by Morgana Best
I laughed. “Why?”
“I guess I didn’t want to be rejected.”
I practically snorted. “Look at you!” I said. “Who would reject you?”
Craig grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “I guess I shouldn’t have worried.”
“No, you shouldn’t have.” I saw someone walk past, and looked up automatically. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
“What is it?” Craig turned around in his seat. “An ex-boyfriend?”
I laughed. “No.” Taking his seat at the small table in the corner, shrouded in shadows, was Alder Vervain.
“He doesn’t look like your type,” Craig said.
“He’s a private detective.”
Craig leaned forward. “You hired a private detective? You hired him?”
I shook my head. “No. Someone hired him to follow me.”
“Who are you? A spy or something?” Craig said in joking tone.
“No,” I answered. “It’s complicated.”
“Oh jeez, you’re married, aren’t you?”
I laughed. “No, again. Look, you know what happened when I first moved to town, how Brant McCallum died in my shop.”
“Right,” Craig said. “His wife killed him.”
I nodded. “And then that realtor died on my porch.”
“Yes, that was a coincidence, that’s for sure.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Someone hired this guy to follow me around. I guess whoever it is thinks I’m murdering people.”
Craig turned around to stare. “That’s Alder Vervain isn’t it?” he asked.
“You’ve got good eyesight,” I said. “That corner is really dark.”
“Well, he’s the only private detective I know of,” Craig said. “Thinks he’s so good, changing his name to make it exotic and all.”
I was rather taken aback at Craig’s tone. It sounded a little spiteful to me. Perhaps they’d had a run-in at some point. After all, they were around the same age, and had grown up in the same small town. I turned my attention to the menu.
At that point, Craig started into a long story about his sports prowess. I nodded politely, and tried to decide between the zucchini fettuccine, the mushroom crepe, and the Thai red curry. I decided on the Thai red curry and looked up.
Craig was laughing. “Yet I never lost one! They make underage kids wear those masks. I never took a willow in the face. I did break my wrist, but that was playing baseball.”
I was embarrassed for the fact that I had no idea what he hadn’t lost, so in an attempt to cover up, I asked, “Did you play every sport?”
He beamed at me. “Nope, just those two. Hey, that’s the only time I had to get stitches. It wasn’t even playing sport. I wrecked my bike when I was seven, and had to get stitches in my chin.”
He seized my finger, prying it from the menu, and stabbed it into his face. I was alarmed until I realized that he, or rather I, was pointing to a shiny white scar just to the left of the dimple in the center of his chin.
“Oh,” I said lamely. I could feel Alder’s eyes on me, and that was making me uncomfortable.
Craig got up to order at the counter—there was no table service here—and I squirmed in my seat. I looked around to see if there was a table that would block us from Alder’s view. I was so preoccupied that I didn’t notice someone sitting in the seat.
“That was fast,” I said, looking up, expecting to see Craig. Sadly, it was Kayleen, the mail lady.
“So Miss High and Mighty, you think you’re too good to speak to me now?” she snapped at me.
“Sorry?”
“Don’t play dumb with me.” She leaned forward across the table, her eyes flashing. She was so close that I wondered if the tealight candle would singe her hair. One could only hope.
“Kayleen, I’m sorry if I offended you, but I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said in a conciliatory tone.
“The Post Office box!” she screeched. “You got a Post Office box! You did that just to avoid me.”
“Oh no,” I lied. “It’s just easier. It keeps the mail dry when it rains.”
“But I always put the mail on your porch when it rains,” she said crossly. “Do you think I’m a snoop? Do you think I’m looking through your windows?”
“No,” I lied again. I knew that she looked through my windows because she herself had told me that she did. “I thought it would be better to have a Post Office box for your safety too, what with Thomas Hale being found dead on my porch.”
Kayleen looked taken aback. “What do you mean?” She removed her hair from the proximity of the candle. I thought I could smell burning hair, but perhaps that was just wishful thinking.
“Well, he was found dead on my porch, and since the mail was pushed under my screen door and it wasn’t a rainy day, the police might think you discovered the body before I did. Maybe they even think you killed him.”
Kayleen’s face grew red. “I did not!” she yelled. “It wasn’t a weekday anyway! I don’t deliver mail at weekends! Those cops questioned me, and they don’t think I did it.”
“Did they say that?”
“Well, no.” Kayleen fumbled with her purse. “They would’ve arrested me if they thought I did it, and they didn’t.”
“So who do you think killed him?”
A strange look passed across Kayleen’s face, but then she composed herself. “I think you did it, Miss Smarty Pants.”
Before I could reply, Craig returned to the table. Even in the dim light, I could see he looked distraught to see Kayleen.
Kayleen looked no happier to see Craig. “Are you with her?” she said as she stood up abruptly, knocking the table. She shot me a look of pure poison, and then snatched the bottle of bubbly out of the ice bucket Craig was holding. “French Champagne!” she said angrily, holding it up. “That’s a little more expensive than three bucks for a bottle of Passion Pop which I bet you buy for some women!”
“Hi, Kayleen,” Craig said meekly.
“Hi Kayleen yourself!” She stormed off in a huff, all eyes in the restaurant on her.
“What was all that about?” I asked him.
Craig shrugged, and avoided eye contact. “Who knows? She’s crazy.”
Call me suspicious, but I was beginning to put two and two together. But really, Craig and Kayleen? That was how it was beginning to look. Still, I counseled myself not to be so distrustful. I had to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, there could be an innocent explanation.
After Kayleen’s outburst, we ate our meal in silence. Craig was unusually subdued. I tried to engage him in conversation, but all my attempts failed. It wasn’t a pleasant meal, with Craig’s manner and with Alder watching me from the corner. I refused dessert. I just wanted to get home.
“Well, if you don’t want dessert, I’d better get you home,” Craig said. His mood had changed abruptly, and he was now beaming from ear to ear.
“Thank you for a lovely evening,” I said.
Craig winked at me. “The evening’s not over yet.”
I hope he didn’t mean what I suspected he meant.
Chapter 18
Craig stopped his car in front of my house, and jumped out of the car before I could say anything. I joined him at my front gate. “Thanks again,” I said, hoping he’d take the hint.
He didn’t. Instead, he smiled as he reached to open the little iron gate.
Oh gosh, what to do? “Good night,” I said firmly, hoping that would work.
“Huh? Aren’t you going to invite me in?” Craig asked, quirking a brow.
I’m never good at thinking on my feet. I typically think up something brilliant to say, but always a good day or so after I need to say it. “Well, remember how you got sick in the house? I spilled some perfume, like a lot, a whole bottle. It doesn’t bother me because I’m used to it, I suppose, but it obviously made you sick. I need to air everything out,” I finished lamely.
“I don’t smell anything, though,
” he said. “I’m willing to take the risk,” he added, winking at me.
Clearly, the fact that I hadn’t invited him in was lost on him. “Well, good night then, Craig,” I said loudly and firmly. “I will see you some other time. I’m going now. Good night.” I slipped past him, and shut the gate between us, exaggerating the movement of shutting the latch. I hurried up the path.
I was fumbling in my purse for my keys when I heard a noise behind me. I swung around to see Craig coming up the path. Oh dear, he was going to make this difficult.
Craig held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, so you don’t want to invite me in,” he said. “Okay, I get it. You’re a good girl.” He smirked at me. “How about just one little kiss?”
I did not like his tone, or his actions, for that matter. “No, Craig,” I said. “No. You will have to leave now.”
“But that was an expensive bottle of French champagne,” he whined. “Surely that deserves one little kiss.”
I was horrified. How had I been such a bad judge of character as to think Craig was dating material? “What do you think I am?” I said in a raised voice.
Craig simply smiled. “I like girls who play hard to get.” He stepped closer to me and put his hands on my arms, as his lips approached mine.
Just then, there was a booming sound and Craig flew backward. He landed on his behind at the bottom of the porch steps.
“How did you do that?” he stammered, his face as white as a sheet.
“I’m an eighth degree black belt in Aikido,” I said. “Like Steven Seagal, if you’ve ever watched one of his old movies.” I had no idea why I said that, but it was the first thing that came to mind. “Leave now before I do something worse. Never come back here again—oh, unless there’s a fire, of course.”
Craig picked himself up, turned and ran.
“Thank you,” I said to the house after I watched Craig drive away. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”
The encounter had left me shaken up, so I hurried next door to Camino’s.
Camino’s door slowly opened, making an eerie, creaking sound. “Oh, Amelia. It’s you! Is everything okay? You look a bit distressed.” Camino ushered me inside. This time, she was wearing a big, brown fleece wombat onesie, complete with giant furry wombat slippers. “Come into the living room, dear. Would you like some tea? We can talk about whatever it is that’s bothering you.”
“Sure, if you don’t mind,” I said.
Camino waddled out of the room to fetch the tea, and I crossed to the old fireplace. Above it was an archaic image, an ornately framed oil painting of a regal woman from decades, perhaps centuries, ago. On the mantle below the painting was a medium-sized wooden box that was outlined by a golden frame encrusted with jewels.
Inside the box was a long, wooden object with a pink gem of some sort jutting out from its end.
“Entertained by odd looking things?” Camino asked, marching in with two cups of steaming tea in her hands.
“Oh,” I said, turning around. “I was just a bit mesmerized by the box, and then that pink jewel…”
“It’s a crystal called rose quartz. It’s a beautiful wand. I rarely use it any more.”
“Thyme told me that wands are used for casting circles,” I said.
Camino nodded. “I used to be a Wiccan priestess, and so I used it then. It’s just not necessary now for the spells I do these days. Still, I keep the wand, as it’s an important reminder of my past. Holding onto the past is crucial,” she continued. “Take that painting over the fireplace, for instance. I wouldn’t say it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, but she is one of my ancestors. If you look around, you’ll see the influence of years past everywhere. It’s difficult to understand the future without knowing about your history, so I like to collect what you might consider oddities.”
I smiled. “That’s part of the reason why I always run to your door when I’m in a jam,” I said, earning a chuckle from Camino. “You seem to know a lot more about this stuff than most people.”
“Well, that comes with being old, I guess,” Camino said with a laugh, “not that I feel old. Now, what is it you needed me for this time?” She handed me one of the cups of tea. “Please have a seat and tell me your troubles.”
I sat on the sofa. “Thank you,” I said. “It’s about my house again.”
“What happened this time?” she asked. “Is it closing its walls on another poor soul?”
“Yes, but not just anyone this time.”
Camino’s brow furrowed. “Tell me what happened.”
“It’s Craig. When he came over to pick me up for our date, he said he wasn’t feeling well and kept making comments about the walls closing in around him. I got him out of there as fast as I could.”
“Hmm, well that is a bit peculiar,” Camino replied. “There must be something about Craig that the house dislikes, but what could it be? He’s always seemed like a nice, pleasant man to me.” She leaned forward in her seat and scratched her chin, looking up toward the ceiling as if it would offer her some sound advice. “Are you sure that he’s as nice as you think he is?”
I shook my head. “That’s just it,” I said. “No, he’s not. I found that out tonight. I suspect he’s involved with Kayleen the post lady, and after dinner, he wanted me to invite him inside. I didn’t, but after I tried to get rid of him, he followed me to the front door and tried to kiss me. The house threw him into the yard.”
Camino stood up and walked over to the fireplace. She looked back at me and sighed. “Goodness me,” she said. “What a state of affairs. The house always knows. The house always sees things that we miss. Well, you have had a lucky escape, my dear. I just hope you’re not too upset about discovering the man’s true character.”
I thought for a moment. “No,” I said honestly. “I was attracted to him when I first moved to town, but it was just a bit of a crush. The problem now is, what if he’s the killer?”
Camino looked taken aback, so I pressed on. “As everyone in town knows, Kayleen works part time cleaning at the hospital, so I figured she might be able to steal insulin. What if she has an accomplice, Craig?”
“But what possible motive would Kayleen have for doing away with that poor man?”
“Is there a spell or something that we can cast to find out why the house dislikes someone?” I asked.
Camino shook her head. “No, not as such. Yet sometimes figuring that out is not simply a matter of casting spells. We have to do our own part. For example, there is no use doing a spell to get a job if one doesn’t answer job applications. The two must go hand in hand. We just have to look at things with an investigative eye.”
“Okay, but how do we do that?”
“Easy,” Camino said. “We need t more about Craig.”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Until today, you saw Craig in a different light from what your house does. Tell me what you saw,” she said.
“Well, whenever he was around me, he was usually polite, even sweet. He was never rude or unpleasant in any way.” I rubbed my forehead. “That’s why I was so thrown off by the interaction between him and Kayleen, and the way he acted when he took me home. I can’t possibly see how he’d be the one framing me. I’d believe it of Kayleen, but not of him. I just wish I could communicate with my house and understand what it’s doing and why.”
“It’s doing what it is to protect you, as I’ve said time and time again,” Camino said. “We might not understand how or why, but that’s what it is trying to do. The house might think not think he’s murderer. It could be something such as cheating on girlfriends, or it could be something much worse. It’s impossible to know until we figure out what the house is focusing on. There must be some negative energy coming from Craig, but there’s just no way to determine what’s sending those vibes to the house.”
I nodded. I turned my back to the window and glanced around the room. The wand still sat in its wooden
box over the fireplace as Camino’s ancestor watched over it. On the far wall was a bookcase of old tomes with titles in Latin and various other lost languages embossed on them with a gold flourish. A shelf opposite the bookcase held various bottles of potions and elixirs.
Camino walked over to the sofa and sat next to me. “We need to be grateful to the house. For all we know, he is a no good cheater or a liar, and you deserve much better than that.”
I nodded, looking out the window. I wondered where Craig was at that very moment. Was he with another, unsuspecting woman? Was that why my house didn’t like him? Or was it because he was a murderer?
Chapter 19
I was on my way to Ruprecht’s shop with Thyme. It was just turning to dusk. The streets were aglow with artificial orange light reflecting from the rain-drenched streets. Camino had been the one to propose the meeting. She had come up with the idea to perform a spell designed to reveal my enemies.
Once again, I found myself at the forefront of a dangerous game, one that I wasn’t sure I wanted to play. The only things that made me feel safe were my friends. It was amazing to me to think that few months ago I had been a normal young woman, fresh out of a relationship, unsure where life was going to take me. Since inheriting my aunt’s house and moving to Bayberry Creek, everything had changed I was no longer content to see where life took me—now, I was the one taking charge. And despite the fact I didn’t always make the right choices, I was happy that I had choices to make.
Ruprecht’s shop was dark when we parked in front of it, although I could make out a dim light burning. Ruprecht himself answered the door, pulling it open a moment before Thyme could knock.
“Hello, my dears,” he said with a smile. “Do come in. You’re the last to arrive.”
“This one is always running late,” Thyme said, hitching her thumb at me.
I shrugged. “It’s either a character flaw, or a charming quirk.”
“I think it’s quite charming,” Ruprecht said over his shoulder. “Except when I’m the one waiting for you.”
