Thunder roared like an oncoming freight train. I grabbed his hand and ran toward Lotions and Potions, to the door leading up to Alex’s apartment. His eyes went wide as I took the key out of my pocket and inserted it into the lock. I pushed him inside and closed the door behind us.
The thunder trailed into a rumble that eventually faded away.
I fumbled for the light switch on the wall.
“Darcy?” Nick said in the darkness.
“Yes?” I could feel his body heat, pulsing in waves.
“Do I want to know why you have a key?”
“Probably not.” I found the light, flipped it on. “But I need your help. I don’t know where else to turn.”
The desire was gone from his eyes, replaced now with wariness.
I wasn’t sure if I was happy or sad about that.
A little of both, I realized.
Dripping wet, I took a step away from him and explained everything as we stood in the tiny vestibule. His eyes had stopped widening after I told him about Evan’s rash, and his face had begun to turn stony when I explained about the wooden box. The color in his cheeks started to rise when I mentioned the intruder, and for a second there, I thought steam might actually come out of his ears.
Thunder crashed and I flinched.
“You know the thunder can’t hurt you, right?” he said kind of snidely. “The bark and the bite?”
I could tell he was trying to control his temper, but my nerves were frazzled and I wasn’t in the mood. “I’m aware. Thank you, though, for the lesson.”
When I saw the hurt in his eyes, I sighed, and swallowed over a lump in my throat. I’d never told anyone what I was about to tell him. “When I was seven, I went with my mother to run errands. We were driving when a summer storm popped up. Lightning hit the car, and we went off the side of the road. I was safely buckled in, but my mother hadn’t been wearing her seat belt because she was pregnant and the belt didn’t fit right.…” I swallowed hard over the tightness in my throat. “That was the day Harper was born, and my mother died. I’ve hated storms ever since.” I felt tears puddle in my eyes. “But I love the rain.”
His thumb brushed away a tear. “Why?” he asked softly.
“Because my mother loved the rain. When I was little, we’d dance in it, twirling and laughing.” I smiled through my tears. “When it rains, I remember that. I’m that little girl again, so filled with love for my mother, it’s like she’s still here. But storms, thunder and lightning?” I shook my head.
Gently, he pulled me into his arms and held me close. I could feel his heart beating against mine as I rested my head on his shoulder. I’d forgotten how good a hug could feel. How good being held and comforted was.
“I’m sorry for what I said about the thunder.” The vibration of his voice rumbled through my whole body.
“You didn’t know.”
“It doesn’t excuse it.”
I pulled away. “I think it does.”
“Arguing with me again?” he asked, teasing.
“It seems to be a thing with us.”
He nodded and stared at me for a long second.
Then, as if remembering where we were, he glanced up the stairs and motioned for us to go up. “Tell me about this intruder.”
My steps squeaked and my drenched shoes squished as I climbed. I was getting awfully used to tiptoeing through strange houses at night. “Tall and lean. Definitely a man—broad shoulders, narrow-waisted. Strong, too, because he threw Evan off like he was a rag doll, but not overly muscular. He was wearing gloves, but he had big hands—the box seemed tiny in them, though I know it’s not.”
“Height?”
“I was on the floor, so it was hard to tell. Around your height, I’d say. Six feet or so.” I turned and gave him a suspicious look. “Where were you an hour ago?”
“You really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“At the pound, looking at dogs with Mimi. She’s enamored with yours and wants one of her own.”
We’d reached the landing. The door to the apartment was closed, just as Evan and I had left it. “Did you find one?”
“If Mimi had her way, we’d have ten. We’ve narrowed it down to four. We need to think about it, spend more time with each one.”
“That’s so sweet.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “My ex-wife was always the dog person, not me. I’m kind of out of my element.”
“Ex?” I asked without thinking.
He looked at me strangely.
“It’s just, ah, I thought you were a widower.”
His voice echoed slightly in the stairwell. “We were divorced for about a year before she died.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say to that. I wondered about his wife, what kind of person she was. If I would have liked her. I imagined I would. Mimi was wonderful, and his wife obviously had good taste in men, though they’d divorced. I wondered why. I didn’t want to sound nosy, though, so I simply said, “Judging by the way Missy acts around you, and the way you tolerate it, you’ll do just fine with a dog.”
I opened the door of Alex’s apartment and winced at the mess. Alex hadn’t had many possessions, but the intruder had left no stone unturned.
“Whoa,” Nick said as he looked inside.
We wandered in, taking in the destruction. He crouched next to a desk and looked through the mail scattered on the floor. “Bills, some overdue. And lots of letters from lawyer offices.”
I glanced at the stack and noticed Marcus Debrowski’s firm as the return address on at least three of the letters. I read one of them. It was a bill from Marcus. I frowned. He was representing her against class action suits? And also representing Sylar for her murder? That didn’t make sense—it was a clear conflict of interest. Wasn’t it?
Thunder rumbled and my nerves jumped. I wished the storm would hurry up and blow through already.
“I’m not surprised,” I said, “if she was selling lotions that made people go bald and blister. That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.” The kitchen area was open to the rest of the apartment and looked like this was where Alex made most of her products. There were vials and herbs and bottles and tubes of every size—most scattered on the floor. I noticed a vase of pink chrysanthemums had been knocked over onto the counter, and the water was seeping into a set of books. I picked my way through the mess and set the vase right, added water, and rearranged the flowers. I found a roll of paper towels and sopped up the rest of the spill. The books might be able to be saved if left to dry out properly.
“We need to call the police,” Nick said.
“I know,” I agreed.
“I wish I had brought gloves,” he said.
My nerves danced. I turned my back to him and mouthed my spell. I blinked twice and cast it.
When I turned back around, I fully expected him to have stumbled across a box of latex gloves. Alex had to have some around with all the chemistry she had going on in the apartment.
Nick was looking at my hands. “You, too. It’s going to be hard to explain why we were in here. And how we have a key.”
Anxious, I glanced around. No gloves. “Are you sure you don’t carry around a spare pair of gloves in your pockets?” I hoped I didn’t sound desperate.
He gave me an odd look. “I’m sure.”
“Can you check?” I asked with a laugh, hoping I sounded playful and not frantic.
Again the strange look, but he stuck his hands in his pockets. “I’ve got nothing except my cell phone and wallet. Neither is going to help us right now.”
My stomach churned. Why hadn’t my wish worked? Was Nick a Wishcrafter? But no, he was in the picture with me that Starla had taken. Had his wish not been pure of heart?
He watched me as though he was waiting for an answer. I blinked innocently. “We can lie.”
Did Nick have a hidden agenda? Was there some reason he wanted our prints found in Alex’s apartment? I couldn’t think of a single good reason why
he would.
And suddenly, just like that, I realized how much I didn’t know about him. Other than my attraction to him. And that he seemed like a great dad. And that he was really, really handsome. And that he used to be a cop.
On second thought, that was a lot of information. All the marks of a good guy.
So why hadn’t the wish been granted?
He thought about it a second. “Sounds good. I’ll think of something to tell them. You should go.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. The police will have questions better left to me to answer on my own.”
“Thank you,” I said softly. It was the outcome I’d hoped for, and I was beyond grateful he was taking care of it.
He nodded.
I was almost out the door downstairs, using the handrail so I wouldn’t fall in my rush to get out of there, when a sharp pain had me snatching my hand off the wood. I stopped, examined the splinter, and held my breath as I pulled it out. Thankfully, no blood. How something so little could cause such pain was hard to understand.
I glanced at the oak handrail and saw the rough spot, a small crack. I wondered how long it had been like that, or if it was caused earlier today by the wooden box smashing into it. I supposed it didn’t really matter and was about to get a move on when something caught my eye. I leaned down for a closer look at that rough spot of oak. Something had caught, snagged. I picked it up.
It was a bit of pink fuzz.
Chapter Nineteen
The storm lingered as I ran for home—it was closer than Evan’s place. I’d call when I got there and let him know I’d pick up my car in the morning. And see if he’d found an antidote.
I really hoped so. I didn’t know how much more he could take. If the rash on his face didn’t stop spreading soon, he might be in very real danger.
Was it possible he was contagious?
I’d spent a lot of time with him recently, but I hadn’t had so much as an itch. But if Ramona’s, Mrs. P’s, and Vince’s rashes didn’t start showing for a couple of days, maybe there was an incubation period.
If the murder and thefts in the village hadn’t already driven the tourists away, I was sure any whisper of a medical outbreak would.
Nothing like a plague to create a ghost town.
I dashed along the walkway that cut across the green, hauling along faster than I had this morning with Starla, despite the fact that I was wearing black flats and not sneakers.
Flashes of lightning lit the sky every few minutes, followed by low growls of thunder. The storm was finally starting to ebb.
Soaked to the bone, I ran up the back steps and into the mudroom and shook myself off much like Missy probably would have done.
The kitchen was empty as I tiptoed through into the laundry room. I found a clean towel and dried off the best I could. Dry clothes were next. I kept the towel tied around my waist and climbed the back staircase. I was halfway up when I heard voices.
“Don’t get snippy with me,” Aunt Ve said with a strong measure of patience. “The choices you’ve made are yours alone. You knew the consequences of changing your previous form to this one.”
“Don’t remind me,” a woman’s voice said. It was the voice I’d heard the other day, when Ve said she’d been talking to herself. The voice I suspected belonged to a familiar. I inched upward, hoping to get a glimpse of the conversation taking place.
“Do you have regrets?”
There was a brief silence. Then the woman said, “How could I?”
Ve said, “It isn’t an easy task you’ve taken on, but I believe the benefits outweigh the negatives.”
The woman’s voice sounded thready and tired. “Just remind her to leave the damn door open. I’ll deal with the other stuff.”
Door? What door?
“You’ll go easy on her?”
The back door opened and slammed closed. “Hello!” Harper shouted. She stepped into the kitchen, looking a bit like a drowned rat. “It’s pouring buckets,” she said unnecessarily, slinging her backpack onto the kitchen counter. “How’d things go with Mrs. P?”
I turned and pretended I’d been coming down the steps. “I actually didn’t get a chance to see her.”
Aunt Ve appeared at the top of the steps, Missy trailing behind her. Tilda lurked in the shadows of the upstairs hallway. I eyed both the pets. Was one of them a familiar?
“Girls!” Ve said brightly. “I didn’t know you were home. Harper! You’re soaking wet. Let me get you a towel.” Her gaze drifted to me, to the towel already wrapped around my waist.
I didn’t dare look her in the eye. I was trying hard to process the conversation I heard. Either someone was hiding out upstairs, or there was a familiar in the house. Was it Missy or Tilda?
Or…something else. A mouse? A bee? What? And why hadn’t Ve told us about it? About her?
“Darcy, dear, are you feeling well?” Ve asked as she passed me on the stairs. “You’re looking a trifle bit pale. Shea Carling called, concerned about you. Should I be worried?”
Shea. My eyes drifted closed. I’d forgotten all about the locket and what it signified.
“Darcy? I’m beginning to worry.”
“You don’t have any hives, do you, Darcy?” Harper asked. “There’s been an outbreak, you know,” she told Ve.
Ve’s eyebrows dipped. “I hadn’t heard. What’s going on?”
“I’m going to change while Harper explains,” I announced, heading up the stairs. Missy’s tail wagged and I patted her head. Tilda gave me a sideways glance and flicked her tail.
“After you’re done,” Ve called after me, “there’s something I want to show you.”
“Me?” I asked, looking back at her.
“You,” she said, amusement in her eyes.
I could only imagine. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
As I passed Ve’s bedroom, I peeked in. No sign of any wayward critters.
Strange. Very strange.
I changed quickly and towel dried my hair. The rain had almost stopped, and the worst of the storm had finally moved off. I hurried downstairs. Maybe Ve was ready to share a little more about the Craft with us. I found her and Harper in the family room connected to the kitchen, the TV on and flickering. Ve had the remote in her hand and a smile on her face.
“I thought you might want to see this, so I recorded it,” she said. “Since I’m fairly certain you may have had something to do with it.”
Puzzled, I tipped my head as she hit a button on the remote. It was the six o’clock newscast.
A perky anchorwoman said, “Investigators believe the wombat most likely escaped from the nearby Franklin Park Zoo. They are in touch with zoo officials.”
A camera panned across the Careys’ front yard. I stared, wide-eyed, at the TV as the footage played. The recording focused on the brown blur racing across the yard and knocking into a bright white light.
“We apologize to our viewers for the quality of the video, provided to us by an amateur videographer hired to film the birthday event. As you can see,” the anchor said, “an unidentified bystander was knocked to the ground by the wild wombat, a normally docile animal.”
Harper clamped a hand over her mouth. I glanced at her—her eyes were leaking amused tears.
Aunt Ve, too, was trying hard not to laugh.
I had to admit, it was funny, watching the partygoers scatter like confetti. The poor wombat, though. He looked scared to death—except, I noticed, when he was with Jake, the wombat whisperer.
“For now,” the anchor continued, “the wombat is in the care of the animal control. However, we have just learned that the Carey family has expressed a desire to keep the animal. Perhaps the birthday boy will get his wish after all.”
Aunt Ve clicked off the TV set. “I presume you had something to do with this?” She gestured to the blank screen.
“He made a wish.”
Harper said, “Where did the wombat come from, though? When someone wishes for money,
that money is taken from someone else, right? So, if someone wishes for a wombat, is that wombat taken from somewhere else?”
“I don’t have the answer to that. As far as I know, magic produces the wished-for object. I’ve never heard otherwise.” Ve’s hand went to her neck, to swing her locket, then dropped. “I keep forgetting I’m not wearing it,” she said with a laugh.
“I can pick it up for you tomorrow,” I offered. “But there’s something I want to talk to you about. Do you have a minute?”
“Plenty of them. Is something the matter?”
“Possibly.”
“Let’s make some tea; then we’ll settle in for a chat.”
“But how does the magic work?” Harper persisted as we moved into the kitchen.
Ve smiled patiently as she set the kettle to boil. “It is not for us to understand, my dear, but to accept.”
Harper frowned. She was used to having all the answers. This was a topic, I was quite sure, that she would bring up again.
The peal of the doorbell had the three of us looking toward the front of the house. Missy barked and took off for the front door. I glanced at the microwave clock. It was almost eight thirty. A little late for a drop-in visitor.
“Now, who could that be?” Ve asked.
Curiosity got the better of Harper and me, and we followed her toward the front door.
Ve moved the curtain on the door aside and peered out. “Oh no,” she murmured.
“Who is it?” Harper asked.
My pulse pounded. Was it the police? Had they come for me? What had Nick told them, exactly? I needed to warn Evan.…
Ve opened the door.
Archie, the macaw, flew inside and landed on the newel post. He was gorgeous, with a bright red hood, white eye patches, and a bold blue and yellow tail.
He bowed.
Harper’s eyes widened.
“Good evening, Archie,” Ve said.
“Madame, good evening to you,” he said, bowing again. His voice was a deep, rich baritone that sounded oddly like that of a British James Earl Jones.
Harper’s mouth dropped open.
I smiled. First Pepe, now Archie?
He pivoted slightly to face me. “Darcy Ann Merriweather, you have been found in violation of Wishcraft Law forty-three, section B, and have been hereby summoned by the Elder for your sentencing. Go now, go alone, and do not delay.”
It Takes a Witch: A Wishcraft Mystery Page 17