“You people?” she shot back.
He huffed. “Sorry. I don’t mean it like that. This is just a lot to process.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I didn’t know they existed until recently either.” Sighing, she asked, “So what did she want to confer about?”
“At first, she was trying to confirm I knew you were a witch. I was scared to admit that, honestly. What if she showed up with one of those metal wands to erase my memory?” the chief asked.
Amber needed to ask Jack to watch this movie with her so she was in the loop.
“Agent Howe said she believes you’re in danger here in Edgehill and that you’d be a whole heck of a lot safer if you turned over the Henbane grimoire to authorities.” As if sensing her rising anger, he said, “I told her that even if I knew where the grimoire was, I wouldn’t betray your trust by giving up the location. Even if it meant you’d be safer if I did.”
Her rage dissipated.
“Mostly because I would be in a world of trouble once you found out and I know now that you really can turn people into hamsters,” he said. “Sammy and Izzy would love to have a new pet, but I’m not sure Jessica would ever recover.”
Amber laughed.
“She also said that you’d be leaving in the morning with your cousin and she wanted someone from my department to keep an eye on your shop while you’re away,” he said. “You’re planning a trip on the eve of the Here and Meow when Kimberly Jones is the director? That sounds both out of character for you, and unwise.”
Amber was equal parts annoyed with Agent Howe for going back on her word that Amber didn’t have to go on this WBI recon mission for another two weeks, and relieved that her own absence in Edgehill might disrupt the Penhallows’ plans. Maybe the Penhallows would follow Amber and Edgar, and then they’d have to contend with the WBI as a result.
She just hoped that her absence didn’t help the Penhallows somehow.
“This is news to me.” She filled in the gaps in the chief’s knowledge about Edgar’s father and the WBI. “I still don’t know what they expect me to find in his memory, but the WBI seems to think that whatever it is can turn the tide.”
The chief was quiet a moment, clearly lost in thought. “And you’re sure you can trust them?”
“The number of people I fully trust can be counted on six fingers,” she said. “But this also might be the only chance we have to visit Uncle Raphael. Edgar’s needed closure on that for over a decade. Even if nothing comes of it, at least Edgar will get to see him.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “I’ll add your shop to as many of my officers’ routes as possible. Not sure what non-witch cops can do against cursed witches, but I didn’t want to argue with that lady. She gives me the creeps.”
Once they were at the station, the chief’s light interrogation was similar to the discussion they’d had before Thea’s visit. He asked her twice as many questions, though, and she did her best to answer truthfully without giving herself away. Garcia drove her back home. He didn’t say a word to her for the entire drive, which wasn’t unusual for him, but he did assure her that he would keep an eye on things while she was gone.
While she was gone.
She wondered when the agents had been planning on informing her. Did Edgar already know? Amber had a sneaking suspicion that crowded airports and being airborne in a metal tube were not things on Edgar Henbane’s favorites list. Perhaps she could get him drunk.
Though a drunk Edgar was likely a handful, too.
Just as she unlocked the front door of the shop, someone behind her asked, “Are you open yet?”
“Sorry, no,” Amber said hurriedly, then closed herself inside again. She watched as the woman put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder and guided the disappointed little girl away.
At least the news of the rogue toys in Balinese Park hadn’t reached this far yet.
It wasn’t until Amber was halfway up the stairs that she heard voices. Willow had returned. Steeling herself, she crested the top of the steps and found Aunt G, Willow, and Agent Howe sitting around the dining room table. Thea’s cage sat on the far end. Amber wondered if Agent Barker was with Edgar. If so, it was brave of Agent Howe to send the guy to Edgar’s without backup.
“Informing my family about my trip?” Amber asked, unable to tamp down the snark.
Agent Howe eyed Amber from head to foot. “What on earth happened to you?”
“Oh, you know, a Penhallow harassing me in public. What else is new?” She dropped her purse on the table, fished out the decapitated plastic bobcat head, and rolled it across the table to Agent Howe like it was a billiard ball.
The agent picked up the offending object in one hand and held the end of the attached note with the other. Then she focused on Amber. “Tell me what happened.”
Amber did, still standing at the head of the table. If she sat down, sheer exhaustion would take over and she wouldn’t be able to get up again.
“If this prosecuting lawyer proves to be a problem,” Agent Howe said, “we have ways of taking care of it that don’t involve turning said human into a rodent.” She cocked a brow at Aunt G, who remained stone-faced. “Though I do have an idea …”
The spell was cast so quickly, none of the Blackwoods had a chance to react. Thea disappeared out of her cage at the end of the table and then reappeared a moment later on the floor to Amber’s right. With a flick of the agent’s wrist, Thea had been restored to her human form.
Luckily, Thea was still clothed, but said clothes smelled heavily of rodent urine. Amber tried to cough discreetly. Bits of bedding were caught in Thea’s tangled red hair. Her wild eyes darted between the people assembled and her chest heaved. Amber didn’t dare make any sudden movements.
Then Thea screamed—roared, really. Hands balled at her sides, head thrown back, mouth stretched wide. Amber flinched and took a few steps away, rounding the side of the chair before her. “How dare you!” Thea finally screeched, finger pointed at Aunt G. “A hamster?”
Well, that answered the question of how aware Thea had been.
“Listen, Thea—” Amber started.
“No, you listen,” Thea said. “I listened to as much of your conversations as possible and now I’m fairly certain that all of you, including your cousin, are witches. Is that right?”
Amber swallowed and nodded. “Yes.”
“And you didn’t actually poison my sister. Some evil witch did?”
She nodded again.
Thea balled her fists once more. “If I promise to keep your secrets, will you promise not to turn me back into that horrible little creature?” A mew sounded and Thea looked down, shrieked, and shuffled back so quickly that her back hit the wall. Tom had been giving her shoe a sniff.
Amber snatched him off the ground and held him to her chest. She wasn’t sure if Tom’s desire to eat Thea would still be a problem. Either way, Amber worried that Thea now had a phobia of cats—while in a town devoted to them.
“On one condition,” Agent Howe said, getting to her feet. She crossed the space to stand before Thea, who was more or less cowering against the wall. Agent Howe put a fist to her mouth and coughed once, then gave her head a shake. “I looked into your history and you’re quite the accomplished lawyer—for a non-witch.”
Thea straightened a little. “Thank you. I think.”
“I’m going to need you to represent Amber here,” Agent Howe said. “If this prosecuting lawyer decides this case is worth investigating, your task is to make sure it gets dropped. Magical intervention in non-witch relations isn’t always the best move, so if we had someone like you on our side, it would help a great deal.”
Thea’s gaze shifted from Agent Howe to Amber and back again. Her nose twitched involuntarily. “What about my sister?”
“The coma wasn’t induced by anything Henrietta ingested,” Agent Howe said. “It was a spell placed on her by a Penhallow. They’re currently doing all they can to unbalance Amber’s place h
ere in Edgehill. They want Amber to succumb to the harassment and give up her mother’s grimoire. They’re using both magical and non-magical means to make her life a living hell. Help us take care of the non-magical problems plaguing her and you have my word that we’ll use every resource at our disposal to make sure your sister wakes up.”
Thea was still more or less smashed against the wall as her wild gaze darted about the room. As traumatized as Thea likely was, she was exceptional at evaluating a situation. Saying or doing anything to upset the witches in attendance—who wielded magic capable of rearranging her molecules—wasn’t in her best interest, and she knew it. “I’m guessing giving them the grimoire isn’t an option?”
“Under no circumstances,” Agent Howe said.
“Okay,” Thea said, swallowing hard. “I’ll be your non-witch lawyer as long as I don’t end up back in that tiny cage.” Her nose wiggled vigorously again.
“Can I ask you something?” Amber asked.
Thea eyed her warily.
“Did Henrietta ever mention being in contact with a Molly Hargrove?”
“Ugh. Yeah. The reporter from Marbleglen,” Thea said. “Molly found out about Henrietta’s tea-making venture and pretended she wanted to be one of the backers for the company. When they finally met to talk details, Molly revealed who she actually was. Henrietta was upset, obviously, because Molly had duped her into thinking she had an investor. Molly claimed she was trying to find out all she could about you, and she was hoping Hen had some insight into the secret ingredient in your tea. Once Henrietta realized how this whole thing was getting out of control, she pulled the plug. But Molly kept harassing her, threating to tell you that Hen had been trying to steal your recipe.”
Perhaps that was the argument Amber had witnessed during the memory retrieval spell she’d cast on Henrietta in the hospital.
Thea gave the air a sniff then, nose hiked high in the air. “Do you smell that?” she asked. “Is that me?”
“It’s truly horrendous,” Agent Howe said.
“I thought so,” said Thea. “Can I get a ride back to my hotel? I don’t know how I’ll react when I get out there, to be honest. The cars. The people …”
“Don’t worry about any of that. I’ve been in this business long enough that I know what treatment plans to get you started on if you’re having a hard time coping. Human to rodent, oddly, doesn’t have that many lasting effects. I once had to deal with a human who had been an ostrich for a week. That guy was a mess,” Agent Howe said.
Thea didn’t look remotely comforted by this information.
Agent Howe turned to Amber. “Take care of whatever you need to; you leave at four tomorrow morning with Agent Barker. You’ll be escorted back to Edgehill by Friday afternoon, in time for the parade. You have roughly two days to break into Raphael Henbane’s mind. You’ll be back here before the festival, because success or not, whatever the Penhallows have planned will take place this weekend and you’re currently one of our best defenses against them. We’re guessing they chose this weekend in large part because of the festival—they’re big on creating chaos in a crowd, as I’m sure you know. And that parade will be jam-packed with people. I’ll stay here to assist in any way I can to make sure your family stays safe while you’re gone.”
With that, Agent Howe headed down the steps after Thea.
“Let’s get to work, little mouse,” Aunt G said, getting to her feet. “You and Willow work on the mind-cracking spell. I’ll keep working on the Penhallow-specific clarity spell. Sounds like we’re going to need it by the time you get back.”
“Shouldn’t the WBI have stuff like this already?” Willow asked. “I would think Penhallows would be experimented on by the WBI like alien cadavers are in Area 51.”
“I asked Agent Howe that before you got here,” Aunt G said. “She said they’ve tried for decades to create defensive spells tailored to work against Penhallows, but their blood is too volatile. No spell will hold. Apparently whole facilities have blown up during their attempts to experiment on Penhallow blood.”
“And you’re still going to work on these spells in my kitchen?” Amber asked, eyes wide.
Aunt G waved this away.
Willow stood, smiling. “I know this is all very scary, but it’s kind of exciting, too, don’t you think?”
Amber grabbed her grimoire off her nightstand table. “You’re just saying that because you got to spend the afternoon with a celebrity.”
“I have so much to tell you!” Willow said.
Aunt G groaned. “I’ll be in the kitchen. Too much gushing happened while you were out, Amber. My old ears can’t take any more. Unfortunately, since you live in a postage stamp, I’ll hear it all again anyway.”
“Oh, you know you love it,” Willow said. “Did you prefer ‘dreamy’ or ‘sensual’ when I described his eyes?”
Aunt G groaned even louder, then started slamming kitchen cabinets and drawers. Willow grinned and winked at Amber.
Amber knew they were being extra dramatic to help distract her.
She loved them all the more for it.
Chapter 17
When Agent Barker pulled up in front of The Quirky Whisker at 4:00 am, Edgar was already inside the dark SUV. Most of the trip from Edgehill to the airport to being airborne happened in a blur. Edgar’s fidgeting in the airport and on the plane gave Amber something to focus on. They reflected on their favorite memories of Raphael, and Amber did her best to convince Edgar that he should attend the Here and Meow for the first time in his life. Edgar had yet to be swayed.
Even Agent Barker took notice of how tightly wound Edgar was, and halfway through the flight, wedged between Amber and Edgar, he encased them in a noise-cancelling bubble and regaled them with stories of weird cases from his first year in the WBI. Amber was sure to have nightmares about the probably-a-werewolf story. She decided it would be best not to recount any of these tales to Chief Brown, who likely would faint dead away. Edgar was almost relaxed by the time the plane landed in Seattle, Washington.
They’d only just stepped out of the baggage claim area when a black SUV with tinted windows pulled up. If this had been a thriller movie, someone would have jumped out, thrown a pillowcase over her head, and then tossed her into the back of the vehicle before speeding away. Agent Barker wasn’t remotely alarmed by the vehicle’s sudden arrival. Instead, he strolled up to the SUV and pulled open the passenger-side door. The man seated in the driver’s seat looked like he could be Tad, Todd, or Troy’s long-lost brother. He talked even less than Garcia did. At Agent Barker’s insistence, Amber and Edgar clamored into the back with their duffel bags.
Two hours out from the airport, Agent Barker began to lay out details. He explained that the facility where Raphael was being held was magic-free and privately owned, which was part of the reason why it had stayed off the WBI’s radar. Their intel so far had turned up that Raphael had been admitted to Peaceful Meadows thanks to a hefty anonymous donation made on his behalf.
“And you don’t know who made the donation?” Amber asked.
“Not yet,” Agent Barker said. “But during your two days here, I’ll find out what I can. Truth spells and the like can be used in a pinch, but it’s very likely that not even the staff knows who sent the money. It’s called an anonymous donation for a reason.”
For some time, Silent Agent had been driving on a tree-lined two-lane road populated with more switchbacks than Amber’s stomach cared for. Suddenly, he made a smooth, yet unexpected turn onto an unmarked road. It wove slowly uphill into a pine-laden area. Ages later, as the SUV came over a slight hill, a stone manor appeared in the distance. It initially gave Amber the willies; it would have made the perfect setting for a gothic ghost story.
If it hadn’t been for the handful of cars parked in a weed-and-gravel field a few hundred yards from Peaceful Meadows’ entrance, and the few large pots filled with healthy red, purple, and pink flowers flanking the front door, Amber would have thought the place was
abandoned.
Silent Agent pulled into the field-slash-parking lot and killed the engine. When Agent Barker told him that they’d be back “soon,” Silent Agent merely grunted in response. He fetched a sudoku book and a pencil from the glove box, then settled into his seat.
As Amber and Edgar piled out of the SUV, she shook out her hands to release some of the tension. She was excited for Edgar—after all these years, he’d finally get to see his father. She was preemptively heartbroken for him, too. After all, unless Amber could “crack” the man’s mind, Raphael would never look at his son with recognition. Willow had told Amber that when she came here a month or so ago, Raphael hadn’t remembered her, nor basic details about his own life. What if Amber couldn’t do what the agents needed her to?
The feel of an arm wrapping around her shoulder startled her out of her thoughts. She glanced over to find Edgar there, offering one of his strained smiles. “We’re good, okay? Whatever happens is fine.”
Amber could only nod. Edgar let her go. The loss of his warmth made her hug her purse close to her side instead. She and Edgar had left their duffel bags under the care of Silent Agent.
Upon closer inspection of the building, Amber saw that the towering stone walls of the manor weren’t as grimy as she originally thought. The windows gleamed in the weak afternoon light. The place was well cared for. That fact made her feel a little better about Raphael being way out here all these years.
The front door of the manor was peaked at the top, reminiscent of a door on a medieval castle, and was coated in a black lacquer paint. Agent Barker tested the latch of the heavy bronze lock, and with little effort, it popped open.
Amber followed Edgar and the agent into a small entryway boxed in on all four sides by wooden walls. The leftmost wall had a heavy Plexiglas window in the middle, behind which sat a woman in blue scrubs who had her attention focused on the countertop in front of her. The wall straight ahead had a metal door embedded in it that looked like its first life had been spent in a prison or dungeon. Amber guessed that door wasn’t unlocked. A bench rested against the rightmost wall, and a painting of a meadow full of delicate yellow flowers hung above it. A bright blue house was out in the distance, and a red rocking chair sat on its rundown porch.
Pawsitively Betrayed Page 21
