—even with our arrangement—Davis has been having an affair! I am just devastated. And I’ve got to go get one of those tests done, for an STD. He’s been sleeping around—in secret— for months. It’s not as though this is news. I’m not a complete fool. He just told me this morning that he’s got some itching going on…well, you know, down stairs. He thought maybe with that I should get checked out just in case.”
Emily was almost speechless. Almost.
“You mean you knew he’d been having an affair and you just…I mean…it didn’t bother you?”
Melinda’s voice was calm and soothing through the phone. “Now, now, darling. I suppose it bothered me a bit, but Davis and I, well, we’ve been married a very long time and we’ve had time to work through this sort of thing. As long as the girls aren’t prettier than me and he doesn’t flaunt it, it’s not usually a problem for us. We have had an open marriage for years, now. He tried to accuse me of spreading some sort of sexual plague, but I told him ‘I am always careful. I don’t forget to use my brain.’ Unlike him. Obviously.”
Inconvenient Murder: An Inept Witches Mystery Page 6