I grew alarmed as she grabbed another bowl of peanuts from the adjacent table. Aunt Amber ate when she was upset, but at the moment, she seemed out of her mind and oblivious to everything around her, including the peanuts that she tossed back with reckless abandon. Giant welts formed on her arms and neck, making me wonder if she had a death wish. “Stop eating those. You know you’re allergic.”
“I can’t live like this, Cen.” Aunt Amber cried. “What about my Hollywood Walk of Fame? Now I’ll never get there.”
At least the corner booth we sat in gave us some privacy, but even in the bar’s dim light, Aunt Amber’s bloated face was clearly visible. “Just calm down and take a deep breath. Where’s your EpiPen?”
“Oh, darn it.” She lowered her head and rubbed her face in her hands. She recited a spell in a low voice, so softly that I couldn’t make out the words. Within seconds her hives shrank by half.
I breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn’t placed a curse on Steven or anybody else. I grabbed the peanut bowl and took it over to the next booth.
I slid back into my seat. “Did you use witchcraft to get the movie part in the first place?” There were strict rules about using witchcraft for personal gain, and Aunt Amber knew them all by heart. She was normally so law-abiding and the last person I expected to break the rules. But nothing about this day had been normal.
She ignored me as she stared into space.
I grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “Aunt Amber?”
“There, I feel better now.” She looked up, her eyes meeting mine. Her skin was clear and pale, with no trace of the hives from moments earlier. “All this stuff is stressing me out. It’s all my fault. I should never have helped Steven.”
“You helped him how? I thought it was the other way around.” I couldn’t see how else Aunt Amber had landed a blockbuster movie acting role with absolutely no experience or acting credits.
“Of course I helped him, Cen. I got him Dirk Diamond.”
I rolled my eyes. “How can you say that? Steven already had Dirk Diamond. High Noon Heist is the sequel to Midnight Heist, which Dirk already starred in. It was a blockbuster hit, so naturally he’s going to star in the sequel.”
“You would think so, but Dirk hadn’t signed the contract yet. For good reason too. He thought Steven was giving him a bum deal.”
“How do you know what Dirk Diamond thought?” I lowered my voice as I spotted Steven Scarabelli enter the bar. I swore under my breath, alarmed to see him out of his room. I just hoped that Brayden didn’t decide to stop by the bar.
I turned back to Aunt Amber. “Dirk sounded pretty ungrateful when we were at Steven’s trailer. Yet if not for Steven, Dirk wouldn’t have even been a star.” It felt weird to talk about Dirk in past tense, though I couldn’t shake the image of his dead body. It was seared into my brain.
A flash of light caught my eye. I turned to see flames shooting up from behind the bar.
Aunt Pearl waved at us from behind the bar. She was either doing a poor job bartending or a good job of burning the place down.
I jumped from the booth, cursing as I hit my knee on the table. I ran towards the bar, slipping on the wet floor as I went. I regained my balance. “Aunt Pearl, grab some water! Douse the flames!”
She grabbed a bottle from the bar and waved it in her hand.
As I ran towards her, I noted in horror that it wasn’t water, but a bottle of vodka. “No!”
I dove to grab the bottle before everything exploded, but I hit an invisible wall with such force that it had to be supernatural. I tumbled to the ground and bounced into a backward somersault before unrolling into a sitting position.
I turned around, expecting an inferno. Instead, the flames were now contained in two tiny shot glasses like the whole thing had never happened.
Everyone in the bar stared at me for a split second, then someone clapped.
Aunt Pearl smirked. “C’mon, Cen. Pick yourself up.”
I glared at her as I staggered to my feet. “Drawing attention isn’t going to get you a career in the movies, Aunt Pearl. Stop the theatrics.”
“Oh, like you should talk. Relax, Cendrine. You act like you’ve never seen flaming Sambucas before.” She lifted the two drinks with her oven mitt-covered hands and placed them in front of Steven Scarabelli and Arianne Duval.
I was a little uneasy about Steven hanging around at the bar. Though he had broken his promise to Tyler to stay in his room, at least he was still on the property. There was nowhere else to go at this hour, and odds were slim that Brayden would visit the bar. It would probably be fine.
Steven and Arianne both looked stressed, and it was certainly understandable why they wanted drinks after everything that had happened today. Especially Steven, who was probably still shaken from spending time in jail. Even though people weren’t exactly mourning Dirk, flaming Sambuca shooters seemed a little too celebratory for my liking. I wondered whose idea that was.
Arianne shrank back from her shooter and fanned her hand above her shot glass. “Can I get mine uh…cooled?” She nodded politely in my direction.
Aunt Pearl rolled her eyes before leaning over to blow out the flames on Arianne’s drink, almost singeing her own eyebrows in the process.
Arianne shuddered and pushed away her shot glass with a long manicured finger.
Thankfully Steven changed the subject. “Have you seen Bill?”
“No.” It seemed odd for him to ask me, of all people. “Did you check his room?”
He nodded. “I was there a few minutes ago, but that jerk is avoiding me. He owes me money and I can’t wait any longer. I’m on the hook to pay everyone here.”
“How much does he owe you exactly?” The money angle interested me because money always seemed to bring out the worst in people. Bill hadn’t mentioned any issues with Steven. Maybe Bill was embarrassed about owing money. But admitting that Steven was there to collect a debt from Bill would have been good to know. That at least gave Steven a valid reason for lingering around the props. But if that was the case, why hadn’t Steven said so? Or maybe Bill just claimed Steven was at the prop box to deflect blame from himself.
I felt a hand on my arm and turned to see Aunt Amber at my side. With Steven on my other side, I felt a little uneasy about things escalating. “We should probably go help Mom now.”
“Fine by me.” Aunt Amber turned to Steven. “You might think you’re getting away with murder, Steven, but you’re not. If the police don’t get you, I will.”
“Aunt Amber!” I locked my arm in hers and steered her away from the bar towards the door. “How can you say such a thing to the man who gave you your big break?”
“My talent is what got me my break, Cen. And I in turn helped Dirk. Aside from being my protégé, he was a dear friend. He never forgot how I introduced him to Steven and gave him his big break. It turns out to have been a fatal mistake. It’s all my fault.” She broke out in sobs as I guided her to the door. “Maybe I should just end it all. Without my co-star, I have no reason to live.”
I pulled open the door and half-dragged Aunt Amber as she leaned heavily on my arm. I couldn’t tell if she was serious or just trying to get attention, but I suspected the latter. She wanted Steven to regret the loss of her amazing acting skills.
As we stepped outside into the cool night air she suddenly regained her strength. She dropped my arm and headed for the Inn at a brisk pace. We had only walked a few steps when we ran into Tyler coming from the parking lot.
“You.” Aunt Amber lunged at Tyler and pounded on his chest. “You let a murderer go free. You gave him his freedom, but I promise you, he’s not going to enjoy it.”
17
I had just entered the dining room when something swooped down and almost knocked me off my feet.
I screamed.
I ducked as a swoosh of air hit the back of my neck. I froze, half-expecting claws on my head or back. While the Inn was drafty, there were definitely no bats, birds, or flying creatu
res inside the house. No, this could be only one person, and that’s what scared me more than anything. I froze by the stair banister, bracing myself for what was to come next.
“Cendrine West—stop cowering like a fool!” Grandma Vi hovered in front of me, blocking my way forward. In theory at least, since technically I could walk right through her.
“What are you doing here? I thought you went back home,” I whispered. Grandma had promised to go back to the treehouse, but I guess she was upset at all the guests staying at the Inn. She was never happy about people staying in her ancestral home, and I worried about her doing something rash. Just her presence was enough to complicate things.
I felt eyes on me. Despite the late hour, the dining room’s two dozen or so seats were occupied with late diners, and all eyes were on me. Grandma Vi was invisible to everyone else, of course, so I just looked like a raving lunatic.
Again.
“Let’s go somewhere else,” I said. “Maybe the treehouse?”
Grandma Vi’s apparition darkened. “This is my house, remember? I’ve got more right to be here than these interlopers. This is all Amber’s fault. None of this would have happened if she hadn’t brought that movie here. I’m a little cheesed off at her.”
I spun around to look for Aunt Amber, but she hadn’t followed me into the dining room like I thought. I turned on my heels and headed to the hall. “I’ll find her.”
Grandma Vi floated behind me, muttering something I couldn’t quite make out. Her voice rose as we moved to the hallway. “You’re supposed to be helping poor Tyler. He’s really got his hands full with this one. And he looks so sad.”
Tyler did look sad. We passed him where he sat at a table by the door. It was getting closer to Brayden’s deadline, and he was no closer to catching the killer.
Grandma Vi was Tyler’s biggest fan, but her man crush on my boyfriend was a little annoying sometimes. And kind of stalker-ish. He didn’t even know she existed, yet she knew everything about him. I had this disturbing family secret that if revealed would only make me seem creepy too. “I am helping, Grandma, and I don’t want to argue. Let’s focus on finding Dirk’s killer. You said you saw the whole thing. I want to know what you saw from your vantage point above the set. Tell me everything.”
She floated past me and turned around, hovering at my eye level. “There were some other people on set that weren’t supposed to be there. No one saw them but me.”
“Who?” I momentarily forgot about my search for Aunt Amber.
She shook her head. “A man and a woman. I don’t know who they are, though. They were hiding in an empty building across the street.”
Of course. As a ghost, Grandma Vi not only passed through walls; she could see through them too. Why hadn’t I thought of that before?
“Which building? Could you identify—” I stopped mid-sentence as the Inn’s front door creaked open. Brayden Banks stepped inside the dining room seconds later. He nodded, his voice flat and cold. “Cen.”
No one would ever guess that we had once been madly in love and engaged to be married. As far as he was concerned, I was now the enemy.
His mouth was set in a thin, hard line and it was obvious that he was angry about something. I debated stepping in front of him to warn Tyler, but it was too late. He was already headed towards the dining room.
So I fell in behind him and motioned for Grandma Vi to follow.
Brayden strode into the dining room and made a beeline for Tyler, who had just been joined by Steven Scarabelli at his tiny table. Steven must have left the Witching Post just after Aunt Amber and me. Tyler leaned forward, talking with Steven in hushed tones.
Brayden stopped inches from Tyler and glared down at him. “Sheriff Gates—is this your idea of crime fighting? Sitting around drinking coffee with a murder suspect?”
Tyler stood. ”That’s not what I’m doing. I’m getting eyewit—”
“Sure you are,” Brayden said in the flat monotone he used when trying to control his temper. “Just relax and drink your coffee. That way the State Police will know exactly where to find you when they absolve you of your duties and take over the case.”
“You can’t take me off the case. Not when I’m getting close to an arrest.”
“Just watch me,” Brayden said. “You were supposed to have Scarabelli behind bars. What the hell’s going on here?”
“I couldn’t arrest him. There’s conflicting evidence that says we arrested the wrong person.” Tyler tapped his laptop screen. “He’s promised not to leave the Inn.”
Brayden threw up his hands and his face flushed with anger. “How could you release Scarabelli? We can’t have a murderer on the loose. What will people think?” It was all about appearances with Brayden.
“Uh, I’m not going anywhere, Mayor,” Steven said. “I’ll stay right here.”
Brayden dismissed him with a wave. ”Keep out of this.”
Steven shrugged. “I’ll be upstairs in my room, Sheriff.” He turned and left.
Tyler pressed a few keys on his keyboard and swiveled his laptop around so it faced Brayden. “I had no choice but to release Steven. Look what I found.”
It was surveillance video footage from the bank’s outside cameras. The film was black and white and grainy, but Steven Scarabelli was in plain view. “He was right there when the bullets were fired. You can hear the shots. You can also see there’s nothing in his hands. He’s standing in the opposite direction from where the bullets came from.”
“I don’t care.” Brayden’s face reddened.
I interrupted. “You don’t care if an innocent man is charged with murder? I thought I knew you better than that, Brayden.”
Brayden shook his head. “You don’t know me at all, Cen. You never did.”
Grandma Vi hummed and played a fake violin. “What drama!”
I glared at her before turning back to Brayden.
Bullets weren’t the only thing flying around Westwick Corners. “Let’s focus on finding the killer, who’s still out there,” I said. “Until we figure that out, we could end up with another murder on our hands.”
“Stay out of it, Cen. It’s a police investigation and none of your business.” Brayden suddenly jumped backward as he clutched his head.
The ceiling above his head had cracked, sending chunks of plaster raining down. A fine dusting of plaster coated his head and the shoulders of his navy suit. Directly above him was a gaping hole in the ceiling. The hole had opened for no apparent reason and had only hit Brayden and not the rest of us.
Grandma Vi floated just behind Brayden, laughing.
I was mad and pleased with her all at the same time, and it was all I could do to suppress a smile.
“This place is a dump.” Brayden rubbed his face in his hands, brushing the dust from his eyes. Maybe it was the plaster shower or the threat of a killer on the loose, but something had a sobering effect on him. The worsening situation seemed to hit home for Brayden. “I’ll give you twenty-four more hours, Sheriff Gates. But after that, I’m calling in the State Police.”
“You won’t have to. We’ll have the killer before then.” Tyler frowned.
I just hoped he was right. We had to stop the carnage before the killer did it for us.
18
After checking in with Mom in the kitchen, Tyler and I headed back into the dining room. Aunt Amber had reappeared. She sat at a table just outside the kitchen door, tapping her foot. She looked flushed and restless. Probably because Mayor Brayden Banks was still there.
Brayden had dusted off the fallen plaster and was polishing off a double helping of Mom’s cherry pie. He seemed content, at least until he spotted us heading towards his table. Aunt Amber rose from her seat and fell in behind us.
Whatever conversation took place between Brayden and Tyler, I felt that Tyler needed witnesses. The three of us stood there waiting for Brayden to look up, but he just stared down at his half-eaten pie, completely in another world.
“
I did it,” Aunt Amber said, loud enough for everyone in the dining room to hear. “I killed Dirk Diamond.”
Brayden’s mouth dropped open, his fork poised in midair. “What are you saying? You helped Scarabelli?”
Aunt Amber was quickly getting herself into a mess of trouble, too serious for even a witch to undo.
“You couldn’t have done it.” I stared at my aunt, willing her to stop talking. “I saw you walking away before the shots were fired.”
“Maybe I never fired the actual shot, but I helped all the same.” Aunt Amber smiled as if she had just uttered the most inconsequential thing in the world.
Brayden dropped his fork. “How exactly? Did you get Scarabelli the gun?”
Aunt Amber just smiled.
“You hired an assassin?” Brayden’s face scrunched up in confusion.
I leaned closer and whispered in my aunt’s ear. “Why are you doing this? You’re just complicating things. It will sidetrack the entire investigation.”
“Relax.” She said in a low voice. “It’s all part of my master plan.”
“Forget the master plan.” I gripped her arm and pulled her a few feet away. I had had enough of Aunt Amber’s drama. The town—not to mention Dirk—would have been better off if the movie never happened in the first place. “This is serious business. Once you’re arrested, you won’t be able to go back to London.”
“Uh-oh. I hadn’t thought of that.” She smoothed her hair and smiled at the couple sitting at the next table.
Just as I suspected, Aunt Amber was angling for the limelight without thinking things through.
Brayden pointed at Tyler. “You heard her, Sheriff Gates. Why aren’t you arresting her?”
Tyler opened his mouth to answer but thought better of it. He pulled a pair of handcuffs from his jacket pocket and cuffed Aunt Amber.
“Aunt Amber! Tell him you’re not serious.” Her diversion tactic—if that’s what it was—threatened to derail Tyler’s investigation once again.
She ignored me as she held up her wrists. “I’m Steven’s accomplice. We both killed Dirk.”
Witch and Famous--A Westwick Witches Cozy Mystery Page 11