Beguiled

by Darynda Jones

  “You’re looking at me funny.”

  “No funnier than usual. Roane and I met a very powerful witch named Elle. She’s blood born. Comes from a long line, apparently. I think you should invite her into the coven.”

  “Really?” she asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee. She held it out to Roane.

  He breathed in the aroma and gave her a thumbs-up.

  “I’ll bring it up to the cove.” She sat beside me, and we all watched Roane put his shirt back on.

  A sadness thickened the air. “Oh,” I said, bouncing back, “what about Joaquin Ferebee? What did you find out?”

  Annette dropped her gaze, suddenly very interested in her coffee lid. “Right, um, I’m still waiting on my contact to get back with me.”

  “And what contact would that be?”

  “The one I’m waiting on to get back with me.”

  “Annette, what did you find out?”

  She caved. So easy. “It’s just, there’s nothing you can do to help him, Deph. I’m not sure why you’re having such a strong feeling to jump to his aid. It’s too late.”

  “Annette.”

  She gave in with a sigh. “His son went missing a year ago.”

  I refocused on her. “His son?”

  “Yes. A year ago tomorrow, to be exact.”

  A hefty dose of adrenaline shot through my body. “I knew I felt a sense of urgency. Why didn’t you tell me sooner? We have to find him.”

  She put a hand on my arm. “Defiance, they found the boy’s backpack in an abandoned warehouse a month after he went missing. It was covered in blood. A lot of blood.”

  “But they didn’t find his body?”

  “No, but… Deph, the odds of him being alive are astronomical. I didn’t want you to have to go through that.”

  “Through what?” I asked, more confused now than ever.

  She exhaled, reluctant to even talk about it. “What if you find Mr. Ferebee? What if you read him? What if you see what he’s searching for?”

  I shrugged, my patience wearing thin.

  “His son.”

  I tilted my head.

  “A child,” she added. “A child who was killed almost a year ago.”

  “You just said they didn’t find a body. You can’t know that.”

  “But what if? Do you really want to see something like that? Something you can never unsee?”

  I glanced at Roane. “I’ve already seen it once. Don’t handle me, Annette.”

  “It’s just, you’ve been through so much.”

  “If there is even the slightest chance that boy is alive—”

  “There’s not,” she said, her tone matter-of-fact.

  “What do you mean?”

  She dropped her gaze to study her cup. “I mean, I talked to the detective in Chicago in charge of the investigation. Based on the amount of blood they found at the scene, there is simply no way the boy survived.”

  I sank back, a familiar weight pressing into my chest. “They’re certain he’s gone?”

  “Yes. At least, the detective sounded certain. The case is still open, of course. They wouldn’t close it this soon without a body.”

  “Did he have any insights? Any suspects?”

  “Not that he could divulge, but he did say that before they found the backpack, Mr. Ferebee had suspected his wife of abducting him. They’d gone through a bitter divorce, and he’d gotten custody of the boy. The detective hinted that the wife had a history of substance abuse. That’s how Mr. Ferebee got custody.”

  I nodded. “What was his name? The boy’s?”

  “Milo.” She clicked a few buttons on her phone and turned it toward me to show me the face of a gorgeous boy no more than three with curly black hair, huge brown eyes, and a nuclear smile.

  I took the phone for a closer look, and my heart sank. “He’s beautiful.”

  “He is.”

  “He looks like his dad.”

  Gigi leaned over for a look.

  I angled the phone so she could see the screen better. “If he’s really gone, then what I felt at the café, that urgency, must be for Mr. Ferebee. Not what he’s searching for. Right?”

  “Perhaps,” Gigi said. She touched the screen as though she could touch Milo’s face.

  “I’m not sure what’s going on, but we have to find him.”

  Annette acquiesced with a nod. “I have feelers out. I should know where he’s staying soon.”

  When Annette turned away, I remembered one pertinent detail. How could I forget her missing brother who was also never found? “Austin.”

  She turned back to me. “What about him?”

  “I didn’t even think. I’m sorry, Annette.”

  “No. I’m good. This has nothing to do with him.”

  But it had to his close to home. I decided not to push it and handed her phone back. “Keep me updated.”

  Someone knocked on the front door.

  “Serinda,” Roane said.

  “Oh, right.” Gigi rose to put her cup in the sink before answering the door. “The coven is coming over.”

  “How could you possibly know that’s Serinda?” I asked him.

  “She needs new brake pads.”

  I laughed softly. “So your hearing is back?”

  “It’s getting there,” he said with a charming tilt of his head. He was leaning against the island, his booted feet crossed at the ankles.

  “You know, I’m going to need another look at that map.”

  He pushed off the island and bent over me until his mouth was at my ear. He drew in a breath and started to say something but stopped.

  I leaned back to look at him.

  He drew his brows together and breathed in again, this time standing. As Gigi passed, he stopped her with an arm and sniffed deeply. Then he looked at Annette. She was scrolling through her phone, about to take another sip, when he lunged for her cup and jerked it out of her hand.

  “Hey,” she said, and tried to steal it back.

  He lifted it to his nose before ripping off the lid and sniffing more deeply. His gaze traveled back to Annette, his expression a mixture of disbelief and dread.

  Serinda knocked softly again. Percy must’ve let her in, because she called out, “Is anyone home?”

  “Roane, what is it?” Gigi asked.

  “Yeah, Roane,” Annette said, slowly rising to her feet. “What is it?”

  He tilted the cup and let Gigi take a whiff, holding it away and warning her with a soft “Careful.”

  I stood for a whiff, too. He barely let me close enough to smell anything, but Gigi nodded, and said, “Almonds.”

  I tried again. “No, hazelnut. Her favorite.”

  Roane stood staring at Annette like she’d grown another head.

  I glanced over my shoulder to make sure she hadn’t.

  “You drank half the cup,” he said, astonished.

  “Yeah. It’s my cup. What was I supposed to do with it? Sing it a lullaby?” When he only stared, she exploded into a full-blown meltdown. “Oh my God. What? Am I going to die?” She backed away, panting as the blood drained from her face. “I’m going to die, aren’t I? Call 9-1-1! Call 9-1-1!” She grabbed her chest and fell back against the door.

  I hurried to her. “Annette!” I looked at Roane. “What did she drink?”

  He blinked as though he couldn’t believe it and said softly, “Cyanide.”

  Serinda walked into the kitchen. “Is everything okay back here?”

  “Nannette drank cyanide,” Gigi said, and I was a bit taken aback by her aplomb.

  Realization dawned for my bestie. She turned an accusatory glare on me. “Defiance Dayne. You brought me this coffee.”

  “What? I didn’t put cyanide in your coffee, Nannette. Why would I put cyanide in your coffee?”

  “Something’s not right,” Roane said, sniffing again.

  “Yeah, no one is calling 9-1-1!” she shrieked. “What the hell?”

  I jumped for my cell and tapped
the phone icon.

  “I can’t breathe,” she said, clutching her throat. She sank to the ground and went limp, her gaze sliding past me, presumably as her life passed before her eyes.

  It was all very dramatic. So dramatic, in fact, that I was beginning to wonder about Roane’s statement. I turned back to him. “What do you mean something’s not right?”

  “This cup isn’t just laced with cyanide. It’s pure hydrogen cyanide. If this room were any hotter, it would turn into a gas and we’d all be killed.”

  Gigi and Serinda locked arms and eased away from him.

  “But there wasn’t even a trace of cyanide when we got it. I would’ve smelled it in the truck.”

  I woke up my phone and hit the internet. “Okay, Annette, are you nauseous? Dizzy? Having convulsions or slipping into a coma?”

  “No,” she said, so weak she could barely speak. “But it shouldn’t be long now.” She patted the air blindly before finding my face. “Defiance? Is that you?”

  I slapped her hand away and looked at Gigi. “What is going on?”

  Sadly, Gigi was no help. She stood in a stupor, shaking her head slightly.

  “Annette,” I said, slapping her hand away again, “if you were dying from cyanide poisoning, you’d be foaming at the mouth or having seizures.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. If nothing else, you’d be in a tremendous amount of pain.”

  She frowned at me. “Who says I’m not?”

  A knock sounded at the door. The coven members were beginning to show up.

  Roane took out a bucket from underneath the sink and began filling it with water.

  “Gigi, for real, what is going on?”

  “I don’t know, Defiance.” She exchanged a suspicious look with Serinda.

  “Wait,” Annette said, sitting up. “Am I dying or not?”

  “Gigi?” I asked. “Roane?”

  Again, they just looked at each other, but Gigi’s expression turned thoughtful.

  Frustrated, I walked to over to Roane. “Are you sure your sniffer isn’t on the fritz?”

  “My sniffer?” he asked, totally offended. Once the bucket was full, he took the cup and poured the contents of Annette’s cup into it.

  “Will that neutralize it?”

  “It’ll dilute it enough to where I can pour it down the sink. Dilution is the solution of pollution.”

  “Ah. Handy. But how did it get there? Annette could’ve been killed.”

  “Or worse,” Annette said, brushing herself off as she stood.

  I wasn’t sure what would be worse, but okay.

  “Who is doing this?” She glanced at each one of us. “Who wants me dead?” When another knock sounded, this one louder, she gave up with a saucy humph and went to the door.

  “Should I even ask what’s going on?” Serinda said.

  Gigi took her aside to fill her in on all the near poisonings while I went to the door. For the rest of the afternoon, Serinda looked at Annette with that same curious suspicion Gigi had been throwing her way. Even as the coven filed in, sometimes three at a time, Serinda’s gaze rarely wavered off Annette.

  Did they think she had something to do with the poisonings? She didn’t. I would swear under oath to that, but who did? Someone seemed to want us all dead, and perhaps that was the key to finding the motive.

  Again, I had to ask: What would the person doing this have to gain by our deaths? If many experts were to be believed, there were only three things that drove murder: greed, lust, and power. Even if no one wanted Gigi’s seat in the coven, it still could’ve been power related. If a dark witch figured out Gigi’s granddaughter was a charmling, that would be more than enough motive to kill her, to ferret me out of the woodworks, but the odds of that were slim enough as to be almost nonexistent. Even I hadn’t known the truth, and I was the charmling.

  The true motive almost had to be greed, though I couldn’t discount lust entirely. Was someone obsessed with Gigi? Secretly in love with her? Didn’t want anyone else to have her? Or maybe they thought there had been something between Gigi and Roane.

  Still, greed was the most likely culprit. Money was the root and all. If Gigi and I both were to die, who would get her money? I made a mental note to check into that.

  Thirteen

  Sometimes I stand in the shower for ten minutes

  before I remember what I’m supposed to be doing.

  So, yes, your secrets are safe with me.

  —True fact

  I leaned over to Annette as we greeted new arrivals at the door. Since she knew them all now, she introduced me, her voice still shaky from her near-death experience, and reintroduced me to the ones I’d met at the luncheon a couple days earlier.

  “It would seem the coven now believes it’s okay to call me sarru. I wonder where they got that impression?” I looked over and stabbed Serinda with a vengeful glare.

  She ignored it. It happened.

  No one in particular had stood out when I’d researched the coven members that morning, but maybe meeting with them one on one would yield new information.

  We met in the great room, though with twenty-two members, there were hardly enough sitting spots. I insisted Gigi and Serinda get first dibs, then let the others find their own way. A couple brought chairs in from the dining room. Others stood. Roane hovered near the door, his gaze a thousand miles away as he leaned against the wall with one foot crossed over the other.

  Many a furtive glance meandered its way toward him from both the women in the group and two of the three male members. It seemed Roane was as much of an enigma to them as I was. But Gigi got her fair share of attention as well, with her spiked black hair and thick dark lashes.

  Minerva was the last to arrive. She gave us a quick update on Leo and took a spot near one of the massive front windows.

  When the entire group had shown up—quite the feat considering it was the middle of a workday—I stood and cleared my throat to get their attention. “Thank you all so much for coming.” The inner circle had already been briefed, so my next words would not surprise them. As for the rest… “First, I want to introduce you to Georgiana Bishop, Ruthie’s twin sister.”

  An audible gasp filled the air as every gaze landed on the new member. Of course, the inner circle knew the truth because they knew I’d brought her out of the veil and spent six months in a mystical coma as a result, but that information was far too delicate to entrust to the newer members.

  “She’s left her coven and is going to be taking Ruthie’s place among us.” I specifically used the word us to let them know we were all in this together, though I had yet to go to a sabbath.

  Gigi tore her gaze off of Annette and nodded to the ranks.

  “And for those of you who don’t know, I’m her grand-niece, Defiance. Not Sarru, despite what some would have you believe.”

  Their heads bowed ever so slightly regardless, as did Serinda’s. This was getting ridiculous.

  I rubbed my forehead, ignored the hint of a grin on Roane’s face, and charged ahead. “As you all know by now, Ruthie’s death was not an accident. She was poisoned, and we’re trying to get information that might help the authorities make an arrest. But first, I want you to know, no one here is a suspect.” I waited to gauge their reactions. Not only was no one surprised, no one was nervous in the least. Even Minerva, who defined the word. But they still could’ve unwittingly leaked information to the wrong person.

  “I’d like to talk to each of you individually, but you are under no obligation to do so.”

  A tiny woman in a bright-yellow headdress spoke first, her dark skin like glass, and I seriously wanted to know her skincare regimen. “It would be an honor, Sarru.”

  “Defiance, and thank you. But again, no one is under any obligation. I’ll be in the drawing room—because who has a freaking drawing room, amirite?—and you guys can decide who gets first dibs. Whoever needs to get back to work, maybe?”

  They nodded and glanced around
at each other.

  “I promise not to take up too much of your time.”

  Annette, Ruthie, and Serinda followed me. Roane trailed behind, intent on the conversations happening in the next room. It was like having a bug. He could hear everything. At least, I hoped he could.

  “I’ll get them something to snack on,” Annette said, going for her jacket.

  “No!” I said, far too loudly.

  Everyone stopped and looked at us.

  “I mean, you’re tired. And you almost died. Like seven times. Let’s let Minerva run to the store.” I motioned her over.

  She hopped up and hurried over, but Annette’s blatant gaping blindsided me. It would suggest I’d offended her.

  “Nette,” I said, trying to soften the sting. “Netters,” I added when she only glared. She crossed her arms over her chest, so I put my hands on her shoulders and tried to placate her. Not very hard, but… “Netterly, when you can learn to stop trying to poison everyone around you, you can go to the store, too. Until then, I think someone else should take up the mantle of provider. And no matter what comes into the house, Roane must check it out.” I said the last to Minerva.

  “I’m on it,” she said, heading for the door with my keys.

  “Are you forgetting something?” I asked her.

  She turned back, her hair hanging in dark tangles over her powder-blue coat, her expression blank.

  “Money?”

  “Oh.” She snorted. “Right.”

  I pointed to the purse sitting behind the front door, having no clue whose it was. Or if there was even money in it.

  “Here.” Annette reached into her back pocket and handed over the credit card. She gave Minerva a list, then ushered the first victim—volunteer—into the drawing room, which looked exactly like the great room, only smaller. Same black walls. Same wood floors. Same charcoal furniture. Gigi was totally goth, but like an elegant goth. Like if one were to put Leonardo da Vinci and Tim Burton in a blender.

  Gigi and Serinda sat on a settee close to the fireplace while Annette sat on the window seat, presumably give us some privacy, and Roane hung out by the archway. I only hoped the coven members didn’t feel like we were ganging up on them.

  The first coven member to come in was the stunning woman with the bright-yellow headdress. I hadn’t met her at the luncheon, so she wasn’t in the cove.