Missy raced ahead of him and perched on the step leading into the kitchen as he came into the mudroom, stomping his feet on the doormat. I closed the door quickly.
“I was just on my way home from work,” he said.
“Anything I need to know?”
He glanced over my shoulder and dropped his voice. “Early tests on the syringe came back.”
My pulse kicked up a notch. “Was there morphine in it?”
He nodded. “And also Kyle’s blood type on the needle.”
“So it’s probably the murder weapon.”
“Probably,” he acknowledged.
“Were there any fingerprints on it?” Dare I hope there were? Someone other than Starla?
“There’s a smudged set that we’re having trouble identifying. The duct tape did a number on them. I’ve called in an expert.”
“When should you know?”
“Later today or tomorrow.”
More waiting. More worrying.
“There’s something else,” he said, “and I’m hoping you can help me with it.”
“What?”
“While I was at the station earlier, something Starla said the other night about Kyle’s ring came back to me and had me doing a little digging.”
I recalled his odd look while she talked about the rings. “Digging?”
“In the evidence locker. Kyle escaped jail, so his personal belongings still should have been at the station, including his ring.”
My pulse kicked up. If it should have been in the evidence locker, how did Kyle get it? “What did you find?”
“This is the strange part. The ring was in a sealed bag with his watch, his shoes, his clothing, but when I reached in to pull it out, there was nothing in the bag at all.” He dragged a hand down his face. “Literally nothing there, Darcy. Nothing but air. It was like a hallucination.”
Adrenaline flooded through me. “Not a hallucination. A mirage.” I quickly explained about the Mirage Spell. “But it works only for seventy-two hours, which means that whoever broke in to steal his things had to cast the spell on Thursday or Friday.” If we could catch who cast the spell, it might be the break we needed.
“I’ll check the cameras at the station. Do you think I’ll ever get used to this magic stuff?”
“You don’t need to. That’s why you have me.”
Smiling, he said, “Lucky me.”
My heart went to mush.
Glancing at his watch, he said, “I should go. I probably shouldn’t have come by,” he said, “but I couldn’t resist the temptation.”
I was slightly mesmerized by the way snowflakes clung to his eyelashes. “You said you forgot something? I looked around but didn’t see anything. . . .”
“That’s because what I forgot isn’t something you can see.”
I tipped my head. “You lost me.”
He pulled me in close again. “When I dropped you off earlier, I forgot to kiss you good night, Darcy.”
I couldn’t help my smile as I saw the tenderness in his eyes. “Sappy,” I accused in a whisper.
“You should probably get used to it,” he said, leaning in.
Oh, that wasn’t going to be a problem.
At all.
* * *
“He’s a keeper,” Starla said after I saw Nick off.
The movie still played—it was the big scene with the masquerade ball. Missy hopped up alongside her as I sat on the arm of the sofa. “I think so.”
Sadly, she smiled up at me. “You’re lucky.”
I thought of all she’d been through. “I know.”
“You deserve it, Darcy.”
“You deserve it, too.” I just wished I knew for sure that Vince would make her happy.
Absently, she nodded, and picked up another Peppermint Pattie to unwrap.
“Want some company?” I asked.
“Sure.”
I sat next to her, clapped twice, and Melina’s diary appeared in my lap. Tilda hissed and turned her back to me.
“Find anything yet?”
“No. But it has to be in here somewhere.”
Starla lifted the edge of her throw blanket and tossed it over my lap. She placed the Peppermint Patties in a small pile between us. “You’ll find it.”
I was beginning to have my doubts.
Missy pawed the diary, and I lifted it up so she could settle on my lap. Only she didn’t budge—just kept pawing the diary.
“Looks like she wants to help you,” Starla said.
I laughed. “She might have better luck.”
Starla pointed at the screen. “Did you know Kyle and I met at a ball?”
“The Firelight Gala, right?”
“It was the most amazing night,” she said. “I was fairly new to the village and had, of course, signed up as a volunteer.” She glanced at me. “I was in charge of the lighting, and in a complete panic when several strings of my party lanterns wouldn’t work. There I was in this ethereal gold ball gown, trying to splice wires together without pliers and having no luck whatsoever when this man, the most amazing man I’d ever seen, steps in and with a few flicks of his fingers has everything fixed. Then he held out his hand to me and nodded to the dance floor.”
I closed the diary and set it aside. “Magical hands,” I murmured.
She nodded and flexed her fingers as though reliving that exact moment.
“You must have looked so beautiful.” It wasn’t hard at all to imagine Starla in a gold gown, her blue eyes shining, her blond hair shimmering.
“He said so.” She smiled. “And he . . . he was breathtaking. Dressed in a tux, his dark hair combed back, his blue eyes sparkling with . . . life. With animation. He had the most amazing way of telling a story with just his eyes.”
Foul is fair.
“We danced the whole night long, never leaving each other’s side for even a moment. By the end of the night, it felt like we’d known each other forever. I saw him the next day, and the day after, and when he asked me to marry him a couple of months later, I didn’t even hesitate. Not in the slightest. I loved him.” She sucked in a deep breath. “Oh God, how I loved him. With every beat of my heart, every breath I drew in. He was . . . he was my soul.”
My throat ached with the lump lodged there, and as I listened to her talk about him, I could only grieve the love my friend had lost.
“Like I said, it was so perfect, those early months of marriage. Just like while we were dating. Then things began changing.”
On the screen, the chandelier came crashing down, and Starla winced as though it had physically landed atop of her.
Tears shimmered in her eyes. “And then one day he woke up, went into his studio, and accused me of hiding his paints.” Shaking her head, she added, “He just wouldn’t listen to reason, even when I kept telling him that I’d never do such a thing. He had this look in his eyes—such rage, such confusion. I told him I was leaving until he calmed down. . . . He grabbed me—my throat.”
Fair is foul. I placed my hand on her arm, and tried to keep tears from falling.
Her voice crackled as she said, “He wouldn’t let go. And”—she inhaled—“I’ve never told anyone at this, but I didn’t fight back.”
I couldn’t keep the tears in. They fell from my eyes, dripping onto the blanket. “Why, Starla?”
“Because I knew. In that moment I knew he wasn’t the man I had married—that man had vanished months before. It was the first time I saw it clearly. If I couldn’t have the man I loved, the old Kyle . . . he was the reason for living. My breath. My soul. But he was gone, and that realization was so painful that I didn’t want to go on. I wanted to die.”
I swiped my eyes with my sleeve. “But you did go on. You broke loose, called the police. . . .”
“No,” she said. “I didn’t. He let go. Almost as abruptly as his rage started, it stopped. His eyes . . . the regret, the pain. He ran off. I called the police, because I hoped—prayed—he could get the help he needed. But
then he escaped, and I never saw him again until this week. I was so scared of him that I didn’t realize it was the old Kyle visiting me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I remembered his visit here Friday night clearly when I used that memory spell. The spell is strange, because it’s like you’re looking at the scene as a viewer—not a participant. I didn’t see it through my eyes—I was observing. He was being kind and gentle and trying to explain something. His eyes, the way he looked at me, were just like that night at the Firelight Gala. But I didn’t notice. I yelled and screamed at him. . . . All he knew was how much I wanted him to leave. The bruises on my wrist were from me pulling away from him, not from him holding me too hard. If only I’d listened instead of reacting . . . maybe I’d know why he had treated me like he did.”
The pain in her eyes nearly did me in. “You were scared. You didn’t know.”
“But if I had just listened . . . then that meeting might have been so different. I might have been able to tell him . . . that I never stopped loving him. Never stopped wishing that the Kyle I knew and loved would come back to me. Now, he’ll never know. And we may never know the truth of where he’d been and what happened to him.”
My throat swelled with emotion, making it hard to swallow. I ached for my friend, but all I could do was put my arms around her and hold her tight.
After a long minute Missy barked and pawed my lap as though trying to offer her consolation, too. I reluctantly let go of Starla. After wiping my eyes, I spotted what Missy had been up to when I was engrossed in Starla’s story. “Oh no!” I cried. “Ohnoohnoohno,” I repeated as I grabbed the open journal and eyed the damage. Most of the pages were damp from drool or torn along the edges.
“What?” Starla asked; then her eyes widened.
Holding up the journal, I sighed. The Elder had entrusted this diary to me to keep it safe. And now this.
“It’s not so bad,” Starla said, her voice still hoarse with raw emotion. “Most of the rips are along the edges, and the drool will dry.”
“I guess,” I said, feeling a knot forming in my stomach. I dragged the hem of my shirt along the page that had received the worst drool.
As I furiously rubbed, trying to dry the page, one of the headings caught my attention. THE GOOD-BYE SPELL.
The Good-bye Spell? I skimmed the spell and felt the hair on my arms stand on end. I glanced at Starla.
She tipped her head, giving me a curious look. “What is it, Darcy?”
“I think it’s what I’ve been looking for.”
Scooting closer, Starla looked over my shoulder as I read aloud,
“Body weak, spirit fly,
With death near,
Hold no fear,
Fly, fly to say good-bye.”
Chills swept down my spine.
“What’s that even mean?” Starla asked.
I read Melina’s fine print. My breath caught. “It’s a spell for Crafters who are bedridden and near death like from a terminal illness. It’s a way for them to visit loved ones to say good-bye before they die. Their spirits retain mortal traits like speech and touch but are visible only to those chosen to be visited.”
Eyebrows furrowed, Starla looked pensive. “But that means . . .”
The spell was still sinking in. I bit my lip, then whispered, “It means that if Kyle used this spell . . . Kyle was dying.”
Chapter Twenty-two
The next morning, I found myself in As You Wish’s office, trying to wrangle our billing statements into an organized system. I’d have loved to switch to computerized files, but Ve was old-fashioned and still liked to use paper. I did manage to persuade her to start using an electronic appointment system, so there was hope for more change. I’d just have to keep pestering her.
The snowplows had already been by, and because New Englanders were a hardy lot, it would take much more than a measly eight inches of snow to shut down the village. There was work still to be done. For most of us at least—Missy and Twink were asleep in front of the desk, Tilda was hiding out somewhere, and Starla was still asleep upstairs.
She hadn’t said too much after we’d found the Good-bye Spell. I’d called Nick right off, and he promised to put some pressure on the ME’s office first thing in the morning.
Body weak, spirit fly,
With death near,
Hold no fear,
Fly, fly to say good-bye.
Dying.
I couldn’t even wrap my head around it. First the paralysis, now this. Was either true? We knew he couldn’t have committed suicide, so what really happened to Kyle? Would we ever know?
I thought about Liam’s strange riddles the day before, and how I felt as though he was warning me about learning the truth. Was this why? Because Kyle had been dying? I just didn’t know and wished Liam had just told me what was going on.
Evan had left already for the bakery, and Ve was out of the house for an early-morning meeting with a client. But before she went, she shared the morning’s gossip: Kyle’s funeral was being planned for Wednesday, on the assumption that his body would be released by then, and his family had made it clear that all who had cared for him were invited to attend.
After last night I had such mixed emotions toward Kyle. It was hard to hate him knowing how much Starla had loved him. But I still couldn’t understand how he could have hurt her the way he had. She sounded so ready to forgive him because he had somehow morphed back into the “old” Kyle, yet I still wanted him to pay for what he had done to her.
He’d not only attacked her that day, but he had killed part of her spirit. A part, I feared, that could never be brought back.
I wanted to die.
Tears brimmed in my eyes, and I blinked them away.
Sighing, I shoved a pile of papers into a folder and rubbed my temples, trying to assuage another headache. My first appointment wasn’t until early this afternoon, which left me plenty of time to sneak in some organization and drop by Mrs. P’s in a little bit to check on her.
I was still filing papers when the doorbell rang. Missy and Twink went scurrying down the hall, with me on their heels. Sam the deliveryman smiled when I pulled open the door.
I wasn’t expecting a delivery and figured this was more decorations for the Swing and Sway dance.
“New dog, Darcy?” he asked as he bent to pet the dogs’ heads.
“Not quite. It’s a long story.”
“A good one, too, I bet. I’ll have to get Ve to tell me about it sometime.” He winked.
I sized him up. “You don’t dance, do you?”
“Two left feet, why?”
“No reason,” I said, smiling. “You can put the box over there.”
He set it on the table, tipped his hat, and walked out.
I glanced down at the dogs. “Do I dare?”
Missy barked and Twink twirled in circles.
I made quick work of the packaging and lifted the box flaps. I shoved aside Styrofoam popcorn and pulled out a pair of individually wrapped long white satin gloves. I rummaged in the box. There were dozens of pairs.
I recalled what Ve had said. The competitors dance naked except for bow ties for the men and silk gloves for the women.
Amused, I could only shake my head. I went back to organizing, trying my best not to be intrigued by this dance. Maybe I’d check it out. After all this talk of death and dying, I needed a good laugh.
* * *
An hour later, bells chimed as I sailed through the doors at Spellbound. Harper looked startled when she spotted me. “What’re you doing here?”
“Good morning to you, too.”
“Hi. But seriously, what’re you doing here?”
Smiling at her, I said, “I need some reading glasses. Melina’s diary is going to make me go blind otherwise.” Even though I’d found the Good-bye Spell, I knew there would be other times I’d have to read the journal. It would be nice having a pair of reading glasses on hand.
I wanted to tell Har
per about the syringe and spell, but when I called Nick this morning he had asked me to keep it quiet for now. I said I would, but it was going to be hard to keep anything from Harper for long.
I strode over to the reading glasses display and pulled a pair of bright pink polka-dotted frames. I peered at myself in the mirror and laughed.
“They’re perfect,” Harper said. “Take them and go. On the house.”
“You’re the blind one, if you think they’re perfect.” I tried another pair. “Why do I feel like you’re not happy to see me?”
Her eyes went wide. “What? No. Ah . . .”
I stared at her.
She smiled brightly. Too brightly. Hmm.
“Do you want some coffee?” she asked.
“No, thanks.” I was overcaffeinated as it was, which probably didn’t help my aching head. I watched the snow fall outside. Gentle flurries looked like they were waltzing in the wind, and oddly, it was quite peaceful watching the dance.
A lone customer browsed the fiction section as Harper came over and pulled out a pair of glasses, handing them to me. “Try these.”
They were purple with white swirls and oddly reminded me of the magic wand painting in the front room of As You Wish. “I like them.”
“Me, too.”
I bumped her with my elbow. “Are they still on the house?”
“No, that was a limited-time offer.”
“Of what, twenty seconds?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re acting strangely today.”
“More than usual?” She grinned.
“It’s making my headache worse. I need aspirin.”
“You’ve had a lot of headaches lately,” she said, eyeing me. “Maybe it’s time you make an appointment with Cherise.”
“I’ve been under some stress, and the teeny tiny print of Melina’s diary makes my eyes ache.”
She tapped her foot.
I sighed. I couldn’t blame her for worrying—she always did about my health. I was the only immediate family she had left. “If they keep up I’ll make an appointment.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now, some aspirin. You have some upstairs, right?”
“What?”
“Aspirin. Upstairs?” I headed for the back hallway.
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