by Ellen Jane
“Dimples is right,” Cian said. “It’s time to make a report and see what the pros can dig up.”
“Do we tell them about the letters?” Heather asked.
Cian grimaced. “I guess we have to, but they’ll want to keep them as evidence. They’re all we’ve got to go on. I’m loath to hand them over.”
“I wonder if the kidnappers will be angry if we tell the police,” Heather mused. “We don’t want to risk putting your—” She broke off, something telling her not to refer to the Dunnes as Cian and Sinéad’s parents. “We don’t want to put the Dunnes in any more danger than they’re already in. Can we do it another way? What if we ask someone who knows the Dunnes where they are? Maybe we can get someone else to realise the Dunnes are missing and raise the alarm without getting involved yet.”
“Now that’s thinking!” Cian said warmly. “I saw a bunch of hives out the back, so they must keep bees. If I tell their gardener I saw the bees swarming over here, he’d likely nip over to check on them, don’t you think?”
Heather pulled a face. “Is swarming bad? Don’t bees swarm when they get a new queen?”
Cian groaned. “Well I don’t know. Okay, how’s this: I’ll say some kids kicked a hive. The rascals. And now the bees need some tender soothing or smoke or whatever it is bees need. Or I’ll say something’s on fire. Maybe I’ll just talk really fast and point in this direction. Then he’ll check it out just to get me to shut up.”
Heather snorted. “All right, fine. Just be sure to make lots of concerned comments about how quiet the house looks when he does.”
“Concerned-Citizen is my middle name. Hyphenated and everything.”
Before Heather could say anything more, Sinéad interjected.
“What if it’s all a hoax?”
Cian and Heather stared at her.
After an uncomfortable pause, Cian said, “Well, no one’s laughing, so it’s a pretty shoddy hoax if you catch my drift.”
“Why would it be a hoax?” Heather asked. “It’s too cryptic. They’re not asking for money, and they haven’t even kicked up a fuss. No one except for us knows what’s happening at all.”
“Yes,” Sinéad said, her eyes sliding to Cian. “No one knows except us.”
Cian frowned in confusion before the dots connected and his eyebrows shot up. “You think I’m fooling you?”
“Are you?”
He made a rude noise. “What’d be in it for me? The pleasure of your company? Ta, but I’ll pass all the same.”
“You might be—” Sinéad began, but Cian cut her off.
“I don’t think we’re quite at the point where our sibling bond’ll override any arguments, love. I’m going to get going before either of us says something we regret.”
With that, he left, scarf fluttering behind him in the breeze. Heather cast a glance at Sinéad, but her face had closed off. Without another word, she turned in the other direction, toward the front gate. Sighing, Heather followed.
*
“What was all that about?” Heather asked when she had judged Sinéad calm enough to discuss it. She couldn’t quite keep the note of anger from her voice. “You were straight up rude to him.”
Heather had to run to keep up with Sinéad as she led the way through the streets back to her house. Orange leaves kicked up around their feet as they went, the last of the leaves falling from their branches, ready for winter.
“I was not.” Sinéad wrinkled her nose. “I was honest.”
“You called him a liar.”
“I know. I was there.”
Heather grabbed hold of Sinéad’s shoulder and spun her around so they were face-to-face. They came to a stop only metres away from Sinéad’s front gate, but Heather was wound so tight she refused to wait the last few steps.
“Look me in the eye and tell me you were being honest,” she hissed. “Tell me you truly think Cian is making it all up and you’re not just running scared because you might have actually found your family.”
“My family?” Sinéad scoffed. “Did you see that house? They’re beekeepers, Heather—beekeepers.” She gestured to herself, encompassing the designer cape and boots in one graceful sweep of her hand. “Do I look like a beekeeper? Do I look like someone who knows or interacts with beekeepers?”
“He’s your twin. Bar a few tweaks, you have the same face, for Christ’s sake. You know he isn’t lying.”
Sinéad’s lips pinched together and her eyes slid away. “I know he’s my twin, but other than that I don’t know him at all. This is all too strange. What if he’s just trying to get money?”
Heather ran a hand through her curls, eyes closing for a second as she fought not to get too angry. She’d seen the look on Sinéad’s face just before she’d turned away; Sinéad tried to hide it, but she was in pain.
“He’s not the type of person who cares about money. You know that. It’s all right if you’re scared—”
“Scared?” Sinéad cut in, eyes flashing. “Let’s talk about scared. You won’t move in with me even though we both want to. Why is that?”
Heather froze, her chest tightening with hot rage. “You’re bringing this up now?”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to leave my house!” Heather snapped. “I’m sure you don’t want to leave yours either. And it’s only been a few months, when you add it all up.” She waved her hands in the air. “Do you honestly want to be that much of a stereotype? I’ll just go pack the U-Haul, shall I?”
Sinéad closed her eyes and gave a muffled shriek. Then she took a deep breath and opened them again. “Okay, this is ridiculous. Let’s go inside and have a cup of tea.” She turned on her heel and strode to check the mailbox.
“Speaking of stereotypes,” Heather muttered under her breath, but she followed Sinéad to the gate.
When Sinéad lifted the cover on the mailbox, Heather frowned. For a second, it looked as though an old letter sat on the top of the stack, yellowed from exposure to the weather and covered in vines. But then it disappeared, leaving behind an ordinary stack of mail.
Sinéad hadn’t seemed to notice, drawing the stack free and rifling through with short, angry flicks. Her hand stuttered and Heather leaned forward, wondering if the strange letter was in the middle now, because surely Heather hadn’t imagined it twice. But then she looked closer and recognised an envelope addressed in a familiar hand.
“Oh no,” she breathed.
Sinéad drew the letter out.
Quit playing around. We know you have it. Give it back before anyone gets hurt.
The silence stretched on for long minutes.
Finally, Sinéad said, “He isn’t lying.” She sounded more tired than Heather had ever heard her.
“They must have found out we’re investigating,” Heather said quietly.
Sinéad closed her eyes for several seconds before giving a quiet sigh and opening them again. She steeled her face into an expression far more decisive than before, even if exhaustion still lingered. “We’re in this now, whether I like it or not.”
Chapter Four
Roger Branson had been true to his word and sent through an inch-thick package of information for Heather to read through. The thinly-veiled threats were impossible to miss. Along with the fine they would require Heather to pay, her business would have to go through so many administrative hoops to legally operate again, any sane person would abandon the whole thing and move onto something else.
Her life’s work gone, just like that.
The microscopic silver lining was that while most of the documentation centred on accusations couched in legal jargon, a couple of useful pages hid amongst the rubbish.
“This one says you can upgrade your business to handle level five affairs if you complete a training workshop,” Sinéad said, plucking a single sheet of paper out of the pile. “I don’t know how that works for the case last Christmas, but maybe you can get away with a smaller fine? Kind of like a pro-rata punishment or something.”
Sinéad reclined further on the white day bed where they sat with their breakfast, enjoying one of the last few temperate days of autumn. Trails of ivy cascaded up the brick wall behind her, rippling whenever the wind blew. Heather couldn’t help noticing how beautifully Sinéad had styled her home and how much of a shame it would be for her to leave.
“Training workshop?” Heather wrinkled her nose and held out her hand for the paper. “And I don’t think pro-rata punishments exist.”
Sinéad made a noise in reluctant agreement. “I suppose that defeats the purpose of enjoying other people’s misfortune, doesn’t it?”
“Quite,” Heather said distractedly as she scanned the page. Each word filled her with dread. “It’s a two month workshop. That’s not a workshop; that’s a whole course.”
“It’s a way out,” Sinéad corrected her. “Or he wouldn’t have tried to hide it in the middle of a pamphlet for tax auditing.”
Heather pulled a face and dropped the paper onto the marble breakfast table in front of her. She shoved her chair back as far from the table as possible and glared at the stack of papers. “What an awful little man.”
“A total cretin,” Sinéad agreed.
“You think I should take it?”
“Why wouldn’t you?” Sinéad’s brow crinkled in genuine confusion. “It’s not too expensive. If you like, we can track down some legal advice to find out how much it would help your case, but it has to have some benefit.” She shrugged. “So you did things in the wrong order, big deal. Look embarrassed, flick your blonde curls, and call it a day.”
Heather’s jaw dropped open. “That’s deceitful.”
“It’s practical.”
Heather turned back to the flyer. “It starts in two weeks. I don’t know, Sinéad… It’s so soon.”
Sinéad sat up, turning the full force of her attention on Heather. Her hair brushed the vine as she adjusted, overwhelming the area momentarily with the delicious, earthy scent of greenery. Inexplicably, it filled Heather with irritation.
“Why wouldn’t you do it?” Sinéad asked. “It opens up your options. You can expand your business.”
“It’s all so official.”
“That’s the point—make it official. Grow your market.”
Heather pulled a face. “But it looks so difficult.”
Sinéad’s brow furrowed deeper. “All worthwhile things are. Heather, what’s going on here? Why don’t you sign up for the workshop?”
“Because I can’t do it, okay!” Heather snapped. “If I do the workshop, I’ll have to offer this service to clients instead of investigating things on my own terms. I got lucky last Christmas. Not to mention how stressful it was. I wouldn’t be able to handle anything bigger than that.”
Sinéad scoffed. “Bigger than murder?” Her eyes were wide and incredulous as she leaned forward in her seat, studying Heather like she was a puzzle Sinéad couldn’t solve.
Privately, Heather agreed with Sinéad’s confusion. Why did this suddenly sound so hard? Only last Christmas, Heather had spent most of her time convincing Sinéad that witch magic was just as important as sorcerer magic, and she’d succeeded. Why, now, was she filled with doubt at her own abilities?
“You know what I mean.”
“Not really.”
Heather decided she didn’t want to have this discussion anymore. Abruptly, she stood up and shuffled the papers into a haphazard pile.
“I’m going inside,” she announced and tucked the papers under her arm.
“What?” Sinéad’s eyes widened and she moved to follow. “Why? Talk to me.”
Heather held up her hand. “I don’t know, and I don’t know. I’ll talk to you soon, but for now I’m having a lie down. Then we should make a list of people we need to interrogate.”
She turned away.
“I know you don’t want to hear it,” Sinéad said quietly from behind her, “but investigating a kidnapping is definitely above a level one. We need to sort this out soon, or you’ll only end up in more trouble.”
Heather paused with her hand hovering above the handle. Sinéad’s reflection in the glass door watched, hands on her hips as she waited for Heather to respond. Even the colours of her pantsuit—white with green accents—matched her backyard. Heather couldn’t imagine Sinéad living anywhere else.
“You’re right,” Heather snapped. “I don’t want to hear it.”
She walked inside and let the door fall shut behind her.
*
Despite what Sinéad said, Heather was determined to find a lead. After a fruitless twenty minutes spent lying in Sinéad’s bed and staring at the ceiling, she accepted sleep wouldn’t arrive any time soon and got up to assess the clues.
She started with the letters. Three had been sent to Cian, along with one to Sinéad, and Heather studied them until she went cross-eyed. An identical looping script marked each letter, linking them back to the same mysterious correspondent, but Heather had no way of identifying who that might be. Nothing unusual stood out from the words themselves, aside from the fact the kidnappers knew Sinéad and Cian were the Dunnes’ children and were convinced the two of them possessed something they didn’t. When Heather tried her revealing powder, it revealed nothing, and even if she’d had her supplies with her, she couldn’t think of any other spells that would help.
Her tracking spell sounded so silly now she had seen the crime scene—a little piece of witch magic she often used to hunt down pieces of missing sets, such as duplicate copies or pairs of earrings. Besides, you needed part of the set for it to work at all, so unless the kidnappers wrote each letter on the same set of fancy stationery, it wouldn’t achieve anything. Heather’s nose wrinkled in embarrassment that she had even thought of using such a simple hearth spell.
A little voice at the back of her mind laughed at her for trying to play in the big leagues when she so clearly didn’t belong. The voice sounded suspiciously like Mr Branson’s. She ignored it and turned back to the case.
All she had left was the second and final clue—not so much a clue as the absence of one. The letters implied the Dunnes had stolen something. Why, then, had no one searched the Dunnes’ home? Heather, Sinéad, and Cian had found the safe within five minutes, and yet the painting wasn’t even dislodged. Were the kidnappers trying to remain discreet? Kidnapping an entire family didn’t seem like the sort of thing you did when you wanted to fly under the radar.
Somehow in a worse mood than before, Heather picked up the letters and brought them back to the kitchen where Sinéad sat at the island bench, looking at a framed photograph.
“What’s that?” Heather asked, leaning over to look.
Sinéad jumped a foot in the air and tried to shove the frame behind the fruit bowl. “Nothing! Just looking at some old photos. Nothing important.”
Heather gaped at her, lost for words, before laughter bubbled up in her chest. “Nothing, is it? That must be why you’re so calm and unruffled.”
She reached over and plucked the frame from behind its protective pile of oranges. The smile fell from her face.
“You took this from the house?”
“I’ll bring it back!”
Heather stared at the photo. A husband and wife smiled up at her, their arms around the shoulders of an apathetic teenager. Even though the boy looked like he’d rather be anywhere else, he hadn’t pulled away. He leaned back into his parents’ one-armed hug, making Heather confident the expression was just an act.
“Why did you take it?” she asked gently, looking up at Sinéad.
Sinéad wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I wanted to see them.”
A rush of warmth and sadness flooded through Heather—both for how Sinéad must feel, and for the knowledge that, despite their argument, Sinéad still told her the truth. Heather stepped forward and slid her arm around Sinéad’s waist.
“What do you think, then?” Heather asked, propping the frame on the bench for them to study it.
Sinéad bli
nked at her before turning back to the photo and wrinkling her nose. “They wear a lot of pink.”
Heather laughed. “You didn’t see that coming after the couch covers?”
“Fair point.” Sinéad took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “They don’t look like the kind of people who would abandon a baby. Two babies. They look like… a family.”
They are a family, Heather thought, but she said nothing.
“Look at them.” Sinéad waved a hand toward the frame. “They’re smiling and hugging—they’re even wearing those gimmicky little matching tourist pins.”
Heather peered closer and saw the two parents were indeed wearing matching pins from St Ives. She recalled the bowl of decorative pins in the study; it seemed they liked to travel after all.
Sinéad’s face twisted into something pained, and Heather’s heart lurched for her.
“They’re utter dorks,” Sinéad said softly.
The people in the photo were every bit the type of family Sinéad avoided at all costs—eclectic, vibrant, and affectionate. And yet, unconcealed longing filled her voice.
Heather pulled her closer until Sinéad’s head dropped onto her shoulder. A wonderful warmth spread between them from where their sides pressed together, and Heather wanted to curl into it.
“I’m sorry about before,” she said into Sinéad’s hair, the words coming out muffled. “It feels like danger is coming in from all directions. I’m so on edge.”
“Me too,” Sinéad murmured, her eyes still fixed to the photo on the counter.
“Maybe I should dig out my old roller derby gear to wear down the street for protection. Tough luck for you, though, I’m afraid; try making roller derby gear couture.”
Sinéad jolted out of her funk at the joke, laughing in surprise despite the worry lines still etched in her forehead. “Are you saying I’d choose fashion over safety?”
“Yes.” Heather planted a kiss on Sinéad’s head, letting it linger as Sinéad leaned closer. “In a heartbeat.” She sat down, perching on the seat beside Sinéad. “Who shall we interview first? We don’t have many clues.”