“That’s something that’s kind of bothering me,” Patricia said. “Whoever did this had to know we’d be able to spot the fake mark, right?”
Archie shook his head sadly. “According to Jack, the mark was quite convincing. It took a spell to determine whether or not it was magical.”
“Well, yes, but...” Then Patricia nodded. “I think I see. A non-witch might not know that we could tell the difference.”
“Or maybe a witch would know, but assumed we wouldn’t be allowed to see the body to verify the mark. Another possibility is that the mark wasn’t for the council at all. Rather, the marks leading to Archie were there for regular law enforcement.”
“But eventually even the regulars will find out that mark is a fake. If they do their job properly, at least.”
Archie took a deep breath, just as the doors opened to the annex and Crystal stalked out. He spoke hurriedly. “Maybe they knew that too. Maybe they don’t really want me to go down for this. Just maybe someone is trying to delay me on the Tomlin case. Maybe someone wants him to burn.”
That statement brought up a lot of questions in my mind. Unfortunately, there was no time to ask them.
Crystal had arrived.
WE GOT OUR WALKING papers after that. Not that I expected anything different from the woman. Witches had rights, dang it. And according to Patricia, who I was quite sure knew her stuff, we had the right to be there. Just as much right as Crystal did, in fact.
Of course, our wonderful leader didn’t appreciate being reminded of that little rule. So she did what she could to bypass it. She separated us from Archie. Not much we could do about that. And no real reason to stay after that, either.
A fact Crystal knew all too well.
I’d be calling Gaston’s personal phone later on today. Once Crystal had cooled her heels a bit. The woman couldn’t be there twenty-four-seven, could she? We’d do our best to time our next visit during her off hours.
Although, with Archimedes Mineheart in custody, those might be few and far between. I wouldn’t put it past the woman to sleep on her office sofa.
Anything to spite me and my family.
The sooner we wrapped this dang thing up, the better. And once we found that spell journal, that shouldn’t be too hard to do.
We sat in the small parking lot for a minute, each of us lost in our thoughts. Finally, Sapphire broke. “So, are you all up for a side trip on the way home?”
She had opted for the backseat to give Patricia shotgun position. I turned to where I had both of my companions in view. “Where did you have in mind?”
“I’m thinking we pay a visit to Daniel Davis, attorney at law.”
“That’s the young upstart that wanted to be a partner in Archie’s firm, isn’t it?” Patricia asked thoughtfully.
“That’s the one. And I can think of a few reasons he’d want Archie out of the way too. For one, the caseload at the firm isn’t nearly light enough for one attorney to handle. Merlin will be scrambling to get things postponed and squared away. He could use another attorney at hand. A fact that Mr. Davis might be trying to drive home.”
She had a point, at that. But it bothered me all the same. Something just wasn’t right here. I kept feeling like there was something big that I was missing. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
Patricia looked over at me. “It’s as good of a place as any, right?”
The others worked their magic as I drove us back to Oak Hill. Well, technological magic, that is. As it turned out, Daniel Davis, attorney at law wasn’t such an easy man to find. But you just can’t hide from Google these days. Not that he was trying to hide, mind you. Quite the opposite. He just wasn’t very good at it.
I followed the directions Patricia read off to me, and we ended up parked across the street from a hole in the wall building featuring a tire shop with a one-car bay off to the side. The neighborhood wasn’t the greatest either. Oak Hill was a pretty town for the most part. This street? Not so much.
“You sure this is the right address?” I asked.
“That’s what it says on his social media profile.” Sapphire squinted out the window. “Looks like there’s an apartment over the tire shop. Could that be it?”
I raised an eyebrow. “If so, then the boy must have been counting hard on that partnership with the Minehearts.”
Sapphire reached for the door handle. “Wait a minute, sis. I think you need to sit this one out.”
She just looked at me. Yeah, I didn’t think that would go over well. But I had my reasons.
“Look, sis. Chances are really good that Davis did his homework on the Minehearts before approaching them. That homework probably included you. He’ll recognize you.”
“And your point?”
Patricia took over my argument for me. “We are far more likely to get useful information out of him if he doesn’t think we have ties to Arch.”
Sapphire didn’t look happy about it, but she finally gave us a terse nod. “Fine. Go ahead then, without me. I’ll just sit here twiddling my thumbs like I don’t have a care in the world.”
“You could do that,” I said slowly. “Or you could keep digging up dirt on Davis online.” My sister, unlike me, had the very latest of smart phones. Surfing the web on the road wasn’t an issue for her.
As she reached for her phone, Patricia and I climbed out of the car. Better get a move on before Sapphire changed her mind.
I knew my sister, and the research would only hold her for so long.
She had too much to lose in this.
Chapter 16
It took us almost reaching the tire shop before we saw the small door to the side with a hand-printed sign with an arrow. It read: Daniel Davis, Attorney at Law, Office Upstairs.
Very original. I hoped the man had a more professional version on order. Otherwise, I really didn’t think his career as a lawyer would get off to a great start.
Before we opened the door to the stairs, Patricia turned to me. “You willing to follow my lead on this one?”
I shrugged. “Why not? You are the one with the most experience in this kind of thing.”
“Good. Then whatever I say, just play along, all right?”
That got my curiosity up, but I nodded all the same.
The door at the top of the stairs and to the left held another hand-printed sign telling us that we had, indeed, reached our destination. My eyes, however, weren’t focused on the sign itself. Rather, my gaze focused on the small pentagram burned into the wood beside it. The symbol was tiny, but there was a faint magical glow to it.
I elbowed Patricia and motioned to it. A little smile came over her face, and she nodded. I had a funny feeling her plan just changed a bit.
Staring at the door, I was undecided. This was an office, right? So, was the protocol to just walk right in? Or was it still polite to knock?
Patricia ended up doing both. She reached to turn the knob, but it stayed firmly in place, locked. So she gave three light taps on the frosted glass of the door.
The frosting did its job well. We couldn’t make out details of the inside, but there was definite movement. Somewhat frenzied movement, too, I might add. I didn’t think Daniel Davis, Attorney at Law had very many visitors.
Just before the shadow reached the door, Patricia turned to me and in a louder voice than she usually used said, “I don’t know, sis. I still think we should try Mineheart Law.”
The shadow stopped moving. He was listening.
“We did try, remember? They turned us away. That firm is too swamped with cases to take on our little problem.”
“I know, but maybe we should give it another go? Maybe they could bring someone in to help us?”
Even with the delay for eavesdropping, he was still straightening his clip-on tie as he opened the door with a serious expression. Well, he was going for serious, I was pretty sure. It looked like he would break out in a huge grin at any moment.
Patricia was playing straight to the man�
�s heartstrings. Well, I say man. But he truly didn’t qualify for that term yet to me. How on earth did one so young get through all the schooling to become a lawyer? Was he some kind of prodigy or something? And if so, what the devil was he doing in a place like this?
Oh yeah, his firm of choice had turned him down.
“Please come in, ladies.” He held the door open for us. The inside of his office was just as impressive as the outside. Which is to say, it wasn’t.
There was an old metal desk with an office chair behind it that had actual duct tape on the arms to hold the meager stuffing in place. And in front of the desk were two tall-backed wooden kitchen chairs. The kind that were usually found at the curb on trash day.
Come to think about it, that might be how he outfitted his whole office. The only other pieces of furniture in the tiny little room were a metal filing cabinet behind and to the left of the desk, and a small bookcase to the right.
Even with the sparse furnishings, there wasn’t a lot of room left. Some of the items on that bookcase and desk, however, were very interesting. The man was either a witch or posing as one. I wanted to know which case was right.
I pulled a little magic and sent it his way. An elemental witch would feel it for what it was. He never batted an eye. Not an elemental, then. But he still could be a hedge witch. Sometimes they could hold genuine power too. Just look at our friend Lily. She was scary as heck.
Coming from me, that meant something.
“Please, have a seat, ladies, won’t you?” The boy was fairly begging. Like we were gonna take off running on him or something. Kind of made me wonder if that had happened to him before.
I looked at the offered chairs rather doubtfully. But they appeared to be clean enough, even if they were old and scarred to the high-heavens. We sat.
Patricia looked at me. “I’m still not sure you would be able to help us.” She turned her eyes to him. “We are witches, you see, and we need someone who is rather familiar with what we go through on a daily basis.”
Now the grin that the boy had been fighting broke through. “Then I’m your man all right. I’m a witch too!”
She gave him a look. “You are? You don’t look very witchy.”
His grin never faltered. “Well, neither do the two of you, to be honest. But I can sense the magic in you all the same.” Liar, liar, I thought. He hadn’t budged an inch when I’d sent that magic his way. What was this kid’s game, anyway? Was he really a witch or just a wannabe? There was a big difference between the two. “I’m a hedge witch, though. I’m pretty sure the two of you are elementals. Aren’t you?”
I sat up a little straighter. This next part would be tricky. A lot of people had heard of me. I was rather famous, even all the way over here in Oak Hill. Unfortunately, a lot of people also knew I was sister to the wife of Archimedes Mineheart. I didn’t want him knowing that last part.
Lucky for me, Patricia stepped in before I opened my big mouth and risked it. “My sister and I are elementals, yes. But we have nothing against hedge witches either. Brothers-in-arms in a way, aren’t we?”
“Absolutely.” I really don’t think his head could have nodded any more forcefully than it did without flying off his neck. “On the same side. And if you need help in the witch world, I’m your man.”
He did like that saying, didn’t he? I played dumb and just went with a doubtful look to Patricia. It was better to let her do the talking.
“Are you familiar with our ruling body?”
There went the nodding again. “The witches’ council? Of course. Are you in trouble with them?” For the first time, his confidence seemed to fade just a bit.
“No, not at all. Members of good standing all around here. But the council is thinking about adding a new by-law to our rules, and it’s one I’m not a fan of. I wanted to know if there was any legal way to stop them.” She hesitated, then started to stand. “You know, this is going to be a really big deal, I’m afraid. I think maybe we should keep trying with the Mineheart firm. No offense to you, but they are very well known for this kind of thing, you know.”
No nodding now. “I know. But they are also very selective in their clients. They have to be, with only two lawyers in the entire firm. They need to take on more hands on deck.”
“I agree one hundred percent.” She gave him a careful look. “Perhaps you should make yourself available to them? What with you being a witch, too, it would seem like the perfect partnership to me. And if you had the Minehearts behind you, I’d have a lot more confidence placing this matter in your hands.”
He glanced around the office like he was expecting someone to suddenly appear, watching or listening to our conversation. Paranoid much? “Just between the three of us, I’m working on that even as we speak. I’ve already had one meeting with their firm.”
Well, that was true enough. Not a meeting that had gone well for him. But a meeting all the same.
Leaning forward, he lowered his voice. Maybe he did think someone was listening in. But who? “I’m meeting with Merlin Mineheart this very afternoon. And get this, he called me. I’m really close to becoming a partner in their firm.”
I arched an eyebrow at Patricia. For some reason, I believed the boy. And for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why Merlin had called to schedule an appointment with him.
She still kept her doubtful look. “Having a meeting with Merlin is one thing. But isn’t he the junior partner over there? Isn’t Archimedes Mineheart the lead lawyer of the firm? Will he be at this meeting too?”
See, most people who have a lick of sense probably would have seen through Patricia’s blatant fishing trip by now. Not our boy. I was starting to think he was just happy to have someone to talk to.
Danny boy leaned even further over the desk toward us, his voice going lower still. Any lower and he’d be whispering. “Rumor on the street is that Archimedes ran afoul of the council. No one has seen him in the past twenty-four hours. Merlin’s scrambling right now to cover his caseload and extend his court dates.”
“What did he do?” I asked, forcing my eyes to go wide. I may have been overacting a bit, but he didn’t seem to notice.
He hesitated, then leaned back in his chair, looking smug. “No one knows. But it had to have been bad, right? For the council to get involved, I mean.” Danny’s chest puffed out. “He might just need a talented lawyer himself.”
Fat chance he’d be calling you anytime soon. Or ever.
“Well, then, I think it might be best to wait until after your meeting with Merlin to continue our little conversation,” Patricia said, standing, “Come along, sister.”
I thought Patricia was acting a little strange, but I’d agreed to let her lead with Davis. We made it out to the car. No sooner had we shut the doors behind us when Patricia burst out laughing.
“Oh, Opal, you will be the death of me yet. I just about lost it in there when you gave that boy those huge puppy dog eyes.”
“She what?” asked Sapphire. “Opal? My Opal? This I have to hear about.”
I grunted. “We were acting, right? And I don’t think he minded so bad, now did he?”
Patricia wiped her eyes. Yeah, she was laughing that hard. I could have gotten on my high horse and ignored the laughter. I could have, but I didn’t. I was among family and friends. It’s safe there to laugh at oneself.
Not that I actually laughed, mind you. At least not on the outside.
We filled Sapphire in on our visit.
“So, he is a witch then. With full knowledge of the council and everything.” There was just a tiny bit of gloating in Sapphire’s voice. My sister did so love being right.
I nodded. “Yes. And as much as it pains me to say this. Danny boy just might be our man after all.”
Chapter 17
We made one brief stop off before calling it a day. Mineheart Law. I wanted a little chat with good old Merlin. Just what was the man up to?
We walked past Arc at the front desk. Looked like he
was doubling as receptionist today.
“Heather call in sick again?” Sapphire asked.
He nodded. “Third time this month, too.” He glanced back toward the offices. “I should tell you that Merlin won’t be much in the mood for a social call. He’s swamped right now, things being what they are.”
I just arched an eyebrow at him. “Then it’s a really good thing this call isn’t a social one, isn’t it?” Then, as he reached for the intercom, I put my hand over his. “Don’t bother, Arc. He’ll know we’re here soon enough.”
We walked into Merlin’s office to find him sitting at his desk with his head in his hands. The very picture of a defeated man. Sapphire crossed the room and laid her hand on his shoulder. “It will be all right, dear. You’ll see.”
He put his hand over hers and gave her a sad smile. “I know. But the time in between it being wrong and right just might kill me.” He shook his head. “That young upstart of a Davis just might have been right, after all. We could really use a third lawyer here. The caseload alone is almost more than two can handle. Now, with it just being me... I’m drowning in paperwork and court appearances. Not to mention worry about Archie. I need him here.”
“Yes, dear, you do. And I need him at home too. We’re working on that.” She hesitated just for a second. “But you aren’t truly thinking of bringing young Davis into the firm, are you?”
He seemed taken aback by her question. “Goddess, no. That boy may be good at passing tests, but he doesn’t have an ounce of common sense in his entire body! Walking in here and almost demanding to be made a partner right off the bat? The boy is delusional at best, crazy at worst. I’m not sure which, but either way, he’s no match for the firm.”
“Then you didn’t schedule an appointment with him this afternoon?”
Merlin’s eyes sharpened on me. “How did you know about that?”
“We just came from his office. He seemed pretty confident that with things what they currently are, he had a good chance of changing your mind about him. Especially as you called him this time. I’d like to know why.”
Witch Reborn Box Set: Books 1-3: Includes Gemstone Coven Holiday Shorts 1 & 2 Page 28
