Bait & Switch (Driftwood Mystery Book 1)

by A. L. Tyler

  Why would a fugitive want to work in a police department? I’ve always been one for irony. However, I’m also one for practicality.

  And caffeine.

  “Son of a witch.”

  I heard the pop and fizz of a new can opening. It was followed by a slurp. Mentally, I updated my tally. That made three Red Bulls this morning.

  Marge was catching up to me.

  “Have you seen this? The murder that came in last night?” she asked. “The photos just got logged.”

  “No,” I said. I sat up straighter at my desk before pulling my hair back into a ponytail.

  “Son of a witch,” Marge repeated. I tried not to be offended.

  When I looked at Marge’s screen and saw a knife sticking out of a guy’s chest, I cringed. It didn’t matter how many times I saw something like that. Every time was like the first time.

  And that was going to make the news.

  “Thirty-seven stab wounds,” she said, raising an eyebrow at me and taking another slurp. “Thirty-seven. No suspects.” She cocked her head. “Poor guy. Janet, I know you don’t like this stuff, so I’ll tell you right now not to look at the autopsy pictures. I’m done with spare ribs. For like a month. Unless they’re from Big Ray’s. Because seriously, Big Ray’s.”

  No suspects. Awesome. Murder mysteries were the only thing the media loved more than plain old murders.

  “Thanks, Marge,” I said. “Thanks for the awesome visual. No suspects? Really? That many stab wounds—”

  “Sounds personal.” Marge nodded. Her bleach-blond pigtails bobbed and her drink came precariously close to spilling as she waved her hands. “You know what this reminds me of? That case, like twenty years ago... forget it. You were a fetus.”

  “Ha. Haha.”

  Marge nodded at her screen again. “ But yeah, I agree. Personal. Or a meth head, because those folks are psycho. Oh my God, did you read that case that came in last week?”

  “No,” I said, frowning.

  Marge read case files like most people binge Netflix. It was her own personal unending stack of drama, and having worked in evidence for nearly two decades, she’d developed a thick skin.

  “Officer Meade was out at the Tarley hiking trail to check on some guy who had been reported camping by the reservoir. The camper apparently bit someone—I know, sounds very Walking Dead, right? Well Meade gets there, and the guy sees him coming, and he charges him like a rabid dog and bites him in the face. Serious. Backup was called, and it took four guys to restrain this meth head and get him into a car. And, of course, Meade is pissed...” Marge gestured at the body on her screen. “Just goes to show nowhere is safe anymore. Thirty-Seven. Geez.”

  I pursed my lips and shook my head. Meade had moved to Fallvale from the inner city to avoid this kind of crap. He had two small kids.

  “They’ll catch the guy,” I said, more to sooth my own fears than to reassure Marge. “Mind if I do the lockers?”

  Her lips twitched at a smile. Looking at her screen, I could see she wasn’t even half done with the case file yet. “Be my guest.”

  I walked into the back to start emptying the evidence lockers. I knew which ones held my case, but I had to do them all so I wouldn’t attract suspicion.

  I had worked for the police before, even if they weren’t these police. The job skills transferred. If Marge knew that Fallvale PD employed a felon on the run, she would probably think it was a hell of a lot funnier than I did. But humans didn’t believe in witches anymore, and that was how the Bleak liked it. Fallvale was too normal for a grand police presence—let alone a magical one—and that was how I liked it.

  I pulled two bags of stinking weed and a glass bong out of the first locker. I cocked an eyebrow and set them on the cart. Marge was going to love smacking that thing with a hammer.

  Back when I was a breaker, destroying spells had been more than ninety percent of my job. But when you broke a spell of malicious intent, it was different—to my gifted ears, it was silencing discordant notes, or else turning them into something harmonious.

  In this evidence room, breaking stuff just meant breaking it and throwing it in the garbage. And then documenting the process.

  The next locker held swabs, a gun, and a ripped blouse. Probably a DV.

  Locker number three held a video camera, a nude magazine, and a half-empty container of petroleum jelly. I tried not to think about it and lifted the (thankfully) bagged items onto the cart, reviewing the final piece of bagged evidence.

  A kazoo.

  I didn’t want to know, but I was sure Marge would be telling me later. She lived for the weird ones.

  I took a deep breath and went to the last locker. My hand froze because the music was so strong.

  The murder case. There was murder behind that door, and a music that only I could hear.

  Magic.

  Magic in Fallvale. It wasn’t mine. It still felt like a bad dream.

  I pulled the singing blade, along with several other large paper bags that probably contained clothes and other blood-spattered evidence, and went straight to the computer, once again struck by the urgency of the situation.

  If I found this guy, there was still a chance for me. I might be able to mold Nick into someone who could help me—someone who would fit my plan. If we didn’t find the killer, well...

  Nick had bills to pay and duty to uphold.

  My nerves were on fire and my throat had gone dry. I spun on my heel and walked back to the sink across the room, flicking on the water as the pain erupted out of me.

  “Shit!” I hissed, louder than I should have.

  “Janet?” Marge called. “Everything okay?”

  There were singe marks running down the backs of my hands and my fingertips felt like they had been shot off. I gritted my teeth. “Yep, everything’s fine. Just a little static discharge plugging in my phone back here.”

  The water was running as cold as I could get it, but it turned to steam as soon as it hit my agonized hands.

  I cleared my throat and focused on my breathing as the pain withdrew back into my palms. I needed this magic to complete my plan. For all the pain it caused me, it was the key to my eventual success. Those were the thoughts that helped me make peace with the pain.

  You stole the magic. That was the hardest part.

  Now, you just have to make him trust you...

  While he half suspects you might have killed a guy. No biggie.

  Stick to the plan, Jette.

  The stabbing magic withdrew further into my arms and finally into my chest. It settled in my core like the world’s worst case of heartburn, and I closed my eyes until the feeling passed. I cast a glance over my shoulder.

  Deputy Gosling was standing at the door, watching me.

  Chapter 10

  I CLOSED MY EYES AND inwardly growled as I swiped a paper towel from the dispenser and turned to face him.

  The memory spell I had cast in Fallvale was a simple thing. It was passed around by touch. I had never used one before in my life, but once I read up on them, it worked as reliably as intended.

  Marigold “Marge” Jones, the original and solo evidence technician for Fallvale PD, was my first friend. We were as different as probably was humanly possible, but I liked to think that our friendship wasn’t entirely due to the spell I cast. When I first shook her hand, she immediately knew that we had worked there since being hired together some years before. She occasionally referenced the place where we went to lunch that first day, and how she regretted that it had shut down. Apparently, they served delicious fish tacos. Shame I couldn't remember them.

  After Marge came the handshake with our boss, Sergeant Beech. He was a large man with a stern demeanor and a good heart. He liked to come down hard on Marge a lot because of her unconventional ways, but he had always liked me. He still liked me, and I tried not to tarnish that.

  After Beech came the receptionist. Several officers. The chief himself. And from them the spell spread out to everyone
else that they touched until everyone in town knew that I had worked as a part-time complement to Marge’s full-time gig since forever. Fallvale was so small that it hardly needed two evidence technicians, but there we were. No one questioned it.

  Well, nobody except one guy. This guy. Deputy Bailey Gosling.

  Because just as all magic has a cost, all magic also has a weakness. Bailey was mine.

  Young and twitchy, he didn't like people touching him. It was nearly a week before my spell finally took. A week of him going around thinking he was crazy as everybody told him that I had always worked there while he insisted I hadn’t. A whole week of him giving me the stink-eye because it was like he knew something was going on and I was at the root of it. A whole week of glares and mistrust before he had finally brushed a shoulder in the hallway and fallen under control of my disguise.

  Mistrust runs deep, though, and even the spell couldn’t erase it completely. Instead, it worked around it. Now Deputy Gosling, and everyone else, knew about how we had dated in high school. They knew how I had called off our puppy love engagement to go to college out of state.

  And here was this guy, who was a total stranger to me, but who seemed to be devoting his whole life to destroying me.

  “Can I help you, Bailey?” I asked with the world’s fakest smile.

  He’d been trying to get me fired since day one. My car—one that I had purchased on the cheap days earlier—had a bumper sticker that opposed his political views, and that had been the catalyst for our first in-office fight. He didn’t buy that it was from the previous owner, and it apparently made me the World’s Worst Person.

  Evidently, I had changed since high school.

  His eyes narrowed. He hated when I called him Bailey. “Trouble with your cell phone, Janet?”

  I swallowed. I didn’t know how much he had seen, but I knew the cameras only looked toward the room entrance and didn’t hit the sinks, and no one was allowed in the evidence room without a sign-in but me, Marge, and our boss, so it was my word against his.

  “Yep, just a little. Water must have splashed the charger. Singed my fingers.” I gave him a small wave as I pushed past him, deliberately invading his space, and into the small front office where we kept our desks.

  He nearly slammed himself backward and into a wall trying to avoid my touch. “You know what they like in this business, Drifter? Honesty.”

  “What’s your point, Bailey?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t see a cell phone, which begs the question, what were you doing back there that you feel the need to lie about it?”

  “Burning my fingers,” I held up my injured hand, displaying the scorched tips. “While plugging in my cell phone. You know what else they like in this business, Baily? Good observation skills.”

  “Yowza!” Marge said, taking one look at my hands. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  “Just high on adrenaline,” I assured her. I grabbed my bag and shouldered it, heading straight for the door. “Coffee run to calm my nerves!”

  “Double-blended grande with twelve pumps of sugar-free vanilla, five pumps sugar-free hazelnut, with whole milk and ten equals. Whip and caramel drizzle.”

  I paused. “Extra drizzle, right?”

  Marge snapped and pointed at me with a smile. She turned and stared down Bailey’s glare. “Do not judge me.”

  I charged out of the room as the pain started to fill to my wrists again. Down the hall and out the door. Around the side of the building to where the security cameras and casual passers-by couldn’t see me.

  I squatted to stick my hand in a small puddle of rain water in the gutter. I let the pain drain from me and into the natural element, but it was frozen solid before I could get any relief.

  “Lose something, ma’am?”

  I looked up. Nick.

  I glanced around. “Have you just been hanging around for the last two hours?”

  “Do you have a case file for me, Driftwood?”

  I twisted to look back over my shoulder. “Were you just playing Angry Birds and sitting in my car? Seriously?”

  He glared at me. “I was protecting my investment. I don’t see copies of a case file.”

  I stared straight up at him. “I’m on a coffee run.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You look like you’re getting a fix. I thought those objects helped.”

  “They did.” I stood and wiped my hands on the back of my pants. “My problem is a little bigger than your solution.”

  “I’ll get you more.” He frowned dismissively, crossing his arms over his chest. “Get back in there, and don’t come back out until you have what I need.”

  “If I go back in without coffee it will raise questions. Do you want questions?”

  We went for coffee. It was the most awkward wait in a public line I had ever experienced with him standing just a little too close. And when I rattled off Marge’s order, he sighed derisively.

  “Do not judge her.” I raised a hand to him, and he stiffened in alarm. Inwardly, I smiled.

  He was afraid of me.

  He sighed as we walked out.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “I came out here to pick up a bad-ass,” he said. “Someone worth the next year of my expenses. And so far, this has been a babysitting job. You’re a kid with daddy issues who’s picking up coffee for her friend. You’re the office gofer. Are you sure you actually stole from the Bleak?”

  I stared at him over the top of my car as I opened the door. “Again? Really? You want to fight, Nick?”

  He raised both hands and shook his head. “Not until I have to. I’m just saying, is all.”

  His loss. If he wanted to underestimate me, I was going to exploit it for all it was worth. My arms were starting to itch again, though, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before I needed to find a way to spend some of my pent-up energy.

  I frowned as I realized that I couldn’t step outside to purge anymore. Nick would be watching, and I didn’t want him to know the full extent of my problem. If he found out that I had absolutely zero mastery of the power he feared, I lost my standing in our arrangement. He wouldn’t be stepping lightly around me, cuffs or no, and I would be going back to face the Order of the Bleak for sure.

  I was going to have to find a place to purge the energy inside the evidence room. Or, I could try to hold it.

  Somehow, I saw that option ending badly.

  “I need to get something out of the back when we get there,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Energy drink.”

  “You just got coffee. I don’t care how powerful you are, that much caffeine can’t be good for you.”

  “Calms my nerves,” I said. Plus, it was in a can, and I could probably heat and chill it continuously without anyone noticing.

  He shook his head.

  When we pulled back up to the police station, I could hardly believe my bad luck that day.

  Deputy Bailey Gosling, village idiot and personal villain, was standing by the door, waiting. His eyes danced between me and the tall, dark, mysterious stranger in the driver’s seat of my car.

  Chapter 11

  I GOT OUT AND SLAMMED the door behind me, walking as fast as I could to get an energy drink out of the trunk as I heard the electric window of my car sliding open behind me.

  “Bye, sweetie! I’ll pick you up later!” Nick called.

  I cringed as Bailey stood a little straighter. I slammed the trunk shut and tried to act casual as I badged in to the building.

  Bailey frowned. “I didn’t know you had a boyfriend. What with the lack of attention to your appearance, I thought you didn’t have an interest anymore.”

  “Bite me, Bailey.” I didn’t break my pace as I hurried toward the door.

  All I needed to do was get copies of the evidence for Nick. If I could sneak out the actual blade and leave some sort of replica in its place, that would be even better.

  A show of good faith would set me up for a longer
leash.

  On approach, I could tell that there was trouble in Evidence Land.

  “I’m sick of the excuses, Jones! You’re sitting here, reading case files and chowing down on microwave sandwiches and death in a can. Work needs to get done. And now I find you misusing company property!”

  “It’s a blank disc, Sergeant!” Marge said. I slid into the room behind Sergeant Beech, our boss, just as he crossed his arms and puffed his chest in his usual getting-ready-to-intimidate-someone way. “And we all know that some people get hungry looking at gross stuff and some people want to vomit. It’s a natural response caused by the production of gastrointestinal digestive juices—”

  “Death,” Beech said, picking up Marge’s empty drink. “In a can. On a disc-coaster. The taxpayers’ disc, Jones.”

  She made a face. She never took her reprimands seriously. “It’s not death in a can, Sarge. I drink, like, ten of those a day, and I’m healthy as a horse.”

  “They cause heart attacks,” he replied. “Look it up.”

  Marge pursed her lips. “You know what else causes heart attacks? Stress. So maybe we should both just—”

  Beech crushed the can in his hand and tossed it into the trash. He turned just enough for me to hand him his usual plain black cup of coffee, shaking his head a little.

  “Sorry I’m so late getting back,” I said. I passed Marge her drink. “There was a super long line at—”

  “Thanks, Janet. You do good work.” He didn’t turn back to Marge. “I’m writing you up for this, Jones. Expect a call from H.R.”

  “Shaking in my plain, black, rubber-soled work booties, sir!” she said. He never followed through on his threats.

  The work boots had been the last dispute. We had to wear a certain kind of shoe given the dangers of our work, and the city paid for them. Marge didn’t much care for the uniformity of plain black, so she had created an elaborate scene of ocean life and half-naked mermaids on hers using nail polish. Sergeant Beech didn’t like the attention they drew, and initially claimed that she had defaced public property because the city bought the shoes. He lost that argument, but won where workplace uniform was concerned, and Marge had gone out and spent her own money on a new pair.