The Good, the Bad, and the Witchy: A Wishcraft Mystery

by Heather Blake

  Michael fluttered twice. No.

  “Had something like that ever happened before? Plants that have gone missing?”

  Yes.

  I felt I was on to something. “Recently?”

  Yes.

  “While you were still working for Harriette?”

  Yes.

  Multiple times. It made me question exactly how tight Harriette’s security had been.

  “Someone is trying to replicate the black roses?” I asked.

  Yes.

  “Do you think the black roses are why you were killed?”

  There was a long hesitation before he flashed once. Yes.

  “Any chance you could be wrong?” I asked.

  No.

  I was missing something big. “Why would you be killed over the black flowers?”

  He, of course, had no answer.

  I bit the inside of my cheek as I pulled into Ve’s driveway, parking outside the detached garage. The two-story structure hadn’t been used to house a car in decades. It was too full of clutter—which included most of my things. I stored them there when Harper and I had arrived in town. Five months later, it might be time to start pulling them out.

  “Okay,” I said to him. “Let me ask you this. Do you think whoever killed you is someone you know personally? Another Crafter?”

  Yes.

  I’d been afraid of that. I’d been holding out hope that a plant smuggler had come along and Michael had gotten in the way, but his murder seemed too much related to magic.

  But if it wasn’t a stranger, that left me with a pit in my stomach.

  Because that meant I probably knew Michael’s killer.

  * * *

  Pushing open the back door at As You Wish, I pulled off my boots and smiled at Ve and an invisible Amy as they played a quiet game of gin rummy at the kitchen counter. Michael, I realized, hadn’t come in with me. Where he was off to was anyone’s guess, but I knew he’d be back. I’d been imprinted.

  Ve held a finger to her lips and pointed toward the living room.

  I followed the direction of Ve’s finger and found Higgins snoring on the area rug and Nick sound asleep on the sofa.

  I crept over to Nick and just took in the sight of him for a moment.

  His arms were folded across his chest, his five-o’clock shadow had crossed the line to a beard, and he looked utterly peaceful, his face slack, his mind, while asleep, worry free.

  I couldn’t help but reach out and touch his messy hair, twisting a soft strand around my finger. He shifted, and I quickly backed up, leaving him be.

  Back in the kitchen, I whispered, “How long has he been like that?”

  “About half an hour,” Ve said. “He came to pick up Mimi, sat down, and was out like a light. I didn’t have the heart to wake him.”

  I looked around. “Where is Mimi? And Missy?”

  “With Harper at the bookshop. I thought it best to keep Mimi out of the house as much as possible with our current houseguest, and she asked if she could bring Missy along.”

  Our current houseguest. Amy.

  I watched a playing card be picked up from the pile and float through thin air.

  “How’s the glow?” I asked her.

  Suddenly, light filled the kitchen. Amy smiled at me, keeping one hand on the hood of her cloak. “The same.”

  She put the hood back up and vanished. Before she had, I’d seen the dark circles under her eyes. The grief etched in her face. “Did you sleep?”

  “A little.”

  “How was your visit with Lydia?” Ve asked me.

  I filled her in on what had happened to the black roses.

  Ve’s eyes took on a troubled expression. “The flowers all died? How strange. What happened?”

  “Lydia thinks they were poisoned. . . .”

  “But?” Ve asked.

  “I think it had something to do with Michael.” I wished I could see Amy’s facial expressions. It was disconcerting to be unable to gauge her emotions. I didn’t know if she could sense Michael’s ghost, so I didn’t mention why I thought it had to do with him—that he’d pretty much told me so.

  “How?” Ve asked.

  I poured myself a glass of ice water. “That, I’m not sure.”

  Amy’s voice cracked as she said, “If the roses died at the exact same time Michael did, there is only one explanation.”

  “What’s that, dear?” Ve asked, her eyes full of curiosity.

  “It was his spell cast over the flowers,” Amy said simply. “When an Illumicrafter’s light is taken from the earthly world, any light used in a spell is taken, too. . . .”

  I’d been missing something big—and this revelation certainly qualified.

  “If that’s the case with the roses,” I speculated, “Michael had to have used his light to grow them, but that doesn’t make sense, either. Illumicrafters create light. Blackness is the absence of light.”

  Ve tipped her head, apparently thinking it through. “No, it doesn’t make sense.”

  We both looked in Amy’s direction.

  “Don’t look at me,” she said. “I have no idea how he did it, but I guarantee it was his spell.”

  It wasn’t likely that Michael could tell me how in yes and no answers, either.

  What I really didn’t understand was why Harriette would claim the spell was hers, taking credit for its success, especially when in doing so, she was eliminating any potential ability for Michael to use his Craft for a profitable career. Had she tricked him somehow? It was clear that no one at the Elysian Fields knew he had been an Illumicrafter—or that he’d created that spell. Even Lydia didn’t know the truth—she had told me this morning that the spell was her mother’s.

  I ran a finger down the side of my glass. “Amy, did you have any idea that Michael had something to do with those roses?”

  “He never said anything to me. He never said much about any of his jobs. I don’t think he liked me to worry about how hard he worked to support me.” She sniffled as if trying to hold back tears.

  “What other jobs did he have?” I went in search of some lunch, something quick, because I had plans to head back out. “The Elysian Fields. The bakery. Anything else?”

  “I know he had at least one other job he was working since quitting the greenhouses. He also had some sort of master plan in place for his future. He’d been spending a lot of time with Fisk’s dad, Dash.”

  I frowned as I set a tub of peanut butter on the counter. I remembered what Dash had said about trying to warn Michael. . . . “Were they working on something together?”

  “I don’t know. He wouldn’t say for sure. He said he didn’t want to jinx it.”

  I bit my lip. That was interesting. “What about this other job? What was he doing?”

  “I don’t know that, either. Something at night, which he hated because he—”

  “Doesn’t like the dark,” I finished for her.

  She tapped her cards on the counter. “Right.”

  Lydia had mentioned that when she offered Michael his job back, he’d claimed he didn’t need the money. Why was that, exactly? Because of this new night job? Or because of what he was working on with Dash?

  I let that roll around in my head. If Michael had been working with Dash, it most likely involved flowers. I’d bet my last Peppermint Pattie that it had to do with black flowers. . . .

  “I’m out,” Amy said, laying a playing card facedown on the pile. She revealed her hand.

  With Amy being invisible and all, it was as if I had two ghosts around. The fact that I wasn’t bothered about that surprised me. I really wasn’t a go-with-the-flow kind of girl. But, I supposed maybe I was a go-with-the-flow kind of witch. I’d slipped into this magical life pretty easily.

  Ve groaned. “Card shark. Another hand, Amy?”

  “Actually, I think I’m going to go lie down again.”

  “After that,” Ve said, “you must eat something. You’ll just feel weaker and weaker until you get so
me sustenance in you.”

  Fondly, Amy said, “Yes, ma’am.”

  Ve quirked an eyebrow.

  I’d yet to meet any woman who liked the term.

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs as Amy climbed them, and we heard the soft click of the bedroom door latching.

  I slathered peanut butter. “Does Nick know she’s here?”

  “Not yet, but I think you should tell him.”

  I nodded. I didn’t like keeping secrets from him. “Any word about Tilda?”

  “Not a peep,” she said, sweeping the playing cards into one massive pile.

  I eyed her. “Why don’t you seem worried about that?”

  She adopted a surprised expression. “I don’t know what you mean. Mimi and Harper littered the town with the flyers this morning while you were with Lydia. I’m sure we’ll get a call soon. Believe it or not, I think Tilda is highly capable of taking care of herself for a day.”

  I crossed handing out flyers off my afternoon to-do list, but I still had to meet with Vince. I was about to ask Ve again if Tilda was a familiar, when I remembered how Archie had behaved this morning. It wasn’t likely Ve would be able to tell me, either, if the Elder wanted me to figure out familiars on my own.

  I swallowed the last of my sandwich. “Archie wants me to go see Vince Paxton. Apparently, he broke up the fight last night between Fisk and Michael. The Elder wants to know what he might have overheard.”

  Ve nodded. “Is Michael still hanging around?”

  “Not at the moment. But yes.” I told her what Bertie had said about imprinting.

  “Of course!” Ve said. “That makes perfect sense.”

  I rolled my eyes and rinsed my plate before setting it in the dishwasher. “I’m going to head out now.”

  “I have a few errands to run as well,” she said, then glanced at the stairs and frowned. “Do you think our guest will be fine here on her own?”

  “I think so.” Amy was, after all, nineteen.

  Ve headed up the stairs to tidy up before she went out, and I turned toward the family room for one more glance at Nick before I left.

  He was still sleeping peacefully—as was Higgins, who had rolled onto his back and stretched out. Posed that way, he was almost longer than the couch.

  I couldn’t resist the temptation to run my fingers through Nick’s hair again. While I was at it, I leaned over the back of the couch to kiss him good-bye as well.

  Before I even realized what was happening, I was being dragged downward. I squealed as Nick settled me on top of him, nose to nose, toe to toe.

  Well, hello.

  I leaned up on my elbows so I could see his face.

  Smiling at me, he said, “You’re getting better at your screaming.”

  He was being kind. I still hadn’t mastered projecting, and my shrieks sounded more like mewls. “I get lots of practice. You know, when bony hands grab me in parking lots, and you yank me over the back of the couch.”

  His dark eyes narrowed. “Who’s grabbing you in parking lots?”

  “Lydia.”

  “Wentworth?”

  “She hired me to look into Harriette’s supposed fiancé.”

  He ran his fingers through my hair. “Don’t look too hard. My bet is that he’s made up.”

  “Yours, mine, and just about everyone else’s in the village.” The payout would be pennies at this rate. “How long have you been awake?”

  “Not long. Who were you and Ve talking to?”

  “When?” I asked, trying to play dumb.

  “In the kitchen. A few minutes ago.”

  Ve saved me from answering as she came down the back stairs and into the living room. She took one look at us, sprawled on the couch and started singing “Love Is in the Air.” I should have been embarrassed, but I wasn’t. Being here with him . . . like this . . . It felt too right.

  “I’m headed out, Darcy,” Ve said, still humming. “Are you still planning to see Vince?”

  I levered myself up and climbed off the couch. I’d have much rather stayed, but I really didn’t want to answer Nick’s question about the voices in the kitchen. Not yet. “Just leaving now.”

  “I’ll check in with you later then.” She gave me an overexaggerated wink. “Ta-ta!”

  As she danced her way to the back door, she began singing again. I rolled my eyes. Subtle she wasn’t.

  “Vince?” Nick sat up and ran a hand over his head, smoothing wayward hairs.

  Higgins’s feet twitched in his sleep.

  “Archie, via orders from the Elder, wants me to ask Vince a few questions. Apparently, Vince broke up the fight between Michael and Fisk in the alley behind the bakery last night.”

  “What are you hoping to find out?” He stood, then stretched.

  His shirt rose up with the motion, and I tried not to stare at the muscled abs that peeked out. As Ve would say, have mercy!

  “It would be nice to know what Michael and Fisk had been fighting about.”

  He gave a curt nod. “Yes, it would. I didn’t know that Vince had been there last night. How’d you find out?”

  “Archie.”

  “How’d he find out?”

  “No clue. You’ll have to ask him.”

  He smiled. “I will. Just as soon as we get back from Vince’s.”

  “We?”

  He tucked in his shirt (darn!) and said, “I’m coming with you.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I still owe you a caramel apple,” Nick said, squeezing my hand.

  We’d dropped off Mimi’s overnight bag and Higgins at his house and were on our way to Lotions and Potions.

  My shoulder brushed against his as we threaded through the crowded sidewalk. Colorful leaves skittered across the cobblestone road, and the scent of cinnamon hung heavily in the air—the fried dough booth had a line that stretched down the block.

  “That you do,” I said. My gaze skipped to the Scarish Wheel (the festival’s Ferris wheel), and I enjoyed the hokey fantasy I had of Nick kissing me while stopped at the top. Which might, in fact, be completely cheesy, but it brought a warm, fuzzy feeling to my stomach.

  He stole a sideways glance at me. There was heat in his eyes that made me believe he had similar Ferris wheel thoughts. Then his jaw tightened and he said, “I just don’t know when. This case . . .”

  Tamping down disappointment, I said, “There’s time enough.” Another whole week before the festival wrapped up. But whether or not I got my kiss atop that Ferris wheel—or a caramel apple—seemed silly in comparison to what had happened to Michael.

  Whump, whump.

  He followed a few paces behind us, and I was grateful that he was no longer nipping at my heels. I could still feel him, but it wasn’t the uncomfortable weight of last night.

  Or maybe I was simply getting used to having him around.

  What a crazy life I led.

  “Are you cold?” Nick asked, releasing his hand and wrapping an arm around me.

  “That’s better.” I hadn’t been cold, but I wasn’t going to say so. I liked having his arm around me. “Any new leads in your investigation? Did you talk to Dash Khoury about his warning to Michael?”

  “I sent Glinda to interview him, but he wasn’t available. Hopefully by tonight we’ll have his statement. We’re still looking for Fisk Khoury, and now Amy Healey is missing as well. We think they might be together.”

  I swallowed. Now might be the best time to tell him about my houseguest. Before I could get a word out, however, he said, “This case is more complicated than it appears.”

  “How so?”

  “The medical examiner called this morning.” Stopping, he tugged me out of the way of oncoming foot traffic.

  I leaned against a gaslight, instinctively knowing I was going to have to brace myself for the news he was about to give me.

  “Michael wasn’t just killed once last night.” Nick dragged a hand over his face and looked to the heavens as if they’d impart some answers he clearl
y needed.

  “What does that mean?”

  Nick’s brown eyes clouded as he looked at me. “He wasn’t killed once. He was killed four times.”

  Whump-whump-whump.

  I scrunched my face, not understanding.

  Nick said, “Preliminary autopsy shows Michael Healey was stabbed, bludgeoned, strangled, and poisoned.”

  Wrapping my arms around the light post, I held on tight so I wouldn’t sink to the ground. “What?”

  “The poison is the official cause of death—it appears as though the other methods weren’t thorough enough to be fatal.”

  I shuddered. Now I was cold. Completely chilled.

  “We haven’t recovered any of the weapons except for the poison. It was in the sports drink in the delivery van. Antifreeze is easily masked in sweet drinks.”

  “Antifreeze?” I echoed, my teeth chattering. Shock was setting in.

  “Just a couple of tablespoons can be deadly,” Nick said. “It appears as though Michael drank it between leaving the bakery and arriving at the pub. There’s evidence that he had been ill in the bushes. I think that’s when someone came up behind him, stabbed him in the back, and hit him over the head.”

  His face had lost color, and I could easily see the dark circles under his eyes. The half hour of sleep he’d had on Ve’s couch was probably all he’d had in the past twenty-four hours.

  “Why?” was all I could ask.

  “We’ll find out, Darcy. We’ll find out.” He pried my fingers from the pole and put his arm around me again—this time to pretty much hold me up. “Let’s find out what Vince overheard, okay? And we’ll go from there.”

  I nodded. I had to tell him about Amy. And the black roses. But for now, I was too numb but to walk along with him and think about poor Michael.

  And about how someone had really, really wanted him dead.

  * * *

  The bell jangled on the door of Lotions and Potions as we went inside, and I could hardly believe my eyes at the sight before me.

  Vince Paxton sat at the head of a rectangular wooden worktable surrounded by Brownie Scouts. Six sweet faces watched him in awe and wonder as he dramatically pushed a button on a food processor.

  As the machine whirred, his gaze flicked up to meet mine. Surprise widened his eyes, and he nodded, letting us know he’d be with us in a moment.