“What is it?” Lily asked. “Is this about Mr. Bill saying he’s interested in my grandmother? I mean, I’m not a huge fan, but I guess it’s Hettie’s life, and her choice, and—”
“Look!” I interrupted, pointing straight ahead. Next door to the B&B sat a local coffee shop, a little hut run by a caffeine addled wizard. “Just wait.”
We waited a few moments, Lily sending confused glances in my direction.
“Just wait,” I prompted her. “I have a thought.”
Finally, my thought appeared just as I’d suspected. Mr. Bill had popped next door to grab a coffee, and he was currently emerging with a piping hot Caffeine Cup, the lid still off as smoke curled to the sky. He paused for a moment to add creamer.
I pointed him out. “Notice anything odd about this scene?”
Lily surveyed the layout before us. “Is that…?”
“You’re seeing what I’m seeing, then?”
“That’s Mr. Bill. Walking around without a cane.” Lily turned to me. “He’s not crippled at all.”
We watched as a woman with a baby strapped to her chest nearly swung into him. He nimbly jumped out of the way, somehow managing not to spill the piping hot liquid all over them both.
“What is he?” Lily gasped. “Who is he? Even I don’t have that much agility.”
“Exactly.”
“What if he’s lying about everything? What if he’s using some sort of spell to make himself all old and suspicious when, really, he was after the book this whole time?”
“The whole reason I pulled you out here in the first place,” I said, my voice rising in agitation, “is because there’s no way he could’ve overheard me talking to Hettie about him. I mean, if he truly was almost deaf. We were whispering.”
“When I interviewed him, he had to ask me to repeat myself a hundred times,” Lily said, understanding dawning on her. “That creep! He is putting on an act. Even I couldn’t hear what Hettie was saying when you two were talking. There’s no way he should’ve been able to, either.”
I bit my lip, watching as Mr. Bill re-discovered his limp the closer he came to the B&B. “Don’t give any sign that we’re suspicious,” I warned. “Let’s find out more about him before we give him any indication we’re onto him.”
“Maybe he’s a spy.” Lily looked to me with raised eyebrows. “Or am I taking this way too far?”
“At this point, I’m willing to believe anything,” I said. “Until we find out, don’t say a word.”
Mr. Bill approached the entrance, and Lily and I broke away, pretending to examine the flowers out front.
“Any luck?” he asked us in a croaking old voice. “Any thoughts on who might’ve dunnit?”
Lily and I exchanged a quick look. “Unfortunately, no,” I admitted. “Midge asked us to gather some flowers for the dinner bouquets since we seemed to have hit a dead end.”
“What’s that you said?” he crooned, holding a hand to his ear. “Dinner croquet?”
Lily gestured toward the flowers, miming cutting them, gathering them up, and sticking them in a vase. “Go on inside,” she said, waving him onward. “See you at dinner.”
As he hobbled up the front steps, I had to turn my face away so I didn’t reveal my incredulous expression. His act was a good one—up until the moment he’d let it drop and gave us a glimpse into a much younger, much more spry Mr. Bill than he wanted us to see.
“I’m going to see if Hettie knows anything about him,” Lily says. “Maybe she’ll have a few thoughts.”
“She’ll love being involved,” I said with an eyeroll. “Knowing your grandmother, she’ll volunteer to go on a date with him to get more information.”
There was a long pause as Lily and I surveyed one another.
At the same time, we both shook our heads. “Nah,” we said in unison.
“What’s too dangerous for me?” Hettie asked, popping up behind the sunflowers. “And who do y’all want me to date?”
“Nobody,” Lily said quickly. “Forget about it.”
“I got major hex appeal,” Hettie said, popping one hip out and flaunting a leg. “I got dinner reservations in ten minutes. You want me to have company or not?”
Chapter 6
Our plan wasn’t a great one, but, still, it was a plan.
Dinner was set to begin in eight minutes. Hettie would ask Mr. Bill to be her dinner companion and attempt to get a read on exactly how old and frail he truly was.
Meanwhile, Lily and I were heading up to interview the honeymooners. I would stay behind and interview Mr. Husband-with-a-rap-sheet while Lily invited the wife to dinner. We’d get them separated and hopefully discover the discrepancies in their earlier stories, if there were any to find.
The historian would be down at dinner as well, but I’d almost ruled him out at this point. If he’d truly stolen the spellbook, he should have already been gone. He knew the value of it, and he wouldn’t have hung around waiting to get caught.
If we were lucky, something—or someone—would break, and we would be on our way to recovering the spellbook and alerting the Rangers to a thief. Lily had gotten ahold of Ranger X, and he was on his way over here to help with the questioning. He hadn’t alerted the rest of the Rangers—not yet—at Midge’s request.
Speaking of Midge, she’d ducked out of sight for the last few interviews and hovered in the back of the kitchen. She’d been hard to pin down all afternoon, and I was still trying to decipher if it was embarrassment keeping her in hiding, or something more. If we didn’t get a lead at dinner, we might have to take a closer look at the innkeeper.
“Do you hear that?” Lily whispered. “Is someone crying?”
I stopped in place on the stairwell, hearing the sound, too. A faint gasp for air followed by sounds of gentle sobs. I pointed upward, and Lily nodded.
A few more steps around the corner, and we found our mystery crier—Louise, the female half of the honeymooning couple. She looked startled to see us, though she didn’t bother to hide her red eyes or the glitter of tears on her cheek.
“Louise?” Lily asked, softly, “is something wrong?”
“Of course it is!” Her shoulders shook. “We’re arguing on what’s supposed to be a romantic getaway.”
“About what?” I asked. “Can we help?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. It’s stupid little things—I’m just…I’m upset. We came here to relax and have a good time together, and we can’t seem to keep from saying the wrong thing to each other.”
I sat down next to her. “I’m really sorry.”
“It’s fine, I just…” She sniffed and looked at me. “I really love him, you know? It’s so frustrating to be arguing all the time; we just can’t seem to get on the same page.”
“How long have you been married?” Lily sat down, too. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Three years.” She looked up at us. “We’re not always like this, you know. My husband is a very sweet man, and I know he loves me too…”
We waited as Louise paused for another round of quiet tears. “I’m just boring you guys. I know you’re busy looking into—what is it that you’re looking into?”
“Never mind,” Lily said quickly, meeting my gaze over Louise’s head. “Let me buy you some dinner. We can chat, and…it’ll be nice. Come on—it sounds like you need a girls’ night.”
Louise looked unsure. “I don’t want to interrupt you ladies.”
“Really,” Lily said. “We’ve hit a brick wall anyway, and I’m starving.”
“I’m going to head on up,” I said, as the three of us stood. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
Lily made meaningful eye contact with me before gently resting a hand on Louise’s shoulder and guiding her downstairs. I understood the message loud and clear: find Louise’s husband and get my questions over with.
After the two women had left, I turned and continued my trek to the second floor. I wondered if, maybe, part of the couple’s argumen
ts had stemmed from the fact that Louise’s husband had taken a book that didn’t belong to him. Or, more likely, he was feeling irritable and on edge because we were closing in on him.
As I pondered this, I opted for one more detour, stopping by my room to outfit myself with a bit of defense—just in case.
I opted for the Stunner I’d packed—a nifty little wand passed out by my boss that acted somewhat like a human Taser. Except it was a hundred times more efficient and, of course, made with magic.
A witch had to watch her back around here, I thought, tucking it into the pocket of my jeans. No telling what a cornered thief might do if he or she suspected that Lily and I were closing in on them. It didn’t hurt to be prepared.
A sudden flash of movement from near my suitcase sent my pulse skyrocketing as a whirl of dark gray shot toward the door. V moved so fast he appeared to be a wisp of smoke, though it took several minutes for my heart rate to slow after he left the room. Apparently, this case was getting to me more than I’d thought. I wasn’t normally spooked easily—and definitely not by cats.
“V, come back here,” I called, lazily. “You know it’s not sanitary for you to be in the dining room at dinner.”
Of course, there was no response. After all, I was yelling to a cat.
Sighing, I double-checked my Stunner and eased into the hallway, closing and locking the door behind me. A sense of unease set in as I inched through the hallway, looking for signs of the cat who had apparently adopted me as some sort of human companion.
“V.” I hissed. “Get back here, you crazy cat. Why don’t you lounge around and be cranky like the rest of your species?”
V still hadn’t appeared by the time I’d done a quick check of the rest of the inn. I glanced in the dining room, found everyone eating dinner as they should be, and scoured the entryway. I peeked outside, but found nothing.
Eventually, I figured the cat had either made his way back up to my room, or he was hanging out on the second floor—which was where I needed to be, anyway. If I couldn’t find V, at least I could try and find Louise’s husband. I wanted to question him before Lily and Louise finished dinner.
“Hello, Dale?” I called as my feet brought me to a stop outside their room on the second floor. I used the name Lily had given me and knocked once on the door. “Dale? It’s Ainsley. Just wondering if I could ask you a couple really quick questions.”
No answer.
“I promise, this will only take two seconds,” I said, leaning closer, surprised to find the door cracked open just a hair. “If you could just—”
At that moment, the door creaked open another few inches. I glanced down, found one furry paw peeking outside, and nearly had a heart attack.
“How the heck did you get here?” I bent over and scooped up V, one of the first times I’d ever held the cat, and looked mystified into his eyes. “Was the door open when you got here? Did you sneak inside, you little rascal? Did you find Dale?”
I hesitated, not sure what I wanted the answer to be. I needed to talk to him, but what if Dale’s rap sheet was just the start of his problems? What if I’d stumbled on—
“Crap, V! Get back here!” I muttered as the cat leapt from my arms and flung his body at the door. The honeymoon suite sat fully exposed as the door flew open, banging against the wall. The cat landed gently on the floor, then streaked the rest of the way through the room, hopping up on the bed and curling up on the pillow.
“Can’t you do that in your own room?” I asked. “As if taking over my room isn’t enough, you need to take over this one, too?”
I stepped over the threshold, unable to help myself from scanning its contents. The room was a mess—clothes thrown everywhere, the closet partly ajar, the bathroom light still glowing around the closed door.
“I guess they fight by throwing things,” I murmured, inching my way further into the room. “You’re in so much trouble, V. I don’t know what’s worse: leaving you here, or bringing you back with me. But I don’t want Dale and Louise to find an evil furball on their pillow, looking like a scheming—”
I stopped abruptly as I stubbed my toe on an open suitcase. Jackets and shirts had been flung so thoroughly over it I hadn’t noticed the lump on the floor. Hopping around on one foot, I bit my lip and struggled to keep my yelps of pain to a minimum.
A few more hops, however, and I’d gotten my other leg tangled in a discarded blanket, and I clattered to the floor, landing hard inside the suitcase.
“Ow!” Seeing as I’d fallen into a suitcase, I’d expected to land on a soft pile of clothes.
However, that was not the case. Something hard and painfully square—with very sharp edges—had broken my fall. As I lifted my aching body from the pile of junk, I glared down at the culprit, surprised to find the very thing I’d been looking for all along.
I’d fallen, quite literally, onto the Russian spellbook that’d started this whole fiasco.
No doubt about it, there were little alphabet-like characters on the front that made as much sense to me as hieroglyphics, though I recognized them to be Cyrillic. This had to be Midge’s book.
I picked it up, the hairs prickling on the back of my neck as I studied the old, forgotten text. The pages felt soft beneath my fingers, almost malleable, and some of the words were smeared as I scanned through them. Sure enough, dog-eared on page eighteen, was the spell to bring sunflowers to life.
Without a doubt, I’d identified my thief.
So, where was he? If Dale had taken off, why had he left the book?
I jumped up, spinning toward the bathroom door and surveying the glow of light through fresh eyes.
I’d been wrong.
Dale hadn’t left.
“Put the book down,” a shaky voice spoke from behind me, “and nobody will get hurt.”
Chapter 7
I spun around, raising my hands in the air. “Louise?”
“Throw me the thing in your pants,” she said, her fingers trembling as she gestured to my weapon. “Now. Please.”
I reached behind me for the Stunner and gently rolled it across the floor. “I’m unarmed. I just want to talk; I’m not even supposed to be working, so I’d greatly appreciate it if you didn’t kill me.”
“Kill you?” she murmured faintly, looking weak at the thought. “I’m not going to kill you! I just borrowed the stupid book is all, and I didn’t want you to shoot me.”
Louise had picked up the Stunner, but she could barely hold it in her hands without wobbling all over the place.
“You did what?”
“I borrowed the stupid book, and I know I shouldn’t have, but…I never meant for anyone to notice.”
“Louise, relax. Please put the weapons down so I can understand what happened.”
“Fine, but don’t…blast me with your magic, or whatever. I know your type—you magical people.”
I shot her a confused look. “Obviously you’re one of us if you’re on The Isle.”
“By marriage,” she said, a shadow of insecurity flickering across her face. “I went through Orientation. I inherited the basic magic sets, but what they don’t tell you in class is how completely inferior it feels to be adopted into this culture.”
“You’re human,” I said, understanding. “You used to be, anyway. And now, you’ve opted to join us.”
She nodded. “They told me during Orientation that I’d be able to learn magic—at least, some of it. But I can’t even turn on a light with a spell!”
“Not all of us paranormals have some great power, anyway,” I said. “It doesn’t matter; it’s not a requirement to be part of this world. Just like humans aren’t all tall and beautiful and smart. We’re all different.”
“My husband is a genius,” she said. “He can grow trees and wash dishes and break curses. What can I do? Do you think I can so much as turn on the faucet?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m sure your husband loves you for who you are. He married you when you had no magical powers,
after all.”
“Maybe, but... but—” she stopped abruptly. “But I don’t feel like I’m good enough for him.”
“Why did you take the spellbook, Louise?”
Her fingers shook. “I don’t have to answer that.”
“I can help you if you cooperate,” I said. “I’m sure Midge will understand you didn’t mean to cause her any harm. Just talk to me.”
“I don’t want to be in trouble,” she said, her voice ragged. “I just wanted to learn a simple spell to impress my husband. I love him so much, I really do, and...” A sob wracked her chest.
She raised her hands to clutch her face, and in the process, let the Stunner drop to the floor. I leapt forward and caught it before the thing could misfire and hurt someone.
“Come here, Louise,” I said, leading her to the bed. I inched the door shut with my foot and sat next to her. “Take a breath and tell me what happened.”
“We’ve been fighting left and right,” she said, now fully sobbing. “I just want to go back to the way things were. This honeymoon was supposed to bring us closer than ever, but I made a mistake. I saw Midge practicing out front with the spellbook—she made these beautiful sunflowers come to life before my eyes.”
“Then Midge came inside and set the book down behind the counter, and you saw your opportunity.”
“I swear I just wanted to borrow the thing for a few hours and learn to bloom flowers. I meant to return it, and then...”
“And then what?”
“I tried a love spell.”
“A love spell?!” I winced. “Those are incredibly difficult for even advanced wizards.”
“I know, and my poor husband...”
“Where is Dale?”
Louise sniffled, stood, and then slumped forward across the room. She reached the bathroom door and took a deep, shuddering breath. “Please don’t judge me, Ainsley.”
“Let’s see him.”
She cracked open the door, peeked through, and sucked in a deep breath. “He’s there. He’s been in there for hours and won’t come out. I had to lock him in here because I panicked, and I didn’t know what to do. I intended to look for an antidote after dinner.”
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