“What are you thinking about?” Nick asked. “You have the strangest look on your face.”
“Hildie, with an ie,” I said absently.
No wonder she had known so much about me. She was a relative.
I should have known she was—her eyes were a dead giveaway. That blue-gold color was the same shade as Aunt Ve’s eyes. And mine.
In weakness, there is strength. Out of darkness, there comes light. From the ashes, there is rebirth. I rubbed away sudden goosebumps.
“Maybe we should think about leaving early,” Nick said. “Tomorrow’s a big day.”
“The biggest.”
Maybe Nick was right—and everything would be okay.
Because now that I knew I had a former Elder on my side, I found I had a little faith stashed away after all.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Does it feel like we’re running in circles?” Glinda asked me as we went inside the Pixie Cottage early the next morning.
We’d already met for a cup of coffee at the Gingerbread Shack—now the only place in the village where I trusted the drinks—and hashed out everything that had happened yesterday afternoon.
“It’s starting to,” I said.
Harmony Atchison stood at the front desk and grinned as she greeted us. “I had a feeling I’d be seeing the two of you.”
“Are you psychic too?” Glinda asked.
She laughed. “Not hardly. Colleen gave me a heads-up that you might be back.”
Harmony was one of the first friends I’d made in the village, and as far as I knew, she was a mortal. In her late forties or early fifties, she was a little too young to be an original flower child, but she was making up for lost time. With her long, unruly silver-streaked strawberry blonde hair, flowy tunics, and Birkenstocks, she preferred a nature-based way of life. A lifestyle she tried to incorporate into the Pixie as much as possible.
Harmony came around the desk. “Darcy, I was so upset to hear what happened yesterday. Thank goodness you and Nick are all right.”
Her sincerity brought tears to my eyes. “I’m grateful it turned out the way it did. It was terrifying.”
She looked between Glinda and me and said, “I can imagine this investigation is taking an emotional toll on both of you. If either of you need goat therapy, you’re always welcome here to play with Cookie.”
“Thanks, Harmony.” Playing with Cookie all day sounded like a wonderful way to pass the time. Unfortunately, there were people to interview, clues to find, a poisoner to track down, and a murderer to locate. Not to mention that conference call I had on my schedule for later this afternoon, and the Renewal tonight. The outcome of that phone call would determine my evening plans.
I might be at the Renewal ceremony.
Or I might be home, waiting for news of what had happened.
I had already called Harper and sung her an off-key rendition of the happy birthday song, so at least the day had started off with happiness and not just an overabundance of nervous energy.
Glinda said, “If you’re ever looking to find a new home for Cookie or Scal, I have a big backyard. I could truly use all the therapy I can get.”
Harmony laughed and patted her shoulder. “You’re welcome here anytime. Now, am I right to assume you’re here about the case?”
“We are,” I said. “We really need to speak to Feif. Did he ever return to his room yesterday?”
Through village gossip, we already knew he’d never shown up for work at the festival yesterday.
“Not to my knowledge,” Harmony said. “I haven’t seen him, and he’s had his DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door since his arrival, so I don’t know if he’s inside or not. Is he missing?”
“Maybe?” I said. “We don’t know. He seems to have vanished.”
“Perhaps,” Glinda suggested, “a welfare check is in order?”
Harmony lifted a thick eyebrow, then smiled as she opened a drawer and grabbed a key. “The welfare of my guests is of utmost importance.” She put a sign on the desk saying she’d be right back and walked us down the hallway. “The last time any staff saw Feif was yesterday morning, a little after seven. He came in with items from the Witch’s Brew but left again within minutes.”
That would have been just after Starla and I had seen him while we’d been out running.
After that encounter, he’d gone to the Stove to look for Stef, but where he’d gone from there was a mystery.
The hallway we walked was a familiar one, as it housed Mrs. P’s old room. She’d once owned the inn. It was amazing to me how much life could change in just two short years.
We slowed to a stop in front of an arched wooden door with a wrought-iron number eight secured to it. A DO NOT DISTURB sign hung from the doorknob. Harmony gave a quick knock and said, “Management!” She listened, then knocked again. “Mr. Highbridge?”
Silence.
She stuck the key in the door. The lock tumbled with a loud click and the door creaked softly as she pushed it open.
The room was empty.
Harmony said, “I’ll keep watch.”
“We appreciate your help, Harmony.” She was doing us a huge favor letting us take a look around. “Thank you.”
“You’re more than welcome. If he had anything to do with poor Leyna’s death, then I don’t want him staying under my roof.”
Glinda came out of the bathroom. “Nothing in there but your standard toiletries. Toothbrush, shaver. Feif is very tidy. I’ll give him points for that.”
I looked under the bed. Nothing.
As I stood up, my gaze swept the room, looking for the smallest details. A halfheartedly made king-size bed with a handcrafted wooden headboard took up most of the space, but there was a small seating area in front of a stone-faced gas fireplace that consisted of a sofa and a coffee table. A small desk sat under the window.
The pastry bag from the Witch’s Brew Feif had been holding when Starla and I saw him was in the trash can along with a napkin and a used tea bag with a red label. I didn’t see the leather portfolio and paperwork Pepe and Mrs. P had looked through, which was odd. Had Feif come back for it at some point?
A suitcase was propped open on a stand near the bed, and Glinda poked through it. “I should get hazard pay for this.”
“If only anyone was paying you,” I said.
She laughed as she unzipped compartments and peeked in. “All empty.”
We checked under the mattresses and couch cushions and behind the drawers of the nightstand and desk.
I looked in the closet and found several pairs of black pants hanging along with some black shirts and one blazer. Two pairs of shoes were on the floor. A phone charger was plugged into the wall, but there was no sign of a phone. No wallet, either. A laptop sat on the nightstand, but it was password-protected.
Feif’s screen saver was a headshot of himself.
Harmony said, “I have to say, it’s pretty exciting watching you two. I rarely get to participate in catching a potential murderer. Have you found anything useful?”
Glinda put her hands on her hips. “A whole lot of nothing.”
Definitely no contracts. What had happened to them?
Harmony pushed away from the doorframe. “I’m not sure whether to be disappointed or relieved.”
Personally, I was disappointed. “We didn’t find much, but we know he didn’t cut and run. He wouldn’t have left the village without his laptop, would he?”
“Stranger things have happened,” Glinda said.
Taking one last look around, I turned toward the doorway. “Harmony, could you call us if he shows up?”
“Sure thing,” she said.
Glinda flashed her a bright, cheesy smile. “I don’t suppose you’d let us into Carolyn’s room?”
She said, “I can if you want, but I have the feeling it’d do you no good. It’s already been cleaned. Carolyn checked out an hour ago.”
“Checked out?” I looked at Glinda. “That doesn’t make sense
with what she told me yesterday, about how she was staying on until the festival finished its run here.” I glanced at Harmony as we went out into the hallway. “Apparently, she tendered her resignation with the festival.”
“She said that?” Harmony asked. “Yesterday?”
Her confused expression gave me pause. “Yesterday morning,” I confirmed. “She told me she’d quit. Why?”
Harmony said, “I hate to tell you this, but Carolyn lied to you.”
I sighed. “Sadly, it wouldn’t be the first time. What did she lie about now?”
“Early yesterday, I heard arguing, round about six thirty out on the patio. It was Feif and Carolyn. They went their separate ways before I could ask them to keep their voices down, but not before I very clearly heard Feif tell Carolyn that she was fired.”
* * *
“What now?” Glinda asked as we stepped outside. “Feif’s missing. Carolyn’s gone. I can’t see any way to prove Dorothy didn’t kill Leyna.”
A gusty breeze shook the branches above our heads as we headed back toward the main village. We were in investigative limbo. We had suspicions but no answers and few facts. We were out of leads to explore.
I said, “Vince’s reasoning for believing Dorothy’s innocence regarding Leyna’s death is persuasive. I’m willing to cross her off as a suspect.”
“Crossing her off and clearing her name are two different things.”
“For now, it’s all we have. It closes a door and allows us to narrow our focus.”
“Okay,” she said, “then the question becomes, where do we go from here with Leyna’s murder? With our two lead suspects unavailable …”
“We start at the beginning,” I said with determination. “We’re obviously missing something. For all intents and purposes, this nightmare began with the fire at Divinitea.” From where I stood, I could just see the tarp covering the tea shop’s blackened roofline. “Let’s talk with Amanda again. She was there the whole day. Maybe she saw something she doesn’t know is important.”
I quickly called Amanda, who agreed to meet us at the Gingerbread Shack in an hour. While we waited, Glinda and I made another loop through the festival, checking Feif’s tent again and finding nothing but disappointed clients. We asked around about Carolyn, but no one knew where she was, either. It had taken all of ten minutes.
We’d just walked past Spellbound when I heard, “Darcy!”
Harper stood just outside the front door of the bookshop, waving us toward her. There was a gleam in her eyes when she said, “Angela told me that you’d been by the Pixie this morning—she’d received a text from Harmony.”
“We were there, but we didn’t find anything helpful,” I said. “There’s been no sign of Feif.”
Glinda added, “And Carolyn checked out and is probably long gone.”
Harper waved us inside and said, “I have a present for both of you.”
“But it’s your birthday,” I said, confused.
“I know, but I have a giving nature.” She grinned.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “You’re acting suspiciously.”
Harper said, “For goodness’ sake, stop dilly-dallying.Carolyn’s here in the bookshop, parked in the cookbook section with her carry-on suitcase, eyeball deep in casserole recipes.”
My jaw dropped. “You’re serious?”
“I don’t joke about casseroles.” Suddenly, she laughed. “Okay, I do joke about casseroles. But she is in here. Angela recognized her—I had no idea who she was.” Harper held open the door. “Hurry up, before she does decide to leave.”
Glinda and I rushed through the door. I certainly wasn’t going to chance Carolyn slipping away again.
And hopefully this time when we questioned her, we’d learn something that would lead us straight to Leyna’s killer.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Oh my god, not you two again,” Carolyn Honeycutt said from her spot on the floor in the cookbook section. “What now? This isn’t about the poisoning thing, is it? Because I already talked to the police. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
She was, in fact, eyeball deep in a casserole cookbook. She set it back on the shelf and stood up, dusting herself off.
Glinda said, “If you didn’t lie to us so much, we might believe you.” She eyed the suitcase. “Are you going somewhere?”
“I may not be psychic,” Carolyn said, “but I know when there’s bad energy, and this little town is loaded with it. I’m bailing before I get sucked into the deep, dark beyond.”
She was going to be sorely disappointed that she was going to have to stay just a little bit longer. I’d texted Nick—he was on his way here. We couldn’t let Carolyn leave the village before we figured out if she had anything to do with Leyna’s murder … or tampering with my shake. She’d told so many falsehoods that a thorough interrogation was in order.
“Did you see anyone go near my shake at the Stove yesterday?” I asked.
“I didn’t even know there was a drink unattended. I was talking to the sweaty guy. I paid his tab—have the police talked to him? He seems the shady sort—and didn’t seem to like you,” she added, glancing at me. “Can’t imagine why.”
The police had talked to Sylar. He’d claimed not to know anything about the shake, either, other than that I’d been sipping it while chatting with him. But I wanted to talk to him myself and see if my witchy instincts could tell if he was lying. At some point today, I knew I’d also find myself back at the Stove to talk with Stef and Ula. Someone had to have seen something.
“Besides, who carries around antifreeze? Something like that has to be premeditated, and I didn’t know you were going to be at that restaurant. Do you want to check my purse? Feel free.” She handed it to Glinda.
Glinda shrugged and went through the leather bag. “Clear,” she finally said.
Carolyn smiled smugly. “I told you.”
The search was silly at this point, as she could’ve already dumped the evidence. But she had made a good point—whoever had tampered with my shake had to have had the antifreeze on their person, in a container small enough to avoid detection, as no one had witnessed the drink being spiked. The action had to have been premeditated.
“Seems to me,” Glinda said as she handed the purse back to Carolyn, “that you’d know the shady sort when you saw it. Are you sure the reason you’re leaving town early isn’t because Feif fired you yesterday?” Glinda asked, her eyebrow arched.
Carolyn lifted an eyebrow and seemed oddly amused as she said, “Did Feif tell you that? Because you must know by now that you can’t trust that man. He lies as easily as he breathes. I quit. Do you want to see my letter of resignation?” She gestured toward the suitcase. A brown leather portfolio stuck out of one of the front pockets.
It couldn’t be a coincidence that it matched the description Pepe and Mrs. P had given me of Feif’s portfolio.
Which meant that Carolyn wasn’t only a liar but a thief as well. But why would she want it? Pepe and Mrs. P had said it contained only business contracts regarding Leyna rejoining the festival.
I said, “Harmony at the Pixie told us you were fired. She overheard you and Feif fighting yesterday.”
“Eavesdropping, was she? I’ll be sure to put that on my review of the place. It doesn’t matter what she heard. Feif doesn’t have a say concerning my employment,” she said, dripping arrogance.
The haughtiness in her tone instantly triggered suspicion. Why was she so confident that Feif had no say in her employment?
Suddenly, Pepe’s voice went through my head.
Feif Highbridge was not the sole owner of the festival. There’s an unnamed majority owner, which was listed as an LLC.
My jaw dropped. “Oh my gosh. You own the festival, don’t you? You’re Kindred Tours?”
I had wanted to ask her what she knew about the LLC, but I had never dreamed she was the LLC.
Her mouth fell open in shock. “How did you know that?”
No wonder Carolyn had stolen that portfolio—if anyone found those contracts in Feif’s room, they might be able to trace the LLC back to … her.
“What?” someone gasped.
I peeked around the birch bookshelf and found Harper on the other side, crouching low.
“Harper, you must know by now that we can’t trust this woman.” I motioned her around to join us, since I knew she’d only continue to eavesdrop. “She lies as easily as she breathes.”
Glinda looked my way, surprise in her eyes. “Carolyn is Kindred Tours? I didn’t see that one coming.”
“I didn’t either,” I admitted. “Not until I saw Feif’s missing portfolio sticking out of Carolyn’s bag.”
Carolyn glanced over her shoulder, then back at us, her eyebrows pulled low. “You two are annoying.”
Glinda said, “We’re annoying? That’s rich, coming from you.”
I said, “We have our moments, I admit. But at least we don’t concoct elaborate lies about being a lowly festival employee when we actually own the company.”
“Touché,” Carolyn said, shrugging. “So what, I own the majority of the festival. Big deal.”
I asked, “If Feif tried to fire you, he couldn’t have known you were his boss. How is that possible?”
She lifted a shoulder in a smug shrug. “All our correspondence was done via email or through my lawyer.”
Glinda glanced at me, then back at Carolyn. I could practically see her mind spinning with questions. “We know he had the approval to present Leyna with that new contract,” Glinda said. “Your approval.”
“So?” she asked. “I wanted Leyna back as well. That’s never been a secret.”
“The motive behind the action, however, is now in question,” I said. “You said you wanted her back out of friendship, but you owning the festival just revealed a financial link.”
“Oooh,” Harper murmured. “Good point.”
Glinda picked up my thread. “The business was failing without Leyna. You needed her back to keep the festival out of the red. But she said no. Were you angry enough to kill her over it?”
A Witch to Remember (Wishcraft Mystery) Page 21