by Amy Boyles
I aimed for a parking spot right up front and hit the brakes. My truck rumbled to a stop just as Liam exited the front door beside a tall, lithe blonde woman with deep lines in her face—smoker’s lines or lines from living a hard life.
Liam saw me and pointed. Boy, did he look rough. My heart lurched at the sight of him—red, puffy eyes, a red nose, rumpled shirt and pants.
As soon as I exited the truck, I wrapped him in a hug. “Oh, Liam, I’m so sorry about today.”
He shook his head. “It’s okay. Clem, meet Hannah, Sadie’s mom.”
I shook her hand; it was as cold as the look in her eyes. “How do you do?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Not well. If you ever lose a daughter, you’ll understand.”
Wow. I had said the wrong thing before—plenty of times—but I never expected the first meeting with Sadie’s mom to go so horribly wrong.
I rubbed my arm nervously. “It was a stupid thing to say, sorry.”
She sniffed. “I apologize. This isn’t something that I ever expected to be dealing with.”
I knew that Sadie and her mother had a tenuous relationship. Had her mother gotten angry about something and pushed Sadie in that concrete? Let’s face facts, I had no idea who had killed Sadie, so in my opinion, just about everyone looked like a suspect.
Liam glanced off into the distance, his eyes seeing but not seeing. “She looks beautiful. It’s going to be a nice funeral.”
I ached to speak to Liam about everything that I’d learned about Sadie so far, but he wasn’t in any shape to deal with it. His socks didn’t even match.
“Liam, why don’t you go home and get some rest? I’ll take care of Mrs. March.”
“Call me Hannah,” she insisted.
Liam looked at her. Guilt was etched all over his face. “I hate to abandon you.”
“Nonsense,” she replied, smiling now. “I’ll be in perfectly capable hands with Clementine.”
Liam got into his pickup and drove off, leaving us alone. “Would you like to grab a cup of coffee?” I asked her.
Hannah snorted. “You don’t get lines on your face like mine from drinking coffee.” She arched a brow. “Know of any bars that are open?”
I smiled. “Well, in fact I do.”
A few minutes later Hannah and I sat in a booth at Shane’s. Shane was serving that afternoon, and he shot me a quirked brow when I entered.
I waved. “I know it’s early for me.”
He winked. “You come in whenever you want.” He built my appletini just the way I liked it while Hannah ordered a Jameson whiskey neat with a water back.
We sat and Hannah immediately started talking. “I suppose you thought that you’d never meet me.”
I nearly snorted appletini out of my nose. I grabbed a few napkins and dabbed my face. “I’m sorry?”
She smirked. “Don’t think that I don’t know what Sadie said about me.”
“Truth is, she never said anything about you. The most she ever told me was that the two of you didn’t get along.”
Hannah sipped her whiskey, her glittering gaze pinned on me. “My relationship to this town is complicated. There are many here who hate me, and so when I could, I left. Sadie stayed on, but we had to make it look like we had parted ways.”
What in the world had happened? “I’m not gonna pretend that I understand a lick of what you’re saying.”
She folded her hands. “I’ve been sick. I don’t suppose you know that.”
I shook my head. “No idea.”
“My treatments cost a lot of money.” Hannah leaned back in her chair. “You have to understand, when I abandoned this town, I left with nothing, not one penny. I think that was the beginning of my illness. That’s when it started, but it didn’t progress for years. It lay dormant, and when the doctors discovered the cancer, they told me it would be expensive to treat.”
Hannah stared at the wall behind me, her eyes taking on a faraway look. “I told Sadie, of course, and she took it upon herself to do whatever she could to take the extra stress from my life.”
Now the pieces started snapping into place. “She gave you the money.” My money, I wanted to say. Well, technically our money, but at this point I considered it mine.
Hannah nodded. “And a lot of it, too. I needed more than I ever could have imagined, and Sadie always helped me out. I would ask where she got it from, and she just said that she had taken out a loan.”
“Mmm,” I said.
Hannah’s face pinched with sadness. “I hated the idea that my own child had taken out a loan for me, but I couldn’t stop her from doing it, you know?”
I licked my lips. “I’m afraid that Sadie wasn’t completely honest with you.”
“No?”
“She was taking out a loan, but it wasn’t from a bank. She found, let’s just say…some shady men who don’t like it when the bills aren’t paid.”
Hannah looked horror-struck. “You mean she took money from the wizard mafia?”
Now it was my turn to look horrified. I dropped my voice to a whisper. “You know about them?”
“Of course,” she snarled. “Everyone does.”
“I didn’t.”
Hannah pursed her lips. “That’s because anyone can see that you don’t want to have a thing to do with your magic.”
“I resent that. And why the heck can everyone tell that about me?”
Hannah flicked her hand at me. “Shh. Keep your voice down.” She sipped her whiskey and sucked on her teeth. “I had no idea that Sadie had done such a foolish thing.”
“Not only that,” I added, “but she put our business up against the loan, and now they want twenty grand or they’re taking my business away.”
Hannah clutched my hand. “I’m so sorry. So very, very sorry. I hate that you’ve gotten wrapped up in this.”
I hiked a shoulder to my ear. “What can I do about it now? Nothing.”
“If I had known that, I never would have taken the money. I would have come down here and handed it back.”
I shook my head. “Please don’t say that. But are you well?”
Her lips tipped up into a sad smile. “It’s the only good thing that’s come out of this—that Sadie got to hear me say the words, ‘I’m healed.’ Have been for a year.”
“A year?”
Hannah nodded. “Oh yes, that’s when my treatments stopped.”
But Sadie had still been withdrawing money recently. Why, if Hannah was cured?
“Were bills still coming in?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No, they were done. All paid for.”
Why was Sadie still borrowing from the mafia?
“I’m sorry, dear,” Hannah said. “If I could take it all back, I would.”
My heart broke for her. “I’m curious.”
Hannah ironed a napkin flat with her fingers. “About what?”
“What did you do?” I leaned in. “You know, to make the entire town turn against you?”
“Oh, I—”
“There she is, Sheriff! There’s the woman who attacked us!”
That voice, the one that interrupted Hannah, I knew it well enough that I didn’t have to turn and look to see whose ugly face it belonged to, but I did so anyway.
I glanced over my shoulder to see Tuney Sluggs standing beside good old truck driver Buddy and his nasty friend, Buddy Junior.
Buddy Junior, the first guy that I’d knocked out, pointed an oil-stained finger at me. “That’s the woman who attacked me! I demand you arrest her right now!”
Chapter 16
Tuney Sluggs crossed over and wiped a hand down the stubble peppering his chin. He wore his uniform, complete with cowboy boots. There was no bathrobe and slippers today.
“That’s her,” Buddy sneered. “She did something to me and my friend—attacked us somehow, and the next thing I knew, I was knocked out.”
I rose. “Chief Sluggs, I’m afraid this is some sort of misunderstanding. I don’t know
what that man is talking about.”
Buddy Junior stomped his boot on the floor. “It was assault, plain and simple. Now, arrest her.”
Shane came out from around the bar. “Whoa, Chief. What’s going on here?”
The chief glanced at the two men. “They came into my office complaining that they were assaulted in your bar.”
Shane glanced from Sluggs to me and back. “I was here that night. So was Clementine, but from what I understand, another woman knocked both of them out.”
Buddy Junior shook his head. “Wasn’t another woman. Was her.”
What, did he always forget to use pronouns and speak in caveman? If I ever doubted that using my power on him had been a bad idea, all that indecision was washed away simply because Buddy Junior. couldn’t even form a simple sentence.
Sluggs placed his hands on his hips and sighed. “Clem, what have you got to say for yourself?”
My gaze cut to Junior. The sneer on his face mingled with the look of triumph glowing in his eyes angered me. He looked happy that he had returned to the scene of the crime and managed to catch me, a woman, who had wounded his tender ego.
“What do I have to say?” I repeated to Sluggs.
Shane stared at me, and I could feel his gaze boring a hole in the side of my head. Okay, so more people than I ever imagined were magical in Peachwood, but that stopped at Shane. He wasn’t magical—I just knew it, and I didn’t want him to know that I was. End of story.
“Yes,” Sluggs said. “What do you say to these men’s allegations?”
All of them stared at me, even Hannah from the booth. The pressure to tell the truth weighed on me, but so did the pressure to protect myself.
“I will tell you what I told Shane, except I’ll give more details.” I cleared my throat and lifted my chin defiantly. “These two men started hitting on a woman in the bar. Buddy here”—I pointed at him—“was trying to get her to take a look at his rig, if you know what I mean. They kept pestering her and finally she had enough and she punched them both out.”
Buddy shook his head. “It wasn’t that lady. It was you. Now, Officer,” he directed to Sluggs, “I want her arrested for assault. You don’t get to go around hitting people and get away with it.”
Shane stepped in. “Sluggs, you can’t be serious. You know Clem. She wouldn’t do anything like that.”
Sluggs scratched his chin. “It seems to me some mighty strange things have been going on with you lately, Clem. You came into my office talking about Sadie and money. You don’t think Sadie’s death was an accident, and now I’m hearing that you’ve been going around punching men in the face, knocking them out.”
“For goodness’ sake, I’m below average height,” I said, which was true. I was only five-foot-three inches tall. “Do you really think I knocked out this guy who’s six feet?”
“What I think is—I might have to relook at Sadie. You might be more involved than I thought.”
Wait. What just happened? Chief Sluggs was supposed to walk in here and believe me when I said that truck driver was no good. He wasn’t supposed to turn around and somehow find a way to pin Sadie’s murder—a fact he didn’t even buy, by the way—on me.
Buddy Junior snarled. “I want this woman arrested, Chief.”
I did not think so. This man was not about to walk into my town with that stupid look on his face and come all up in my friend’s bar and think that he was about to get me arrested for assault.
I folded my arms and stared at Buddy, his friend, and Sluggs. “No way. I am not going anywhere. First of all, Chief, you don’t even believe that Sadie was murdered. You deemed her death accidental. I don’t know how in the ever-living universe a grown woman falls into fresh concrete and winds up dead without the help of another person, but somehow, in Peachwood, that’s what happens.”
“Clem,” Sluggs started to protest, but I kept on going. I had experienced one crap storm of a day, and I was not about to stop cutting off heads now.
Not literally, obviously.
“And you.” I turned my ire on Buddy. “You walked in here the other night all full of swagger, and you hit on that poor girl and wouldn’t leave her alone. You practically picked her up by the waist and was about drag her off to your rig when I stepped in.” I flared out my arms. “Okay, so yes, I may have been the one who punched you, I admit it. But you deserved it.” I shoved my finger close to his nose. “There are words for what you were about to do to that girl, and if anyone deserves to be arrested, it’s you and your sorry rear end, not me. No how. No way.”
I stopped talking long enough to breathe and waited for Chief Sluggs to drag me down to the pokey.
Instead, clapping came from behind. Hannah March sat in the booth applauding me. “Well said, Clementine. If no one is going to stand up for us, we have to stand up for ourselves.”
Chief Sluggs looked downright scared. I do not think he was used to women getting in his face. That probably meant he hardly ever came out from behind his desk to do any real work—hence the accidental death declaration for Sadie.
I glared at Buddy. “Let me tell you, there is an army of me’s in the world—an entire battalion of us ready and able to take you and your sorry rear-end down any chance we get. You mess with us and next time, you won’t just get a little knocked out, you’ll end up getting blown into next week. What do you think about them apples?”
Buddy’s face paled. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Just to make sure that he knew I wasn’t a woman he wanted to tangle with, I leaned in and spoke.
“If you mess up again, I will find you. There is an entire network of us. You don’t know who we are, but we’re always watching—just like I did the other night.”
He backed away. “Never mind, Officer,” he said with a thick coat of dread in his voice. “Never mind at all. I got the wrong woman. This one didn’t do a thing—not one dang thing to me. So you can just forget all about it.” He slapped his friend on the arm. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I ain’t about to mess with that lady.”
I watched them go, a self-satisfied smirk plastered on my face. When they were out the door, my gaze flicked back to Sluggs, who scowled at me.
He wagged a finger in my face. “Seems to me a little girl like you couldn’t down those two men. I don’t know what you’re up to, but sooner or later I’m going to find out.”
“Wait a minute, Chief,” Shane said.
“What’s that?” Sluggs replied.
Shane hiked his chin toward the exit. “Seems to me that Clem just did you a favor. If those guys were up to no good, as she said, then you don’t want them in this town and I don’t want them in my bar.”
“They were hitting on a woman way too hard. Buddy there didn’t know when to back off,” I said.
Sluggs scrubbed a hand down his face. “I’m still watching you.”
He cocked one eye really wide as if that was supposed to scare me. Little did Chief Sluggs know, but whenever I wanted a good laugh, I imagined him strolling into work in his bathrobe and cowboy boots—that image alone helped my mood every gosh-darn time.
No lie.
Sluggs squinted at me. He retreated a step. “You be careful, Clementine Cooke.”
Okay, how the heck did we get here?
Shane started to protest, but the chief waved him off. “I’ll be seeing you later, Shane.”
With that, Tuney Sluggs left the bar, and I stood staring at him, dumbfounded. “How did I suddenly become the bad person in all of this?”
Shane shot me a sympathetic look. “Don’t worry about him. I’m sure in a few days he’ll forget all about it.” He smiled, revealing the dimple in his right cheek. It made him look so sexy, and suddenly I couldn’t wait for our date.
I felt heat rise in my cheeks. “Thank you for standing up for me.”
“Hey, how could I not?” he said, striding back to the bar. “We’re all in this together, aren’t we? We’ve got to take care of each other in Peachwood.”
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“We sure do.”
From behind, Hannah cleared her throat. Oh wow, I’d gotten so sucked in by Shane’s dimple that I’d almost forgotten all about Sadie’s mother.
As Shane took his place behind the bar, I squeezed back into the booth. “Sorry about that. I want you to know that I don’t usually have the police eyeing me like a criminal.”
Hannah scoffed. “Old Tuney Sluggs was in power when I lived here. That old coot thinks he owns the world. He’s either all together or he’s the exact opposite.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “And most of the time he can’t figure out if he’s supposed to be ironing his phone or charging his pants.”
I laughed. “Please, don’t make me cry tears right now.”
Hannah took the last sip of her whiskey and set her tumbler down with a thud. “When I buried all the spells, Tuney had an uproar on his hands. The problem was, he didn’t know why everyone in town was fighting one another.”
“Wait a minute.” I lifted my palm, gesturing for her to stop. “You buried the spells?”
These had to be the same ones that Rufus and I had searched through.
She glanced at her glass, seeming ashamed. “There were a lot more of our kind here at the time. But lots of folks were doing bad things to one another—making it so that their enemies couldn’t find their eyeglasses when they woke up, or causing their neighbor’s spells to backfire. There wasn’t unity, and I was tired of dealing with it. It was just like a whole bunch of wizards and witches had nothing better to do, so they would prank each other all day long. It was exhausting not knowing when a spell would blow up in my face or when I’d step outside and my grass would suddenly become a bed of biting weeds.”
I stared at her, mouth slack. “That is unsettling.”
She nodded. “So I hid all the spells. Every single one of them. It was hard and it took all the strength I had, but I gathered each and every one and scattered them to the outskirts of town.”
The spells that Rufus had found. Those were the ones Hannah had sent there. “And everyone got angry about it?”
“Because they couldn’t see them. I magicked the spells so that they wouldn’t be found.”
