by N. M. Howell
“Spell? What spell?” Officer Trenton did not look impressed.
I ignored him and continued. “When we arrived, we saw Zack there. I thought initially he was just there for a story, as he apparently had asked the owner of the place a bunch of questions about the murder. He was also concerned about whether other people had come to question him or not.”
I paused to catch my breath, wiping a bead of sweat from my brow. Honestly, I only ran about twenty feet. I was going to get back into running first thing tomorrow morning.
“Turns out, Zack is in a relationship with Grace Wong,” I continued. “He was likely down there trying to cover up her tracks; to make sure no one finds out that she was the one who bought the dark magic spell that killed her husband.”
The room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Finally, Jordan spoke. “Grace was having an affair with Zack?”
I nodded. “JoAnn just told me. She saw them together earlier today.”
“I don’t believe it,” he said. “She and Trey were happy.”
I rolled my eyes. “Jordan, haven’t we already come to the conclusion that Grace married Trey for his restaurant business? Trey may have been happy, but I doubt Grace was.”
Jordan shook his head. “Trey deserved better.”
“He did.”
“Alright, back to the matter at hand,” Office Trenton said. “Jordan, I trust you haven’t forgotten your training from when you were in the force? Let’s see what we can get out of Mrs. Wong, okay?”
Jordan straightened his jacket nervously and turned to leave through the kitchen door. I heard the door lock and his footsteps on the other side as he paced.
It had nearly been half an hour, and we expected Grace’s arrival anytime. Everyone in the back room held their silence, and I could feel nervous energy building all around me.
I sat down against the wall and listened.
Not two minutes later, Grace arrived. Her voice was exuberant, and we could hear her clearly through the back wall.
“So happy you called,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about this place all day.”
“Me, too,” I heard Jordan say.
“I know Trey was keen on running this place with you,” Grace began, “but I really need to focus on his dreams of expanding his restaurant empire. I’m sure Trey told you how important it was for him that the restaurant chain grew.”
I held my breath as I listened through the long silence that followed Grace’s question.
“Failed to mention it.” Jordan spoke through gritted teeth, and I could tell he was livid.
“Well, that’s all he wanted, so, I’m going to make it my life mission to grant his wish,” she said. “But that will involve getting rid of this place, so I can focus on the bigger picture.”
“You would know best,” Jordan said.
“I appreciate the confidence. It’s just that, with Trey gone, I really need to step up my game and do my best to fill his shoes. I need to focus, and, in order to do so, I need to get rid of Brimstone Bay. It just reminds me so much of him, you know?”
“I’ll buy out Trey’s half of the business,” Jordan said.
“Oh, splendid.” Grace sounded beyond pleased. “You can have it for a bargain. I just want to get rid of it. There’s just too many bad memories associated with this place, after what happened.”
“Speaking about what happened,” Jordan began. I sat up and pressed my ear against the wall to be sure I didn’t miss anything. “The cops think they can trace the spell back to the original owner.”
Grace paused for a moment. “Oh yeah? Well, that’s really great, isn’t it?” Her voice wasn’t as perky as it had been before. “Do they have any leads?”
Her voice raised an octave, and maybe it was just me, but I thought her voice sounded a bit panicky.
“What have you heard?” Grace asked.
I imagined Jordan was trying to come up with some sort of plan, as there was a long moment of silence before he finally spoke.
“Well, don’t tell anyone this, as they don’t know for certain, but I think it might be Zack Brandon.” Jordan paused, and when Grace didn’t say anything he continued. “You probably don’t know him. He works at the Brimstone Press with River.”
My eyes went wide, and I looked up to Officer Trenton. He shrugged and looked just as confused as I was. What was Jordan playing at? I hoped he had a plan.
“Oh, well, no. Not really,” Grace finally answered. “Any idea why they suspect him?”
“Something about New York. I’m not sure, really.”
“I see.”
I stood up and joined Officer Trenton near the door. “We’ve got to get Zack in there,” I whispered. “She’ll be more likely to talk to Zack than to Jordan, I think.”
The officer nodded, and I whipped out my phone immediately.
Have a lead for a story, I texted Zack. Meet at the restaurant for a chat?
My phone buzzed back immediately. Sure. See you in ten, the message said.
“He’s on his way,” I whispered to the officer.
Officer Trenton nodded and looked down at me. “Get Jordan out of there. I’d like to get Mrs. Wong and Mr. Miller together alone.”
“Sure thing,” I whispered back.
I send Jordan a text telling him to leave ASAP. I hope Grace couldn’t see his phone.
I heard Jordan’s phone beep from the other room.
“Why don’t I go get the contract that Trey and I signed for the restaurant? Might as well get this all sorted tonight. The papers are in my apartment, though. Mind hanging out for twenty minutes while I go get them?”
“Sure, doll,” Grace said. “I’ll be here.”
I heard the front door close, and a minute later Jordan joined us in the back of the building.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Zack’s on his way,” I said. “Thought he and Grace might want to have a chat.”
Jordan’s eyebrows shot up. “Nice one.”
The front door chimed open, and we all fell silent again to listen.
“What are you doing here?” Grace sounded surprised.
“Meeting River about a work thing.”
“Here, in the restaurant?”
“I’m assuming she spoke with JoAnn,” he answered. “Pretty sure I’m not welcome in the office anymore.”
“Fair enough,” Grace said. “This would all have been a lot easier if that damned woman hadn’t been spying on us.”
There was a long silence, or a break from talking at least, as kissing noises emanated through the walls.
I faked a gag and looked up to Jordan. “We’re not getting anywhere,” I whispered.
I brought out my phone again and began typing out a message.
“What are you doing?” Officer Trenton whispered to me.
“Stirring the pot,” I answered.
He looked angry but didn’t stop me.
Running a bit late, I texted Zack. Is it true the cops saw you in New York talking to the guy who sold the spell that killed Trey?
I put my phone back in my pocket and waited.
“What did you do?” Officer Trenton growled at me.
I smiled. “Just wait.”
The kissing noises stopped and were replaced by Zack’s loud swearing. “Oh, Shit!”
“What? What happened?”
A loud bang came from the front room, and I assumed Zack had pounded his fists against the wall or a table or something.
“They saw me talking to Steve,” Zack said loudly.
“Who did? What are you talking about?”
“The cops! They saw me with Steve. They know he was the one who sold the spell.”
“You’re kidding?” Grace sounded worried. “How do you know?”
I rolled my eyes. Jordan had just told Grace the cops suspected Zack, but she obviously wasn’t concerned with telling him what she knew.
“River is buddy-buddy with the damn cops in town,�
� he answered. “She must have heard something. Dammit!”
I heard another loud bang and then a serious of particularly creative swear words.
“I’m not being thrown in jail for your God damn crime, Grace!” Zack was shouting now, and sounded absolutely furious.
“Shut up,” Grace snapped. I heard the front door’s lock click. “Someone might hear you.”
“I don’t care if they freaking hear me,” Zack shouted. “I went down to make sure that pesky witch and her damned friends didn’t talk to the guy, and now they think I’m the one responsible for all of this.”
“Calm down, Zack,” Grace said. “You don’t know that.”
“Get your damn hands off of me,” Zack shouted. A louder bang sounded, and from Grace’s muffled cry I imagined he had thrown her against the wall.
“You’ve done nothing wrong,” Grace said slowly. “For all they know, you were just buying a joint or something. It’s not a big deal.”
“Not a big deal?” Zack was shouting again. “NOT A BIG DEAL? You buy a spell to kill your fucking husband, and I’m the one they see at the source! You’re telling me that’s not a big deal?”
“We’ll figure this out, babe,” Grace said. “Just calm down. We’ll figure it out together.”
“Don’t babe me, you cheating whore.”
“Don’t! Call! Me! A! Whore!” Grace was shouting now, and she sounded beyond livid.
Loud crashes began sounding from the front room, followed by a series of shouts and swearing. It sounded like a full-on brawl was taking place on the other side of the door.
“Do we have enough to get her yet?” I whispered to Officer Trenton, who had one hand on the doorknob, ready to interfere if things got out of hand.
By the noises coming from the other room, it seemed to me that they had already reached that point.
He shook his head. “We need to hear it from her.”
“I’m not going to jail for you,” Zack shouted through the crashes and bangs. “I’ll tell them the truth if they bring me in.”
“Good luck with that,” Grace sneered. “You have no proof that I did it. The sleazy dealer didn’t even see my face when I picked up the goods. You have no way of proving that I did it.”
“I’ll find a way,” Zack snapped back.
An even louder crash sounded, and Grace screamed. I jumped up and nearly pushed Officer Trenton out of the way to go stop the fight, but he held his hand out to stop me.
We all stood tense, waiting for the right opportunity to interfere with whatever was going on in the restaurant on the other side of the wall.
Grace screamed again, and the deafening bang of a gun shot went off. Everyone in the back room threw themselves on the ground.
“Was that a gun?” I whispered. “Did one of them shoot a damn gun?” My heart was racing, and my voice sounded frantic.
I waited, wide-eyed and cold from shock until finally, we heard both their voices speak from the other room.
“You could have shot me, you crazy bitch!” Zack shouted.
“Well, it got your attention, didn’t it?” Grace snapped. “Shut up and listen to me.”
I hear a soft thud from the other room as if Zack has dropped some sort of weapon he may have been holding. Likely a piece of wood or a tool from the renovation.
“So what if they saw you? That doesn’t prove anything. The only thing that matters is that pathetic husband of mine is dead, and I finally have complete control over the business. That stupid fool was going to let all of our hard work die by selling off most of our restaurants.”
“His hard work, you mean,” Zack snapped. “His restaurants.”
Grace must have slapped him, as I recognized the painful sound of flesh on flesh before Zack swore loudly.
“My hard work, now. The restaurants are mine. I’m going to build an empire, and if you’re smart, you’ll come with me out of this damned garbage pit of a town and move back to New York where I can run the businesses.”
“And if they trace the spell back to you?” Zack asked.
“Impossible,” Grace answered. “They’ll find no traces of it anywhere. I put the whole damned thing into the cookie. The only person who saw me do it was Trey, and he was too pathetically trusting and love-sick that he didn’t even clue in to what I was doing.”
Zack began laughing as Grace recounted the events.
“All I had to do was pretend to like that damn woman’s disgusting baking, and when I put the cookie back down on the table, she offered it to Trey. It was too damned easy to get rid of that pathetic excuse for a man.”
I looked up pleading into Officer Trenton’s eyes, who finally nodded and unlocked the back door.
“Stay here, and don’t move,” he said to us. “She’s got a gun, and I wouldn’t put it past her to use it again.”
I reluctantly nodded and looked around to everyone else who nodded as well.
Officer Trenton then brought out his own gun and stormed into the restaurant.
16
“Put your hands where I can see them,” Officer Trenton shouted from the other room.
Through Zack’s swearing, I could barely hear Grace speak. “B..b..but Officer, I don’t know what you mean. What’s happening?”
“There was a gunshot not minutes ago,” Trenton said. “I see the gun on the table. Put your hands up where I can see them, and step away from the table.”
“Officer, please, I didn’t do anything,” Zack mumbled. It sounded like he was crying.
Good, that man needed to be put in his place.
“Mrs. Wong, you’re under arrest for the murder of Trey Wong.”
“What are you talking about?” Grace asked. “This is absurd. I had nothing to do with my poor husband’s murder. How dare you accuse a grieving widow of such a heinous crime.”
“We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way. You choose, Mrs. Wong.”
“Put those handcuffs away, you bully,” Grace said.
“As I said, Mrs. Wong. The easy way or the hard way.”
“Fine. But I have weak elbows; you’ll have to cuff my wrists in the front.”
After a lot of swearing and crying, I heard the click of handcuffs.
I took this as my cue that it was safe in there, and stepped through the door into the room. Jordan, Sheriff Reese, and the rest of the gang followed close behind.
“River?” Grace stared at me with wide eyes. “What are you doing here? What’s happening?”
“We’ve got you, Grace,” I answered. “I should have suspected you from the start. I don’t know how I was so blind. Your marriage to such a kind, sweet guy should have been my first clue. You’d never settle for someone quiet like that in a million years if it didn’t mean you got something out of it.”
Grace rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, you wouldn’t have suspected me if I had shot him directly in front of your eyes.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I glared daggers at the girl. I was finding it harder and harder to believe I actually liked her once.
“It means,” Grace spat, “that your life is all sunshine and freaking rainbows, and since moving to this pathetic little town, you’ve lost all grasp of the real world.”
One of the other officers took the gun from the table, and the others joined Officer Trenton in surrounding Grace and Zack.
I rolled my eyes. “You know, Grace, given your current position, I would suggest sucking up to me rather than insulting me.”
She brushed her long bangs off her face with her handcuffed hands. I had to hand it to Grace; she still managed to look cool, despite being all disheveled, handcuffed, and accused of murder.
“I’m not in any position,” Grace said. “You’ve got nothing on me. You won’t be able to prove anything, and I’ll be let go before we even reach the damn prison.”
I thought to myself for a moment and then smirked.
“So you think.”
My expression seemed to throw her o
ff. “What do you mean?” Her confidence was wavering, and I was enjoying watching her squirm.
“Meaning,” I began. I cleared my voice for dramatic effect. “That I was the one to speak to your little New York friend, Steve.”
Both Grace and Zack’s eyes went wide, and I smiled back at them.
“And let’s just say,” I continued, “that he had interesting things to say.”
“Liar!” Grace shouted at me. “That greasy little rat never even saw me.”
I rolled my eyes, then laughed out loud when she realized that she just implicated herself again with that last statement. “Man, you’re making this way too easy, Gracie.”
I turned to Zack. “And you, you disrespectful little worm. I saw you leave the laundromat the morning we went to check it out. Poor Steve seemed a bit shaken up after your visit. I thought, at first, that you just wanted to beat me to the story, but it’s clear now that you were just trying to cover up your new girlfriend’s trail.”
Zack began shaking his head frantically, his eyes wild and terrified. “I didn’t know,” he said. “I promise, I had no idea. I went because she asked me to. Honest. I didn’t know.” He was crying into his hands on the ground at this point, his body convulsing from his sobbing.
“Pathetic,” Grace spat at him. “I’m embarrassed for you right now, Zack. You’re just as whiney as my husband.”
After a few minutes of his desperate pleading and complete breakdown on the floor, I started to feel sorry for the guy. He was an absolute ass, and he deserved to be punished for what he did to JoAnn and Trey, but it was possible that he didn’t actually have anything to do with this. Given Grace’s other numerous deceptions, I wouldn’t put it past her to have simply used him as a pawn in her evil scheme.
“Grace, I don’t think you understand the gravity of what you’ve done,” I told her. She seemed so calm and relaxed. “You murdered your husband, and we heard you admit it. You’re going to jail.”
“For a very, very long time,” Jordan said. He had stayed relatively quiet throughout this whole thing. I made the mistake of looking back at him, and my heart nearly shattered. His eyes were red and puffy, and his face was whiter than a ghost.
