by Bella Falls
A slight smile replaced my grim scowl. “You know Granny Jo?”
“I suspect most everybody in this area has a relative who knew her.” The ghost grinned. “Her reputation of being one of the strongest healers reached far and wide, and she helped me when I was really young. I think she might have been one of the few non-members ever given access to the library before or since.”
“I’ll pass along your salutations,” I promised. “Thanks for all your help tonight. Including the shortcut magnifying glasses.” I placed my finger to my lips to reiterate my silent promise to her.
We trudged to the other side of the building and got in Crystal’s car, exhausted and worn out. Driving back, we maintained a tense silence, caught up in what we’d read and trying to figure out how to move forward. An idea planted itself in my head, and I let it germinate until we got to Cate’s house to drop her off.
Following the librarian’s advice, I focused on what we had learned. Based on that knowledge, I asked my friends for a favor. “I think we can work with what we’ve got right now. But I’m gonna need your help tomorrow evening.”
Crystal rubbed her hand down her face. “Odie won’t like me gone two nights in a row.”
I squeezed her arm. “I think we can accomplish what I need without you.”
“And what’s that?” Dani asked, rubbing her hands together.
I pointed at my cousin and Cate. “You two are going to get Azalea out of the house. I need some time alone with Harrison.”
Chapter Eighteen
I waited around the corner from Harrison and Azalea’s place, watching the front door to see when Azalea left the premises. Dani’s brother’s big F-150 sat in the driveway. Her brother Deacon would cuss us both out for using it, but what that pig didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
Azalea had flat out refused to leave her recovering husband’s side when my cousin first called. After filling Wesley in on our plan and assuring him that everything we were doing was to narrow down the search for the person who hurt his sister, he assisted us by pushing his best friend to encourage his wife to get out of the house, even for a short amount of time.
The lights on the truck flashed, and I hunkered down in Gloria’s car that I’d yet to take back to her garage. Dani exited the house first and opened the driver’s side door. Cate appeared, dragging Azalea by the arm. They stopped at least a couple of times in the few feet between the front door and the vehicle.
“Come on,” I coached from inside the car, not caring if they could actually hear me. “Get her in the truck. Tie her up and throw her in the back of the bed if you have to.”
Cate opened the passenger door and boosted Azalea into the seat, her hands pushing the rear of the resistant bride. She shut the door and shot an exasperated look in my direction, crawling into the smaller backseat. I counted down the seconds before they passed by me.
My spell phone pinged. “Left the front door unlocked - C”
I got out of my friend’s borrowed car and snuck across the street as if on a clandestine mission. No nosy neighbors watched me through their windows, and I approached the front door, knocking once and entering without waiting for an invitation.
“Did you get cold feet, honey bear?” Harrison called out from around the corner. “I told those girls you wouldn’t make it ten minutes.”
With quiet steps, I entered the living room. “My feet are plenty toasty, Boo Boo.”
He paused the movie on the television and moved the recliner into a more upright position. “What are you doing here? And how did you get in?”
“These are unimportant questions.” I grabbed a chair from their dining table and dragged it over to sit next to him. “How ya feeling? Need to go to the bathroom or anything?”
“When did you become my charge nurse?” Harrison set his bowl of popcorn on the side table. “What’s this all about, Rue? Is this why the other girls forced my wife to go out?” He placed his hands on the arms of the chair and grunted while trying to stand up.
I placed my hand on his. “Don’t. I’ll explain everything, but I knew this would be better if your brand-new wife didn’t hear me making requests of you like giving me the list of all the girls who could possibly want to kill you.”
My bluntness earned his steely silence. He swallowed hard and relaxed back into the recliner. “Yeah, I don’t think I’d like you saying something like that around Azalea. And honestly, I don’t mind that she’s gone. She needs a break from taking care of me.”
Before I pumped him for information, I offered to get him anything he needed to stay comfortable. It took me a second to realize my stalling tactics. What I had to ask would rank pretty high on the awkward scale. I gave him the rundown of what had happened so far, surprised Wesley hadn’t filled him in about Gloria.
“I had no idea. Well, I had a little after you left, but neither of us could believe that she would hurt me.” Harrison squirmed in discomfort. “But you think she wasn’t in her right mind?”
“The term is spellbound, and from what I’ve researched, the witch who did this to both Gloria and you had to be pretty motivated for it to even work.” I leaned on the arm of his chair. “Would you believe that we think whoever did this messed up pretty bad? Which is why I think it’s possible to catch them, but I need your help.”
He stared off in front of him, digesting everything he was told. “I get why you wanted my wife out of the house. She’d have a nuclear meltdown, she’s been so worried about Gloria. If she wasn’t obsessing about making sure I’m okay every second of every day, she would have already been on the case.”
“I know,” I admitted. “It’s for Gloria but also for you as a couple. The sooner we can bring this to an end, the quicker you can get on with your lives. And you’re at the center of all of it.”
Harrison pointed at a desk on the wall opposite us. “There’s a pad of paper and a pen or pencil in there. Let’s get started. Who knows how long Azalea will make it before she bugs her friends to bring her back.”
My former colleague’s past love life would be a minefield. I stuck with the other common motivators we’d surmised from our time at the coven library. “Was there anyone you had a major quarrel with? Anyone you can think of who has threatened you or wished harm would come to you?” I steadied the pen over the paper, ready to take as many notes as needed.
“No, I can’t think of anyone. I mean, you know how it is working at a bar. You get the occasional jerk who gets mad when you cut their drinks off. But I don’t take what they say seriously,” he said, scratching his head. “Me and Jay had a pretty good argument one night when his credit card wouldn’t work.”
The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. “Do you mean Jay Fowler? Or that guy Jason who told everyone to call him Jay?”
“Fowler,” Harrison confirmed. “He accused me of using the card to steal money from him, but it turned out he and his wife were going through a divorce and she cut off that particular card that day.”
I wrote down the incident. “When was this?”
He counted on his fingers while he thought. “A good six months ago. I mean, the guy was in nine kinds of emotional pain. He took an unsuccessful swing at me, but he’s been back since then and we’re all good.”
Tapping the pen against the paper, I considered crossing off the name. Wanting more possibilities to look into, I left it at the top of the page. “Now that you’re manager at the Tiki, have you had any problems with the other employees? Anyone you had to fire that might have wanted to get back at you?”
“We had one kid who worked for us last summer who was absolute crap at his job. He stole tips from others and did as little as possible while pulling in a paycheck.” Harrison rubbed his chin. “But you know Roscoe. You practically have to kill someone before he lets you go.”
“Nice choice of words,” I smirked.
He wiggled his finger at me. “That wasn’t breaking my promise. I wasn’t saying it about me. You can’t take
the comic away.”
I smacked him with the tip of the pen as a punishment. “Roscoe’s good people. He gave all of us second, third, and fourth chances. And when we disappointed him, we felt it to our core. But when we earned his respect, we worked hard to be better.”
“In my case, it was more like fifth, sixth, and seventh chances.” Harrison wiped his brow with his hand. “And thank goodness. I wouldn’t have moved up in the business without his encouragement.”
Roscoe’s passion for “his kids” was legendary. It’s what kept some of us there working the tourist crowds for years. But out of all of us, he held Harrison to a higher standard. The boss had been hard on him for years, but it had all paid off.
“Why didn’t Roscoe come to the wedding?” It hadn’t occurred to me that my former boss hadn’t been there.
“I told him not to.” Harrison adjusted in his seat. “The man gets a little too emotional, and I think he didn’t want to be seen as trying to stand in for my lack of family. He took me and Azalea out for a very nice dinner at Spinner’s to celebrate prior to the wedding. That was enough for us.”
“Aww.” I couldn’t contain my adoration for my former boss. I’d have to do something nice for him, even though he wouldn’t know why. “Any money issues going on with you? Have you won some big lottery that someone would want to kill you over?”
Harrison glowered at me. “By that time, I was married. Anything that was mine would go to Azalea. And if we follow that logic, then she was the one who did it.”
“Well…” It hadn’t occurred to me to consider his new wife.
“Don’t even go there. I mean it,” he threatened. “If you had seen her ever since I’ve gotten home, you would know she wouldn’t be capable of causing me harm like that. She’d do something to herself first, and you know that’s true.”
I did, and I regretted even spending one thought on the possibility. “Sorry,” I uttered. “But the field of suspects is pretty thin.” I showed him the pad with Jay’s name on it.
“Then let’s get down to the subject you first brought up. My past with girls.” He fidgeted in the chair, his cheeks a brighter pink from embarrassment. “Off the top of my head, I’d put Cassidy Larkin at the top. But she was pretty cool with all the flowers she did for the wedding, so I don’t know.”
“We already checked her out before, and she and Gloria actually might be able to mend their friendship.” I withheld the obvious fact that we had to save Gloria first.
Harrison glanced down at the notepad. “There’s a pretty long list of girls I went out with. I’m not exactly proud of that side of my past. It might take you an entire year to find them all.”
Wrinkling my nose, I tapped him on the arm again with the pen. “First, eww. Second, you were a pretty big player back in the day. Third, let’s try to list those you went out with more than once. Or any that you can remember who might have tried to push you into a relationship.”
He gave me three names of solid leads, but tortured me with the numerous names of girls who were one-night strangers and others that I knew and had no idea he’d been with.
“Well, that was a terrifying trip down Disgusting Lane.” I vetoed the last name because I already knew she no longer lived in the area in more than five years. “Can you think of anyone who maybe obsessed over you? Maybe you got a lot of crank calls or hang ups? Somebody left you gifts or notes?”
“Notes!” Harrison exclaimed. “Yes, I would get these odd notes from time to time. I didn’t think anything of them because they wouldn’t say anything more than wishing me a good day or complimenting what I wore.”
“That’s pretty creepy. Were you so full of yourself that you didn’t recognize a stalker when you had one?” My heart beat fast at the hint of a real lead. “It would be too much to ask if you happen to have any of those notes still, right?”
He tilted his head and scoffed. “Do you honestly believe that I would keep a bundle of those hidden somewhere in this house for Azalea to find one day? I know I haven’t always been the brightest bulb, but surely you can’t believe I’m that stupid.”
I held up my hands in surrender. “That’s not why I asked. If you did still have a note, then we’d have the handwriting of the person who might have spellbound Gloria.”
“Oh. That makes sense.” He bit his thumbnail. “I started getting them right after high school. No pattern to when they’d show up or where. They were always written in the neatest swirling cursive script, so I knew they had to be from a girl.”
“And because you liked female attention, you never thought about the person who actually gave them to you. That they might not be completely healthy, giving notes to you all those years.”
Harrison threw his hands in the air. “Fine. I’ve been a totally self-obsessed slime ball. But that’s why I would never do anything to jeopardize what I have with Azalea.”
Another chime came from my purse and I checked the message. “Crap. Cate and Dani weren’t able to keep your wife out for very long. She’s on her way back, and I think you’d agree, it’s better not to worry her with any of this.”
Tearing off the paper from the pad, I replaced the notebook and pen back on the desk where I’d found them and did the same with the chair.
“I wish I’d been more help, Rue. Because whoever it is that did this to both me and Gloria, they deserve to pay.” Harrison’s eyes burned with the need for revenge.
“Don’t worry. Based on what I’ve read, if we can catch this person, according to witch law, they’ll be more than punished for their crime against the two of you.” I waved at him and hurried out the front door and across the street.
If the magical law didn’t catch up to whomever it was, then the cost for abusing magic would eventually get them. But that didn’t guarantee Gloria’s safety or recovery from the damage already perpetrated against her.
My spell phone lit up on the darkened street, and I read Cate’s message that they were almost here. Opening up the door to Gloria’s car, I slunk inside and ducked down as the light from my cousin’s truck blazed a path to the newlywed’s house.
I waited for what felt like hours for Dani to pull out of the driveway. She flashed her lights as they drove by, and I typed out that I would meet them at my place.
Turning the engine on, I drove around the corner before I flipped on the lights. A piece of paper fluttered underneath the driver’s side windshield wiper. I slowed down and pulled off to the side of the street so I could retrieve it. Once I had it in my hand, my heart almost exploded with excitement. I turned on the interior light and examined it carefully.
In perfect swirling cursive, I read the message written especially for me. “Stay away from Harrison. He’s mine.”
Chapter Nineteen
Uncle Jo jumped off the back of Ol’ Bessie with a grunt. “I’m getting too old for this job,” he complained, pulling the last box off the truck bed. “And if that rooster comes at me again, he’s gonna find himself fried and eaten.”
“You’ll lose out on all those eggs the hens have been laying,” I said, checking my surroundings to make sure that sneaky little fowl was nowhere near me.
“We can get another one,” my uncle insisted. “It was funny at first to have a chicken guarding the barn from unwanted visitors or bragging we had a guard rooster. Now, it’s just ticking me off.” He pulled up his jeans to show me his ankles. “He’s pecked an entire chunk out of me.”
“Then you need to convince your son to hang around more. Deacon’s the only being in this world Rex likes.” For whatever reason, that freak of nature bird adored my pig of a cousin.
Uncle Jo hauled the box into the barn. “If it were one of the hens, I might understand why.” He peeled open the flaps and dug inside. “Heads up, here comes your daddy.”
My father waved a brown envelope at me then used it to shoo away Rex, who clucked a warning prior to a possible attack.
I cupped my hands around my mouth. “You could always hex his fe
athers right off his hide. That might take his orneriness down a notch.”
“Or prepare him to be fried up in a skillet,” Dad countered.
Uncle Jo snorted and stacked a bunch of leather-bound books on the workbench. “I just said almost the same thing.”
“It’s almost like you two are brothers. Weird,” I teased, giving my father a quick kiss on the cheek. “What’s in the envelope?”
My father held it up to his head. “Wait, wait, let me see. I’m such a strong psychic that I can almost…Nope. It’s gone,” he joked. “It’s addressed to you anyway, butter bean.”
I tore off the top seam of the package and pulled out a letter handwritten in messy print. “It’s from Mac, the keyboardist of Tailgate Down.” My eyes skimmed the note so fast, I thought I’d misunderstood it. Forcing myself to slow down, I read it again with greater care.
RM -
We were prepping for another gig in town and Levi found these in one of our cases. Pretty sure they’re the request slips from the reception since we had to pack up so quickly. Was going to throw them away but sent them to you because I thought you could decide if they’re useful or not. Keep us posted, and we hope to see you sooner rather than later. - Mac
Breathless, I tossed the letter on the table. My shaking hands dropped the envelope, and I swore as a slip of paper fell out onto the ground. A slight breeze caught the thin vellum and blew it out of the barn. “Grab that!” I ordered, chasing after it and not caring if Rex tried to draw blood from my ankles.
Buddy dashed out of nowhere and stood between me and the feisty rooster. His back arched and his hair stood on end. He hissed at Rex through his tiny mustached mouth and bat his paw in the air to show he meant business.
