She nodded and started to peel off her gloves. As I watched her unbuckle the straps that wound around her forearms to keep the thick gloves in place, an idea hit me. “Evangeline?”
She looked up, her fingers frozen on a buckle. “Hmm?”
“With Flurry, do you communicate with him?”
“Sometimes.” She tugged off the glove and went to work on the second one. “It’s more of a sensory thing. I can feel his emotions. What about you and Boots?”
I nodded. “Same. There’s a connection, but it’s not like I can read his mind. I’m not sure I’d want to, anyways. He’d probably ramble on endlessly about tuna.”
Evangeline laughed and a tightness inside of me relaxed. I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding in a tense breath before I let it go. “I hear ya. Flurry’s would probably be even worse. I don’t even want to know the kind of stuff he eats. I happen to like cute little bunny rabbits and chipmunks. I don’t like to think of my familiar turning them into a lunch buffet.”
I smiled to myself. “He probably loves it out here, away from the city. Boots is too lazy, but I’m sure there are plenty of mice and rodents out in the woods.”
She took off the second glove and clasped them together in one hand. “He’s definitely happier here.”
I pocketed my hands and shifted back and forth. “So, this is kind of off the wall, but if you were looking for something, and Flurry found it, would he be able to tell you?”
Evangeline considered the question for a long moment before nodding. “I think so. Why?”
A smile spread across my face. “Do you think I could borrow Flurry?”
Early the next morning, before the sun was fully in the sky, Flurry soared down the coastline, his wings open wide to cruise on the gentle breeze.
“This is so exciting!” Evangeline exclaimed as we climbed the hiking trail, watching Flurry ahead of us.
I cut a sidelong glance at her. “Looking for a dead body?”
She winced. “Okay, not that part, but just being out, on a mission. It just feels… good.”
“Well, I definitely appreciate it, and I know Katerina will, too, if this ends up working.”
Evangeline and I had set off while it was still dark outside. Luckily, she had a car, so we were able to drive to the trail head, while Flurry followed us from the air. We’d only been walking for a little while, but Flurry was keeping us moving at a fast clip so we’d made good progress. Prior to setting out, Evangeline had told him who we were looking for before setting him loose. The trail was steep at the beginning, and we’d both been breathing too hard to keep a conversation going. But once we got to a place where it leveled out, Evangeline had started chattering away.
“My life back in LA was so boring compared to living here,” she said.
I snorted. “There’s no way that can be possible. LA is one of the largest havens. There must be an endless amount of interesting things going on.”
Evangeline shrugged. “I guess, but I was always too busy working on the show to really go out and enjoy any of it. I like the pace a lot better here. There’s a lot to do, but time moves slower it seems.”
“I still find that hard to believe. I mean, in the month that you’ve been here, what’s really happened? You’re at Siren’s Song most of the time. How can sitting in a coffee shop be better than being a celebrity?”
“Well, for one, the people here are a lot nicer. I don’t have people chasing me down trying to get my agent’s phone number or an audition with the studio next door. Here, hardly anyone even knows that I’m an actress. I mean, some of them have heard other supers talking about me, but they probably figure I’m some Z-list girl from a cult classic twenty years ago.”
I laughed. “That’s true, I guess. What exactly are you studying anyways? You asked me about starfire spells the other day. That’s pretty advanced stuff.”
Evangeline didn’t answer the question. Instead, she looked away, staring out at the ocean below the trail for a long moment.
“Did Flurry find something?” I asked, frantically scanning the sky above.
She turned back to look at me and shook her head. “No, I was just admiring the view.”
“Okay…” I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. Something seemed off. “So, starfire spells?”
Evangeline sighed and pushed her long ponytail over her shoulder. Even with a sheen of sweat, she looked like she’d just walked out of a magazine photo shoot. “It was just part of my curriculum.”
I nodded. “And what school are you going to? I don’t think you’ve mentioned the name.”
I didn’t want to sound like some kind of interrogation officer, but there was a certain shroud of mystery to Evangeline that I was desperate to remove. The longer she was in town, the more her story fell apart that she was here learning magic for her job as a paranormal soap opera star.
“It’s kind of a…uh…study-at-your-own-pace, program.”
“Okay.” I cocked an eyebrow at her but she ignored it, looking out over the ocean again. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”
Evangeline turned on her best TV star smile and brushed it off with an elegant wave of her hand. “Don’t mention it.”
Okay…I won’t.
But I couldn’t drop it entirely. The last time I’d been around a shifty, secretive wizard, he’d turned out to be a dark wizard, partnered with an extremist group set on overthrowing the SPA.
Who could blame me for having trust issues?
We walked a little farther in silence, until Evangeline turned to me. “I did want to ask you about that last potion you brewed the other day. The Fated Flirt. Was that a love potion?”
I nodded, confirming what could easily be found in any potions handbook.
“Does it really work?”
“Love potions have varying degrees. Fated Flirt is true to its name. It’s more of a spark. It’s essentially like bottling up that initial flurry of butterflies and excitement when two people meet.”
Evangeline’s eyes went wide. “What are the other kinds?”
“Well, there’s Heart’s Fire, and that one is like a mega dose of Fated Flirt, where the effect lasts for a week as opposed to a day or two. Then, there’s Cupid’s Arrow. That one’s banned by the SPA because people were using it for…well…let’s just say, less than honorable reasons.”
Evangeline wrinkled her nose as she caught my meaning. “That’s deplorable.”
“There’s always someone that has to ruin a good thing.” I glanced over at her. “It’s not like someone like you needs to worry about love potions. You could have your pick of the guys at Siren’s Song. I’m sure it’s the same way back in the LA Haven. Right?”
AKA, you don’t need my boyfriend.
“Let’s put it this way, I’d need to drink a gallon of Cupid’s Arrow in order for any of those guys to have a chance.”
I blinked, surprised by her answer. “Wow!”
She laughed softly. “I’m picky.”
“Nothing wrong with that…”
Flurry let out an ear piercing shriek that cut through the sky like a crack of lightning. Beside me, Evangeline cringed, her happy-go-lucky smile gone.
A sick feeling curled around my stomach. “He found her?”
Evangeline nodded.
It was odd being so overwhelmed with grief for a woman we already knew to be dead. But it was like my mind hadn’t fully made the connection between Katerina the ghost, and the limp body Flurry found at the bottom of the drop off, sprawled across the boulders, her limbs all at odd angles.
Flurry circled the spot once more before coming to rest on Evangeline’s outstretched arm, sinking his long talons into the thick glove. “Thank you, Flurry.”
I gave a respectful nod to the majestic bird and could have sworn he nodded back.
“I guess it’s time to get Nick and Chief Lincoln up here,” I whispered.
Evangeline nodded as we stared down at Katerina’s broken body for another
long moment. Neither of us spoke another word. We silently turned away and headed back down the hillside.
CHAPTER TEN
WITHIN TWENTY MINUTES, a full rescue team had arrived and hoofed it up the steep hillside to retrieve Katerina’s body. Several police officers accompanied them led by Jeffery Lincoln, Beechwood Harbor’s chief of police. Evangeline and I led the way and when we reached the site, they all jumped in to work out a system of ropes to lower two paramedics and a stretcher down to the girl splayed on the rocks at the bottom. As they worked, they all spoke in terms of finding her alive and it made my heart ache to know that she was already gone.
As we waited for them to recover Katerina’s broken body, Chief Lincoln sidled up to us.
I gestured over at Evangeline. “Chief Lincoln, this is Evangeline. I don’t believe you’ve met. She’s staying at the manor for the summer.”
Chief Lincoln ducked his head respectfully. “It’s nice to meet you. Granted, the circumstances could be better.” He cast a grim look past us to where the rescue team was preparing to repel down the cliff to retrieve the body. “We haven’t had an accident on this trail before. At least, not that I know of.”
I glanced over my shoulder, watching a harnessed man step off the cliff, his back to the ocean. He worked his way down the side slowly, but efficiently, and within a few moments, his head disappeared out of sight. “It’s such a tragedy.”
It felt like a glib thing to say, but neither Evangeline nor Chief Lincoln noticed. They nodded in agreement, muttering their own sentiments.
A screech pierced the air and Evangeline’s eyes snapped up to the sky.
“Woah! What on earth is that?” Chief Lincoln declared, holding his hand over his eyes like a sun visor. “Eagle?”
Evangeline shook her head. “That’s Flurry. He’s my—”
“Pet!” I burst out, cutting her off before she could say familiar. Evangeline glanced at me, a look of confusion quickly shifting to realization at her near mistake.
Chief Lincoln dropped his hand and stared at Evangeline. “You have a pet eagle?”
“No. Flurry is a hawk.”
I gave a nervous laugh. “He’s quite the specimen, huh?”
Lincoln was still gawking at Evangeline like she might sprout horns or wings of her own at any given moment. It was understandable I supposed. A large bird of prey wasn’t the type of pet one would expect a petite, movie-star-pretty woman to have by her side.
Evangeline was smiling up at her familiar as he circled overhead. “I’ve had him since he was a baby. Hand trained him myself, and now, he follows me pretty much anywhere I go.”
“Interesting.” Chief Lincoln said, finally managing to wipe the shocked look off of his face. “All right, I won’t take up too much time, but I do need an official statement from each of you.”
“Of course,” I replied. “Anything we can do to help.”
Chief Lincoln took out his small notebook and flipped to a fresh page. “Holly, how about you start. Just tell me everything that happened. If you saw or heard anything.”
Without the body, Chief Lincoln had no way of knowing that the girl at the bottom of the cliff had been dead for close to two days, and I had to be careful not to say something that would reveal how much information I actually knew about the poor girl.
“Evangeline and I decided to go out for an early hike. We were stopping here to get a drink of water.” I held up my iridescent purple water bottle for emphasis. “I walked to the edge, just taking in the view, and when I looked down, I saw the body—girl.”
Evangeline nodded and quickly added, “That’s when I ran down the hill to a spot with cell phone service and placed the 911 call.”
I suppressed a small smile at the memory of the utter confusion written on her face when I told her to dial 911 on her phone. The haven system had a different way of contacting the authorities and Evangeline was still learning the ways of the human world.
“Okay. During the hike, before that point, did you hear or see anything or anyone?”
We both shook our heads.
Chief Lincoln finished his last note before snapping the small book shut. He looked at each of us in turn. “Thank you both.”
Without another word, he strode to the cliff’s edge to check in with the rescue workers, and from their hushed tones, I assumed they realized that Katerina was no longer alive. Evangeline and I stood off to the side, waiting as they brought her up the cliff on a stretcher attached to a series of ropes that the workers used as a pulley system. The looks on their faces confirmed what Evangeline and I already knew.
Flurry continued to circle the scene until Evangeline caught his attention and waved him off. He screeched his understanding and took off down the coastline. Probably in search of his breakfast. Flurry spent most of his time outside, and only returned to the manor when dusk was falling to take his place on the large perch in Evangeline’s room.
“Should we stay?” she asked me, once Flurry was out of sight.
The rescue crew had Katerina on solid ground and was preparing to take her remains back down the hill. I didn’t want to see her in such a state, so I nodded at Evangeline’s question and we hurried down the hill ahead of the team.
When we were a few feet away from the bustle, Evangeline looked over at me. “What do you think she was doing up here all alone?”
I shrugged. “Just hiking, I guess.”
“Maybe I’m being overly cautious, but I don’t think I would go hiking in the woods, out of cell phone range, all by myself. And I’m a witch. I can’t imagine a human wanting to go alone. What if an animal came or she fell and twisted her ankle? Who would be there to help?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I mean, if anyone was with her, they didn’t come forward and report the accident.”
A chill crept up my spine. What if it wasn’t an accident?
One look at Evangeline told me she had the same thought. If Katerina had been hiking with someone else, maybe she hadn’t fallen after all. Maybe she’d been pushed.
I shook my shoulders, willing the dark thought away, and Evangeline appeared to do the same thing.
At the bottom of the trail, Nick was standing at the back of his car, reaching into the trunk to retrieve a large silver case. I wasn’t surprised to see him. He’d already confessed to keeping a police scanner in his car and one at home too. After years of working as a reporter for a newspaper in Los Angeles, it was an old habit. But one that suited him well in his new line of work as a private eye. He’d no doubt heard the emergency call go out between the police on their way to the scene.
“Hello, Nick!” Evangeline called, as we took the final steps down the trail, trotting into the small parking lot. Most of the spaces were taken up by the rescue vehicles. A fire truck, two squad cars, and an ambulance. They’d come prepared to find a victim that might be still alive. Unfortunately, it was too late. Her ghost was probably sitting at my kitchen table, chatting with Adam, Posy, and Gwen.
Nick glanced up as he shut the trunk. “Morning, ladies.”
He looked like he’d just rolled out of bed. His dark hair was sticking out in all different directions and his t-shirt was on inside out, evidenced by the small white tag at the base of his neck, flapping in the wind. I smiled softly, knowing that he hadn’t been able to get one of his beloved mochas. “What’s with the luggage, Rivers?”
He glanced down at the case. “This is my investigators kit. It’s got my camera with all of my different lenses, a flash light with a black light attachment, fingerprint collection tools, a measuring tape, disposable gloves, and a bunch of plastic bags and containers for collecting evidence. I thought I would see if Chief Lincoln needed an extra pair of boots on the ground.”
I didn’t point out that he was wearing sneakers.
I frowned at him. “And you need this for a fallen hiker?”
Nick’s face twisted into a grimace. “Holly, this is a murder investigation.”
“What?”
Evangeline and I both gasped.
“How do they know?” I asked.
“I don’t know the specifics yet, but they just called for a medical examiner and a forensic team. This is now officially a crime scene.”
I whipped around, looking up the steep hill. I hadn’t been close enough to see her body. Was there an obvious sign of death? How could they have determined it wasn’t a hiking accident? And if she was murdered, by whom? And why? The questions jumbled together in my mind, but I didn’t vocalize any of them.
“How awful.”
Nick nodded and glanced down at his sneakers. Another wave of nausea rolled through my stomach, realizing that now, Nick was not only going to have to tell his client that her daughter was dead, but also that she’d been murdered.
I took a deep breath of the crisp morning air and forced back the tears that pooled in the corners of my eyes. “I should get going. I have to go and open the shop with Cassie.”
Nick glanced up and gave a slight nod. “All right.”
I started past him, brushing a hand along his arm as I went. “Stop in this afternoon and give me an update, will you?”
I had an antsy ghost at home that would want the answers.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE ONLY GOOD thing about Siren’s Song being stuffed to the rafters every day was that it left little opportunity to think or dwell on things. While Cassie and I prepared the shop for opening, I gave her the basic rundown on what was happening just a few miles away, but then pushed it aside to focus on the hustle of the morning rush.
It was nearly three o’clock, before Nick walked through the doors, and it all flooded back to the surface. He came to the counter, his shoulders drooped.
“Nick?” Cassie said, her tone heavy with concern. “Are you all right?”
Nick glanced up and sagged against the counter. “Not really…”
Cassie looked ready to cry and she didn’t even know the worst part. Who the girl was. I braced myself, knowing what was coming next.
Cassie blinked. “What happened? Holly told me about the girl they found up in the hills.”
Twice the Witch: A Beechwood Harbor Magic Mystery (Beechwood Harbor Magic Mysteries Book 2) Page 8