The Rhinestone Witches Omnibus: Books 1-3

by Addison Creek

  She screamed, threw her headphones off, and looked at me. “Sorry! I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “You shouldn’t be wearing those things when you’re home alone!” I scolded her. “Anyone could have snuck in.”

  “Not likely. The cats wouldn’t have let that happen,” she insisted.

  Tiger came dashing in, took one look at the two of us, and turned around and left.

  “What did he say?” I asked Lowe.

  She shook her head. “You don’t want to know.”

  I told her I was going to get ready for company.

  “When he arrives I thought I might head over to Lisa and Lucky’s for a while and give you two some privacy,” she offered.

  “Thanks. That’s really nice,” I said. Although Lowe was trying to do me a favor, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. The idea of being alone in the house with Quinn Merchant made my pulse race.

  After a shower, I had to consider what to wear. For a moment I thought about wearing something of Ethel’s. After dressing for the party I had kept some of Ethel’s items out of storage, including a leather dress, a leather skirt, and a couple of sparkling shirts. There was also a red sweater. If I kept them in my room and thought about wearing them, that was almost as brave as actually doing it, wasn’t it?

  In the end, instead of wearing anything of my sister’s I decided on something comfortable and casual. Quinn was coming to my place for dinner, it wasn’t as if we were going out to some fancy place in town. I put on leggings and a sweater-dress and slipped my feet into flats to protect them from the cold floor. While my hair was still air-drying I wound it into a thick braid to help it keep a nice wave.

  On my way back downstairs I stopped again at Lowe’s door. She waved me in this time, having turned her canvas around to face me.

  “How did the afternoon go?” she asked.

  I told her about seeing Mr. Fairview. She didn’t look surprised.

  “He’s up to something no good. I don’t know if it has anything to do with Sammy’s murder, though,” she said.

  “I was wondering if it might be the black market,” I said.

  She bit her lip. “It could be. Is that something you want to be looking into right now?” She sounded skeptical.

  “No, probably not. Michael might be disappointed, though,” I said. Michael had said that he’d follow up with us if he learned more about who had stolen his shipments. So far we hadn’t heard from him, but not a lot of time had passed.

  “I wouldn’t steal a Fieldcorn shipment. Whoever did that has a death wish,” said Lowe, dabbing blue paint onto her canvas. “I’m leaving in five minutes.”

  Quinn was supposed to arrive in ten. I hurried to the kitchen, stoked the fire, stuck my head out to check on the unicorns, and started wiping down the counters.

  The way the day had gone – with the hostility of the trailer park people and the size of the bird feeder project – we hadn’t had time to go to court to see if Quinn would be allowed to search the cottage. Since he hadn’t arrived with Joy in the meantime, I had a feeling that his request was still pending.

  After Lowe said goodbye and went across the street, I wasn’t alone for five minutes before there was a familiar knock at the door. Quinn had arrived. We were going to have our date.

  Chapter Twenty

  As I skipped to open the door, I ordered myself to get it together.

  There was to be no more skipping.

  Quinn was standing in the doorway holding a bottle of Fermented Fairy Flame and a bag filled with groceries.

  “Evening,” he said with a big smile. “It’s so good to see you.” He handed me the bottle as I let him in, then followed me into the kitchen.

  We got right to work on the meal. I was relieved because I’d been imagining this awkward moment where we both stood there, unsure of what to do. I would have forgotten whatever hostess duties I was supposed to be engaging in, and Quinn would be too polite to say so. To my great relief, none of that happened. Instead we got to work as naturally as if we did this every day.

  While we unpacked the food, I saw that Quinn had brought a few friends to join us. That is, several cats trotted into the kitchen. They usually only came in when nowhere else in the house was warm (not the case tonight) or they wanted food (they had already been fed and Quinn wasn’t cooking meat).

  I tried glaring at them, telling them with my eyes that there was no cream to be had, but it didn’t work. They stayed. After a while I was able to just ignore them, helped along by the way Quinn seemed so at ease.

  Right away he asked me about my life while I was growing up. Did I have any pets? What subjects had I liked in school? He told stories of his friend’s mother teaching him how to cook. I helped him chop vegetables as he got water boiling for a warming stew. We kept up the light conversation for the hour of prep. When he’d first walked in with so much food I had felt guilty that I hadn’t prepared anything myself, but I had poisonous fingers when it came to cooking; I needed supervision to be useful in the kitchen. But part of me still thought I should have prepared dessert. Or something.

  Quinn didn’t seem the least bit put out. He took to cooking with gusto.

  “My friend’s mom was Italian,” he said. “Her kitchen was always loud. She talked with her hands and the smells were amazing. She loved to make spaghetti and meatballs and she loved different cheeses and pairings. She always told me that there was no better way to show love than to share a good meal together.”

  Then he paused.

  I paused too.

  We both realized what he had just said.

  Only one of us knew what he meant by it, and that wasn’t me.

  I rushed to change the subject.

  “My stepmother didn’t cook. She thought she was taking good care of the family by interviewing chefs, though.”

  Quinn threw back his head and laughed. “Doesn’t sound like it. What did you think?”

  “At first I didn’t understand that some friends’ mothers, or sometimes fathers, did cook. As I got older it made more sense. My stepsister only had friends who came from families that also employed chefs,” I explained. My mind cast back to memories of those evenings. Our chefs never lasted very long because Blossom was so unpleasant and demanding.

  “That’s fascinating,” he said. “Did you like any of the chefs particularly?”

  “There were a couple of good ones,” I said. Then I smiled, causing Quinn to smile too. “There was this one time, Blossom brought in someone right out of cooking school.”

  “Uh oh,” said Quinn. He could already sense where this was going.

  “Yeah, it wasn’t good. Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure some chefs leave cooking school and they’re unbelievably good. Some chefs probably go to school already good. But this guy wasn’t one of them. He might just have been nervous, but he over-salted a couple of things and burnt the rest. Blossom was used to bringing chefs in to have these fancy meals, and then she’d enjoy telling them they hadn’t gotten the job. She didn’t do well not getting any dinner at all out of this guy.”

  “It was that bad?” Quinn looked highly amused.

  “Oh, yeah. The food wasn’t edible. It was crazy,” I said. “He put it all on these nice plates. I only walked past the kitchen, not into it, but I could see him sweating from a room away. Blossom turned bright red. She nearly flew into the kitchen. Then I heard screaming.”

  “She actually screamed at him?” asked Quinn, apparently mesmerized by my story. I told myself I must be telling it well.

  “No, he was the one who was screaming,” I snorted.

  Then I realized that wasn’t cute.

  I glanced at Quinn from underneath my eyelashes.

  He was laughing so hard he nearly toppled over.

  The cats turned their heads in unison.

  I glared at them again.

  They ignored me some more.

  With my face bright red for whatever reason, I went back to chopping carrots.

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nbsp; “Are you finally under control again?” I asked Quinn after he managed to stop his belly laughing.

  “I think so. But man, was that funny. I take it he didn’t get the job?” He laughed some more.

  “No, definitely not,” I smiled.

  “What about me?” he asked.

  “What about you?” I repeated.

  “Would she hire me?” he said.

  “I haven’t had a cooked meal of yours, so I can’t say yet. Don’t over-salt the potatoes,” I told him with a slight smile.

  “I’ll try not to,” he said.

  “She would have thought you were cute, at least,” I said. “Striking, with your blue eyes.” This was easier to say while staring at a carrot.

  Even out of my peripheral vision I saw his chopping come to a halt.

  Someday I would learn to be quiet. That would be nice.

  “She sounds like a piece of work. Does she make your dad happy?” he asked, ignoring my compliment, or whatever I’d just done.

  “You know, I have no idea. For the longest time I thought she must. Otherwise why would he be with her? As I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that maybe there are a lot of reasons people stay together,” I said.

  “Also a lot of reasons they don’t,” he said quietly.

  I wondered who he was thinking of when he said that.

  We continued to chop in silence for a while. This bit where we just chatted with each other was nice. Usually I loved it, but tonight I found myself frustrated by it. There was something I wanted to talk to Quinn about – murder – that so far hadn’t been addressed.

  Above all, we hadn’t said anything about the fact that he had arrested Lester. I had thought it would be the first thing I’d ask him about, but he had just looked so cute there with the groceries, I hadn’t wanted to bring it up and ruin the mood.

  Quinn was still smiling at me when I saw something flash by the window, reminding me of what had happened earlier that day. Reluctantly, I forced myself to concentrate.

  Quinn saw the change in my face and read my thoughts. “You want to know about Lester,” he said, his voice soft.

  My eyes were still trained out the window as I watched the most delicate of snowflakes start to fall. “Yes, the trailer park people are furious,” I said.

  “At you?” he asked sharply.

  I shrugged. There was no way I was going to tell him about the bike. Just no way.

  “No, not that,” I said carefully. He was still looking at me. He knew there was more to the story.

  “I’ll set the table,” I offered.

  “Great,” he said dryly. I hurried away and started gathering tableware.

  We worked silently for a few minutes, but the question of Lester hung in the air. The cats watched curiously as Quinn started setting all the dishes we had cooked in the middle of the table.

  Once everything was ready, I poured us glasses of Fermented Fairy Flame and water. Then we both sat, I with my back to the fire, a warm perk of being the hostess.

  Quinn sighed as he surveyed the food. “Lester was arrested because someone tipped us off that he was seen near your cottage at a time when he shouldn’t have been there,” he said.

  My mind cast back to the cooking tongs Lowe and I had found by the side of the house. Lester might very well might have been the one who left them there.

  “So?” I asked.

  “He wasn’t invited to the party. He has a criminal history,” explained Quinn.

  “Of what sort?” I scoffed. Lester was the most gentle individual I had ever come across.

  “I can’t get into that,” said Quinn, shifting. “I didn’t want our date to be about the case, but I see that we can’t avoid discussing it to some extent.”

  “I don’t think Lester did it. He didn’t have any motive,” I said.

  “How do you know?” Quinn asked.

  I glared at him even as I realized that he had a point. I knew nothing about Lester’s history and almost as little about Sammy’s. We had talked to Pebbles, but she hadn’t exactly been a fount of knowledge about who Sammy was before she moved in to share the little apartment.

  “Who said they saw Lester nearby?” I asked.

  “A trustworthy source,” he said.

  “So you can’t tell me that, either?” I said. The delicious meal we’d just spent an hour cooking sat there waiting for us to eat it, its smell tantalizing. As if to remind me, my stomach rumbled.

  “No, I can’t.” Quinn was getting exasperated. “I trusted the source and arrested Lester. When there’s an update to give, I’ll give it. I spent all afternoon interviewing him.”

  Something in how Quinn said it made me think he wasn’t any more satisfied with the conclusions he’d drawn than I was with the arrest.

  “What was Lester doing on my property? That at least you should be able to explain,” I said.

  He shook his head. “He wouldn’t say. He said he would only talk to Bethel about it. I told him she was out of town and he’d have to wait until she was back.”

  “What did he say to that?” I asked.

  “He said he’d like chicken for dinner,” said Quinn dryly.

  It sounded like Lester; he seemed to eat nothing but meat, ever. “I guess that makes sense,” I said, smiling a little.

  Quinn glanced up at me. “Can we talk about something else now?” he asked.

  Part of me wanted to tell him that we certainly could not. Another part of me did want to just enjoy our time together. No part of me wanted to discuss Lowe’s and my snooping.

  “Sure thing,” I said. I smiled and took a bite of food. He smiled back.

  For the next few minutes there were just mumbled murmurings about how good everything tasted. I asked Quinn about his vegetable steaming process, and that led to a ten-minute discuss on water temperature, in which Quinn was very interested given his status as a half mermaid.

  We were halfway through the meal when I heard the front door open. A second later Lowe popped her head in and waved.

  “Evening.” Her cheeks were pink.

  “How were Lisa and Lucky?” I asked.

  “Lucky was out but Lisa was good. She was trying to pick out some new outfits for work and she wanted to talk about Robin,” she said.

  “Robin as in Jackie’s brother?” asked Quinn.

  Lowe hesitated, still standing in the doorway with her coat on.

  “Why don’t you join us?” Quinn offered. “We made too much food and Jade is tired of listening to me talk about water temperature anyway. It isn’t a lively topic.”

  He looked a little rueful as he acknowledged that his interest might be a bit much for non-mermaids.

  I blushed and looked down. I had tried to appear interested, but sometimes Quinn was more serious than I was used to. “It was fine,” I mumbled into my plate.

  “Sure, sure,” he said with a smile.

  “Just a second,” said Lowe. She disappeared and came back almost immediately, and it wasn’t until she returned that I remembered Sammy’s necklace.

  Quinn’s face went stony when she handed it to him. “Care to tell me how you came across this?”

  Lowe told him in a few sentences about Sammy’s apartment.

  Quinn blinked slowly three times. Then he put the necklace in his pocket. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Her roommate, Pebbles, can let in anyone she wants,” I pointed out. “You knew perfectly well I’d snoop.”

  “We can talk about this another time,” he said through gritted teeth.

  There followed several breaths of utter silence.

  “Join us,” I repeated, smiling at Lowe encouragingly.

  “Don’t have to tell me a third time,” she said. She threw her coat over the back of a chair, grabbed a third plate, and filled it with food.

  “What about Lisa and Robin?” Quinn asked again.

  For a brief moment I had a flash of jealousy. Was Quinn interested in Lisa? Why did he care about her and Robin?


  “Oh, they dated for a long time, then they broke up,” explained Lowe. “Everyone thinks he wants her back, and sometimes they do hang still out. But she said pretty firmly that she has no intention of taking him back.” If she thought Quinn’s curiosity was unexpected, she didn’t show it.

  “Why doesn’t she want him back?” Quinn asked.

  “I’m not certain,” Lowe said, her eyes sliding to me as if she had noticed at last.

  “Why do you want to know?” I asked him.

  He looked at me in genuine surprise. “I love gossip. I’m a sheriff. The more information I have about the town I work in, the easier it is to make decisions relating to my work. Luckily, I have a natural curiosity where townsfolk are concerned,” he said.

  “So it’s merely a scientific exercise?” said Lowe.

  “Certainly. And if romantic gossip were science, I would have gotten better grades in school,” Quinn chuckled.

  “Did you like school?” Lowe asked him.

  “I did, but only parts of it. I wanted to be swimming,” said Quinn. “My teachers were exasperated with me a lot of the time, and I was exasperated with them. I had no use for landlocked high school campuses. Give me water or give me liberty.” Quinn shook his fist in the air with a mischievous look on his face. Then he came back down to earth and said, “That does make me feel bad for Robin. Pining away is never easy.”

  “True,” said Lowe. Then she ducked her head. “Not that I know anything about that.”

  A howling noise from outside suddenly drowned out our conversation. At first I thought it was just the wind, then the lights started to flicker.

  A few of the cats stirred uneasily, including Spunk.

  “Did you check on the unicorns?” Lowe asked me.

  “I could see them most of the time while we were cooking. They were in the barn,” I said.

  The lights flickered again, and something like a slap hit the side of the house. Quinn put down his fork and pushed his chair back, his eyes sharply focused.

  “Could anything get to the unicorns?” he asked.

  “They’re better protected than we are,” I said. “Then again, I wouldn’t have thought anyone could commit a murder here, either.”

  Quinn nodded, but his eyes were on the back door.