by Amy Boyles
Behind me, the front door opened with a bang. I jumped, a squeal expelling from my throat.
Harlow strode forward. “Is everything okay? I heard screaming.”
Martha crossed to her and patted her hand. “My dear, it seems your cousin is playing a trick on us. He pretended to be dead and has now disappeared.”
“He’s not playing a trick,” I argued. “Someone in this room stabbed him.”
Martha’s eyes narrowed. “My dear, none of us stabbed him, and you don’t know Knight like we do.”
Lynn nibbled her bottom lip. “I didn’t see a knife.”
Payne reached for me and I shrank back. “Let’s not jump to conclusions.”
In the distance sirens rang out.
Rufus emerged from the kitchen. “The police are on their way.” His jaw clenched, and he said sternly, “In the meantime I suggest we split up and search for Knight’s body. If Clementine said he was dead, then he was. And if his body is missing”—his eyes filled with anger—“that means someone here is responsible.”
Chapter 8
Chief of Police Tuney Sluggs showed up in his robe and cowboy boots. He was older than dirt with stubble sprouting from his chin that sounded like sandpaper when he ran his hand over it.
We stood outside. There was no wind, and the humidity had seeped in, making the air so thick you could swim through it.
Sluggs eyed me skeptically while his deputies stood off to the side, shooting the bull. “You say that this fellow here was dead and then he disappeared?”
“Yes,” I said, trying to get him to believe me. “He was dead, had a knife in his belly and no pulse. Then his body disappeared.”
“And who else saw the knife?”
I cringed. “No one. I was the only witness.”
His brows shot up. “And y’all were working some kind of seance?” He glanced over at Rufus as if he were guilty of a crime.
“A cleansing,” Rufus confirmed. “We were all in the room together.”
Sluggs ran his fingers through his hair. “Well, we’ll take a look around, but it sounds to me like this fellow just up and ran out of the room when no one was looking.”
I shook my head. “There was no way. He had no pulse, Chief. I swear. I was about to do CPR on him.”
He cocked a brow. “And you’re suggesting that a man with no pulse up and left?”
“No,” I said, frustrated. “I’m saying someone did something. They got rid of him in the dark.”
Why didn’t he believe me? Having someone be able to move a body in the dark made much more sense than a body getting up and walking out the door.
I knew what I had seen. There was no way that Knight was getting up to do anything. He was dead, darn it. Deader than a doornail. And someone in that room had used magic or some other means to move his body.
But if they had used magic, how had they done it? I hadn’t seen another spell get cast. Rufus was the official spell hunter. How could someone else have managed that feat?
Sluggs patted my shoulder like a father placating a child. “Like I said, we’ll take a look.” Then he turned away as if I was dismissed. “Boys, let’s search the area.”
Then he strode off, bathrobe and all, into the night.
I turned to Rufus. “He doesn’t believe me.”
“I believe you,” he said gently. “If Knight’s body is out there, his men will find it. Now, he might not, but the men will.”
I laughed because Rufus was right. Sluggs couldn’t be trusted to find a woman in a room full of men, so I certainly didn’t think he’d find Knight. After all, when my best friend, Sadie, had been murdered, he declared her death accidental. Who trips and falls into a slab of wet concrete and doesn’t get up?
Right. Sluggs wasn’t a police officer who could be trusted with discovering the truth—at least not when it came to murder.
I nibbled my bottom lip, trying to figure out if there was something that I was missing—something that I’d forgotten to tell them. Oh, I’d forgotten to tell him about people’s positions and how someone could have killed him, dragged his body from the room and then returned.
I nearly smacked myself on the forehead. That even sounded stupid to me. There was no way that someone could have done that in the moment or two that the lights were off.
Like I thought before—they couldn’t do it physically, but maybe they could have done it magically.
“I’ll be back,” I said to Rufus.
“Oh no,” he said, following me. “What’re you doing?”
“I just want to let him know who was standing where. It might help them when it comes to a list of suspects.”
Rufus took my arm, stopping me. “I suggest you let the police do their job.”
“I only want to help.”
“You’re probably going to yell at them.”
I scoffed. “What makes you say such a thing? But you’re right, if Sluggs decides this isn’t a crime, then yes, I probably will yell at him.”
Rufus’s lips quirked into a smile. “See? You don’t trust him or his men.”
I took a step closer and lowered my voice. “You and I both know that Lynn had a problem with Knight. She could have done something.”
Rufus’s eyes filled with concern. “I don’t think it’s wise to run in and start accusing specific people of murder—not without evidence.”
He was right. I was jumping to conclusions.
But I still wanted to see what was going on.
“You don’t have to come with me, but I’m going, and I’ll be nice.” Without waiting for Rufus to reply, I charged toward the house, heading around back, to the kitchen.
From the window I could see the police inside, talking. Sluggs was pointing; they were nodding. Earl Granger, his one and only smart deputy, studied the scene as if trying to puzzle it out.
The chief said something, and the other men laughed. I groaned. Great. They weren’t taking me seriously.
Then I spied something on the counter—Knight’s journal. There was no way that he would have left it on the counter.
I slowly opened the back door, hoping to hear a little of what the police were saying.
“Well, boys,” Sluggs said, “it looks like this is a simple case of a man wanting to disappear. I guarantee that he’ll show up in a couple of days, unharmed.”
The men made murmurs of agreement.
If I wanted to know the truth about what happened to Knight, I would have to figure it out for myself.
Quiet as I could, I slid the journal from the counter and tucked it into my purse. Then I sneaked from the kitchen with the intention of discovering exactly what had happened to Knight Owens.
Because whoever had thrust that knife in his belly and made his body disappear was dangerous.
I was convinced of it, and Tuney Sluggs wasn’t going to convince me otherwise.
Chapter 9
Rufus drove me home. We rode in silence. I stared out the window, trying to puzzle out what had happened.
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” he asked.
“How can I? Sluggs thinks Knight disappeared. You seemed convinced that something had happened. Why didn’t you say anything to him?”
“Because there isn’t a body,” Rufus said, “and I didn’t sense any magic being used.”
I rubbed Lady’s back. She was asleep and snored soundly. “You mean extra magic?”
“Right,” he clarified. “Extra magic.”
I considered this. Was there another possibility? I curled one leg under the other and turned to face him. “Do you think it’s possible that one spell could’ve been hidden under another?”
His gaze flickered from the road to briefly lock with mine. “Are you, Clementine, embracing the witchcraft within you?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ve already embraced some of it. Or have you already forgotten about the spear?”
“I haven’t forgotten.” He stared ahead, and I studied his profile, noting how
his cheekbones glowed from the halo of light emanating from dash. “But if you’re asking if I think that someone threw out a spell while the others were whizzing around”—he paused, considering it—“then I would say that it could have been possible for someone to sneak another spell under the others, I suppose. I didn’t feel it,” he said quickly, “but I’ll freely admit that there was a lot of chaos in that room.”
“And a dead man.”
“And no body,” he said. We pulled up to my house, and Rufus put the Range Rover into park. His body sank onto the seat, and he glanced up at the ceiling and exhaled. “Look, I’m on your side. We both saw what we saw. But we can’t go around accusing people of murder, not without cause.”
I nodded. But with a little digging, I could find the cause and discover what really happened to Knight’s body.
“You’re right,” I said, pretending not to be interested in the mystery, “I should let this lie.”
“But you’re not.”
I scoffed. “Of course I will. I can. You just watch. I’m going to forget all about this and let it go.”
Rufus’s eyes filled with warmth. He reached out and, with his knuckles, brushed a strand of hair from my cheek. I started to stiffen but then relaxed into his touch. I closed my eyes and exhaled.
I wanted his arms to fold around me, to fall into him. I wanted to exhale and drink in his scent and feel his lips on mine.
Y’all, this was a complicated relationship we had, no doubt about it. I didn’t want to want him, but I did. I didn’t want to trust him, but I did.
Maybe this was one of those situations that would be helped by time.
It would smooth out the wrinkles in my mind, and eventually Rufus would prove once and for all who he was. Then, and only then, would I give him the memory spell.
It was decided then. He would get the spell when I knew who he was in his heart. When I was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was truly a good person and that who he had been in the past was no more, that it was erased from his past, then I would tell him the truth. I would tell Rufus everything that I knew about him.
Until then, I would keep my secrets and his stored safely away.
“Can I see you to the door?” he asked.
“Sure.”
He got out, and I waited for him to open my door. I gently woke Lady and she yawned. “What’d I miss? What’s been going on?”
“Not much,” I murmured. Rufus opened the door. “Hey, John,” Lady said. “Have I said that you look handsome tonight?”
“Er,” Rufus replied.
“Well, if I didn’t, I sure think so, and I’m pretty certain that Clem thinks so, too.”
I covered Lady’s mouth with my hand. “Oh, Lady. You’re so funny.”
Rufus raked his fingers through his hair. “Um, yes,” he said, his voice filled with unease.
I did my best to laugh off my dog’s horrible sense of timing and let Rufus escort me up the stairs. We stood under the single light and I smiled. “Well, this night didn’t end up the way we wanted.”
“It certainly didn’t.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Lady said. “That one guy died!”
Okay, time to put Lady away. I unlocked the door and was about to usher her in when my little dog said, “John, do you want to have a sleepover? We can make popcorn and watch old movies. We will have so much fun. You can see what Clementine looks like before she puts all her makeup on in the morning. Ew—well, maybe you want to rethink that. You might not want to see what Clem looks like first thing. Trust me, it can be bad.”
“Okay,” I said loudly. “Time to go in.”
Rufus glanced at me shyly. “I’ll call you tomorrow. See how you’re doing.”
“Oh,” I said, not hiding the surprise in my voice. “Sure.”
With that, he walked down the steps and disappeared into his vehicle. I exhaled, sad and surprised by that emotion.
Lady called from the living room. “Come on, Clem. Get in here. I’m starving!”
I was just about to go inside when a crash sounded from across the street. I glanced over and saw an entire bush by Willard Gandy’s house collapse to the ground.
“What in the world? I’ll be right back, Lady,” I called. “And check your food dish. I’m pretty sure that you’ve still got some food left over in it.”
“Well, all right,” she called.
I tossed my purse into the house and shut the door before sprinting across the road. It wasn’t storming, so there was no reason for that bush to have fallen over. I hadn’t seen Willard Gandy all day, but it wasn’t unlike him to be doing something in his yard. Maybe not this late at night, but you never knew about a person.
The bush, of the azalea variety, had sat like a mushroom, fat and squat against the side of his home. Now, the top half was broken off and the inside was mashed down as if someone had been trying to climb it.
A groan came from the middle of the greenery. I pulled my phone from my back pocket and aimed the flashlight on the shrubbery.
I gasped at the face staring back at me. “Malene Fredericks,” I hissed, “you should be ashamed of yourself.”
Malene sat in the middle of the bush wearing nothing other than her floral housecoat and bathroom slippers. Leaves stuck from her hair, and her glasses sat skewed on her nose.
She sputtered. “This ain’t what it looks like.”
“It looks like you were spying on Willard Gandy and ended up breaking the bush.”
She scowled. “Okay, so this is what it looks like. Help me out of here before Willard comes out and gives me a paddling.”
I hid a laugh behind my hand. The idea of old Willard with a school paddle in hand telling Malene to bend over just about cracked me up.
She huffed a lot as I tried to hoist her from the bush. But in the end I freed Malene from the azalea’s grip.
“Help me make this look like nothing happened.”
The bush sagged to one side. “That’s going to take a miracle.”
Malene scowled. “Just do the best you can. I’ll call John in the morning and see if he has a spell that can help.” She pumped her eyebrows at me suggestively. “Unless you want to go spell hunting tonight, that is?”
“No way, I’ve already dealt with enough this evening.”
“What are you talking about?”
I shoved a handful of broken branches back into the shrub. “Let’s finish up here and I’ll tell you.”
We did the best we could to patch up the shrub. It was a wonder that Willard hadn’t heard, because y’all, that crash had been something else.
“He’s sleeping, probably,” Malene said. “That man can sleep through a tornado.”
“How would you know?” I asked.
Her gaze quickly cut away from mine. “Just…anybody can tell that about Willard. He’s a mouth breather, after all.”
“No, he’s not.”
“You just never noticed.” She jabbed her finger in the air. “Next time, you watch, see what you see about that old man.”
When we were settled at Malene’s house, she put on a pot of coffee and buttered thick slabs of banana bread before heating them on the stove.
“Crystallizes the sugar. It’s better that way,” she explained.
She poured me a cup of coffee and settled a plate of bread between us. It smelled like freshly baked bananas. My stomach grumbled, and I realized that I was honest-to-goodness starving. Okay, maybe I wasn’t really starving, but I felt fairly close to it.
“Thank you for helping me,” she said.
“Why are you spying on him?”
“I told you,” she snapped. “That man is up to something, and I aim to find out what it is.”
“I’m not trying to be rude, I’m really not but how is that any of your business? What Willard does?”
She jutted out her bottom lip. “Because what Willard does might affect me since I live next door to him.”
“What? Do you think his house is goin
g to explode?”
“Maybe,” she said in a dark voice. I shot her a skeptical look, and Malene threw up her hands. “Heck, I don’t know. But what I do know is that if he’s up to something that’s no good, I don’t want to wind up being the last person to find out what it is.”
Wow, Malene had more issues when it came to suspecting other people of things than I did.
This made me happy to know.
“But enough about me,” Malene said. “What’s going on with you? What happened tonight that’s got you up in a tizzy?”
I sighed and massaged my face with my fingertips. “Well, I witnessed a man with a knife in his belly up and disappear.”
Malene’s eyes widened with interest. “Tell me more.”
So I told her everything that I knew, down to the last detail, including how Knight had been fighting with his siblings. Malene listened quietly, her head bobbing and her gaze staying glued to mine while I spoke.
When I finished explaining my theory that everyone thought was crazy, she said, “So you think someone there murdered him and then used magic to cover it up?”
I nodded. “Yes, I do.”
She rubbed her chin. “This is interesting. We haven’t had a case like this in ages.”
“Who’s we?”
“Why, the quilting bee ladies and me.”
I frowned, unsure where Malene was going with this. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that first thing in the morning, I’ll get the ladies together and we can help you with this—help you figure out exactly what happened to Knight.”
Malene believed me! To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I should thank her or run away scared.
But before I could make a decision either way, she rose. “Yep, first thing in the morning we’ll start sniffing around, see what we can find out. Don’t you worry, Clementine. We’re on your side.”
Great. The person on my side was also the lady who tried to scale an azalea bush to spy on her next door neighbor.
What was I in store for now?
Chapter 10