One Bad Witch

by Danielle Garrett

  I brushed him away and stood. “I’ll be out in the greenhouse. I have orders to fill, to help people who actually want my assistance.”

  Potion making is something that requires skill, concentration, and attention to every little detail. Certain potions have a tolerance for minor missteps, but the more advanced varieties demanded precision in both the ingredients and brewing techniques. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in the right state of mind for a successful afternoon at the kettle and ended up making several trips out into the brisk afternoon to gather more ingredients from my greenhouse.

  The glass-enclosed shed sat in the backyard, a few yards from back steps that led to the kitchen. When I’d first arrived at the manor, the whole thing was overgrown and dirty. After getting permission from Posy, I’d spent several weekends cleaning out the inside and hacking back the bushes surrounding it. I’d replaced a few glass panels, put in a tile floor, and added a few raised beds for the plants I grew outside in the spring and summer. By late fall, most everything had to be grown inside the greenhouse because of the coast’s harsh weather. Wind storms were common, and early frosts happened more often than not.

  But inside my greenhouse, everything was dry and cozy. The sun shone through the glass and warmed the tile floors, and I kept a small space heater for the days it got too chilly. From my central workbench, I could see up to the backside of the manor. Occasionally, I glanced up to look at Narissa’s window, wondering if she was still in there. From the exchange that morning, it seemed she was planning to leave at some point to meet Nick. Were they having dinner together? Had he invited her to his place? Was he going to cook for her?

  Snap.

  “Oh, stars!” I chided myself, realizing I’d broken off a leaf from a potted pixie pepper. “That’s good, Holls. Take it out on the plants, why don’t you.”

  The back door leading to the kitchen opened and Boots slunk down the steps and crossed the yard. Evangeline gave a slight wave and then ducked back inside. I opened the door and let Boots into the greenhouse. It was one of his favorite places to be on a sunny afternoon. “Hey, fuzzball,” I greeted him. “Remember, if you’re going to be in here, no chewing on anything!”

  He blinked his amber eyes and then rolled to his back in the rays of sun streaming across one side of the tile floor.

  “Glad we covered that,” I muttered, returning to my pruning. This time with more care.

  “How can he not see that she’s hiding something?” I said to Boots, forcing my attention to a potted foxglove. “Why would Bruno make up an entire story about her giving him the tip-off about Bracken? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Boots rolled to his other side and flopped his tail, beating it against the warm floor a few times.

  I wasn’t sure how to interpret that, but decided to carry on anyway.

  “On top of that, she’s not even here permanently. Which, is a good thing, believe me. But, my point is, where is any of this even going? He met her like a day ago, but somehow he’s willing to alienate his friends so he can date her for six months? What’s the long game? And believe me, this is Nick we’re talking about—he has a long game.”

  I paused to harvest a handful of peppermint leaves. They worked well in my dream-enhancing tea blend.

  Tossing them into my basket, I sighed. “When did everything get so complicated, Bootsie? Or was it ever simple?” I shook my head. “I’m starting to wonder what I’m even doing involved in any of this. Maybe Adam is right. Maybe it’s time for me to step away from it all. It seems that anytime I try to help, everything blows up in my face.”

  At that, Boots rolled back over and eyed me.

  “What?” I asked, narrowing me eyes. “I’m not saying this whole pack drama wouldn’t still be happening, but I probably wouldn’t know about it, and I definitely wouldn’t be having breakfast with SPA agents and wondering if one of my friends was somehow … involved.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “No. No. I already know he’s not involved. What am I even saying?”

  Maybe a nap wasn’t a bad idea.

  A soft knock sounded at the door and I exhaled. “Come in.”

  Evangeline poked her head in. “Sorry to interrupt but, Nick’s here, and he wants to talk to you.”

  Bat wings.

  Chapter 17

  Rather than going inside, I told Evangeline to have Nick come to me. The last thing I wanted was to get into it with him and have Narissa flounce down the stairs and wreck everything.

  Again.

  Within minutes, Nick rounded the front of the house and came to the greenhouse door. I opened it before he could knock and ushered him inside. When the door was closed behind him, I slid my hands deep in my pockets and stared at him, waiting for him to open. Partially out of stubborn pride and partially because I honestly had no idea what he wanted to say.

  “Sorry to interrupt your work,” he said, glancing around the greenhouse.

  “It’s fine. I’m not having much luck today, to be honest. I’m a little distracted.” The words came out more pointed than I’d intended and Nick let them hang for a long moment.

  “Listen, Holly, I’m sorry about this morning. It’s been chewing on me all day. I wasn’t getting much work done either.”

  I rocked back on my heels. “I don’t know what to say to you, Nick. And I hate that. You’re one of my closest friends, and right now, I’m not gonna lie, I kinda just wanna kick you in the shins.”

  He smiled and I felt myself mirror it. “That’s probably fair.” He held out one leg. “Here ya go, take your best shot.”

  I laughed but shook my head. “Rain check.”

  “Deal.” He chuckled and set his foot back down. “I don’t know what’s going on with me either, if it makes you feel any better.”

  I sputtered a laugh. “No. Not really. You’re one of the most self-aware people I know. So, if you’re confused, I’m afraid there’s no hope for me figuring it out.”

  He smiled down at his shoes—shiny loafers. “The last few months have been hard for me.” He paused and gave a dry laugh. “That’s probably the biggest understatement of the century.”

  “I know it’s been hard, Nick. Impossible, really. But I thought you were doing better, with the change, I mean.”

  He nodded. “Yes and no.”

  “What is it, then?”

  He met my eyes. “Before the curse, I was already in a strange spot. I mean, I moved here, somewhat on a whim, to start over. I’ll be honest and say I wasn’t really sure what I was looking for, and then you came along, and all of this—” He spread his arms. “It’s been a whirlwind, and just when I think I’ve got my arms wrapped around it, a new element comes and thunks me upside the head.”

  “Is that why you joined the pack?” I asked softly.

  He shrugged. “Yes and no.”

  I waited a beat, seeing if there was more to his answer.

  “Holly, you remember that night forever ago on the stakeout, when we almost … or, at least, it seemed like we were about to—” he trailed off.

  “Kiss?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I know it was a long time ago, but I haven’t gotten it out of my head yet. Not entirely.”

  “Nick, I—”

  He held up a hand. “No, no, don’t get me wrong. I’m glad we didn’t. You’re where you need to be, and I’m … well, I wasn’t in a place for that kind of thing anyway.”

  My stomach flip-flopped. “We never really talked about it, did we?”

  His lip twitched up into a half-smile. “I’d say we expertly avoided talking about it.”

  I laughed softly. “That sounds about right.”

  “A couple weeks after that night, I changed with Adam in the woods behind the manor, and we ran across the pack. Bruno wanted to talk to me, and I went with him. I figured it was some kind of meet and greet, or maybe some kind of territorial thing. Anyway, when we went to talk, I couldn’t help but notice there were a few females in the pack and I—” He stopped short.
“Well, I thought maybe joining the pack would be the only way I’d ever find someone who could fully accept me for who I was. Am. Now.”

  “I see.” The larger picture started filling in and my heart squeezed. The night Nick and I almost kissed was a memory that skittered across my mind from time to time. We never acted on it, and I was just as thankful as he was that we hadn’t crossed that line. Not only for my relationship with Adam, but because it would have likely destroyed my friendship with Nick too.

  “Adam and I got lunch a couple of weeks ago. He told me you two were thinking of moving in together, and I think that kind of triggered something in me.” He met my eyes again. “It’s time for me to build something of my own. I want to get married and have a family someday. I’m not getting any younger, and it seems like now is a good time.”

  I grimaced. “And you think that Narissa might be the right one?”

  He shifted, his shoulders squaring as he straightened his spine. “Why don’t you like her?”

  I sighed. “It’s not that I don’t like her, but Nick, come on. Something fishy is going on here and it’s not like you to overlook a sea of waving red flags. I mean, I get that she’s pretty, but is that really all it takes to get you to throw all your gut instincts out the window?”

  Nick crossed his arms. “So, what? I’m just some stereotypical guy who’s blinded by a pretty face? That’s how little you think of me?”

  “No!” I threw my hands up. “Of course not. I’ve never thought of you as some shallow, one-track-mind kind of guy. That’s why this whole thing is so baffling to me.”

  “She said she didn’t talk to Bruno,” Nick replied. “And I believe her. She just moved her a few days ago. How could she possible be tangled up in Breanne’s murder? It doesn’t make any sense. There’s no motive. No connection at all. It’s like you just picked a target out of a hat and I’m beginning to wonder if it’s—”

  Nick stopped himself and I took a step closer. “If it’s what?”

  “If maybe you’re jealous. I know things have been a little strained with you and Adam lately, and maybe you’re feeling a little—”

  I pointed a finger at him. “I’m going to stop you right there. This has nothing to do with me. Or Adam! And she’s not some random target.”

  “Well, it sure seems like it,” Nick said.

  “I could get in major trouble for telling you this, but you need to open your eyes. Narissa is under surveillance by the SPA in connection with at least two other werewolf murders in California.”

  Nick’s jaw went slack as if I’d just landed a right hook against the side of his head. A long moment stretched between us, neither of us speaking a word, before I rushed ahead and launched into the full explanation.

  “She’s been under SPA surveillance for nine months and Agent Bramble has me keeping eyes on her now that she’s moved here to Beechwood. There’s never been enough to link her directly with the deaths, but there are enough red flags that the SPA has had her followed for the last year. When she moved up here from California, they arranged it so she would be staying in the manor. That way, I could—”

  “Spy on her,” Nick growled.

  “I don’t really get much of a choice when it comes to my assignments,” I said. “It’s not like I picked this off a list or something.”

  “You could have turned it down!” he insisted.

  “And risk losing all the other jobs?” I shook my head. “No way. I’m learning too much to just walk away. Besides, I got the assignment before I realized you were interested in her.”

  “Would that have changed your mind?”

  “I—I don’t know. Maybe?”

  “What is it they think they have on her?” he asked, his blue eyes still glacial.

  “She’s been on the fringe of a couple other werewolf murders, down in California. She appears to have inside information, the kind that could only come from the killer or someone close to the killer.”

  “She’s a reporter,” Nick retorted. “She probably had a source, someone inside the SPA or local PD.”

  “Don’t you think the SPA already considered that?” I said. “Look, I’m sure there’s more that Agent Bramble hasn’t told me. I’m not an agent, so I don’t have access to everything. All I know is she’s a suspected link to a werewolf killer—one still at large—then she shows up here and bam, another one ends up murdered. Same MO and everything. You have to admit, it’s a little too big to be a coincidence.”

  Nick frowned. “She isn’t involved in Breanne’s murder. Period.”

  “You can’t know that, Nick! You don’t know her well enough.”

  “Again, what would be her motive? Is she just a crazed serial killer? She gets off on dropping wolves? That makes sense to you?”

  “I don’t know!” I fired back. “That’s my whole point. We don’t know her or anything about her. We don’t even know if she’s really here to write a book! That could be a lie, a cover story. All I know right now is that either Bruno is lying, or she really did point him in Bracken’s direction. Which do you think it is? Why would Bruno lie about something like that? He wants to know who killed Breanne just as much as we do.”

  That put Nick back on his heels for a moment. He fought with the zipper on the front pocket of his jacket and then tore a fistful of papers out. “I’m done talking about Narissa with you. I didn’t even come over here to get into that. I actually came to give you this,” he said, holding out a sheet of paper. “If you want to know who killed Breanne, I’d suggest starting here. Because this—this is actual evidence. An actual link.”

  I took the paper and glanced it over. It appeared to be a bank statement from a branch one town over from Beechwood Harbor.

  “Pierce Lassen?” I said, reading the name at the top of the statement. “That’s Bruno’s second, right?”

  Nick nodded and then pointed at the paper. “Look at the deposit made the day before the murder.”

  I scanned down and drew in a sharp breath. “That’s quite a windfall.”

  Three days ago, a thirty-thousand dollar deposit had been made into the account by wire transfer.

  “Where did you get this, Nick? You didn’t … hack him, did you?”

  Hacking wasn’t Nick’s style. He was willing to wiggle the rules in his private investigative work, but having bank records would be shattering the rule of law.

  “Of course not!” he snapped. “The guy was dumb enough to leave it on the passenger seat of his truck. It was in plain sight.”

  “Stars,” I exclaimed, unable to tear my eyes from the astronomical number. My bank account would likely never see such numbers. It appeared that Pierce was more in line with my own sad account prior to the large deposit. In fact, he’d been down to the point when a trip to Starbucks would overdraw his account.

  “The deposit was made by some external transfer,” Nick continued. “Pierce works as a mechanic. He makes decent money, but this … this has to be earmarked for something specific.”

  “What are you saying?” I asked, lifting my eyes to Nick’s. “You think he was paid to kill Breanne?”

  Nick shrugged. “That theory makes more sense than Narissa being some kind of psychotic serial werewolf killer.”

  He was right, but I wasn’t in the mood to give him the satisfaction of agreeing with him out loud. Instead, I went back to studying the paper in my hands. Prior to the deposit, Pierce was a little low on chips. His expenses seemed cut to the bare minimum—gas, groceries, a few smaller transactions at the local bar. Even so, he’d been down to a couple hundred bucks.

  “Without access to the account, there’s no way of knowing where the money came from,” Nick continued. “But, I’ll bet your pal from the SPA could get access.”

  “I’ll call him,” I said, nodding. “Does Pierce know you took this? I don’t want to put you in danger with the pack.”

  Nick shook his head. “That’s a copy, actually. I have an app on my phone that takes full-page scans. I took a p
icture and it uploaded the whole thing to the cloud, no one the wiser.”

  I stared at him. “What cloud?”

  “It doesn’t matter, tech term.”

  “I can’t promise anything, Nick. But I’ll make sure Tyson sees this right away.”

  “And you’ll stop following Narissa?” he added.

  “I can’t promise that, but I’ll call Agent Bramble, too.”

  Nick considered me with a hard stare. He wasn’t pleased, but he didn’t try to fight me on it.

  “What are you doing tonight?” I asked him. “With Narissa, I mean?”

  “We’re going to the movies. That all right with you, warden?”

  “Nick, please—”

  He held up a hand. “How about this, you let me keep tabs on her. I’ll call you if I see any warning signs or red flags.”

  “Nick …”

  “I get that you’re not happy with me right now, but you still trust me Holly. Admit it.”

  I chewed on my lower lip for a moment and then nodded.

  “I do,” I replied. “You’ll call me if anything changes?”

  Nick extended a hand. “If you’ll do the same.”

  “Deal.”

  We shook on it and Nick left the greenhouse, but the thick tension lingered.

  It was only a matter of time before the SPA investigation was over, but I wasn’t sure my friendship with Nick would survive it.

  Chapter 18

  “Holly, when you get a chance, I need the final count on guests you’re inviting to the Hallow’s Eve party.”

  I nodded absently at Evangeline’s request and then leaned in closer, trying to decipher a smudged ink blot on the page of my notebook. Things with the investigation had gone quiet for a few days, and I was doing my best to catch up on potion orders. But after ten hours in the kitchen, my bleary eyes were having a hard time making out the scribbled notes I’d left for myself in the margins of my potion book.

  “You know I adore Cassie, but I’m thinking she might not make a great fit for the party,” Evangeline continued from her place at the table, wedged in-between a mountain of potion bottles on one end and Boots sprawled across his cat bed at the other. She was helping me bottle up the finished brews, but in between batches, she pulled out her own notebook and was fine combing the details for the Halloween bash she was throwing at the manor in a few days’ time.