Pawsitively Betrayed

by Melissa Erin Jackson

  Amber chewed on her bottom lip. She remembered something Betty had said to her after Chief Brown had so rudely broken the news to Amber that her close friend Melanie Cole had died.

  I’ve known you since you and Willow were babies. I knew your parents quite well—God rest their souls—and you’re one of the last people I’d ever think capable of such a thing.

  Even when Amber had shut out almost everyone in Edgehill in the years after her parents’ murders, Betty had been one of the constants in Amber’s life. They didn’t have surrogate family dinners or anything, but Betty had checked in on her over the years—which was more than most people had done. And more than Amber had allowed most people to do. They’d seen Amber as weird and reclusive and had left her alone.

  Betty had been the one who had come over to gently encourage Amber to come to the potluck lunch in Balinese Park the day the town welcomed Chief Brown three years ago. Betty had been the first person to check up on Amber when news of Melanie’s death swept through the town, concerned for Amber instead of being concerned about her.

  It had been like having a grandparent across the street. A woman who cared enough to ask how she was doing and bring over sweets when she knew Amber needed a little comfort and a sympathetic ear. To think Betty had been that person for her since Amber was five or six blew her mind.

  “A few days after your parents died,” Betty said, pulling Amber back into the conversation, “I got a call from a woman named Ivy Henbane. She told me she’d been given instructions by her daughter, your mother, that if anything happened to Belle, that Ivy was to get in contact with me. Ivy told me that your parents trusted me completely. I suppose that was because I knew all your secrets and never even considered breaking that confidence. Ivy asked me to keep an eye on you and report back. When Janice took you on as her apprentice across the street, I put in a good word for you. It became even easier to watch over you when you were right across the street.”

  Amber’s mind reeled.

  “I call them as often as I can, but especially on your birthdays,” Betty said. “I can’t always update them on Willow’s life, but I can tell them about things I hear indirectly.”

  Amber’s mind slammed to a stop. “Wait. My grandparents are still alive?”

  “Oh yes,” Betty said. “I don’t know all the details about these Penhallow people, but I know enough to know to know they’re dangerous. Your grandparents don’t want to risk being in contact with you if it means the Penhallows can either use you as leverage against them, or vice versa. Keeping their distance is the safest for everyone, but they worry about you girls.”

  Amber had always said Betty had the best gossip, the woman in town who always knew everyone’s secrets. But Amber had never considered that Betty had even known hers.

  “Please don’t be upset with me for keeping this all from you, sugar,” Betty said. “I promised them I would keep this all to myself. And I’m a woman of my word.”

  “So … why are you telling me now?” Amber asked. “Did something happen to them?”

  “They’re fine, they’re fine,” Betty said. “We’ve been in contact a lot more the past few months given everything that’s been going on. It’s all sounded like magical happenings to me—the events in Edgehill, I mean—so I wanted them to know about it. When I told them I saw a pair of people in black suits talking to you outside your store a few days ago, they were nervous. When I saw that you left town with one of them at 4:00 am today, and your family told me you were headed to Washington to visit family, I told your grandparents that too. They figured out you must have found your Uncle Raphael at Pleasant Meadows.”

  Amber was stunned into silence again.

  “Their message to you is not to trust anything these WBI people are saying,” Betty said. “Their best guess is that the WBI is telling you there’s some key piece of information trapped in your uncle’s head and they want you to find it.”

  “And that’s not true?” Amber asked.

  “Apparently your uncle has the same magical proclivities that your mother did,” Betty said. “They told me to tell you something else. I wrote it down. I’ll just read it to you because I don’t really understand it.” There was a faint rustling before Betty started talking again. “The WBI wants your uncle restored to his old self not to get information out of his head, but to send him back in time to the moment just before your mother created the spell. They want her stopped before she has a chance to write it. When Raphael left Edgehill, he was on his way to solidify a deal with the WBI. We don’t know to what extent he was supposed to stop her. He was a very angry, bitter young man back then. They offered him a large sum of money to do this—more money than he’d ever make in his lifetime. He was devastated about the loss of his wife and his sister. He was angry about living so much of his life on the lam because of his sister’s actions. He saw this as a way to not only get his sister and wife back, but a way to reset his life.

  “We understood his pain, yet the effects of what he planned to do would change history in ways no one would be able to predict. You can’t pull the rug out from underneath something as complex as time and not expect consequences. We had to stop him. So we buried his memories and his powers.”

  Amber stared blankly at the dirty white wall of the bathroom. The protective bubble around her felt claustrophobic even though she couldn’t see it.

  “Did that make sense to you, sugar?” Betty asked, the rustling resuming for a few moments. “I hope I got it all. I wrote it down while Miles dictated it. The paper’s been in my back pocket all day. I’ve been waiting for a good time to call you. I’m sitting in my car in back of the shop right now. I told Bobby I needed a lunch break by myself because I’m sick of people at the moment. Which isn’t a lie, really.”

  Amber smiled faintly. “It all makes sense, yes. It’s just a lot to take in.”

  “I thought it might be,” Betty said. “But they were adamant I get the message to you as soon as I could. I hope I called you in time.”

  “Perfect timing,” Amber assured her. “I was already fairly certain I couldn’t trust the WBI. This confirms it. But now I need to figure out what to do.”

  “I wish I could help more, sugar,” Betty said.

  “You’ve helped so much already,” Amber said. “And I promise I’m not upset you’ve been in contact with my grandparents and keeping it from me. My family keeps secrets with good reason.”

  Betty heaved a little breath, one of relief, Amber thought. “I’m honored they trust me enough with all this. It’s felt like a big responsibility. I don’t understand much of it and, frankly, I don’t need to. I just like knowing I can help keep you girls safe now that your parents are gone, even if I’m just a regular ol’ human.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Amber said. “You were the first person outside of my family who I trusted. I was only six years old and I knew you were a safe person to confide in. There’s something special about you, Betty, even if it’s got nothing to do with magic.”

  Betty sniffed. “Thank you, sugar. Stay safe and come back soon, okay? Edgehill isn’t the same without you.”

  Chapter 19

  After her phone call, Amber crept back into the motel room. Edgar was still asleep. She couldn’t imagine waking him prematurely would go well, but she wanted to tell him about her conversation with Betty. She inched toward him and stood by his bed. Should she shake his shoulder? Poke his arm? Softly say his name? Leaning over him, she—

  His eyes flew open and he roared. Amber screamed and fell backward onto her bed. Except the bed was on wheels for some inexplicable reason and the thing slid away from her. The bed hit the wall and Amber hit the floor. Edgar stood on top of his own bed now, crouched low. He hadn’t stopped roaring. He thrust his hands out and Amber dove under the bed just before the blast of wind Edgar hurled her way lifted the bed off two of its wheels. It thudded back to the ground.

  “Edgar!” Amber yelped from under the bed. She’d fret later ab
out the horrific state of the threadbare carpet she lay on. “It’s me!”

  “Amber?” Edgar asked, breathless.

  She crawled out from under the bed enough to look up at him.

  His shoulders sagged and he jumped down from the bed, then sat on it. He ran a hand through his mussed hair. “What’s wrong with you? Why were you hovering over me like a clown from my nightmares?”

  Before she could answer, the door to the motel room blasted open despite being locked in three places. Amber yelped and scuttled back under the bed. Edgar let out another thundering battle cry, but it was cut off almost immediately. A sickening thud followed.

  “What’s going on in here?”

  That was Agent Barker.

  Amber crawled out of her hiding place just as Edgar popped up on the other side of his bed, rubbing his skull. Most of the sheets on the bed appeared to have joined him on his journey. He struggled to disentangle himself from them as he told Agent Barker in very colorful terms just what he thought of him.

  Once Amber got to her feet, she found Silent Agent standing just outside of the doorway, his expression blank. Agent Barker, however, looked like an irate parent dealing with two rambunctious kids. Given the way his blond hair stuck up on one side, Amber figured the guy had been sleeping on the job when the commotion started.

  “Edgar said I stole his gaming headphones,” Amber said, giving the hem of her shirt a straightening tug. “I didn’t, of course, because those things are huge and the attached microphone smells like old pizza.”

  “You did steal them,” Edgar said, joining in effortlessly. He had just freed himself of his blankets with a kick of his foot. “She wanted to talk to her precious boyfriend and she can hear him better with headphones because her phone is a relic of the dinosaurs. Technology and Amber Blackwood absolutely do not mix. A few weeks ago when I was staying with her? She threw away one of my controllers ‘on accident,’ and stepped on one of my keyboards. Smashed it to heck and back with those clodding feet of hers.”

  Amber whirled on him. She had done neither of those things. “It’s not my fault you left it on the floor, you slob!”

  “How dare you—” Edgar bellowed, starting for her.

  “All right, all right!” Agent Barker snapped. “Putting you two in the same room was apparently a mistake. Do you two always fight like this?”

  “Always,” Amber and Edgar said in unison.

  Agent Barker rubbed his temples. “Well—”

  He was caught off guard by the sound of his phone ringing. He snatched it off the holder at his belt and answered it. After a few seconds, he shot a pointed look at Amber and Edgar, rose a finger to signal that they needed to wait there, and then Agent Barker stepped out of the room, phone pressed to his ear. Silent Agent remained standing there watching them from the cement walkway outside. He hadn’t moved an inch. Perhaps his mind wasn’t on the events at hand, but various number combinations.

  “Which one of us do you think is going to get stuck with the mute one?” Edgar whispered, suddenly right next to her. They stood in the middle of the room, staring out the open motel door at Silent. They were far enough away that Silent couldn’t hear them, but a guy as quiet as him likely had next-level lipreading skills. “What’s his name again? Windy? He’s a silent wind …”

  Amber snorted and clapped a hand over her mouth for a moment. “Behave!” she hissed at him.

  No matter which agent she got stuck with overnight, she couldn’t imagine she’d sleep. If Edgar slept like a vampire in a coffin, Silent probably slept like a coat rack—upright and in a corner. She shuddered.

  Agent Barker ended his call and headed their way. “All right,” he said when he reached the doorway. “Raphael is asking for his son and niece to come back. Something in his memory has been shaken loose. Let’s go grab some food, discuss your strategy, then head back over.”

  They were only given ten minutes to straighten up the room, and themselves, before they were out the door again.

  After piling back into the SUV with Silent behind the wheel, Agent Barker struck up a conversation with Edgar about Undead Carnage, Edgar’s current game of choice. There were few things that could get Edgar going more than his nerdy habits. As Edgar launched into an animated explanation of the various zombie mutations—including ones that evolved to open doors and read signs—Amber’s mind drifted.

  During this dinner, she would need to give Agent Barker enough information to make him believe they were doing everything in their power to complete the task at hand, while not giving away the fact that the Blackwood/Henbane mission was now running in complete opposition to the WBI-assigned one.

  They arrived at a chain-restaurant diner. While the line outside was short, the inside was swarmed with people. It was busy, noisy, a little dingy, and full of strangers. As the no doubt strange-looking foursome stood in the lobby by the “Please wait to be seated!” sign, a haggard-looking waitress bustled by. A few strands of her brown hair had slipped loose from her messy bun, her white apron was splattered with red and brown stains, and her expression was murderous. “I’ll be right with you,” she practically shouted, the smile she tacked on doing nothing to soften her demeanor. “Malory! What did I tell you about table 7? Your keister will be jobless by midnight if you don’t get your act together!”

  Amber missed Edgehill desperately in that moment.

  The food was better than the service, but the bar was low. Through most of the meal, Agent Barker had been as silent as Windy. He chewed his chicken fried steak with methodical slowness as he kept an eye on Amber and Edgar across from him. Amber thought perhaps Agent Barker was just intrigued by the amount of syrup Edgar had soaked his blueberry pancakes in.

  When the din of the diner suddenly disappeared while she’d been swiping a soggy fry through ketchup, her head snapped up and she found Agent Barker staring squarely at her, his arms folded on the table. She swallowed.

  “So why don’t we start with what happened with Raphael today,” he said. “The orderly I spoke to said this was the most lucid the man has been in years. I had my doubts about you, Amber, but it really does seem like the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

  Amber was fairly certain she should be offended. “We just talked to him for a while. Told him who we were. Like you thought, seeing Edgar had more of an effect on him than I did. There was a moment he reached out and touched Edgar’s face—like for just a moment he might have recognized him?”

  Agent Barker and Silent Agent shared an excited look. Well, Agent Barker looked excited.

  “As far as magic went, I did a very simple memory-retrieval spell,” Amber said, willing her voice to stay steady, as she’d now reached the point where she started lying—to the WBI. “He really only remembered what he had for breakfast. My guess is that he spends most of his time staring out that window, so a little mental stimulus probably went a long way.”

  Agent Barker seemed pleased by this answer. “Okay, so this time, see if you can go a little deeper.” He turned to Edgar. “What’s one of your last memories of your father?”

  Amber felt him tense beside her. “The day he left, we’d had a really good day, actually. He made us sandwiches and ate them on the porch. We each had a beer. He said he had some errands to run, that he loved me, and would see me soon. He never came back.”

  She knew the memory snippet she’d seen of the two Henbane men shouting at each other had been one of the last interactions they’d had. It had been a day filled with angst, not a peaceful lunch.

  Agent Barker didn’t question this. “Good. Let’s see if you can get that memory to the fore for him, Amber. Starting with a pleasant memory might help ease him into coming back to himself. If things get dicey, as mind-magic often does, pull out of it immediately so he doesn’t get so agitated that the orderlies kick us out. Our window of time to get what we need from Raphael is closing quickly. The Here and Meow Festival is two days away. We’ve got tonight and tomorrow—that’s it.”

>   If what Betty had relayed to Amber was true, it meant that the WBI effectively viewed Raphael as a weapon they hoped to get on their side and use against the Penhallows. Assuming there was even a way to restore her uncle to his past self, could she do so without alerting the WBI to what she’d done? If she were successful, would the WBI immediately whisk her uncle away to do their bidding? Would they leave Amber and Edgehill high and dry on the eve of the festival if they got what they wanted with Raphael?

  Agent Barker was still in the process of tracking down the anonymous donor who had gotten Raphael checked into the facility. The WBI was under the impression that her grandparents were dead, and that they’d died before Raphael had been checked in there, so they likely weren’t looking into them as a possibility. Ghosts, after all, were rarely able to donate funds.

  Half an hour later, they were back in the SUV and headed for Pleasant Meadows. As the car crested the small hill toward the manor, the sun was low in the sky, painting wispy clouds with a bright orange and pink reminder that their first day here was almost over.

  As she stepped over the threshold of the prison-like door, she looked over her shoulder at the framed painting of the meadow filled with yellow wildflowers, and the bright blue house in the distance. Who had seen this and shared it with Willow? A WBI agent who wanted to plant the idea in her head to nudge her in the right direction? A Penhallow with the same agenda? Raphael himself?

  Once they were back in Raphael’s room—with Agent Barker off to scrounge up information from the orderlies—Amber and Edgar stood staring at the man seated in front of the window. They each rounded a side of Raphael’s chair and squatted beside it. His posture was the same—his elbows by his sides and his hands resting limply in his lap—but there was a clarity in his expression now.

  “Hi, Dad,” Edgar said.

  Raphael looked over at him. It took him a moment to say, “It’s like your name is on the tip of my tongue. I don’t recognize you, but I recognize that I should. Does that make any sense?”