Beguiled

by Darynda Jones

  I mulled over broaching the subject, concerned I’d overstep my bounds, then broached ahead regardless. When she sat back down, I attacked. “Serinda, I don’t mean to pry, but I have to admit, I’m still worried about your grandson.”

  “Oh?” she asked, turning that starlit gaze on me.

  “I doubt he’ll give up his quest so easily.”

  She pressed a hand over her heart again, as though I’d just bequeathed her a live chicken for her dinner table. “Thank you, Sarru.”

  “Defiance,” I insisted, hiding a grin behind my own cup.

  “I’m honored, and humbled, but I can handle him.” A mischievous twinkle in her eye accompanied the promise, and I was quite inclined to believe her.

  Though not entirely appeased, I turned to the next problem at hand. “And you,” I said to Gigi.

  She raised an austere brow, her demeanor so opposite from Serinda’s it was almost comical. “Me?”

  “You,” I confirmed, half surprised she didn’t say moi. “You need to get back to your life, Gigi. You need to start living again. Meeting your friends for coffee and going to sabbath. The coven needs you.”

  “I wish I could, but—”

  “I have a plan.”

  Annette looked up from her notebook. “A plan? I love plans. I make several a day.”

  Gigi nodded. “We know, dear.”

  “The way I see it, there’s only one way to handle this. We have to introduce the world to Ruthie Goode’s long-lost twin sister… Rachel. No, Rachelle. No…”

  “Oh,” Annette said, chiming in. “Romy.”

  “Rosalind,” Minerva said, adding her two cents. And thankfully, the waffle impression was starting to fade. “She could be a Rosalind.”

  “Maybe.” I narrowed my eyes on my grandmother, not quite convinced. “We’re getting closer.”

  Annette clapped. “I love this. You’ll have a secret identity.”

  Gigi started to argue, but stopped, seeming to turn the idea over in her head.

  Then reality set in. “Wait.” I sagged in my seat. “That won’t work.”

  “Of course it will.” Annette drew a hand across the air in front of her as though she were reading a headline. “Long-lost Twin Comes Home at Last. It’s inspired. If she changes her hair a bit, throws on a little mascara, no one will be the wiser, and we can introduce her as Ruthie’s twin immediately.”

  “Her estranged twin,” Serinda offered, her telltale expression full of hope. “It’s perfect, Sarru.”

  “Thank you. And, yes, that part works. It’s the name. I was forced to live without Gigi for over forty years. I don’t want to give her up just yet.”

  “She’ll still be your great-aunt,” Annette offered.

  “Yes, but I want to be able to call her Gigi.” I snapped my fingers. “I’ve got it.” I leaned closer to her, inserted a dramatic pause, then said, “Georgiana. Yes. It can totally be shortened to Gigi.” I looked up in thought. “Georgiana Rue Bishop.”

  Bishop was Ruthie’s maiden name, so she’d have to go back to it for this to work. And Rue would be an homage to her eighty-plus years on the planet as Ruthie. But Georgiana was strictly for me, as no one would question my nickname for her. There were still a ton of logistics to work out, but…

  My train of thought came to a screeching halt when I noticed the way Gigi was looking at me. Like I’d grown an extra head. I fluffed my hair to make sure I hadn’t. “What is it? Do I have something in my teeth?”

  “Georgiana Rue Bishop.”

  “You don’t like it? We can work on it. I just wanted—”

  She stopped me with a hand over mine. “Defiance, that was my grandmother’s name. How did you know?”

  I blinked, just as surprised. “I… I didn’t. I must’ve read it somewhere.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “You couldn’t have.”

  “Okay,” I said, more curious than ever. “Why?”

  Serinda gasped softly as the truth hit her. She clearly knew something I didn’t. “Because Georgiana’s father changed it the day after she was born.”

  Yep.

  “Why would he do that?” Annette asked, touching pencil to paper, ready to take notes.

  “Well, Nanette,” Gigi said, “he’d been at sea when my grandmother was born, and they hadn’t agreed on a name before he set sail. So when he got back the day after her birth and heard what my great-grandmother had named their daughter, he hated it and insisted they change it. They only recorded her new name: Ruthanne Ambrosia Bishop. My great-grandmother told no one of the name she’d first decided on and only told Ruthanne years later.

  “So, you’ll essentially be named after her twice.”

  Serinda did the starstruck thing again. “Sarru, how did you know?”

  “I didn’t.” My gaze bounced between her and Gigi. “I’m not psychic. I promise.”

  “But you are,” Gigi insisted. “You must be. To pluck a name so distinct out of thin air like that?”

  I wasn’t going to argue with her, though, admittedly, it was a tad suspicious. But the more important question was: “Why did your great-grandfather hate the name?”

  Gigi pursed her lips to suppress a puckish grin. It didn’t work. “Apparently, Georgiana was the name of my grandfather’s first great love. The one who ran away with a solicitor. He didn’t tell my great-grandmother until after Ruthanne’s birth, and she insisted on knowing what he had against the name.”

  “Well, I love it,” I said.

  Annette nodded. “Me too.”

  “Me three,” Minerva said as she nibbled a croissant.

  “And you?” I asked Gigi, holding my breath.

  “Not only do I love it, I’m terribly honored to have it.”

  “Oh, yay!” Annette clapped again.

  A relieved smile spread across my face. “Now we just need a little hair dye.”

  Serinda held up a hand. “We’ve got this.” She stood and herded Gigi toward the stairs, the ones that led to her basement apartment.

  “You have hair dye in your basement?” Minerva asked.

  Serinda glanced over her shoulder. “Not exactly.”

  “Serinda, for Goddess’s sake.” Gigi was not as convinced as Serinda was. “We haven’t done anything like this in decades.”

  “Then it’s high time.”

  “If you’ll remember, the last time we tried it, the spell rendered me incapable of pronouncing the word cinnamon for six months. Everyone kept asking why I was talking about a thesaurus.”

  “The spell?” I asked, stunned. “You mean, you can do it with magic?”

  Serinda beamed. “We can.”

  “We can try,” Gigi corrected. “And if we succeed, it’ll be more permanent than regular hair dye.”

  “That is so cool.”

  Annette stood and walked over to the toaster to look at her reflection, saying, “You totally have to do me, Deph. Maybe something in a…” She turned back to me, pointed to the smudges on her face, and asked, “Have I had these on my face the whole time?”

  Six

  Before calling, ask yourself…

  Is this textable?

  —T-shirt

  After Gigi and Serinda disappeared down the stairs, Annette wiped the smudges off her face with a kitchen towel, then turned to me. “You have to do me.”

  “Okay, but I’ve never been with a girl, so…”

  “No.” She rolled her eyes and sat across from me again, taking both of my hands into her own. This must be serious. “You have to do my hair.”

  “What? No. You’re perfect.” I tried to pull away. She wouldn’t let go of my hands, her eyes pleading, so I slapped them away. Her hands, not her eyes. “Your hair is perfect,” I said, slapping softly. We’d only been in a real fight once, and we were on the same side. Still, the girl had moves. She could probably take me.

  “Defiance,” she pleaded.

  “No. Stop. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. And are you forgetting the bird thing? Yo
u could end up with feathers for hair. Or Medusa hair. Or no hair at all.”

  “You had me at Medusa hair.” She pressed her mouth together so hard, her dimples showed. Not in a good way. The disappointment was tangible when she turned to the only other witch in the room. “Minerva, you’ve got some mojo, right?”

  “Um…”

  “You have to do me.”

  “You have to stop putting it that way,” I said with a giggle. Yes, I was twelve. “Besides, I need Minerva to go to the hospital and check on Leo.”

  The girl’s eyes rounded to perfect, dark-lashed circles. “Leo?”

  “Quinn. Why? Do you know him?” I asked, knowing full well she did.

  “Leonard Quinn? I do. A little. He’s in the hospital? Here?”

  “I believe so, though they could’ve transferred him.”

  “What happened?”

  Intrigued, Annette decided to explain. “Defiance got a message from him about male pattern baldness, but the message was glowing, and from that, she figured out he was in trouble. She could feel it across hundreds of miles.”

  “Ten miles,” I corrected.

  “A car engine fell on his leg while he was working on it. We got there just in time.”

  An audible gasp echoed around us. “Is… is he okay?” She started to bite her already horridly abused nails when she caught herself and started wringing her hands again.

  Pride swelled in my chest. Not a lot. Not, like, a cup size, but enough to increase my lung capacity a good half a liter.

  “Would you mind checking on him for us?”

  She bolted out of her chair. “Not at all. I’ll go now.”

  “Well, it’s still a bit early.”

  Annette grabbed her phone. “I’ll check when visiting hours are.”

  “No worries,” Minerva said, walking backward toward the front door. “If I’m too early, I’ll just wait.”

  Annette winked at me from behind an impish grin.

  I laughed and got up to walk Minerva to the entryway, where I raided a purse. Thankfully, it was my own. I tossed her my keys as she pulled on her coat. It hit her in the chest and fell to the floor. “Sorry. Here.” I picked them up and handed them to her as she stuffed her hands into her gloves. “Take my car.”

  “Really? Thank you.” She opened the door and said as she rushed out, “I’ll text you with a status update, Sarru.”

  “Defiance. And thank you.”

  From what I could gather from Minerva’s memories, he’d looked longingly at her almost as often as she’d looked longingly at him, so I didn’t think I was setting him up for any kind of ambush. She was too shy to be a nuisance. That much I knew for certain.

  The man’s thinning hair must’ve made him look older than he was when we found him trapped under that engine. In contrast, his baby face would always make him look younger than his years. I scolded myself for not finding out his age sooner. Minerva was young and impressionable. And she’d almost died barely a day ago.

  Then again, she was also a witch with at least some skill. Maybe I needed to trust her.

  “Ah,” Annette said when I walked back into the kitchen. “You read that off her, didn’t you?”

  “I did, but I have yet to figure out how I can read some people and not others.”

  “Okay, what about me?”

  “What about you?”

  She plopped her chin in a cupped hand. “What am I searching for?”

  “Hmm,” I hmmed as I refilled my cup, then sat down again. I narrowed my eyes. Looked into her soul.

  “A first edition Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.”

  “You already knew that. And I already know where to find one. I just can’t afford it.” She took off her glasses, then cupped her chin again, giving me access to her eyes. “What else?”

  I drew in a deep breath, then gave in, concentrating. Nothing. “I have no idea. You’ve blocked me.”

  “I don’t know how to block you.”

  “Then you aren’t searching for anything.” I took a sip and moaned aloud.

  “Of course, I am. Everyone is. How did you do it with Ruthie?”

  “Gigi. We’ll all need to call her that if anyone is going to buy it as her nickname.”

  “That’s your name for her. She’s your grandmother. How about Georgi?”

  “Oh. I like it.”

  “Great. Georgi, then. How’d you do it with her?”

  I brushed a crumb off the table. “What do you mean?”

  “Deph,” she said, pursing her lips again in admonishment. “I saw what you did. You were getting into her mind even though she didn’t want you to. It was like she had no choice.”

  I wrapped both hands around my cup and answered as honestly as I could. “I have no idea. I didn’t mean to. It just sort of happened.” When she didn’t say anything, I added, “It was a huge violation, Nette. I will never do that again.”

  “Well, what if you need to? Like in an emergency?”

  “Then maybe it’ll just happen again. But for now…”

  “Hey, girls,” the chief said, walking in from the front door.

  “Hey, Chief. Off work already?” He’d barely been gone an hour.

  “I put out a few fires—metaphorically—and I called your insurance agent to come look at the damage. Place looks good, Annette.”

  “Thanks, Chief. Did you explain what happened to Officer Pecs?”

  “You mean Officer Flynn?”

  “Yes,” she said, adding a snort. “I mean to say Officer… Paul Flynn?” When he only looked at her, she tried again. “John Flynn? George? Ringo?”

  “Cory,” he said, putting her out of her misery. And just in time, too. She’d run out of Beatles.

  “Oh, right.” She snapped her fingers. “I totally knew that. And how’s his girlfriend?”

  Gawd, she was good at interrogations. A born investigator.

  When the chief crossed his arms and only stared at her, refusing to answer, she waved a hand. “Never mind. I’ll ask her myself next time I see her.”

  “You do that.”

  When Serinda came up the stairs, we glanced in unison toward her. She held out her arms with all the fanfare of a showman in the center ring, and said, “Ladies and gentleman, may I present to you, the lovely, the talented, the mysterious—”

  “For Goddess’s sake, Serinda,” Gigi said, padding up the stairs.

  Serinda giggled, then swept her arms toward the basement entrance, “Georgiana Rue Bishop.”

  A dark head popped up first, followed by the rest of Gigi. I hardly recognized her, and we gaped rather rudely for a solid minute.

  Annette found her voice first. “Day-um!”

  We rushed forward. Serinda stood back, her arms crossed, a satisfied smirk settling into place. She’d done it, and Gigi looked amazing.

  “Gigi, Oh my God, you look incredible.”

  She wore the same cream gauze dress with golden threads, but the contrast of her now inky-black hair seemed to make it sparkle even more. That, combined with her cloudless blue eyes, was simply breathtaking. Gone was the elegant silvery-blonde bob. It had been replaced by sharp dramatic spikes and whimsical wisps around her beautiful face.

  She glanced nervously at the chief. “Well, Houston? What do you think?” When he didn’t answer, she assured him, “We can try something else. Serinda is much more adept at this than she used to be. Maybe something softer?”

  “Ruthie,” he said, breathless.

  “Georgiana,” Serinda said. “Or Gigi. Your choice.”

  “I don’t know what happened here today, but I like it.”

  Relief washed over her, as evidenced by the minute release of tension in her shoulders. “Oh, thank the Goddess.” She tugged self-consciously at the spiky locks behind her ear. “Because I love it. And I was worried…”

  He stepped to her, his nearness emphasizing how many inches—or feet—he had on her. He took her into his arms, bent her back into a shallow dip, and pre
ssed his mouth to hers.

  “Chief!” I scolded, teasing them.

  Annette cupped her chin and looked on dreamily.

  When it became clear they were going to be a few minutes, I eased closer to Serinda. “May I ask you something?”

  “Anything, Sarru.”

  I breathed a heavy sigh, and asked, “Is there a way I can interview the coven members about Gigi’s passing?”

  “Of course.” She grabbed her phone. Perhaps to set something up?

  “Bear in mind, I don’t suspect anyone. Not at all. But perhaps someone let information slip about me to the wrong person, like Minerva did.”

  “You think the poisoning had something to do with you?”

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know. I’m just grasping at straws. But whoever killed her had to be able to get in and out unnoticed. A virtual impossibility with both Roane and Percival here.”

  She nodded, the lines of her face pulled in concern.

  “Roane leaves the house, of course,” I continued. “He has a life. But Percy is stuck here, and nothing gets past him.” I was leaning against the kitchen counter, hands at my side, when a vine rose up and wrapped lovingly around my pinkie. I lifted it to my chest. It encircled my wrist and forearm, gave a soft squeeze, then shrank back to disappear into the wall.

  “He feels guilty,” Serinda said, watching the exchange.

  “I think so, though he has no reason to.” I looked up. “This was no one’s fault but the person who did it.”

  The few vines that had bordered the room slid back into the walls. He disagreed.

  Serinda tapped on her phone. “I’ll set it up immediately.”

  The couple honeymooning in the middle of the kitchen broke apart at last. Gigi’s grin fairly glistened when she gazed up at the chief. “If I’d known I would get that kind of response, I would’ve done this years ago.”

  The smile he gave her would’ve blinded a lesser witch. “You don’t happen to have a nurse’s uniform, do you?”

  Gigi slapped him playfully on the arm. “Houston Dewayne, I think you’ve scandalized Defiance enough for one day.”