Anna Denning Mystery Series Box Set: Books 1–3

by Karin Kaufman

  “Yeah. She told me to rewrite the names on another piece of paper, and that’s what I gave you.”

  “Think carefully. Who else saw the names before you gave them to me?”

  Jazmin leaned back in her chair and looked up toward the ceiling. “Rowan, I think. Maybe Jason and Monica.” She lowered her eyes and look directly at Anna. “They grow herbs for the store and they were in the office with Darlene. I think anybody could have seen them.”

  “And what about the two photos?”

  Jazmin plucked a piece of dark lint from the arm of her robe. Then another. She waited a few more seconds before saying, “Darlene told me to give them to you.”

  Anna believed Jazmin was telling the truth, and that meant that Tom and Darlene had worked together to hatch a plan involving Susan and her family tree.

  Jazmin coughed nervously and used that as an excuse to leave the table and take a carton of orange juice from the refrigerator. She stood with the door open, contemplating the nearly bare shelves. Anna felt a pang of sympathy. No wonder Jazmin was so thin. Where was this girl’s family? Did no one care for her or watch out for her?

  “Jazmin, what’s your real name? Does your family live in Colorado?”

  Jazmin gazed into the refrigerator, refusing to turn. Anna thought she’d gone too far. She wasn’t entitled to ask Jazmin personal questions.

  “My family’s in Montana,” Jazmin said, still scrutinizing the meager contents of her refrigerator. “We don’t exactly get along.”

  “You don’t get along with your parents or with your whole family?”

  “My parents think I’m a whackjob.” Jazmin opened the carton and took a swig of orange juice. “My sister and I get along, but she’s in Montana too, so we don’t talk much.”

  “I’m sure your parents don’t think you’re a whackjob.”

  Jazmin turned her eyes on Anna, a look of scornful pity on her face. Anna knew she should have kept quiet. She didn’t know the first thing about Jazmin’s family. Maybe they’d thrown her out of the house when they discovered what their daughter was into. They may have been embarrassed by her and relieved when she moved two states away. But it was hard to believe they had abandoned her altogether. Maybe they had let her go, hoping she’d grow out of this wicca phase of her life.

  Anna hadn’t grown out of her own wicca phase, she’d bolted from it. It ended one night in her dorm room, when she said a prayer instead of a spell and relinquished all pretenders to the Lord’s throne. And wicca was a great pretender, a pretty, enchanting “path.” But as she had learned over the years, the fairest blooms bore the darkest poison.

  Anna wondered what she would do if she had a daughter who peered into black mirrors and had friends who drove athames into couches. Anything. Anything but abandon her to them.

  “Jazmin, I know that dagger has you scared, but wish I could make you understand there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “There is!” Jazmin dropped the orange juice carton to the counter and pushed the refrigerator door shut, rattling the a pair of dented aluminum pans sitting on top. “You don’t think there’s anything to worry about because you don’t believe it’s real.”

  “How do you know it’s real?”

  Jazmin jabbed a thumb at her chest. “I know.”

  “I think it’s sad that you’re afraid of your friends,” Anna said as evenly as possible.

  A sullen silence followed her words as Jazmin looked out the kitchen window. “They are my friends,” she said after a moment. “They’re my family.” She looked earnestly at Anna and began counting off on her fingers. “First, they don’t care what anybody looks like. They don’t judge anybody. They don’t judge the path you were meant to walk. They’re not full of negative energy.”

  Anna was determined to keep her mouth shut. Judge, path, energy—these were familiar words. Jazmin had picked them up in her wicca world and rehearsed them endlessly until they were a part of her, and it angered Anna to hear them, but now wasn’t the time to argue.

  “I’m so sick of judgmental people,” Jazmin continued. “Everybody, my whole life, even my own parents. How can your own family treat you like that?”

  Jazmin was no longer talking about her store family. Anna understood now why the girl had agreed to meet her. She was alone, living far from home, and Rowan, no more than a child himself, wasn’t enough.

  “I don’t know, Jazmin. When was the last time you talked to your parents?”

  A sharp rap at the door startled them both. Jazmin looked back at the clock on the stove then at Anna. “Hide it,” she pleaded, pointing at the paper. Anna folded it and stuffed it into her jacket pocket. She felt the blade of the athame on her curled fingers.

  “I asked Rowan to come,” Jazmin said. “I’m sorry, I was scared about what you’d say to me.” She rose and headed for her apartment door.

  Anna stood and looked down at her jacket pocket to make sure no part of the athame was visible. She checked the clock. Eight thirty-five. Jazmin was going to be late for work. She glanced around the kitchen. The cordless phone next to the refrigerator looked no more than a few years old and was obviously in fine operating condition.

  She peeked around the other side of the refrigerator and saw three bunches of herbs hanging from green strings nailed to a cabinet door, hand-sized clumps of rosemary, thyme, and lavender. They could have been for cooking, but this wasn’t the kitchen of a cook. Anna examined the green strings that held the bunches together. They were smooth and shiny, like embroidery thread.

  As she straightened, Anna noticed two drawings on the wall under the cabinets, almost hidden by the herbs. She swept the herbs to one side. The drawings were on white pebbled artists’ paper and were thumbtacked to the wall, one of Rowan and the other of a ruby-throated hummingbird sipping from a foxglove. They were beautiful. And they were in chalk.

  “Aren’t they great?” Anna turned. Rowan was standing in front of the kitchen table.

  “They’re wonderful. Did you do these, Jazmin?”

  Jazmin nodded. She was silent again.

  “How long have you been drawing?”

  Jazmin shrugged. “Since I was a kid.”

  Anna fought back a smile. At eighteen or so, Jazmin was still a kid, but she wouldn’t know that for years yet.

  Jazmin took two cups and a can of store-brand coffee from a cabinet and set them on the counter. She knocked the used grounds from a filter in the coffee maker, slipped the filter back into the machine, and began scooping coffee.

  “Make it thick,” Rowan said. “I need caff.” He walked to the window side of the table, yawning and rubbing his eyes as he sat. “So, Anna, how about that meeting last night? I was surprised to see you there.” He watched her as she took a seat at the table.

  “Really?” she said, pushing an errant strand of wavy hair behind one ear. “I enjoy watching political sausage being made.”

  Rowan let go with a loud, wheezy laugh. He stuck a hand into his jacket pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes, then hastily jammed the pack back in. “Hell, Jaz, I’ll hold the cig out the window.”

  “You know I can’t stand the smell.” She set the cups on the table and gave Rowan a stern but patient look before returning to the coffee maker.

  “I’m surprised you smoke,” Anna said. “You don’t see many smokers in Colorado.”

  “Tell me about it.” He scratched his head vigorously and the colored beads on the end of his braids jumped. “I’m one of thirty-six in the whole state.”

  “That many?” Anna smiled and wondered idly how he managed to shampoo.

  “Happy Yule, by the way. It’s the longest night of the year.”

  Anna smiled again and thanked him. He was mocking her, but it was an opportunity to ask him some questions. “Do you celebrate Yule at the store?”

  “Nah.”

  “But I thought Darlene—”

  “It’s a minor sabbat. Most trad witches just celebrate the season. But Darlene likes to get in
people’s faces, so she talks about Yule when everyone else is talking about Christmas. Her coven gets together at the store on Christmas Eve to have an anti-Christmas party.”

  “How many people are in her coven?”

  Rowan looked in Jazmin’s direction. “What, thirteen, Jaz?”

  Jazmin smirked as she brought the coffee pot to the table. “Sorry, I only have two cups,” she said to Anna, holding up the pot.

  “That’s fine. Take my seat.” Anna worked her way around Jazmin and into the kitchen. There were only two chairs at the table. The place reminded Anna of her first apartment. Just the necessities. You did without the rest.

  But in Anna’s first apartment there had been a well-stocked refrigerator and cupboards. No luxury items, but plenty of the single person’s fillers—pasta, rice, dried beans. Endless dishes could be made with those inexpensive ingredients as a base. Did Jazmin not know that?

  “Are the coven members all women?” Anna asked, leaning against a counter. She shoved her hands into her pockets and again felt the blade. A shudder of dread ran up her spine and she repressed the urge to pull her hands out and wrap them across her chest.

  “In Darlene’s coven?” Jazmin said. “They’d have to be.” She cradled the cup in her hands, seeming to savor the warmth as much as the taste of the coffee. Even with her jacket on, Anna could feel the chill in the room.

  Rowan threw an arm over the back of his chair. “She used to have a full coven in Denver, before she moved here. Actually, there are only six women in her Elk Park coven. They’ll be here on the twenty-fourth for the anti-Christmas party.” He took a gulp of coffee, watching Anna.

  “Are you going?” Anna asked Rowan.

  “Sure. I’m a recovering Presbyterian from a family of unrecovered Quakers and Methodists. Man, I love being a heathen.”

  Anna could no longer tolerate the cold blade against her fisted fingers. She felt if she moved her hand the tiniest part of an inch the blade would slice into her skin, and she imagined the metal tinged with something foul, a coat of poison. “So what do you two think about Tom Muncy naming Darlene liaison to the governor’s committee?” she said, crossing her arms. “Were you surprised?”

  “No,” Rowan said. “Darlene gets what she wants. They told her she wouldn’t be able to take over the store next door, but she did.”

  Anna could tell that Rowan was now more at ease in her presence. He was opening up, and she would keep asking questions until he stopped answering.

  “I’m still surprised Tom Muncy chose her,” Anna said. “I heard he didn’t like Darlene.”

  Rowan downed the rest of his coffee in one long gulp then set the cup on the table. “He hates her store. He never wanted it to open. Darlene wants more witch stores and all kinds of pagan stores downtown. She wants to make Summit Avenue into Paganistan, and Tom knows it.” He spread his hands in a gesture of bewilderment. “So go figure.”

  Paganistan. Another new word. This one she could figure out for herself. “Rowan, I meant to ask you in the Buffalo, what are fluffy bunnies?”

  Rowan glanced at Jazmin, who rolled her eyes and looked out the window. “It’s a witch war term,” he said. “Traditional witches like Darlene don’t like the whole wicca thing. Darlene’s real trad. Her grandmother, great-grandmother, all the way back, all of them were witches. Only her mom wasn’t. Her mom hated Darlene getting into witchcraft. She kicked her out on the street when she was sixteen.”

  “Sixteen?” Anna said. “That’s so young.” And, she thought, it helped explain Darlene’s crusty exterior and her need to control her employees. She’d known abandonment at an early age and had learned to protect herself. Probably at all costs.

  “Now Darlene has a real family,” Jazmin said, turning back from the window. “Us.”

  “But fluffy bunnies,” Rowan said, scratching his head again, “they’re McWiccans. They think wicca’s cool but don’t bother to learn anything. They think everything’s lollipops, they like to say ‘Blessed be’ and talk about white magic and fairies, you know.”

  “Fairies?” Jazmin said. “Come on.” She grabbed Rowan’s cup and took it to the sink, then rinsed it out and set it on a frayed and discolored towel on the counter.

  “Maybe not fairies,” Rowan said, looking at Anna. “But you get the idea.”

  “I think so,” Anna said. “Sounds like there’s a lot of infighting. That’s positively denominational.”

  “Making fun, are you?” Rowan said.

  Anna grinned. Rowan was fast on his feet. And smart. What was he doing working as a clerk under Darlene’s thumb, getting himself caught up in paganism? All this talk about his pagan name, his path, and what works for him. Wasn’t that fluffy? A way of avoiding hard choices and their consequences? She wanted to reach across the table and shake him by the shoulders. It was wrong to waste his life thinking like a child, refusing to acknowledge the truth.

  “Anyway, that’s Darlene’s view of fluffy bunnies, not mine.” Rowan rose and took Jazmin’s cup to the sink, giving her a wink as he rinsed it out. “I say do what the universe leads you to do. Any food, Jaz?” He opened the refrigerator and peered inside.

  “Orange juice, if you want.”

  “What’s this? It’s all green.”

  Anna watched as he bent low to retrieve what looked like a small chunk of very old cheese from the back of the bottom shelf. Under his braids, near the hair line at the back of his neck, there was a tattoo, a blue Celtic knot. And coiled about it, rising from what looked like a hole in the earth, was a yellow snake.

  9

  Anna was relieved when Jazmin and Rowan refused her offer of a ride to What Ye Will. She needed time to think. The store didn’t open until nine, they told her, and it was only a ten-minute walk.

  Anna wished she knew what they were saying right now. Especially Rowan. He was always guarded in her presence. He appeared to be open and friendly, but Anna sensed he let her know only what he wanted her to know. Though he let things slip with a word here and there. He revealed them purely by accident—like the Celtic knot and snake hidden under his hair.

  At least she’d gotten paid, she thought, and she enjoyed the idea of pocketing Darlene’s money. It was the least the woman owed her after all the trouble she’d caused.

  Anna parked the Jimmy a block from the Buffalo Café and took Jackson from the back seat, hooking his leash to his collar as the dog wiggled with excitement. Two days in a row with Suka was cause for celebration. She glanced down the street at What Ye Will. It was five minutes to nine, but the windows were dark and the snow on the walk hadn’t been shoveled.

  Jackson hopped out of the car and pulled hard on his leash as Anna pivoted to keep her balance and pushed the door shut with her foot. “Jackson, stop,” she commanded, straightening the twisted leash. When she looked up she saw a man in a blue plaid shirt in Buckhorn’s Trading Post prying her ad poster from the store’s window and folding it carelessly as if to throw it away.

  She was stunned. She’d paid what was to her a small fortune to have those ads printed. During tourist season last summer almost a quarter of her business had come from the small, colorful posters. The man destroying her ad didn’t even own the store. Anna had never seen him before. How dare he remove and ruin her poster, her property?

  As the man made another fold in the poster he glanced at Anna, who was now a foot from the window and glaring at him. He paused for only a second, returning her glare with a blank look, then walked up to a tall, thin man standing at the cashier counter. Tom Muncy. The man in plaid tried to give Tom the folded poster, but Tom threw up his hands, unwilling to touch it. He was already making good on his promise to destroy her business and reputation.

  Anna twisted and untwisted the loop at the end of Jackson’s leash in her hands. Tom turned for the door and caught sight of her just before he opened it. He hesitated the smallest fraction of a second, his hand jumping on the doorknob as if he’d received an electrical shock, then breezed out the d
oor and veered to his left, hurrying down the sidewalk. Anna darted after him and shouted for him to stop.

  “What do you want?” he said, wheeling around. He yanked at the collar of his leather jacket, chafing at the offense of having to speak to her.

  “You’re joking, right?” Anna had no desire to play games. Tom knew she’d seen him in Buckhorn’s. She pulled Jackson close with the leash and told him to sit. “What do you want, Tom? What did you say to that man to get him to take my poster out of the window? How dare you interfere in my life.”

  Anna heard the shrillness in her voice and was ashamed. This man, whatever he’d done with her poster, had just lost his wife, and here she was verbally pummeling him on the street. She took a deep breath, relaxed the fists she’d formed around Jackson’s leash, and waited for Tom to respond.

  “As long as you’re here,” Tom said coolly, “I’d like any copy you have of Susan’s family tree returned to me. It’s her personal information and it shouldn’t be out there. Don’t bring it by the house, put it in the mail. Today.”

  “Jazmin’s the only other person I gave a copy to,” Anna said. “I told you that. But you didn’t answer my question.”

  Tom looked down at Jackson, seeming to linger over his annoyance at the dog’s presence, then squinted at Anna. “I don’t owe you an explanation of anything I do.”

  “When you stick your nose in my life, you do.”

  “Excuse me, lady?”

  Lady. Anna bristled. Now he was going to lady her? “Tom, I’m very sorry about your wife, but you don’t have the right to interfere in my business.” She pointed a finger over her shoulder toward Buckhorn’s. “That’s my business. That’s my livelihood. I don’t interfere in yours, and I want you to stay out of mine.”

  Tom’s face relaxed. He dropped his hands into his coat pockets and spoke calmly, evenly. “I’d like you to return any copy of Susan’s genealogical records. I believe they’re her property, and hence mine.”

  “Those records are my property. I’d tell you to read the contract for confirmation of that, but you’re not the one who hired me.” Anna paused. “Though you may have had a part in paying me.”