by Madelyn Alt
“Oh.” A thought occurred to me suddenly. I cleared my throat. “Um, Marcus?”
“Hm?”
“Where do you usually work when you cast your spells?” I asked shyly, tilting my head to gaze at him sideways.
“Actually,” he said, spreading the silken scarf over the table before placing the bag of goodies on top of it for me, “I honestly don’t cast very many spells.”
I blinked. I wasn’t expecting that. “Really?”
He laughed at my surprise. “Really. I guess I just don’t see the need to. Most of the time I feel that I’m perfectly capable of bringing things about on my own or with the help of my Guides. And with a certain level of patience.”
“Patience is something I’m not always good at,” I admitted.
“Sometimes casting spells comes off as pushing the issue or trying to control the outcome of things, in my mind, when most of the time a simple heart-to-heart with your Guides can do so much more. Just sitting back and letting them do their thing on your behalf,” he told me with a shrug. “I like to let them take the wheel and see where they’ll take me.”
“Like with me?”
His smile was enigmatic enough to rival the Mona Lisa’s. “Maybe.”
“Well, did you ask them about me or not?” I persisted.
“That,” he said, leaning in and kissing me on the nose, “is for me to know and for you to forget about.”
“You did!” I laughed. “You did. Admit it.” And then I sobered. “Poor Tom. He never had a chance, did he?”
Marcus finished setting out the spell components on the cloth but said nothing. He didn’t need to. We both knew the answer to that. Tom and I, we were just not meant to be. We were too different. He was Law & Order, and I was Practical Magic. His days were all C.S.I., and mine were Bewitched. He thought all psychics were Miss Cleo, and I wanted to learn to bend spoons like Uri Geller. He thought Stony Mill was Mayberry born again and was dreadfully confused by the reality that it wasn’t, and I was beginning to think Stony Mill and Eastwick were next-door neighbors, and when the Devil finally decided to poke his head out of the shadows and let the rest of us see him for what he truly is, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be around. We were different.
Different people. Different priorities. Different worlds. Except now his world was crashing up against mine, and now my problems were becoming his problems and his problems were becoming my problems, and that, my friends, was not good. For any of us.
“What are you asking for in a home?” Marcus asked me.
“Oh, you know. Just a place to call my own that is not in a basement and has plenty of natural light, allows pets, is safe, very affordable, close to you”—he smiled at that—“and has a good feeling to it. You know. Nice.”
“You could stay here,” he suggested.
I smiled, a little sadly. “We talked about the reasons why—”
“But we didn’t talk about alternatives that would allow us both to do what we need to do and get done what we need to get done.”
“What . . . alternatives?” I was trying not to get too excited. Sometimes it was better not to get your hopes up too soon.
“Well, I talked to Liss on my way to pick you up—”
“You did?” It must have been before she and I gathered spell components, because Marcus had arrived just as we were finishing up.
“—and she knows how opposed you are to getting in the way of my continued education . . . even though you aren’t—”
I waited, raising my eyebrows to urge him on and wondering how this was going to play out.
“—so, Liss suggested that she could drive you to and from work for as long as it takes you to get your cast off and drive again.”
The little dickens! She hadn’t said a word! No wonder she was acting so pleased with herself while gathering up all the herbs and things. She knew the spell wasn’t going to be necessary. A spell that worked in advance of even working it . . . it didn’t get any better than that. Negative reaction time. Awesome. I hoped her car spell worked just as well. Not to mention the protection ritual. That one was especially important, as far as I was concerned.
“Liss,” I said, “is incredibly closed mouthed when she wants to be.”
He grinned. “She is at that.”
“So . . .”
“So, what do you think?” he asked, letting his excitement for the prospect bubble over.
“Is she sure?” I asked him, worrying. “I mean, I know she probably thinks nothing of it, but I don’t want to be a burden to anyone, let alone my boss, and . . . oh, gosh . . . it would solve a lot of problems, wouldn’t it?”
“So that’s a yes, then?”
“That’s a . . . maybe . . . I have to talk to Liss first. I have to know, for sure, that it won’t be putting her out.”
He just smiled at me. Knowingly. As knowingly as Liss had earlier. And then he kissed me, and I forgot what I was so worried about.
The doorbell rang, breaking into the momentary reverie. I sighed as his lips left mine and grumbled, “Darned door-to-door salespeople.”
Marcus rose to his feet and peeked past the curtain on the front window, where video camera equipment still pointed outward, even though it had been weeks since the last time he’d thought he saw anyone—meaning Tom or his cronies—scoping out the house. What can I say? We’d both been a bit too preoccupied to bother ourselves putting it away. “Uh-oh.”
Uh-oh?
He went to the door and yanked it open. “Well, well. Look who it is.”
Standing just outside, his finger raised toward the doorbell as though he had been about to ring it again, was your favorite police officer and mine, Tom Fielding, in all his aviator-sunglassed glory.
Chapter 12
My mind was having a hard time wrapping around what I was seeing. Why would Tom be standing at Marcus’s front door?
Tom gave a self-important little cough to clear his throat and took off his sunglasses, tucking them into the collar of his white tee. He was doing his best to appear official, and yet there was an air of uncertainty to him, a self-consciousness that niggled along my emotional pathways, making me feel a little nervous as well. “I have a few questions to ask you, and I was hoping this would be a good time.” And then his gaze traveled down to Marcus’s bare feet before drifting past him to see me, relaxing supine on the sofa, and his uncertainty hardened perceptibly.
Oh, snap.
There was something about the appearance of a man’s bare feet that to me felt somehow . . . intimate. I couldn’t help wondering if Tom was thinking that same thing. Especially when paired with me, lolling about on the sofa with a distinct lack of lip gloss. My hand flew to my hair, hoping it was at least presentable.
I sat up a little straighter. Or, as straight as the soft cushions and pillows would allow.
A glower settled in between Tom’s brows. He snapped his gaze back toward Marcus, who appeared to be mulling over the statistical probability of success of turning Tom summarily away.
Yeah, I didn’t think it would work, either.
All he could do was grit his teeth and reluctantly open the door a little bit wider. “By all means, come on in, make yourself at home.”
Tom stepped over the threshold with all the enthusiasm of a man who knows he has a job to do and it’s not going to be pleasant. His hands flexed around the edges of a bulky expandable file folder he was transferring back and forth between his hands.
“Hi, Tom.”
He didn’t look at me. He just waved the folder in my general direction.
“Why don’t you sit down?”
Because that would make this seem like a social call . . .
I heard the thought, plain as day. But did I imagine it or project it on him? Or was it real?
I’d never know, because there was no way I was about to ask him.
Marcus closed the door, and I could tell by the tension in his shoulders that he felt as though he’d just invited the enemy to sit do
wn to a friendly meal. He came to stand next to me, his thumbs catching hold of his belt and hooking there as he eyed Tom, who still hadn’t taken a seat and was standing next to the armchair on the opposite side of the coffee table.
Obviously it was up to me to break the ice. For my own sake. “Marcus, why don’t you get Tom a glass of iced tea?” I suggested pleasantly.
Tom’s eyes left Marcus and settled on me. With relief? “This isn’t really a social call, Maggie.”
“I have no doubts about that, Tom,” I replied dryly. “But it doesn’t have to be difficult. Does it?”
Tom and Marcus eyed each other a little longer, and then Marcus went off without another word to the kitchen, returning a moment later to find that Tom had, indeed, done as I’d bid and was now seated on the edge of chair and was waiting for him. It wasn’t the most relaxed of perches, but it was a start. Marcus set the glass down on the table in front of Tom and then sat down in front of my reclining body on the narrow shelf of sofa leftover, his left hand looped loosely but protectively over my knee, just above my cast. I know Tom noticed.
He flipped through the file folder, selected a page, and laid it across his precisely positioned knees. Then he took his flip notebook out of his breast pocket, opened it to the next free page, and laid it down as well. He looked up at the two of us.
“Well. What a day, huh?”
If he intended to confuse us, it was working. On me, at least. “Yeah. Big day.” I glanced over at Marcus.
“I, uh, I brought forms for you. Both of you. I’d like you to fill them out with what you told me this morning. Your version of events. Your statement as to what happened.” He handed them over to us.
“Now?” I asked.
“That won’t be necessary. But if you could get them in to me as soon as possible, I would appreciate it. If you run out of room, you can attach an additional piece of paper. Just be sure to initial all pages and sign and date the form where indicated.”
“Gotcha. Can do.” I waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. And Marcus wasn’t helping. Finally I asked, “Is that all?”
“Actually . . . no.” He fidgeted with the wire fastener on the spiral notebook, tracing the spaces with his fingertips. “I, uh . . . oh, hell. There is no easy way to do this, so I’m just going to come right out and say it.”
“That might help,” Marcus said, finding his voice at last. “At least it would help us get the show on the road.” I nudged him lightly with my knee and felt his hand tighten over me. Minnie, disgusted with the repeated disturbances of her glorified slumber, turned to give Marcus a reproachful sneer and then hopped down to the floor to watch the proceedings from a distance deemed safe and disturbance free.
“What do you need from us, Tom?” I asked.
He hesitated for what seemed like forever. “First, I have to ask for your sworn secrecy,” he said. “You can’t tell anyone. If you can’t promise that, then I’ll have to come up with another solution.”
“Solution to what?” I prompted gently.
“Sheriff Reed spoke to the state crime lab this afternoon. Their medical testing facility is running on schedule, but there have been staffing cutbacks due to budget cuts at the state level, and the IT group is swamped. They are pushing back time lines for the completion dates of all tests submitted to them, saying it could be months . . . which means that our investigation into Robert Locke’s murder is at a standstill. Unless . . .”
Both Marcus and I waited, but I think we both knew what he was about to say.
“Unless we find another, private-sector source to use as an outside contractor.” He lifted his gaze to meet Marcus’s neutral stare. “Which is what brings me here today. You have friends in high places.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” Tom nodded, tapping the tip of his pen repeatedly against the notebook. “When your name came up, I have to say, I was surprised. And . . . well, never mind. But Ledbetter is insistent, and he’s convinced both Boggs and Reed that you and your computer magic are the way to go.” Ledbetter was the district attorney, so his opinion went a long way when suggestions were made toward an investigation. Tom’s expression said that he couldn’t believe it but was trying very hard to work with his superiors on this and not against them.
“That must have been hard for you.”
The words slipped out before I even knew I had opened my mouth. Marcus and Tom both looked at me curiously, and I cringed inside. Stupid empathic sensibilities. Sometimes they were more trouble than they were worth.
“Yes, well . . . it’s my job. I’ll do what I have to do,” Tom said. And then he cleared his throat. “So, what do you say? Are you interested? You would be doing a good thing for the county. The sooner we get this murder solved and put behind us, the better off we all will be.” More nonconvincing convincing.
“What ties do you have to Ledbetter?” I asked Marcus out of curiosity.
He shrugged. “I built new computers for his legal team last spring at a substantial discount over buying name brand at a retail outlet . . . which meant his budget was more than enough to allow everyone to be upgraded. It made for a very happy team. And I also solved a networking problem they’d been patchwork fixing for the last couple of years because no one understood enough about the security parameters. Good thing, too—their firewall was a joke. They’re lucky no one hacked in just because it was so laughably easy.”
Marcus let Tom wait a good long minute. So long that I was starting to feel uncomfortable with the silence myself. “I don’t know,” he said at last.
Confusion registered in Tom’s steely gray eyes. A muscle in his jaw clenched, just once, and then relaxed forcibly as if by sheer dint of will. “I don’t understand.”
But Marcus was not ready to relent. “The computer stuff is a business I run, Quinn Enterprises Ltd. It isn’t a charity. Not even for the county government.”
“We’re prepared to pay you your usual fee. All we need is a quick turnaround, guaranteed.”
“Hm,” Marcus said finally. “I start classes on Monday. That doesn’t give me a lot of leeway, but I think it can be done. What, exactly, do you have for me?”
“I need your sworn confidentiality agreements first. One for you and for Maggie.” He flicked a glance in my direction. “Normally Maggie wouldn’t be included in this special arrangement at all, but as she has medical issues at present and is staying with you at your place, the DA has agreed that this is enough of an extenuating circumstance to warrant simply obtaining her agreed-upon silence in the event that she is privy to information simply by living in the same house.” From the file he removed two prepared agreements and handed them over as well.
“Well,” I said, not certain any of that could be considered flattering, “it’s not like I’d be out spreading the word about all of your confidential information anyway, Tom.”
“Well . . . I’m sure you wouldn’t mean to. But people do tend to talk if they’re not reminded not to, Maggie. I’m just saying.”
I felt my lips compressing in annoyance and disapproval. “I honestly don’t see how that’s a fair assessment of the situation. Or of me.”
“It’s not meant to cast judgment or to be derogatory in any way—”
“And yet somehow it is,” I returned quickly, resisting the urge to cross my arms over myself. Meanwhile, Marcus was there beside me, smirking and sitting back for the ride.
“You’re being unreasonable.”
“I don’t see why it’s so unreasonable. Maybe I just don’t like being labeled a gossip.”
“I never said you would do that intentionally—”
“Oh, so it’s just that I’m not smart enough to realize when I’m going to spew information all over? Look out, room, she’s gonna blow?”
“What? No, no. That’s not what I meant. I mean, look, this is my job, Maggie.”
“To serve and protect and defend. Yeah, I know. Whatever it takes.”
Tom had had enough. “Look, are you
going to agree to this or not? Because if not, it’s no skin off my nose to go back to the DA and tell him it just didn’t work out. I’m more than happy to go out and find an alternate solution. The only reason I went along with this in the first place is because Ledbetter was so dead set that this would be the perfect answer for all concerned. Quinn here makes a little money and serves a greater purpose, we get answers about what data’s on the stuff we recovered, and bam, murderer hopefully identified. Win-win.”
I was fully prepared to nudge the conversation back to the issue we had just been discussing. Marcus, on the other hand, decided enough was enough. “All right,” he said, cutting in and cutting off anything else I might have been ready to say.
“You’ll do it?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, all right, then.” For the first time since he walked through the door Tom relaxed back in his chair. “Signatures first. Then we’ll talk about what we need you to look at.”
Marcus avoided my questioning glance, but he was already signing his, so it would have been pointless for me not to sign as well. Finishing his signature with a flourish, Marcus handed his pen over to me. I signed the agreement. It wasn’t like I would ever, ever go against the request for confidentiality, regardless of the issues I had with Tom. It hurt my feelings that he would think so poorly of me when I had given him no reason for so little faith. But then again, Tom was a cop, and if there was one thing I’d learned from my time with him, it was that cops of some experience lost the ability to trust your average citizen on the street, even those they had known personally for years. They viewed everyone as possible perpetrators of some crime or indiscretion, suspected everyone of secret deviance or vice, unless proven otherwise. With modern-day cops, it was no longer a case of innocent until proven guilty. It was guilty unless proven otherwise. An unfortunate occupational hazard.
Marcus had handed me his agreement to place with my own, so I tossed them down on the tabletop for Tom. “There. Two signed confidentiality agreements. Hope it helps.”
He reached for them. “It’s a start.”
I think that’s when his mind first registered the items Marcus and I had spread out on the coffee table just a short while before he’d arrived. The click was almost audible in the still room.
