“Yum,” I said as I eagerly picked up one of the brownies from the plate. “These smell so good.”
“I know, right?” Sara said, doing the same thing. “I’ve never had these before. They must be a new recipe. Ellie has never tried it out at home.”
“Or if she has, maybe Amy ate them all before you got to them,” I joked, eliciting a laugh from Sara.
As the first bite of delectable brownie hit my tongue, I closed my eyes involuntarily and leaned back. It was like heaven in a small square. The chocolate practically melted on my tongue, the intense dark taste being the first thing I tasted, followed by notes of salted caramel and cheesecake, whose light, airy texture fit perfectly with the dense brownie below.
I could eat a hundred of these, easily.
“This is so good,” Sara said, and I nodded my agreement.
“I think we need to order some more of them before we go,” I said, leaning forward and grabbing my large mug of coffee. The coffees at Hexpresso Bean weren’t your typical lattes: they looked more like freakshakes, with colored syrups making their way down the glass mugs, candy-topped whipped cream, and delectable goodies like cotton candy on top.
Basically, coming to Hexpresso Bean was an exercise in eating way too many calories and feeling amazing about it afterward. Inside all of the lattes was a special magic that made you feel exactly what you needed—if you were stressed out about something, the magic would make you feel relaxed, that sort of thing—and I was pretty sure that same magic numbed the guilt I usually felt when I ate this many calories in one sitting.
And I was totally okay with that.
“I can’t believe that three days from now I’m going to be on magical television,” Sara said. “It all seems so surreal.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m extremely excited for you. It’s going to be a change, but I think it’s going to be a very good one.”
Sara nodded, a smile on her face, but all of a sudden her eyes widened and the smile disappeared. I turned to see what she was looking at. Behind her, just behind the counter, the fairy who had helped us clutched at her throat and made an awful sound. Suddenly she began flying around the room, her wings beating at a trillion miles an hour. The other patrons in the coffee shop shouted as she flew above everybody, zipping around in a circle while still making that horrible sound like she was choking. She clutched at her throat, and Sara and I watched on in horror; I had absolutely no idea what to do.
“Luna!” one of the other fairies shouted, flying up herself and trying to stop Luna from hurting herself further. However, Luna simply flew directly into her and sent the fairy flying right into a display case of cinnamon buns.
The next thing I knew, Luna flew directly into one of the walls and fell onto the floor, her wings still twitching but otherwise not moving.
Chapter 3
“What do we do?” I asked Sara, my eyes wide.
Everyone seemed to be still with shock; we all stood and looked at Luna, no one really knowing what to do.
Eventually, I realized someone had to do something. I made my way over to the fairy and touched her gently.
“Luna? Luna, are you all right?”
There was no answer, and to my surprise, every muscle in her body was tense. I looked over at Sara. I didn’t know very much about medicine in the magical world, but I had a sneaking suspicion that Luna was dead.
Eventually the other fairy, who I recognized now as Aurora, made her way over and I looked at her with sadness in my eyes. “I think she might be dead,” I said quietly, and Aurora nodded, silent tears streaming down her face. She crouched down next to me and touched Luna’s face.
“Yes, she is dead,” Aurora confirmed. “The contracted muscles only happen in fairies once we have passed on to the next realm.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered to Aurora. It couldn’t have been easy seeing another fairy die like this.
“How did this happen?” Aurora whispered to no one in particular. “Oh, Luna, what on earth was the matter?”
A low buzz passed through the coffee shop as everyone began to realize that Luna was dead. I looked around, not really knowing what to do. Should we cover her with a sheet? Luna looked so exposed out here, lying in the middle of the floor of the coffee shop. But I didn’t know where we could get a sheet from.
“In the name of Jupiter, give this fairy a dignified cover,” I heard a trembling voice say from toward the kitchen, and when I looked over, I saw Ellie with her wand pointed at Luna. A moment later, a black sheet covered the fairy, and the body was hidden from view.
Ellie made her way over to us, and I took her shaking hands in mine.
“I’m so sorry, Ellie,” I said.
Ellie nodded. “Thanks. Poor Luna. She was such a nice fairy. I don’t understand what just happened.”
“What would have caused that sort of fit?” I asked. “Did you see it at all?”
“Only the last little bit,” Ellie replied. “I was in the kitchen for most of it, but I eventually heard the disturbance. I came out to see the last few seconds and to watch her hit the wall and collapse.” She shuddered involuntarily. “It was just awful.”
“It really was,” I agreed. “Poor Luna. What happens now? I mean, I guess Hexpresso Bean is going to have to be closed for the day?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Ellie said. “To be honest, I’m really not sure what’s going to happen. It’s not like we have an employee die on us every single day.”
The question was answered for us a minute later, though, when Chief Enforcer Aria King, the head of law enforcement in Western Woods, made her way through the front door.
“Right. I hear there has been a suspicious death here, is that right?” Chief Enforcer King asked, looking around the room.
“Yes, it is,” Aurora answered, motioning toward the covered body of Luna.
“Okay. I would like everybody to stay where they are and remain calm. I’m going to call for healers to come over and have a look at the body, and I would like to speak with everybody who was here when this death happened.”
I raised my eyebrows at Sara and Ellie. “She certainly got here quickly.”
“Someone must’ve called her,” Ellie said. “There are a couple of shifters sitting at one of the corner tables. They work as security guards at one of the local warehouses; maybe they thought that telling Chief Enforcer King about the death was the prudent thing to do.”
“I don’t think they’re wrong,” I said slowly. “I mean, I don’t know much about fairies or anything like that, but the way she was flying around and clutching at her throat before she died definitely made me think something suspicious had happened.”
“Yeah, nothing about it seemed natural,” Sara agreed. “I’m glad Chief Enforcer King is here. Even if the death was natural, at least with her looking into it, we’ll know for sure.”
“All right,” Chief Enforcer King announced. “I’m going to go to the back, and I’m going to take statements from everyone who is here, one at a time. I’d like to start with the staff.”
Ellie got up. “I guess that’s my cue,” she said, following after Chief Enforcer King as they made their way to the back room. About two minutes later, a couple more shifters made their way into the coffee shop, followed by a fairy with the healers’ H on her top. She immediately set about looking at the body, fluttering around it and doing various magical tests I didn’t recognize.
“Do fairies have their own spells and stuff?” I asked Sara.
“They don’t have spells, but they do have their own brand of magic,” Sara replied. “Their magic is linked to the atmosphere and is very ethereal in nature. They have good instincts and are able to sense a lot of things we can’t.”
“Ok,” I nodded, looking carefully at the Healer fairy. She frowned slightly and repeated the same motion as she had a moment earlier over the body. “I think she thinks there’s something wrong.”
“I hope not,” Sara shuddered. “I don’t want there
to have been yet another murder here.”
I definitely agreed with that sentiment.
A few minutes later Ellie returned, her face white.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as Aurora made her way to the back of the coffee shop for her turn to be spoken to by Chief Enforcer King.
“Nothing,” Ellie said. “Not really. At least, not yet. We don’t even know if it was poison. But if it was, I think I might be one of the prime suspects.”
My hand shot to my mouth. “No way. You can’t be.”
“I baked everything in this coffee shop. Aurora made all of the coffees. Luna was on her break when she was poisoned, which means that if she ate or drank something, either Aurora or I made it.”
“Still, Chief Enforcer King can’t believe you would have anything to do with the killing of one of your coworkers,” I exclaimed, angry on Ellie’s behalf. Sure, Ellie could be a little bit brash, and she had more street smarts than any of us, but deep down she had a heart of gold. There was absolutely no way she would ever hurt anyone if she had any other choice.
“She doesn’t know me,” Ellie said with a shrug. “I mean, I know I didn’t kill Luna. Why anyone would hurt her is beyond me. And I know Aurora didn’t hurt her either. That fairy makes insulated homes for stray cats in the winter and insists on putting spiders outside instead of killing them. But Chief Enforcer King has no choice but to suspect us if something untoward happened.”
I looked over at the Healer fairy again, who was once more fluttering from side to side over the body, looking anxious.
“I don’t want to speak too early, but it’s not looking good,” I said quietly. Sara shook her head slowly.
“Awful. Absolutely awful.”
“But if there was foul play, who could have done it?” I asked. “It would have had to be someone in the coffee shop, right?”
“Someone who was here today, yes,” Ellie said. “At least, if it was in the food. If it was in the drink, they’d have to be here now.”
“Who was here today who’s already left?” I asked.
“I can narrow it down further,” Ellie said. “Those brownies came out of the oven five minutes before you guys got here, and not a single person came into the back kitchen area while they were baking, except for Luna herself. I’ll ask Aurora in case she had any take-out orders, but I’m pretty sure the only people who would have had the chance to poison Luna’s food or drink are sitting in this coffee shop right now.”
The three of us stared at each other as the realization set in. If Luna had been murdered, that meant the killer was sitting here in the coffee shop with us.
“You’re right,” I said slowly. My chair faced the door, and no one had left since we had sat down. “If no one went out through the back past you, no one left after we got here.”
“Yeah,” Ellie said. “The door at the back is magically enchanted anyway, for extra security purposes. It can only be used by employees; even if someone had gotten back there, the door wouldn’t have opened for them to get out.”
“So if there’s a killer, they’re in this room,” Sara said, and I swallowed hard.
Chapter 4
“Who’s here that could have done it, then, I guess is the question?” I asked as the fairy fluttered away from the body and toward the back room. She must have been going to report to Chief Enforcer King.
“Don’t you think we’re getting a little bit ahead of ourselves here?” Ellie asked. “After all, we don’t even know that Luna was murdered. For all we know, it could have just been some sort of fairy heart attack or some sort of health problem that she didn’t tell her coworkers about.”
“That’s true,” I nodded, feeling a little bit silly for automatically assuming that there was a murder involved when chances were it was just natural causes. Still, I couldn’t help but think that the fairy healer was acting a little bit strangely.
She came out from the back just then, along with Aurora, and I got up and made my way toward the back. I wanted to speak with Chief Enforcer King.
As I passed by the counter I couldn’t help but notice the coffee and the special brownie that had been made just for Luna. They sat, now abandoned, with three bites out of the brownie and a couple of sips taken from the coffee. If it was poison, it could have been in either one of them.
Making my way through the door that led to the back of the coffee shop, I realized I had never actually been in this area where Ellie did all of her baking. It was a huge kitchen, with a ton of bowls, spatulas, and industrial-sized containers filled with flour, sugar, and other baking ingredients. Of course, this being a magical kitchen, along with all the standard ingredients there were also tubs filled with things like birch bark, cat hairs, owl feathers, pine needles, and more.
Chief Enforcer King was sitting on a stool in front of a stainless-steel bench with a thin layer of flour on it. She had her notebook out and nodded at me when I came in.
“Tina, this must have been quite a shock for you.”
“It was,” I nodded. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
“I want you to tell me everything that happened as you entered the coffee shop, please.”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure I have anything useful to tell you. If you are investigating, does that mean the death was suspicious?”
“Not necessarily; I have to investigate every death in Western Woods, suspicious or not.”
So Chief Enforcer King didn’t want to tell me exactly what had happened. “Well, Sara and I came in straight away after coming back from Desert Plains, where Sara was auditioning for a role in the new broom flying competition.”
“Oh, she’s involved in that? I’ve heard about that competition. It sounds like it’s going to be fun.”
I nodded. “Yeah, if anyone from here is going to be good at it, it’s going to be Sara. She’s the best on the broom. So anyway, we came in here to celebrate since the bar isn’t open this early in the morning, and Luna served us at the counter. She suggested that we have one of the brownies that Ellie had just made that morning, and told us Ellie had made her a special one. I saw it when I walked over here; a couple bites had been taken out of it, but she had drank from the coffee as well.”
Chief Enforcer King scribbled in her notebook everything I had told her, then raised an eyebrow at me. “You think this was a suspicious death?”
“Well, it’s not like I’m an expert on all things paranormal, but I did see her flying around and clutching at her throat making an awful noise. Nothing about it seemed natural, and it all seemed so quick. Plus, the healer fairy seemed to be acting like there was something wrong when she was looking at the body.”
I received a small smile from the Chief Enforcer. “You know, if it weren’t for the fact that you’re not a shifter, you’d probably make a pretty good enforcer. Keep this to yourself, at least for now, but yes, Luna was poisoned.”
I nodded, since I was kind of expecting that. “I won’t tell anyone,” I lied. I was obviously going to tell Ellie and Sara and Amy, but apart from that I was going to keep my word.
“Do you know of any problems between Luna and her coworkers?”
I shook my head vehemently. “Definitely not.”
“Ellie has never mentioned getting into any arguments with her or anything like that?”
“You can’t think Ellie did this!”
“I don’t think anything this early in an investigation,” Chief Enforcer King said. “I’m just going where the facts take me, and the fact is, according to the healing fairy, the poison was in the brownie that Ellie had specially made for Luna.”
I felt like I was going to puke. “There isn’t a chance that Ellie did this,” I said, leaning forward. “If you think she did, you’re completely wrong. Besides, that brownie was just sitting in a display case with all the others; Luna pointed it out to us when she showed us the brownies. Anybody could’ve gone back there while Luna was delivering coffee and pastries and poisoned it without being seen.
”
Chief Enforcer King nodded as she continued to jot down her notes.
“Did you notice anybody tampering with the display case?”
I shook my head. “No, but I also would never have had the opportunity to. I was sitting with my back to the display case, facing the front door. What I can tell you is that after Sara and I sat down, nobody left the coffee shop.”
“Good, that helps. Did you know Luna at all?”
“No. I mean, I think she might have served me once or twice at the coffee shop, but that was it. I didn’t even know her name until after she died.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me that might help with the investigation?”
I shook my head. “No, only to reiterate that there is absolutely no way Ellie was involved in this.”
“Thank you, Tina,” the Chief Enforcer said, and I nodded and made my way back toward the door. As I stepped out, another one of the customers noticed and got up, making their way toward the back to speak to Chief Enforcer King.
I slipped back into my spot at the table with Ellie and Sara and leaned forward conspiratorially, leading the other two to do the same.
“Chief Enforcer King confirmed to me that it was poison. And the poison was in the brownie.”
Ellie’s hands flew to her face. “Oh my God. I made that brownie. That means I’ve got to be one of the prime suspects.”
“I told Chief Enforcer King that there is no way you would ever do anything like that,” I said. “But yeah, I think regardless of what I told her, you’re definitely one of the main suspects.”
Ellie held her face in her hand. “I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe somebody killed Luna and used the special brownie I made her to do it.”
“Well, if we’re going to clear your name, we’re going to have to figure out who actually killed her,” I said. Normally Ellie was the one who was super levelheaded in these sorts of situations, but I supposed it was understandable that things would be a little bit different when she was the main suspect.
Four-Leaf Clovers Page 2