I knew who the robber was.
I knew who the killer was.
I turned tail and ran out of the clearing, hurrying down the path. I needed to get to the bottom of this and solve the case before anyone else could get hurt, or worse.
Chapter 21
I took off running in the direction of Vince’s house.
About thirty seconds later I turned on a dime and ran in the opposite direction, back to where I’d left my broomstick, then promptly took off flying in the right direction again.
I should have trusted my gut before. Sure, it might have seemed like Vince’s friendship with Jackson would have kept him from doing something so drastic, but the more time I spent around people, the more I realized that just about anything was possible.
And at that particular moment, it wasn’t just time I was rushing against. I had to make up for the fact that if I’d gone with my gut to begin with and followed up on Vince sooner, Jackson might still be alive.
That put all the more pressure on me as I leaned forward on my broomstick. A trail of dead leaves swept up behind me, as I zoomed onto the street, nearly knocking a middle-aged couple over. I heard them swearing at me from behind as I zoomed off, but there was no time to waste. I waved back at them in apology, eyes stinging from the speed at which the wind hit my face.
Every second wasted was a step further ahead of me Vince got.
As soon as I reached Vince’s home, I hopped off my broomstick and stormed toward the workshop, taking a deep breath to get my nerves under control. I figured it was more likely Vince would be in his workshop than in the house.
Before I entered, though, I had second thoughts about metaphorically kicking the door down. Better to keep the element of surprise if I could. I slowly opened the door and looked inside.
There was nobody there; it was completely empty.
“Vince?” I called out, shivering slightly as I stepped across the threshold. With no potter, the various pieces of ceramic art in different stages of completion looked a little eerie. Suddenly this didn’t seem like such a good idea. “Hello?”
The workshop was deathly silent save for my quiet footsteps. I reached the back of the room and poked my head into an opening that led to a darker room full of what looked like supplies. Nothing, and no one there, either.
Frowning, I turned around and put my fingers on the edge of a small vase, tipping it toward me and peering inside.
It couldn’t hurt to be thorough.
“What are you doing in here?”
I yelped in surprise at the voice coming from the entrance of the workshop and jumped back. The vase tipped the rest of the way over and fell to the ground, the sound of the ceramic shattering into a million pieces filling the room.
Convinced I had just lost three years off my life, I looked to the source of the voice and saw Nathan standing in the doorway, casting an accusatory look at me.
“What? Oh, um, I was just looking for Vince. I’ll pay for that,” I said, motioning down to the shards of vase.
“Why?” he snapped, and my heart jumped to my throat as he started advancing into the workshop.
I hadn’t expected him to ask. I mouthed silently for a few moments as my mind drew a total blank at the worst possible time.
“Well, to apologize and pay for breaking some of his work,” I offered with a nervous laugh, but Nathan’s expression was hardening by the second. He wasn’t buying it. I swallowed, and tried again. “Actually, I wanted to come by because I wanted to ask about getting some pottery for my place. See, I’m doing these renovations, because I run the B&B in town, and when I was here the other day I really liked what I saw.”
“No you’re not,” Nathan said, rather calmly. “I saw you blaze into the yard like that, finger out, you absolutely aren’t here to shop.”
“Hey,” I started, forgetting my fear to be indignant for just a moment.
“Shut up,” he said, and something in his voice made my blood run cold. “You connected the robbery with the killings and came here to confront him about it.”
I honestly didn’t know how to respond. The accusation came so left of field and yet hit home so unexpectedly that all I could do was stare.
“And honestly? I thought about telling you he’s down at the Magic Bean getting a coffee. It would distract you and those cops for just a few more hours.”
My eyes widened, and my face paled as it all clicked.
I had been wrong again.
The killer was right in front of me.
“But the second I skip town, it’ll clear Vince’s name, and I’ll be long gone. First, though, I’m going to take care of you.”
“Capioroa,” I shouted, my finger pointing between Nathan’s legs, and a rock from the ground outside came flying toward me, only to hit Nathan in the small of his back. I wasn’t going to go down without a fight, and as soon as I’d figured out he was the killer I had thought of a spell.
“Corporis vorso- aagh!” Nathan shouted, stumbling just enough that his spell missed me.
I took the couple of seconds that bought me to dive behind one of the workbenches. Of course, it didn’t occur to me at the time that it provided basically no cover, leaving me crouched in plain sight.
“Caloroa caloroa caloroa!” Nathan barked, aiming his finger at various pieces of pottery in the shop and sending a blast of heat with each shout that made the pottery shatter behind me.
“Obturoa!” I cried, tapping myself with a protective spell, and instead of getting pelted with sharp shards of ceramic, I felt bits of wet clay pelt my body.
He approached the table, but I leaned back and kicked one of the stools out from under it. The metal legs hit his human legs with a painful clang, and while he grunted, I scrambled out from under the table and got to my feet, dashing for the exit of the shop.
“Carperoa!” I heard from behind me, and I felt a sharp pain in my scalp as I felt my long hair jerked back, suspended in the air by his holding spell. It was a schoolyard trick, but it threw off my balance and I fell to the ground, pain searing through my body.
I turned my head just enough to see him grabbing an electrical extension cord and marching toward me with it, his face dark and stormy-eyed.
“Maybe you and me will just go on a little ride together,” he snarled. “I’ll have even more time if I dump your body somewhere in Oregon.”
When he was so close I heard his breath nearly on my neck, I decided he probably wasn’t expecting a non-magical attack and whipped my fist towards his face as hard as I could.
Pain shot up my hand, but judging by the howl and the dropped cord, he hurt more. I’d nailed him right on the tip of his nose, and blood was already streaming from it.
Adrenaline pumping, I decided to go back to magic.
“Retineoroa,” I shouted, that particular spell having never come from my lips before. I’d learned it in school, but never used it. Like a living snake, the electrical cord Nathan was about to use on me slithered to life and wrapped around Nathan’s legs.
He fell over, but before I had a chance to use another spell to really incapacitate him, he seized my ankle, and I grabbed onto one of the support beams on the wall to keep from being dragged down.
“Let her go, now!”
Both of us froze, and our heads snapped to the doorway.
Xander Forsetti was standing there in uniform, his finger aimed Nathan, still as a statue.
Nathan let out a grunt of frustration as he put his hands up, letting me stagger away, breathing heavily.
“What’s going on here, Arti?” Xander demanded, eyes still on Nathan. “The neighbors called in a disturbance.”
“He attacked me, because I figured it out,” I stammered through quick, tight breaths, but Nathan interrupted me.
“I killed Jackson and Arianna Long.” His cold voice rumbled slowly and clearly, and both of us looked shocked at his confession. He shrugged his shoulders before spitting blood out. “Cop caught me trying to kill a woman, I wa
s going to jail anyway. I’ll save you the waste of time. I killed them both.”
“Why?” I breathed, finally getting my bearings and standing beside Xander with my own finger up, trying to mimic his stance.
It didn’t look quite as intimidating, somehow.
“They were blackmailing me,” Nathan growled. “Trying to, anyway.”
“Blackmail?” I repeated, a little bit confused. But then, it clicked, and my eyes widened. “Jackson left the nightclub for about fifteen minutes the night the jewelry store was robbed. He didn’t commit the crime in that time, he witnessed it. And it wasn’t Vince he saw, it was you.”
“And he told that sister he was so close to,” Nathan finished for me with a rueful face. “It was probably her stupid idea to try blackmail in the first place.”
“That money in Jackson’s account?”
“It was my life savings. I was dead broke until I got the payoff for the robbery. So yeah, I killed them because of it.”
“Lara Lancaster was never the intended victim,” Xander confirmed.
“She wasn’t even supposed to be home,” Nathan moaned, turning his head to wipe the blood from his nose on his sleeve. “I thought I saw her cat out and assumed she was, I don’t know, shopping, giving out autographs, doing whatever it is famous people do when they go out.”
“Jackson knew you killed his sister,” I realized out loud. “He must have known it was you the second it came out that she was killed.”
Nathan chuckled and gave a dark grin. “I’m proud of that one. Yeah, unless he was thick in the head, he probably did know. And what was he going to do about it? Go to the police and explain I did it because he was blackmailing me?”
“He’d have done me a favor by skipping town and making himself the prime suspect, but he had the stones to stay,” Nathan grunted.
I ran my fingers through my hair, my mouth hanging open as I took it all in. “All this for fifteen grand,” I whispered.
Xander shook his head. “I’ve heard of worse for less. Doesn’t matter now, though. Murder’s a murder, no matter what it’s for. Nathan Bolverk, you’re under arrest for the murder of Arianna Long and Jackson Long, grand larceny, and attempted murder. You have the right to-”
“Attempted murder?” I interrupted. Nathan grimaced at me.
“That’s you, Arti,” he clarified.
“Oh,” I blushed. I supposed maybe I had quite a while to go before I was as good an investigator as Xander. But hey, this was a good start.
Chapter 22
Morgan was busy handcuffing and subduing a very pissed off Nathaniel, but Xander stood in the corner of the shop with me as we watched.
“I can’t believe it was him. I mean, don’t get me wrong, looking at him now I can definitely see how he’d make a better suspect. He’s been a troublemaker for years. But he was never truly dangerous, as far as I knew; I certainly didn’t think he’d be dangerous enough to commit murder,” Xander admitted, shaking his head. “Guys like Nathaniel have a tendency to fly under the radar, I’ll admit. Not very smart, not very charismatic.”
“Just a bit of a mess of a person,” I finished. Xander nodded.
“Yes, exactly.”
“You know, sometimes I think I’m kind of like that,” I mused aloud. “A mess. I have my good moments, of course. But sometimes I’ll be standing in my kitchen singing into a spatula like it’s a microphone and I’m a pop star and I just think ‘Wow. What a weirdo.’”
Xander chuckled and reached around to pat my shoulder – the one farthest from him, which meant that his strong, muscular arm curved around my back to do so. I almost shivered with delight, and promptly scolded myself for being so predictably silly. Here I was, supposedly his equal, his totally platonic work partner, and yet the slightest touch of his hand was enough to give me goosebumps.
I would have to build up some kind of tolerance to his touch or something, teach myself to remain calm even when in the presence of the world’s hottest, most adorably goofy police officer.
“You’re not a weirdo. And if you are, it’s a different kind of weirdo than Nathaniel is. He’s a bad weirdo. You’re the good kind,” he assured me with a wink. My heart, traitor that it was, skipped a beat and seemed to grow wings. I only hoped he couldn’t somehow hear or feel it beating a million miles a minute.
“Well, thank you. I’m sure my mother, who’s been calling me weird my whole life, will be proud to learn I have the endorsement of the local police department,” I replied, biting my lip. Don’t flirt with him, you useless banana, I scolded myself inwardly.
“Oh, now let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. You may have my endorsement, but I can’t speak for my comrades,” he teased gently. “But for what it’s worth, I may or may not have been bragging about you to some of them.”
“Have you now?” I felt like I might literally start floating on air at any given moment. This was just too much for my little heart to bear.
“Well, let’s see. You’ve helped me solve what, three murder cases?” he calculated, pretending to do the math in his head. My moon, he was so cute.
“Four, I think, actually,” I corrected, nudging him on the shoulder. “So when do I get my badge? I think I’ve more or less earned it by now, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure there’s an exam you have to pass, first. But seriously, I truly don’t know what I would have done with your help on this, Arti. Seriously. You’re a real sleuth.”
“You would’ve figured it out eventually, I’m sure. But thank you,” I responded, cursing myself for blushing. I could just feel the pinkness in my cheeks and hoped to the moon that he wouldn’t notice it.
“So, what’s next for you today?” he asked casually.
“Oh, I don’t know. Solving this crime was kind of my main headlining act for the day. Now I guess I’m just going to slink back to my trailer and wait for my next scene,” I joked. “Unless you have some other unsolved crime you’d like to pawn off on Moonlight Cove’s most unqualified baby detective?”
Xander pretended to think about it for a second, then shook his head. An irresistibly charming smile crossed his handsome face and for a split second I thought I might actually go weak in the knees, like I was some kind of rom-com character.
“No, I think you’ve done more than enough work for the day.”
“Well, I’d better head out before some other mystery pops up. Believe it or not, I do have a day job,” I told him, grinning.
“Oh, that’s right. The bed and breakfast,” he said, nodding. “How’s that going?”
If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought he was stalling, coming up with absolutely any reason to keep me hanging around. It made me feel all warm and tingly inside.
“Pretty well. I’ve got a couple of young kids from out of town staying there right now. You know, they dragged me out to the club the other night?” I added in a lowered voice.
“You? At the club?” he repeated incredulously.
I scoffed in mock indignation. “Yes, me. At a club. Is that really so hard to imagine?”
He looked flustered. “No, no. It’s just that, well, I was picturing you in some sequined dress or something and it just didn’t feel right,” he said hastily. Now he was the one blushing furiously. I smirked.
“For your information, I wore a very tasteful black dress,” I said, poking out my tongue.
“I’m sure you looked beautiful, as usual,” he blurted out.
There was a moment of awkward silence. I wasn’t used to compliments like that from hot men, especially while standing within a crime scene. I laughed nervously and tucked my hair back behind my ears.
“Well, uh, I better get going. Get back to the Manor, you know. Do some damage control back at home,” I said quickly.
“Yes, good idea,” he agreed, looking like he’d just swallowed a frog or something. He stuck out his hand for me to shake and I took it reluctantly. He smiled. “Great working with you, Arti.”
&
nbsp; “You, too. See you next time there’s a murder,” I replied jokingly.
“I hope so,” he answered, then immediately realizing his mistake, closed his eyes and winced at the implication that he hoped someone else got murdered so he could see me again.
“Or you could just come by the Manor sometime. You don’t have to wait until there’s a dead body to come say hi.”
“Got it. See you later.”
After saying my goodbyes to Xander, I headed out of the workshop and grabbed my broom, thankful to have gotten out of that situation with my life. Admittedly, I was still a tad bit shaky, which was a fact I badly wanted to keep hidden from Xander. I had only recently proved myself worthy of being his civilian team member, and I was not about to lose our partnership over a guy like Nathan. I had to pull it together and play it cool, like I hadn’t just barely scraped my way out of a very dangerous situation. All in all, though, I was pretty proud of myself. And seeing how truly grateful Xander was for my help was just the especially delicious cherry on top.
I hopped onto my broomstick and took off in the direction of the hospital. Now that everything had been put together and the threat had been neutralized, it was up to me to let Lara know the coast was clear. As I rode along, I breathed in the crisp winter air happily. It felt good to be alive, truly.
When I reached the hospital, Marsha admitted me once more. I followed her up to Lara’s room and was surprised to find the pretty celebrity packing up her belongings. She was out of her hospital bed, dressed in real people clothes instead of a papery blue gown, and she had makeup on. Heck, even her hair was blow-dried and styled impeccably.
Thank my Lucky Spells: A Paranormal Cozy Mystery (Moonlight Cove Mystery Book 3) Page 14