Read A Witch Before Dying: A Wishcraft Mystery Online

Authors: Heather Blake

Tags: #cozy, #Paranormal

A Witch Before Dying: A Wishcraft Mystery (22 page)

BOOK: A Witch Before Dying: A Wishcraft Mystery
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My mind raced, plotted. This act of Dorothy’s would not go unpunished.

Her fiery warning had backfired on her. It hadn’t scared me away. It had ticked me off.

We rattled up to Harper’s back door. Thankfully, I had a spare key to her place. As I slipped the key into the lock, I was surprised to hear voices at the top of the steps.

“Slow, slow! Gentle,” Harper was saying loudly enough to be heard over the music (the Beatles) playing.

I swung open the door and Higgins charged in ahead of me, galloping up the steps, his tail wagging at full force. My heart suddenly broke for him as I remembered that this used to be his home. He and his former owner used to reside in this apartment before a murder case had shattered both their worlds. Nick and Mimi had adopted Higgins and given him a new place to live, but it was obvious he still remembered his old house.

“What the h—,” a man started to shout. Then there was a loud crash and a scream from Harper.

I rushed up the narrow stairs to find Marcus flat on his back underneath a bookcase.

“Pzzt! Pzzt!” Harper shouted at Higgins, who was tearing around the apartment. His tail knocked over a lamp and the wine bottle on the table. Harper let out a small cry as red seeped into the carpet.

Missy bounded into the room and started yapping. Mimi appeared next to me, carrying a hissing Tilda inside a cat carrier. Ve came in behind her, wheezing.

“Honey,” I said. “We’re home!”

Harper curled her tiny fists. “What is going on?” she yelled. She stomped over to her iPod dock and turned off the music.

Suddenly, except for Ve’s and Higgins’s panting and Tilda’s hissing, it was deathly quiet.

I bent next to Marcus. “Are you okay?”

“Do you think you could get this bookcase off me?” he asked, looking pale.

Mimi helped as I levered the heavy oak case off him. The bookshelf looked none the worse for wear, but I couldn’t say the same for Marcus.

“That’s going to leave a mark,” Mimi said sagely.

He sat up and surveyed the damage. Bruises were already beginning to form on his jaw and cheek. “I’m okay.”

Harper dropped beside him and took his face in her hands, closely giving him a once-over.

He didn’t seem to mind one bit.

In fact, when she bounced up to get him an ice pack, he waggled his eyebrows at me. “Good timing,” he whispered.

Yep. He was fine.

Harper came back with some ice cubes wrapped in a washcloth. Gently, she held the compress to his cheek. “Look what you all have done. Why are you here? Haven’t you heard of calling?”

I opened Tilda’s cage door to free her and she refused to come out. “I called. You didn’t answer.”

Harper frowned and glanced at her cell phone on the coffee table. Next to two wineglasses.

I lifted an eyebrow and gave her a smirk.

She gave me the evil eye. “Marcus very nicely offered come over and do some heavy lifting.”

“I see that,” I said.

Ve laughed as she rolled her suitcase into the apartment and plopped onto the couch. Missy hopped up next to her, and Mimi sat on her other side.

Marcus eyed the suitcases. “Are you staying?”

His tone made it clear that we’d interrupted his plans for the night.

“We’re moving in,” Mimi said.

“You’re
what
?” Harper cried.

Ve said, “Just temporarily, until we can cast that protection spell.”

“And the arson investigator finishes his report,” I added. I headed to the kitchen to look for something that would get the red wine stains out of the carpet.

“Arson?” Harper said, her voice high.

“Someone tried to burn down As You Wish,” Mimi said nonchalantly as she checked her cell phone for text messages. “You didn’t hear the sirens?”

Harper lost all color and looked on the verge of a nervous breakdown, so I took pity on her and explained everything. I finished with, “By the time I made it outside, Terry Goodwin had already put out the flames.”

“You finally met Terry? What’s he like?” Harper asked.

“Very ‘Jailhouse Rock’-ish.”

Marcus laughed, then abruptly stopped and pressed the ice closer to his cheek.

“What’s that mean?” Harper asked.

“You have to see for yourself,” I said.

“Ha!” Ve exclaimed. “I told you so.”

I dabbed at the carpet with a damp cloth and laughed. She had been right.

Harper shook her head. “I’m so confused.”

The stain wasn’t budging. “Never mind that. I thought you were supposed to be following Vince?”

“Vince?” Marcus asked. “Why?”

“Long story,” I said. I was saved from telling it by a firm knock on the door downstairs.

Higgins and Missy started barking and nearly fell over themselves to get down the steps. Tilda went back to hissing, and Harper threw her hands in the air. “Who now?”

Ve rubbed her temples and said loud enough to be heard over the barking, “Do you have any more wine?”

The knocker had been Nick. And he’d been very agreeable to talking outside of the chaos in Harper’s apartment.

We were currently walking around the green, the dogs leading the way. It was late—almost midnight—and the green had cleared of all gawkers and emergency personnel.

Nick’s polo shirt was half untucked, his pants wrinkled, the bags under his eyes starting to look like the suitcase I’d hauled to Harper’s.

“You look tired,” I said, stating the obvious.

He dragged a hand down his face. “It’s been a hell of a night. Four break-ins so far, then the call about the fire. The one night I let Mimi out of my sight…”

I was suddenly feeling guilty. It was my fault Mimi was in danger at all. Well, kind of. Mostly it was psycho Dorothy’s fault. I had told him all about the threats, including the one about him, and he’d promised to look into them. “You know I’d do anything to protect her, right?”

As he glanced at me, the moonlight bounced off his dark eyes. “I know.” He paused a beat, two. “What did Harper mean earlier when she said you’d make a lousy PI?”

I didn’t like keeping secrets from him, but he really didn’t need the whole truth. “Elodie hired me to look into her mother’s death.”

He swore under his breath. “You said no, right?”

I bit my lip.

“Right?” He slowed to a stop. “Darcy.”

I blinked innocently. “Nick.”

He wasn’t buying it. “You need a license, training….”

“I’m working on it.”

“I’m not going to talk you out of this, am I?”

“I don’t think so. No.”

We continued walking. Missy and Higgins were sniffing happily.

Finally, he said, “Have you learned anything?”

I bumped his shoulder with mine. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

His eyes flashed in the darkness. “Isn’t that saying, ‘I’ll
show
you mine….’”

Oh. Well. There was that, too. My mouth went dry. “Work with me here.”

He bumped me back. “How about you share yours, and I’ll share what I can.”

I was grateful he trusted me enough to share what he could. “Deal.”

“So?”

“I haven’t really learned anything yet.”

He laughed, and it echoed across the green.

Smiling, I said, “Just little bits and pieces here and there. Most of which you probably already know. But I had a chat with Andreus Woodshall this afternoon that shed some more light on the Anicula.” I gave him a brief run-down of what Mr. Macabre had said, from the theft of the Anicula years ago to his statement that Elodie had lied to me.

We walked slowly. Despite a gentle breeze rustling leaves and stars twinkling, the tent flaps still clanked against their poles, sounding a little like prisoners dragging tin cups along their bars. It was unsettling.

“I don’t like how much I’ve been hearing about this
Anicula,” he said. “It’s turning up everywhere from the Peeper case to Patrice’s murder.”

“Do you think the two cases are connected?”

“Maybe.”

I angled toward him to look into his face. “Remember the whole sharing thing?”

“I’ve been doing a little digging,” he said (rather reluctantly, I thought). “All the houses broken into?”

Trying to encourage him, I nodded.

“All have been Charmory customers. I contacted Elodie this afternoon, and she e-mailed me her customer list and credit card purchases for the last two years. It’s extensive, but a quick search revealed that every person who had a house broken into had used a credit card at the Charmory within the last eighteen months. I suspect there have been many more break-ins that we don’t know about.”

“That means our Peeper somehow got hold of that list.”

“Yes. Probably broke in and copied it from her computer.”

“Eighteen months, you say?”

“Yes.”

“When Patrice disappeared.”

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.

My pulse had kicked up a notch. The Peeper wasn’t looking for items related to the Craft. The Peeper was looking for something that belonged to Patrice. “Our Peeper is looking for the Anicula.”

He glanced at me. “I believe so.”

I supposed that ruled out Vince Paxton as the Creeper. I silently sent him an apology.

“Why, all of a sudden, is the Peeper getting sloppy?” I asked. “Leaving behind evidence of break-ins, and like tonight—why so many break-ins in one night?”

“I can think of one reason only, Darcy.”

“What’s that?”

“Someone is getting desperate.”

Why that person was so desperate was left unasked. There was absolutely no way to know.

“What would you wish for?” I asked him. “If you could wish for absolutely anything?”

“It seems surreal to even think such a thing is possible, doesn’t it?”

“Surreal and a little scary.”

I recalled what Archie had said about how the Anicula changed people.

It can turn the shy into a braggart; the humble into an egoist; a servant into a god.

“I’d probably wish that Mimi has a long, happy and healthy life. You?”

I wasn’t the least bit surprised that his wish was for someone else.

“It’s strange being a Wishcrafter. There are so many times I say to myself that I wish I could grant my own wishes, most recently because I wished I could make Ve feel better. But to actually have that power? I don’t know if I’d want it. It’s one thing to grant other people’s wishes without them knowing it—it’s a bit like being a fairy godmother—but at least those powers are limited. With the Anicula, you can change the course of someone’s life. Interfere with matters of love, life, death. I don’t think I’d want that power or that responsibility.”

Crickets chirped a symphony as we circled back to the bookshop. “But someone obviously does,” he said.

“We just have to figure out who wants it the most, and we’ll find our Peeper.”

“And possibly a murderer as well.”

He was probably right. Every negative aspect in Patrice’s life had revolved around that Anicula. I had to find out whether she’d abused its power. Elodie denied
the rumors, but I didn’t know if she was simply covering for her mother.

I could think of only one other person who might know the truth: Yvonne. I had to get her to open up to me somehow.

“In the interest of sharing,” Nick said, “I’ll also tell you that Patrice’s autopsy report came in.”

“And?”

“Inconclusive,” he said. “The medical examiner thinks it was probably asphyxiation.”

“She was alive when someone put her in that suitcase?”

Headlights swept over us as a car drove past. “It looks that way. She was probably knocked out or drugged beforehand. I’m not sure we’ll ever know.”

An ache deep in my chest squeezed my lungs, making it hard to breathe. Poor Patrice. Poor Elodie. “That’s horrible.”

“Yes,” he said softly. We walked in silence the rest of the way.

As we neared the alleyway leading to Harper’s door, I said, “Well, all in all, it’s been nice
working
with you.”

With a hint of mischievousness in his voice, he said, “You know what they say about all work and no play.”

In the shadows of the building, we slowed to a stop again, and the two dogs glanced back at us, clearly annoyed. Nick and I looked at each other, and I was enjoying the feelings racing through me—maybe a little too much. “Play?” I asked lamely.

His hand came up and cupped my cheek. He slowly leaned in, and my heart was doing a happy jig, kicking around in my chest like a drunken leprechaun. He was going to kiss me! And right then, there was nothing more I wanted in the whole world.

I resisted the urge to throw myself into his arms and allowed myself to enjoy the tingles on my skin, the touch
of his rough palm on my cheek, the scent of him, of the night air. The anticipation.

But as I slowly leaned in to meet his lips, he suddenly drew back, his gaze hard on a car coming down the street.

I stiffened. It was a pink village police cruiser, its strobe light flashing.

Glinda.

I cursed her timing as the car slowed to a stop and the window powered down.

Nick said, “Anything wrong, Officer Hansel?”

“Another report of a break-in, Chief. I’m on my way there now.”

Under the streetlamp, I could clearly see the calculating way she was looking at us. A chill went down my back.

“You should get going, then,” he said in a firm voice.

She nodded and said, “Yes, sir. But the homeowners insisted on speaking to you.”

“Who?” he asked.

“The Merricks. Roger and Yvonne.”

I drew in a breath. The Peeper had broken into their home?

Nick said, “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

“Yes, sir.” She glared at me as the car rolled away.

I stared after it and said, “Can I come with you?”

“Why?”

At least he hadn’t said no right off. “I want to talk to Yvonne, and this might be the perfect time. If she’s rattled, she might open up to me.”

He shook his head. “I can’t. Protocol.”

I bit my lip. “Is there anything stopping me from dropping the dogs off and then checking on Patrice’s house? After all, it’s across the street and might have been hit as well. If I happen to bump into Yvonne in the process…”

“Hit?” he said with a smirk.

BOOK: A Witch Before Dying: A Wishcraft Mystery
3.31Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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