Wisteria Witches Mysteries Box Set 2

by Angela Pepper

  “You sure move fast,” I exclaimed.

  He looked down at my hand on his forearm. “No, I don’t. You’re the one who came wheeling around the corner like a wild-eyed donkey with a swarm of hornets on its tail.”

  I released his forearm and placed my hand on my hip. “Are you comparing me to a donkey?”

  “A wild-eyed donkey.” He gave me a eyebrow raise that bordered on playful. Chet Moore, playful? The DWM agent’s usual facial expression was one of discomfort, as though wherever he was he wasn’t sure how he’d ended up there and couldn’t wait to be somewhere else.

  I asked him, “How are you handling the situation here? Are you in charge, letting them think they’re in charge?”

  He slowly tilted his long face to the side, allowing one sharp cheekbone to catch the light while his other hollowed-out cheek caught more shadow. His dark hair appeared black in the low light of the castle hallway. He was clean-shaven, and his green eyes looked more rested and lively than I’d seen them in a while.

  He answered, “On the subject of handling things, I’d say I’m the one in charge.”

  “Are you here on your own?”

  “For now.” He smiled. “We’ll see.”

  Chet Moore, smiling? Something was amiss. I was more familiar with the shape his mouth made when he was brooding, or being opaque, or scolding me for my bad parenting skills. If Chet knew I’d recently sent my daughter driving with only her learner’s permit, the weird smile that was currently on his face would drop faster than the price of chocolate eggs the day after Easter.

  In the ballroom behind me, Bentley was tapping on the microphone again, then repeating his instructions for people to set up an interview time and not to leave the castle. My Chet-induced amnesia cleared, and I remembered my mission to get Nash. Darn those green eyes of his for having such an effect on me.

  “I have to go,” I said.

  “You can’t leave the premises.” He stepped sideways, blocking my exit down the hallway with his body.

  I snorted and dodged around him. I got past him easily, but in doing so, I twisted my foot out of my shoe, which wasn’t even my shoe. Earlier that Sunday, I’d borrowed my daughter’s favorite flats to figure out their appeal. I’d since discovered the shoes were delightfully comfortable, which almost made up for the fact they did fall off at the worst times.

  Chet leaned over and scooped up the shoe. “Slow down, Cinderella. What’s the rush?” He held the shoe tightly against his chest. “Now I have a hostage. What’s your move?”

  I shook my finger at him. “Bad doggie,” I said. “Not for chewing!” Chet loved it when I called him a bad doggie. And by loved it, I mean he did not.

  Any second now, all the smiling and the eyebrow raising would be gone. Chet’s wolf form was always present, just beneath his human skin. I knew the shape of his beast, and its ferocity. Despite my attempt to bury certain memories, I could close my eyes and see the fur and feathers flying as he’d ripped apart another monster. He was a killer. The reports said it had been self-defense, and maybe it had started there, but it hadn’t finished that way.

  “Woof.” He was still smiling.

  If he’d been trying to throw me off, then he’d succeeded. I staggered backward, losing the second shoe as well. That was fine. I’d be better off with no shoes than with faulty ones.

  “Watch those for me,” I called over my shoulder.

  “I shall guard them with my life,” he called back. “Your wish is my command. Your desire is my heartbeat!”

  “It’s pretty early in the day to be so drunk,” I replied, but I’d rounded the corner and either he didn’t hear me or he didn’t bother with a response.

  I ran down the hallway, my feet slapping on the stone floor. Running in the castle barefoot felt illicit, like running at the public pool when all the signs are telling you not to.

  * * *

  After dashing around and nearly getting lost, I found Nash. He was in the castle’s main entrance, which was a miniature version of the ballroom, with the same checkered marble floor. He was talking to a uniformed police officer who stood at the door. I could see by his body language that he was trying to use his bad-boy charms on the officer. She was forty-something, tanned and buff.

  He was saying, “Let me pop out to my vehicle, and I’ll show you my medicine. I’ll grab the bottle and bring it right back.”

  She had the expression of someone who had heard everything. “Sir, you can wait for an escort to assist you.”

  “I can’t wait,” he pleaded.

  “Sir, you do not appear to be in physical distress.”

  He groaned and hunched forward with his arms over his stomach. “It’s getting worse. Ow, these ulcers.”

  “I thought you said it was acid reflux.”

  “Both,” he gasped. “Ow, it burns.”

  She did not look convinced.

  He rocked from side to side, moaning. I knew exactly where this was going. His next move was to drop to the floor and start foaming at the mouth. I had no idea how the guy was able to foam on command, but I’d seen it once and heard about it multiple times.

  Before he could drop, I walked up to Nash and grabbed him by the elbow to steady him. He gave me a wide-eyed look and tried to shake me off, but I had a good grip.

  “Thanks for keeping an eye on my friend,” I told the officer.

  “He says he’s sick,” she said. “You might not want to get too close to him, in case it’s contagious.” She pulled a small bottle of hand sanitizer from a pouch on her utility belt and began applying it liberally to her hands. She hadn’t even touched Nash, from what I’d seen, yet there was a look of fear in her eyes.

  “Contagious?” With my free hand, I waved a bit of tongue-loosening magic her way. “Should I be worried?”

  She glanced around nervously. “I heard there might be some sort of biological element to this lockdown.”

  “Like what? A disease?” A disease that melts your neck?

  Her eyes narrowed, and with a defiant toss of her head, she broke away from my spell. The woman had a strong mind, and that would be all the information I’d get from her.

  “Ma’am, please see that your friend receives medical attention if necessary,” she said.

  “Attention? Don’t you know that’s exactly what his type thrives on?”

  She gave me a quizzical look.

  “He’s a lead singer,” I explained. “He’s kind of an attention whore.”

  “Ma’am, please stay clear of the exits.” She gave me a curt nod, dismissing us. I’d been hoping to charm more information out of her, but, like Nash, my charms had their limits. I tightened my grip on Nash’s elbow and dragged him over to an alcove.

  “Zed, you totally blocked me with that lady cop,” he said. “She was eating out of the palm of my hand, like a friendly little chipmunk.”

  “She was getting ready to taser you.”

  “No way.” He groaned and rubbed his stomach. “Now my guts are killing me, for real. What’s up with that?” He rubbed his upper chest. “My esophagus is on fire.”

  I tilted my head and studied him. I’d been touching Nash when I’d cast the bluffing spell on the police officer. My magic must have splashed over and made him believe his own story. I could try reversing the spell, but how? The safest thing would be to wait for it to wear off. He continued moaning, making me feel guilty. Magic has consequences, I heard my aunt lecture in my head. She preferred that I used spells only when necessary. Despite her warnings, I’d been playing it fast and loose with the bluffing spells lately, and now poor Nash was paying the price.

  I patted his shoulder tenderly. “Nash, you’ll be fine. We’ll swing by the gift shop and pick up some of that pink stu—”

  He cut me off with a huge, loud burp. “Much better now,” he said, looking satisfied with himself. “That was well brought up. Too bad I wasn’t!”

  “One of your finest,” I said.

  He grinned. “I’ve been practi
cing.”

  “Now, if only you could bring that same level of dedication to your singing.”

  “Ouch.” He grimaced. “Let’s get out of this creepy castle and onto a patio someplace else, where the sting of your casual cruelty can be lessened by cold beverages. I’m thinking margaritas, or one of those sweet, girlie drinks with the umbrellas. The kind Jasper threw up all over his new drum kit.”

  “Cosmopolitans.”

  “No. The first time.”

  “Piña coladas.”

  “Yes, please. Make mine a double.” He looked left and right, scanning the lobby’s exits. “Now, tell me you know a secret way out of here. If your dad were here, what would he do?”

  I reached up and thwacked him on the forehead. Forehead thwacking was a move I’d picked up from my previous ghost, Tansy Wick. Nash rubbed his forehead and gave me a hurt look.

  “What was that for?”

  “You need to stay here and help with the investigation,” I said. “And don’t mention my father.”

  “What did he do now?”

  “He gave me a car.”

  “That’s not so bad.”

  “He gave me a car to try and make up for some other stuff he did.”

  “What kind of car?”

  “An eighty-six Nissan ZX.”

  Nash grinned. “That’s a sweet car. Your dad’s all right. At least he’s fun. Not like my dad, the boring professor with the elbow patches on his tweed jackets. My old man’s a walking stereotype. Did you know he’s in Italy right now? He’s spending his summer vacation digging through a garbage dump.”

  “You mean an archaeological dig?”

  “Just because a garbage dump is really old doesn’t mean it’s not still a garbage dump.” He chuckled. “You should see the hat he bought special for the trip. He thinks he looks like Indiana Jones.”

  “Nash, your dad actually does look a bit like…” I waved my hand. “Stop trying to change the subject. Promise me you’ll stick around the castle and help the detectives figure out what happened to your girlfriend.”

  His expression grew solemn. “She’s not my girlfriend. We broke up ages ago. I only came out here to, uh, check out the spa.”

  I raised an eyebrow. There were a number of things the Nash I knew didn’t do. One of them was get out of bed before noon willingly. The other was travel across the country just to check out a spa.

  “Nash,” I said. “Come on.”

  He cracked under my non-magical interrogation technique. “Okay, okay. So, I came here to try to get her back. You know how you don’t appreciate something until it’s gone?”

  “Yes. Like my acid-wash denim miniskirt.”

  “Uh, yeah. Sure. Like an acid-wash denim miniskirt. So, I thought I could get her back, but then the strangest thing happened. We went for a walk through the woods, up Bear Bait Trail to the waterfall, and we shared a bottle of wine, and I just had this epiphany. It was all peaceful and stuff. Like an oil painting, but not the kind you get at a garage sale. A real oil painting of a waterfall. Except it was better, because I was really there, and I could feel the mist on my face, and it was catching on my eyelids in these cool droplets, and the water was just… falling. Like, really falling. It was super loud like a white noise machine. And it hit me. Jo was the waterfall. Or maybe I was the waterfall. Or was she the fish?” He scratched his head. “Maybe we were both fish, and the waterfall was life, because it runs in one direction, and you can’t go back. You can’t swim up a waterfall, and you can’t go back in time because time is always moving. Do you know what I mean?”

  His description brought up Jo’s memory, and I saw him there exactly as he described, with the dewdrops on his eyelashes. “I will always love you as a friend,” he said to her in the memory. Jo hugged him and said she was so relieved, and then suddenly I was back to the present. The air was dry and dusty from all the crime scene investigation equipment being wheeled through the lobby. Nash stared at me expectantly.

  “I get it,” I said. “You realized that you still cared about Jo, but it was only as a friend.”

  His expression relaxed. “Zed, I’ve missed you. Not many people get me, but you do.” A uniformed police officer walked by slowly, watching us. Nash’s forehead gleamed with sweat. When we were alone again, he said quietly, “You know who doesn’t get me? Male cops.”

  “Nash, I know the detective in charge. Trust me, they don’t care about your misdemeanors or trouble you’ve had in the past. This is a murder investigation. And since we both know you’d never hurt anyone, just tell them the truth.” I patted his arm, which was damp with sweat. “Trust me. You’ll be fine.”

  He looked down at my feet. “Zed, you’re not wearing any shoes.”

  “I’m a free spirit.”

  He looked up at me. “I just remembered some of your other nicknames, Zed. We used to call you Firestarter.”

  I rolled my eyes. It had seemed original at the time, as most things do to teenagers. I’d since learned that approximately ninety-nine percent of redheaded teen girls were nicknamed Firestarter or Firecracker, or both.

  Our conversation was interrupted by a woman’s voice.

  “Zara Riddle?”

  I turned to find a woman stepping out of the shadows toward me. Morganna Faire. She was my hairdresser from Wisteria, a tiny woman of unknown age with flowing, mermaid-like hair. She wore a flowing, light-colored dress with lacy layers of shawls and scarves. She moved like a feather on the wind, her small feet making no sound on the stone floors.

  “Morganna,” I said. “Let me introduce you two. This is my old friend—” I turned toward Nash, but he was already gone. He could be sneaky when he wanted to. “Uh, never mind.” I turned back to the small yet spry woman. “How are you?”

  The wrinkles on Morganna’s face deepened, and she looked older than time. “Not well,” she said. “The girl who died was a family friend.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I remember now. She came into your beach hut salon one time when I was there.” I cast my eyes down. “Such a shame. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “We lost Perry recently as well. That was her father.”

  “Oh? I think I heard something about that.” Understatement of the year.

  “He was a good man,” she said. “Even though he was weak. But that’s modern men for you. They’re soft. Not like the old days.”

  I kept my expression neutral and nodded. Old people say the darndest things.

  I asked, “Are you here at the castle because you were visiting the young woman?”

  She looked through me, eyes unfocused. “I have a chair here, in the beauty salon. I’m up here a few days a week during the summer season.”

  “That’ll keep you busy,” I said, groaning inwardly at the forced small talk.

  “Pretty busy.” Her eyes brightened as she focused on me. “You should come in and see me.”

  I fluffed my hair. “But I just got a trim from you. It hasn’t been that long.”

  She made a tsk-tsk sound and reached for a lock of my hair. “Dry ends,” she pronounced.

  “I use conditioner,” I said. “Sometimes.” Zara tries to take good care of her hair. Zara tries to do everything, but there are only so many hours in a day.

  “Come see me for a deep conditioning treatment,” she said. “It would bring me such joy to have you in my chair.” She tugged on my hair. “Promise?”

  “Sure,” I said. When a sweet little old lady is tugging on your hair, it’s okay to cave in to her demands. It doesn’t make you less of a witch.

  She released my hair and turned away, her layers of clothes swooshing. I set off in the opposite direction, back toward the ballroom to find my mother. I walked past a take-a-book display on a rustic wooden bookshelf, which reminded me I would need to let my boss know I probably wouldn’t be in Monday morning. And maybe not Tuesday, either. I pulled out my phone, and was scrolling for Kathy Carmichael’s home number when I walked into a someone. It was Chet. Again.r />
  “You must like me.” The tall, dark-haired man gazed down at me with a bemused expression. “It can’t be a coincidence that you keep throwing your body at mine.”

  I snorted. “You’re the one who keeps getting in my way. Just like the other day when I was returning some of your friend’s stone critters to your back yard by casually tossing them over the fence, and your big head kept getting in the way.”

  “What are you even talking about?”

  “The petrified mice. Don’t you remember? I guess I hit you pretty hard with the big one.”

  “Not that I know of.” He rubbed the back of his head. “No dents.”

  “That’s good. Can you tell Charlize to stop throwing her critters into my yard?”

  He narrowed his eyes briefly before making an ah-hah face. “Perhaps I should introduce myself, since you’ve apparently mistaken me for someone else.” He extended his open hand. “My name’s Archer. Archer Caine.”

  Chapter 10

  Why was my neighbor introducing himself to me as Archer Caine? Something was up. But then again, with Chet, something always was up. He did work for a top secret agency disguised as a municipal water department, after all.

  “Your name’s Archer?” I gave him a sly wink. “Okay, I’ll call you Archer.” Another wink. “Working undercover. Gotcha.”

  He turned his head to give me a sideways look. “We, uh, don’t know each other.”

  “Then how do you explain having my shoes?” I pointed to his armpit, where he was still carrying the pair of shoes I’d slipped out of a few minutes earlier, on my way out to catch Nash.

  “You told me to watch them for you,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “Good boy.” I winked a third time.

  He continued to look bemused. He also seemed to be in no hurry to get away from me. Either Chet was deep under cover, or he was a whole different person outside of Wisteria town limits. The last time he’d been this friendly had been during our drive up the coast to get ice cream.

  I pried one of the shoes out from under his arm and put it on my foot. He watched me closely, which made me awkward. I lost my balance and did the shoe dance on one foot, nearly dropping my phone, which was still in my hand because I hadn’t yet called my boss. As I was looking down, I saw my phone screen light up with with an incoming text.