by Zoe Arden
Eleanor shook her head. "Not you. He'll know you were friends with Mack and there's no way he'll let anything slip around you."
"All right, then you talk to him," my dad said.
She shook her head again. "Bill and I don't get along. He won't open up to me." She looked at me.
"I've already tried talking to him," I told her. "I snuck into his dental office and he kicked me out."
"Yeah, but that was before," Eleanor said.
"Before what?" I asked.
"Before he trusted you. You're the one he called to go read that letter of Natalie's he found," Eleanor said.
In my new efforts to be truthful, I'd updated my aunts and dad on everything that had happened when they weren't around. I even admitted to going back to Mack's Bar and talking to Von, though they weren't happy about it.
"Eleanor," my dad said, "you can't be suggesting that Ava go and talk to a possible murderer alone, can you?"
"She wouldn't be alone. If she goes to his office there will be plenty of people there to act as witnesses. He won't try anything so close to home."
My dad looked at her skeptically, but I thought she was on to something. I was already rising from my chair.
"I'll be fine," I told him, cutting him off. "Eleanor's right, he won't try anything at his office even if he is the killer."
My dad pressed his lips together but didn't try to talk me out of it. I set my apron aside and hurried to Bill's office. It wasn't nearly as packed as it had been the last time I was here. His receptionist, Isabella, drew her brows together when she saw me.
"Oh, no," she said, rising from her seat. "You're not getting past me today."
"I'm not trying to get past you. Besides, you caught me last time, I know better now," I said, hoping to placate her.
She looked at me skeptically but relaxed her posture the tiniest bit. "Can you just let Mr. Vargas know I'm out here? I think he'll want to see me."
"I doubt that. He's in conference right now."
"Conference? You mean with a patient?"
"I can't say."
"You mean you don't know or you can't tell me?"
"I can't say."
I sighed. "All right. Then I'll wait."
I turned to take a seat in the waiting area.
"It might be quite a while yet," Isabella said. "He has several people ahead of you."
"That's fine," I said, picking up a magazine. "I'll wait."
She sighed but made no further objection. Ten minutes later, the door opened, and she called the woman seated to my left. The woman rose and followed Isabella down the hall. I waited until they were out of sight then jumped out of my chair, opened the door, and hurried back in search of Bill.
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CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
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There were two open, empty rooms with dentist's chairs. I heard Isabella getting the new patient settled into the third room so deftly bypassed that one. I had no intention of getting caught a second time. I knew Bill wasn't in the room with Isabella and that patient anyway. His voice was loud and deep and would have easily carried out into the hall where I was.
Bill wasn't in any of the other rooms that I checked. I didn't have a ton of time before Isabella came back out. The door to his office, where he kept his desk and computer, was closed. I pressed my ear to it and heard two voices.
I strained my ears trying to listen to them. I recognized one right away as Bill's. The other was familiar but too muffled for me to make out. I pressed my ear even closer so that it was flush with the door, not an inch of space between us, and realized the voice belonged to Colt. They were arguing.
"Just answer the question," Colt said.
"I don't have to answer anything you ask me. This isn't an official interview," said Bill.
"It's official enough," Colt snapped. "Answer the question or I'll tell everyone in your waiting room that you're using human tools to drill their teeth."
"That's absurd," Bill snapped back at him. "I only deal with magical instruments here. You know that."
"Sure, I know that. But what I don't know is where you were when Mack Heathrow was killed. I know you weren't here."
Bill let out a loud sigh. "Fine." There was a long pause. "I was at Mack's Bar."
My eyes widened. I waited for Colt to say something about the bombshell Bill had just dropped, but he kept quiet. He must've been afraid to interrupt Bill now that he'd finally started talking.
"Natalie was talking in her sleep one night a couple days before Mack was killed. It was hard to make out everything she was saying, but there was one thing that was crystal clear. Mack's name." I heard him sigh. "I had the feeling something... well, that there was something going on between them. I didn't know what. So, I went to find out."
"And did you?"
"No, Mack wasn't there."
Someone cleared their throat behind me. I stood up and turned around so fast I hurt my neck.
"Isabella," I said.
She was staring at me with eyes so hard they could have cut diamonds.
"I thought I told you to stay out of here," she said. "Next time you show your face here, I'm gonna hex you."
The door to Bill's office opened, and Bill and Colt stood in the doorway staring at us.
"What's going on out here?" Bill asked.
"I caught her listening at your door," Isabella said, glaring at me.
My cheeks reddened. "I needed to talk to you," I said to Bill, though it sounded as if Colt had beaten me to the punch. He'd come asking the very questions I'd come to ask, and he'd gotten answers.
Colt looked irritated that I was there.
"It's okay, Isabella," Bill said, and Isabella rolled her eyes before walking away. "What's wrong?" Bill asked. "What did you need to talk to me about? Is it Natalie? Is she okay?"
"Natalie's fine," I said quickly. "That's not why I'm here. Well, not exactly." I looked at Colt. "Actually, I think that, uh, that we're good. Never mind."
I turned quickly away, wanting to get out of there before Colt started interrogating me next.
"Ava," Colt called, hurrying after me. He caught up to me just outside the door to the waiting area. "What are you really doing here? And don't lie."
"I wasn't lying," I told him. "I wanted to ask Bill where he was when Mack was killed, but it sounds like you beat me to it."
He paused. "Are you still mad at me? Is that why you're running away from me?"
I licked my lips. We'd exchanged texts and voicemails, but we hadn't actually seen each other since our last fight.
"No," I said after a beat. "My dad's not mad at you, so I guess I shouldn't be either."
"He's not? I thought he'd still be furious with me."
"No, he says that working for Dean Lampton could rot anyone's brain."
I flashed him a smile to show that I was joking, sort of, and he smiled back at me uncertainly. He looked at Bill, who was standing nearby watching us.
Colt gently took hold of my arm and steered me outside so that we were no longer in the dental building, which suited me just fine. The smell of peppermint toothpaste and mouthwash was starting to get to me anyway. I shot a quick glance at the sky and saw that it was darkening. It was going to start raining any minute. It looked like it might even storm. Sweetland so rarely got storms that I forgot about everything else for a minute, momentarily transfixed with the rain clouds that had formed.
"I'm tired,” Colt said drawing my attention back to him, "so maybe I'm not reading the signals right. Are we fighting?"
I sighed. "No. I guess not. I'm sorry. I was just surprised to find you here, that's all. And even more surprised to hear what you were asking Bill about."
"I know you were mad at me about that whole thing with your dad, but I promise you I'm just doing my job. I never really thought your dad was guilty of anything. Dean's just making me clamp down
on every possible suspect. He wants this thing solved more than anyone, I think."
"Why does Dean care about this case so much?" I asked. "I mean, there have been murders in Sweetland before. He's never cared much about those. What's so special about this case?" I drew in a breath. "Was Mack working for COMHA? Just tell me if he was."
Colt's eyes glazed over. "Whether he was, or he wasn't, I can't say."
I sighed. Questioning Colt was frustrating. I decided to drop it. He wasn't gonna answer me so why get myself upset over it? I must have been lost in my thoughts because I was surprised when I suddenly felt Colt's hands slip around my waist. He pulled me to him and kissed me.
It was hard to resist Colt's kisses. A kiss like that could melt your brain. I decided to sink into it and let his lips warm me from head to toe. It was an internal heat, so different from the type of warmth the sun could provide. I relaxed my shoulders and relished in it.
When he let me go, it felt like whatever minor rift had occurred between us had just been sealed back up.
"I have to go," Colt said.
"Me, too," I told him, wanting to get back to the bakery and fill in my aunts and dad.
"Dinner later this week?" Colt asked.
"Sure."
Colt and I walked to the corner together, then he turned left and I turned right. At the end of the block, I turned another corner and bumped into Natalie, literally. She bounced off me and fell to the ground. I managed to stay on my feet. Her face was red and sweaty.
"Sorry. Are you okay?" I asked.
She scrambled to her feet and grabbed my hand. "Run!" she yelled and yanked my arm so hard I thought it might come out of its socket.
A dagger flew past my head, slicing through a stray strand of hair. "Run!" Natalie said again and dragged me with her.
I ran.
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CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
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Natalie and I hurried through the streets, dodging the odd pedestrian, trying to get away. A second dagger flew past my head, coming even closer than the first. Did this guy have an endless supply of these things? Wouldn't it have been easier to use bullets or cast spells?
I supposed that for all I knew, the daggers had been cast with a spell. Maybe there was only one dagger that returned to him again and again like a boomerang.
My mind thought him, automatically casting the killer as a man, but maybe it was a woman. Natalie and I were running through downtown Sweetland being chased by a madman, yet no one seemed to be batting an eye.
The tourists who saw us coming seemed to automatically cross to the other side of the street, and the locals... well, I didn't see any locals. They were undoubtedly hidden away inside their homes or shops, intent on staying out of the rain when it finally arrived, which would be any minute now.
A third dagger flew past me and I jerked around a corner, pulling Natalie with me. This last dagger came far too close for comfort. I could have sworn I felt it slide over the fabric of my shirt sleeve, the blade pushing up against it. I thought I must be imagining things but when I looked down at my shirt, the sleeve was torn.
Whoever was shooting daggers at us was aiming for me, not Natalie. Or maybe they were switching back and forth; it was hard to tell. I looked on the ground for the dagger that had just fallen, thinking I might pick it up. It could have fingerprints or something, and I didn't want to let it go like I had the last one. But there was nothing to pick up. The dagger had disappeared.
I was right. They were enchanted.
Natalie and I had been running without giving much thought to where we were going; we were just trying to get away from the guy chasing us. I dared a quick look over my shoulder to see if I could make out who was following us, but saw nothing. When I looked, though, I suddenly got my bearings. Some instinctual part of me must have been leading us back toward The Mystic Cupcake, because here we were.
I grabbed Natalie's arm, yanked hard, and pulled her into the shop with me, slamming the door behind us and bolting it shut. Trixie was the only one standing behind the front counter. She must have just arrived, since she hadn't been here when I'd left to see Bill. My dad and Eleanor must have been in back unless they'd gone out for a break. There were no customers in the shop, thank goodness.
"What's wrong?" Trixie asked, looking at us.
"S-S-Someone just t-tried to k-kill us," I told her, panting for air.
Her face paled, and she disappeared into the back room. A moment later, Eleanor and my dad appeared. They took one look at me and Natalie and rushed over. My dad drew me into a hug and held me tight.
"I'm okay," I assured him and decided that maybe I could leave out the part about how close that last dagger had come to hitting me. That wouldn't be a lie; that would just be... redirecting information. I'd redirect it to the back part of my brain that stored items children should never have to tell their parents. Things like they'd cheated on a test or kissed their first boy.
Once things had calmed down and Natalie and I had gotten our breath back, Natalie told us what had happened.
"I was just walking down the street," she said. Tears pricked at her eyes, and she wiped them quickly away. "Just walking, that's all I was doing. I heard a noise, kind of like a beep, and looked around to see where it had come from. For a minute, I was afraid it was a car horn and that someone new was trying to run me over, but I didn't see anybody. At least no one who looked suspicious."
She gulped at the iced tea Eleanor had given her.
"Anyway, a second later, the first dagger sailed past me. It almost got me, too. I started running, and then I saw Ava and I just..."
She looked at me. "I'm sorry I dragged you into this. That last dagger looked like it was after you instead of me."
I shot my dad a look and saw his lips tighten, but he kept it together. I put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and squeezed.
"Think for a minute," Eleanor said. "Both of you. Did either of you see anyone—anyone at all—who you think could be the killer?"
I flashed quickly through the faces I'd seen as we'd been running, but none of them stood out. A blonde tourist, a goateed man, a middle-aged couple... their faces were vague, at best.
I shrugged and looked at Eleanor. "I don't know. We were running for our lives. I wasn't exactly stopping to take notes."
Natalie sighed and agreed with me. "I didn't see anyone throwing anything, let alone daggers. You'd think something like that would be obvious. I don't know how they were hiding it."
"They're using some kind of charm, I think," I said and explained how I'd watched the last dagger disappear right after it had missed me.
"Hmm..." my dad said, scratching his chin. "A disappearing, reappearing spell?" He looked at Eleanor with raised eyebrows.
"Maybe," she said, furrowing her brow. "Could be a bit more complicated than that. Maybe they've cast a spell on the daggers so that they act like a missile, seeking out whoever their target is. The killer might not even need to be there; they could be sitting at home watching television."
Thunder crackled outside, and rain began to fall.
"Or maybe it's simpler than that," Trixie said. "What if whoever's after Natalie and, I guess now Ava, just set a boomerang charm on the daggers? Ava said they were behaving like a boomerang, right? Well, maybe there's a reason for that."
"I don't think the killer's after me, exactly," I told them. "He was only throwing those daggers at me because I was with Natalie." I paused. "I think."
I wasn't a hundred percent certain on this last part, but it seemed reasonable. No one had tried to kill me until today.
"I was just starting to think I was out of the woods," Natalie complained. "No one's tried to kill me in days—since the bear claw." I refrained from rolling my eyes. No matter how much I'd tried to convince her otherwise, she was determined to believe her choking on that bear claw hadn't been a
n accident.
"Whoever's after you clearly thinks you have something of Mack's."
"Oh, my roses," Trixie said suddenly. "The journal! You don't think that's what they’re after, do you?"
I shook my head. "No. Whatever it is, it’s supposed to have dangerous consequences if it falls into the wrong hands. The journal's just... a journal." I bit my lip. "I still think we need to finish reading it, though, if possible." I looked at her hopefully. "Did you fix it?"
"It's in the back room but it's still drying," she told me. "It needs at least another hour before I can say anything for sure."
"What journal?" Natalie asked, and I quickly explained, leaving out the part where I'd broken into Mack's apartment and making it sound like I'd merely stumbled upon his open door and gone in. Though I'm not sure she bought it. Natalie was sharper than people sometimes gave her credit for.
"We need to search your house again," I told Natalie. "It's possible you missed something the last time you looked. You might have something of Mack's and not even know it. Do you have a car?" She nodded. "Then we need to search that, too. We'll all go. We'll start on the main floor and move upstairs to the bedrooms only when we're sure there's nothing downstairs."
I stood up as if she'd just agreed to everything I'd said. She pursed her lips together. "I suppose we could... Bill's at work and the children are at a friend's house until dinner."
"Good, then let's go." I looked at my aunts and dad. "Come on. The bakery can stay closed for a couple of hours. This is important."
Finally, my dad decided to show his support and rose from his seat. He looked around. "You heard her," he said. "Let's go."
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CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
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