The Good, the Bad, and the Witchy: A Wishcraft Mystery

by Heather Blake

  “I need to talk to you,” Trista said. “Something important.”

  “Is this about Louis? Because I already have that covered.”

  “Who?” she asked.

  “Your mother’s fiancé?”

  “Don’t make me laugh,” she said. “I couldn’t care less about Harriette’s love life, though I did hear about the betting pool.”

  “And did you place a bet?”

  “Of course.”

  The Ghoulousel piped a jaunty tune, and I smiled at the grins on children’s faces as they rode an assortment of ceramic ghosts. “Which side are you on?”

  “He’s real. Harriette would never lie about a man.”

  Harriette. Interesting that she called her mother by her first name. I supposed twenty years of not speaking to each other led to dropping familial terms.

  Short and plump, Trista seemed to be the complete opposite of her mother and sister. Big light blue eyes, blond hair, fair skin. Unlike Lydia, she looked younger than her age, and unlike her mother, she didn’t appear to have a dark side. There was nothing viperous about her.

  She glanced around the festival. “Can you spare a minute?”

  I threw a look toward the pie-judging tent and figured there was time enough to spy on the Wickeds. “Sure.”

  “Come with me. We can talk at the shop, where it’s quieter.”

  We crossed the street, and I waved to Godfrey inside the Bewitching Boutique. Gone were his silk pajamas, replaced now with a zippy three-piece suit. Trista’s shop was a little farther down the road. The building reminded me a lot of the Gingerbread Shack, but on a smaller scale. Painted a pale lavender, it was only one story, with a pitched roof and delicate trim. A window box was full of dark purple flowers and cascading ivy that reminded me of the Elysian Fields. I waited on a narrow porch for her to unlock the front door of Something Wicked. A CLOSED sign dangled from a multipaned glass door, beneath which a small placard read DEATH IN THE FAMILY.

  Sympathy flowed through me. If Trista and Dash had been like family to Michael, then losing him must feel like losing a son. And if Fisk was somehow involved in Michael’s death, it would be a double whammy. I truly hoped that wasn’t the case.

  Skylights spilled sunshine into the already bright shop, highlighting sexy nighties, silk pajamas, delicate underwear, and the biggest assortment of bras I’d ever seen. I’d never seen an AbracadaBra up close and personal, and I smiled when I realized that you couldn’t take the flora out of a Floracrafter. The bra’s cups weren’t traditionally round, but more of a wide triangle—they were shaped like leaves. And the colors in the store? All floral colors—pinks, reds, purples, yellows, whites. Not a black garment to be seen. Trista had incorporated her floral background into an incredibly successful business.

  “Coffee?” Trista asked, heading for a kitchenette. “I already have a pot made.”

  “Sounds good,” I said, taking a seat in a small lounge area.

  A few minutes later, she set a tray on a leather ottoman and handed me a mug of coffee. Steam rose enticingly from the rim of the cup. I gratefully wrapped my hands around it.

  Sitting back, she drew her legs beneath her on a tufted purple couch and smoothed a wrinkle in her jeans.

  I stirred sugar into my mug and said softly, “Is this about Michael?”

  Tears filled her eyes. “Darcy, our lives are falling apart. Michael is dead, Fisk is missing, and Dash went into his greenhouse last night and refuses to come out.”

  “I’m so sorry for all you’re going through.” I blew on my coffee and tried to think of a way to pry that didn’t sound too nosy. Finally, I gave up on pretenses and said, “I hadn’t realized Dash had his own greenhouse. I thought he was strictly a landscaper. . . . Is it near here?”

  Sipping her coffee, she said casually, “It’s in a secret location.”

  “Why is it secret?” I asked, both amused and intrigued.

  She appeared to be waging an internal debate before she finally said, “He’s breeding special flowers. It’s kind of a secret project.”

  “Black flowers?” I asked.

  Her eyebrows dipped. “How’d you know that?”

  “Black roses were what Michael had been working on at the Elysian Fields, so when I heard that Michael and Dash were working on a project together . . . it makes sense that it would be on black flowers.”

  “Well,” she said, her cheeks growing red, “this is starting to make some sense now. I had no idea Michael had been working on the black roses. I thought he was doing simple maintenance over there.” Her eyes took on a distant look, as if she were trying to piece together a puzzle. With shaky hands, she set her mug on the tray, and coffee sloshed over the rim.

  I really wanted to blot up the spilled liquid, but I held myself in check. “He wasn’t just working on the roses. I’m fairly certain that Michael was the one who created the spell for the flowers.”

  Her face paled. “Not Harriette?”

  I shook my head.

  “Do you have proof?”

  “No,” I said. “Just speculation. But you can ask Dash about the spell. He probably knows more about it than I do, especially if he has pure black flowers in his greenhouse. Michael probably created those, too.”

  “I should have figured this out, especially after I heard the news about Harriette retiring.”

  “She’s what?”

  “Retiring. She called an emergency meeting of the Wickeds this week and announced it. A little birdie, or should I say Bertie, told me. If the Witching Hour roses were Michael’s creation, then Harriette’s probably retiring to save face since she wouldn’t be able to produce any more of them.” Her nose scrunched, and tears sprang to her eyes. “Does his death have something to do with those black roses?”

  “Yes.” Harriette’s retiring was the perfect cover for not producing any roses. Of course, she was also eighty years old, long past the usual age to stop working. Then I recalled that Lydia had mentioned Imogene was retiring soon, too. Lydia was halfway to her wish of having the Elysian Fields revert back to family.

  Letting out a little moan, Trista leaned forward, putting her elbows on her knees and her face into her hands. “Dash was so excited about working with Michael and Fisk to create a line of black flowers. Orchids, lilies, carnations—anything. Everything. I didn’t realize how involved Michael was—I believed he was just helping out, helping them. It seems the opposite was true if it was his spell. . . .” She tipped her head. “Wait. How did he create black flowers? He was an Illumicrafter.”

  “Right now it’s a mystery. Maybe Dash or Fisk knows?”

  “Maybe.”

  She didn’t seem too eager to find out. I finally gave in and wiped the spilled coffee with a napkin. “Why wouldn’t Dash tell you about Michael working on the black roses at the Elysian Fields? He had to have known the truth. . . .”

  “He knows I don’t like hearing anything about Harriette or the Elysian Fields. He was probably trying to shelter me as much as possible. See, when Harriette cut me out of her life, I cut her out of mine as well.”

  I fiddled with the end of my braid. “What about Fisk? Does Harriette have any kind of relationship with him?”

  “Once or twice a year, Fisk gets a written invitation to visit with her. Written, for God’s sake. Heaven forbid the woman pick up the phone.”

  I could feel her anger and resentment. “Does he go?”

  “Absolutely not.” Trista shook her head. “If she doesn’t accept my husband, she doesn’t accept my child. Period.”

  A hard line to toe, but I supposed it was her right to choose to do so. “What’s Fisk’s predominate Craft?” As a Crosser, he could go either way, Terra or Flora.

  “Fisk is a rare Crafter who has equal abilities. Maybe because the two Crafts are complementary—we’re not sure. He’s an incredibly gifted gardener.” Her eyebrow quirked. “And he has a passion for it, too. He’s going to make quite a name for himself. Put Harriette out of business.”
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br />   She seemed pleased about that. “But,” I said, “isn’t it your business, too? Technically?” I was fishing, trying to find out if Trista was named in Harriette’s will.

  “Not in the least. When my mother disowned me, she cut me off from everything. The Elysian Fields will undoubtedly go to Little Goody Two-Shoes.”

  “Lydia?”

  Trista rolled her eyes. “She complains about being unhappy working for Harriette, but she doesn’t do anything about it.”

  “Do you two see much of each other?” I asked.

  “We try to meet for lunch a couple of times a year, just to keep in touch. There’s not much of a relationship.”

  I heard the note of sadness in her tone and wanted to shout, “But you don’t do anything about it!”

  I kept quiet, though. I had enough on my plate without trying to heal a decades-old rift between sisters. I was heartened to hear that Trista hadn’t cut her sister completely out of her life. It was something. A small something, but still.

  “I’ve never met Fisk, but I’ve heard him play guitar,” I said. “At the Witch’s Brew. He’s good, though his song selections . . .” The funeral tunes were enough to give me the willies.

  Trista laughed. “I think he likes to shock people. Kids. Sheesh. Do you have any?”

  My heart double-clutched. While I was married, I’d wanted a baby so badly, but my ex, Troy, had wanted to wait. So I waited. I was still waiting when I found out he’d been cheating on me. He ended up marrying that woman, and within a year they’d had a baby together. It had been like a knife to my heart. “No.” Then, on impulse, I added, “Not yet.”

  I wasn’t ready to give up that dream quite yet, and my mind automatically wandered to Nick and the kind of father he was to Mimi, and the kind of family we could have together. . . .

  Giving myself a good hard mental shake, I pushed the thoughts aside. For now. Maybe later when I was curled up in bed, the covers tucked tight to my chin, I’d close my eyes and let that picture fully form. And let myself keep dreaming. Hoping. Wishing.

  I added a little more coffee to my cup. “I did help raise my sister, Harper, though, and can understand. She certainly has a mind of her own and knows how to use it.” I left out the part where Harper, believing her honors teachers unjust for assigning homework over spring break (when the other students had none), hacked into the mainframe of her high school and deleted all academic records.

  It had taken a computer whiz to resurrect the files, some fast-talking on my father’s part, a hefty donation to the athletic fund (which further infuriated Harper), and a suspension on her record to get her out of that mess. We were lucky the police hadn’t been involved.

  “Harper’s wonderful,” Trista said. “I know Amy adores her.” She looked off into the distance, but she said no more about Amy—and how she’d disappeared. I wondered if Trista believed, like everyone else in the village, that she was with Fisk.

  “She really is,” I said. Flaws and all.

  Thinking about Amy led me to another question that had been bothering me. “Do you know why Michael and Fisk may have been fighting last night?”

  Her eyes darkened. “I heard about that. I can’t imagine why. I know they’d both been under a lot of pressure over creating the new business, but I can’t imagine what would cause them to be physical with each other.”

  “I heard . . .” It sounded so silly. “I heard they’d been fighting over something to do with the moon.”

  She’d been bringing her cup to her lips and stopped midway. “The moon?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s strange.”

  I agreed with her. It was strange. There had to be more to it, but to know how much more, I needed to find Fisk. But first, I needed to learn as much about Michael’s life over the past couple of months as I could.

  In my head, I was trying to piece together all the information I knew. For verification, I said, “This morning, Bertie told me that it was you who asked her to hire Michael. True?”

  She nodded. “I knew Harriette would pay Michael a decent wage. The boy wouldn’t take a cent from us, no matter how much we offered. He was proud. And he wasn’t afraid to work hard—a quality he needed if he was going to work for Harriette.”

  I could see that about him.

  “So I asked a favor from Bertie.” She pulled her bottom lip into her mouth and blinked back tears. “I suddenly feel like that one phone call put this whole situation in motion.” Trista wiped her eyes. “I guess I need your help more now than ever.”

  “Why’s that?”

  I heard sirens in the distance as she said, “I want to hire you. I want you to find Fisk. Originally, I just wanted to find him before the police found him and arrested him for something he didn’t do . . . but now, I need you to find him, because if Michael had been killed for having something to do with those flowers, then Fisk might be in danger, too.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Since locating Fisk had already been on my mind, I left Trista with a promise to do my best to find him. I couldn’t help but feel he held the key to solving this whole case.

  I’d also spent my last few minutes silently wishing that Trista would just wish to know where he was. It would have made my job so much easier.

  But as it was against Wishcraft Laws to solicit wishes, I couldn’t say so aloud. Unfortunately, because Trista hadn’t picked up on my silent pleading, I was going to have to find Fisk the hard way.

  My first inclination was to ask Amy if she had any thoughts about where he might be hiding out. It was, in fact, my only inclination, so I hoped she had some suggestions for me.

  Even though I’d recently acquired a PI license, I had come about it in a magical way, and hadn’t (yet) put in the necessary requirements.

  Which boiled down to the fact that I had no idea what I was doing.

  On the front porch of Something Wicked, I buttoned my coat and tucked my hands in my pockets. I glanced at the sky. Dark clouds had moved in, and I could smell rain in the air.

  I smiled. I loved rain.

  But if the temperature dropped any more, the rain would surely turn to snow. Beautiful, yes, but not good for the festival.

  As I headed down the sidewalk, I listened to the wind whistling down the street and suddenly realized how quiet it was.

  Deathly quiet.

  I kicked up my pace and headed for the village green. As I neared, I could see the flashing lights of emergency vehicles, a crowd, and Evan standing in front of the Gingerbread Shack, taking it all in.

  Jogging over to him, I said, “What’s happened now? Not another murder?”

  I didn’t see the medical examiner’s van, but it might not have arrived yet.

  Evan said, “Someone didn’t like the judgment of the pie contest.”

  The pie contest? The one the Wickeds were judging? “What happened?”

  “Imogene Millikan became horribly ill shortly after awarding the winner of the pie.” He rolled his eyes. “A plain old apple pie.” Tsking, he added, “How boring. I would have made chocolate raspberry mousse pie, but alas, professional bakers are disqualified. Apple. So boring.”

  I hated that my stomach rumbled at a time like this. “Not all of us are as refined as you are.”

  His blue eyes gleamed. “More’s the pity.”

  “Imogene,” I said, trying to refocus his attention. “What happened to her?”

  “No one’s sure. Starla keeps running back and forth to give me updates. The latest rumor is that someone poisoned a pumpkin smoothie Imogene drank after the contest as retaliation for not winning.”

  “Seems a little severe.”

  “Oh, Darcy. No one is more cutthroat than bakers.”

  I wasn’t so sure. Because I wasn’t thinking a frustrated (psychotic) baker had anything to do with Imogene’s being poisoned.

  More likely, it was someone who had something to do with what happened to Michael. Which reinforced my growing suspicion that the Wickeds kn
ew more than they were letting on about Michael’s death.

  Four murder methods. Four Wickeds.

  But now someone had poisoned Imogene. . . . I didn’t know how that factored into everything going on, and not knowing scared me. I hoped Nick had made some headway in the case.

  Evan put an arm around me and pulled me close. He kissed my temple.

  “What was that for?” I asked.

  “You looked like you needed it.”

  I smiled at him and gave his cheek a quick peck. “I did. It’s been a long, crazy day.”

  “This business with Michael?” he asked.

  A glimpse of red in the sky caught my eye as Archie flew toward the village green. He’d been a busy bird today.

  “Trista Harkette just hired me to find Fisk.”

  “Really?”

  “She thinks he might be in danger. That whoever killed Michael might come after Fisk, too.”

  Evan motioned me into the bakery. Slipping behind the glass display case, he took out a cake pop and handed it to me. “Has she been sampling magic mushrooms?”

  “You don’t think he’s in danger?”

  He filled a mug with coffee and sat with me at a table. We had a good view of the excitement outside, including the ambulance that was pulling away from the festival.

  “I think he is the danger,” Evan said.

  The cake pop had chocolate coating that glistened under the lights. I took a bite. Moist vanilla-bean cake melted in my mouth. It was nice to have friends who owned bakeries. “Why do you think so? Just because of the way he looks?”

  Tipping his head side to side as if thinking about it, he said, “Maybe.”

  I nudged his arm. “Evan Sullivan, a fashion snob. I’m shocked. Just shocked.”

  “Don’t make me take your cake pop away, Darcy Merriweather. Have you seen the way he dresses? A crime in itself.”

  He had a point. But still. “Trista seems nice enough. Dash is a great guy. I can’t imagine their offspring would be anything other than a good kid, even if it’s disguised under doom and gloom attire.”