Cast a Spell

by Stacey Alabaster

  I hesitated a moment before letting him in on what I knew. The big secret. “I already know who did it, Brett.”

  His eyes lit up.

  “So, if you want to solve your first case as a PI—meet me tonight at the museum.”

  It was time to catch a killer.

  I was glad that I had Brett, rather than Vicky, who would claim I was just being jealous and paranoid by saying that Maddie was the killer. I was going to fill Brett in on everything while we wandered around the museum, which I had chosen as a neutral location. Well, I wasn’t quite going to tell him everything. But I wanted him far enough away from campus before I told him that one of his classmates was a killer.

  Speaking of being jealous and paranoid, I had another missed call from Akiro. At least he was trying to get back into contact with me. But I didn’t know what to say to him. “Are you gonna take that?” Brett asked me. Well, if he knew I was sneaking around the museum with Brett, then he would definitely think that I had been seeing someone else, and so I just sent him a text telling him that I needed to study late and that I would call him later when I had a chance.

  “Sure. You’ve got other more important things to take care of.”

  I just ignored that. He was being snippy. The fact was, I did have a very important thing to take care of.

  Brett asked if everything was all right. I just smiled at him as we entered the museum. “No big deal.”

  But there ended up being a spanner thrown into the works. I’d come to the museum because I wanted to have a private place to tell Brett my suspicions.

  But as we entered the front doors into the dark, chilled exhibits, I started to wonder if it was my witch senses that had led me there.

  Maybe I didn’t want to admit it on a conscious level. But maybe my suspicions of Maddie had just been a cover, because I knew deep down that John Cassidy was the real guilty party.

  Brett was waiting patiently for me to explain why I had asked him to meet me there. I cocked my head to the side—could he be trusted? I’d always dismissed him before.

  But Brett had always been a bit of a dark horse in the class. Not up the top of the leader board, but somewhere just above the middle—where no one was really looking or noticing. He could easily take over the top spot if he just got a leg up. A bit of an advantage over everyone else.

  We started to head toward the canteen. I was suddenly craving ice cream. Strange—I had never craved ice cream this much in my life.

  “So, you actually work as a PI, right? In the real world.” He sounded both intrigued and impressed, and a little intimidated while I took the lead on the case—quite literally, as I was the one who was two steps ahead as I tried to find the canteen. “What is it actually like on the job?”

  It sounded like Brett couldn’t wait to get started in his new career—and I couldn’t blame him. Compared to working in a call center, the world of PIs must have looked like it was full of glamour and excitement. But I still thought he could use a slight reality check, just so that he didn’t get too disappointed

  “It’s not like the books and movies make it out to be,” I warned him. “It’s far less glamorous and a little less filled with intrigue.”

  “But it’s exciting, right? And dangerous.”

  I shrugged. “Sure. Sometimes it can be both of those things. I suppose it depends on the location . . .” I laughed a little. “Try moving to a sleepy town, and you’ll see what I mean. It never stops.”

  He looked quite shocked. “Aren’t they supposed to be the quietest places?”

  Ha. “You would think so,” I said as the canteen came into view. I was silent as I craned my neck. Because we were there so late, there was no one in the café, and only one woman behind the counter.

  I walked over to her.

  “Is John Cassidy working today?”

  She frowned as she looked up “I’m not sure I recognize that name.” I wasn’t sure that she was telling me the truth. Seemed more that she did recognize the name but wasn’t sure if I was the person she should be giving that information out to.

  Brett leaned over and whispered to me. “Maybe people have been turning up here looking for him and causing trouble. You know, because of what he did at the college.”

  Ah. “Good point,” I whispered back and nodded subtly before turning my attention back to the woman, whose name was Narelle.

  “I am his daughter,” I answered softly. “It’s his birthday on Monday, and I’ve come all the way from Swift Valley to surprise him.”

  She was still frowning. “I remember John having a birthday card delivered about six weeks ago.”

  Well, she had caught me out. But I had also caught her. “So, you do recognize the name,” I said flatly.

  She glowered at me and said that the canteen was shutting for the evening and that we needed to get out so that she could clean up.

  Well, she couldn’t stop us from visiting the ancient Egypt exhibit. Even though I wasn’t sure how much I was going to get out of it the second time around.

  Brett was scratching his head. “Are you gonna tell me what we are actually doing here?”

  I sighed and looked back over my shoulder to see if Narelle was still watching us, and then filled Brett in on the whole story, minus the part about Maddie.

  “So, the sticks must have come from John,” I explained, feeling a little bit sad. I didn’t want it to be the truth, but it was.

  Brett was listening intently to everything that I was saying, but he didn’t seem as convinced as I thought he would. “Anyone could have gotten those sticks, though.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Of course . . . But it is John Cassidy who had a motive to kill Eddie Ian. So, all the clues and evidence point towards him.”

  Brett was still frowning, and I was growing a bit irritated that he couldn’t see the obvious links. Hey, it wasn’t like I wanted it to be true. But it was. So why wasn’t Brett believing me?

  “I just don’t know why he would leave something behind that so obviously links him to Eddie’s death.” Brett was still scratching his head.

  “Because it isn’t obvious,” I said, the annoyance in my voice showing now. “Someone would really have to dig into the case to figure out that there was any sort of link between John and the ice cream sticks, wouldn’t they? He would have left them there as some sort of cryptic calling card. That only his best student would be able to figure out.”

  Brett raised an eyebrow. “So, are you saying that John wanted you to catch him?”

  “Maybe he did.”

  We were the only two people in the ancient Egypt exhibit that night. Suddenly, I heard footsteps behind me, and I thought that the mummy had come to life. That would show Akiro! Except that my heart was racing. I might like to be proved right, but that didn’t mean that I wanted to be terrified to death.

  But it wasn’t a mummy come back to life. It was a familiar face.

  John.

  Did he want me to see him? Had he wanted me to catch him all along? The best student, making her teacher proud? Maybe that had been his whole motive. I mean, not to make a man’s death all about me, but you never know.

  There he was, just staring back at me. Daring me with his eyes to say something. Do something. I froze a little. My instincts were all over the place. I’d been guided there, but why?

  What was I going to do, make a citizen’s arrest there, right on the spot?

  He ran for it.

  Maybe he didn’t want me to catch him after all.

  8

  I never expected the man who was waiting for me outside my hotel. Again.

  “Akiro . . . What are you doing here?” I was glad that Brett had already gone back to his house, and I was all alone.

  “You didn’t want to talk on the phone. So I thought I’d better come here in person. Again.”

  It was like a magnet just kept dragging him back. So strange. It almost didn’t make sense to me why he kept coming back when I was pushing him away. There was s
o much that I wanted and needed to say if we were ever going to make this work. I was so confused, I didn’t know what to say. But just as I had opened my mouth, I saw Vicky coming up the sidewalk. This seemed like a good opportunity to get away and think this through.

  “Hey, I’ll be right back, okay? I just need to quickly chat to Vicky. I think she has been feeling a bit neglected over the past few days, and now that you are back, she is gonna need a little reassurance.”

  Jeez, I sounded so fake. Was he even buying this line of nonsense?

  He nodded and said that he understood, and that he was itching to get out into the city and explore a little bit on his own. Apparently, he bought it. I was surprised, but I said that sounded great. “Enjoy yourself, and we can catch up later for dessert.”

  “Vicky. I have to tell you what just happened.”

  Vicky was nodding, and her brow was furrowed as she paced back and forth inside our hotel room. When she heard that John had run away, she looked up at me. “I just knew it had to be John.”

  I had to admit, it wasn’t looking good for him. He had the most obvious motive, and he had left behind clues that could lead to him—but something that Brett said kept playing in the back of my mind. Why would John leave a calling card? I mean, it did seem a little too obvious, didn’t it? Brett was right.

  Next time I saw him, I would tell him that his instincts were good. He would be fine if he quit the call center work, because PI work was his forte.

  “So what do we do?” I asked Vicky. “I mean, if we pursue this, then we risk our places in the course—and thus, our actual jobs as detectives.”

  She nodded for a moment, but then said that shouldn’t matter. “We need to do what’s right. We need to solve this case.”

  “Right!” Joe said, looking around at all of us with a furious grin. He said it so loudly that all of us jumped in our seats. Well, most of us.

  Maddie was slumped right down in her seat. She looked super tired, as though she hadn’t slept a wink all night. Even Joe’s booming voice didn’t seem to wake her up.

  Joe had discovered what some of us had been up to. There were a few guilty faces around the room.

  “If you want to investigate the death of Eddie Ian so badly . . . fine. That is your new official assignment. This now counts as seventy percent of your final grade for the course, so I hope you all know what you are doing.”

  Jeez, talk about doing a total one-eighty. I had whiplash. Vicky looked anxious, and so did Brett and Savannah. But Maddie was grinning like the cat who got the cream. She was fully alert now.

  Brett came up to me during the break with a worried look on his face. “Can we partner up?”

  “Er, I assumed I would be partnering with my best friend.” I stopped. Maddie and Vicky had already paired up, by the looks of the way they were giggling together and already grabbing their books and bags.

  “Fine,” I said to Brett. “Looks like it is you and me, buddy.” I picked up my bags as well. “And believe me, I need top marks.”

  Akiro was not waiting for me at the hotel that evening, and all my attempts to call and text him had gone unanswered. I didn’t get it at all. Why would he come all the way back from Swift Valley—again—only to ignore me?

  I tried again, but there was still no answer.

  Maybe he was trying to get my attention in a roundabout way.

  Was the only way to get Akiro to speak to me again to tell him the truth? That I was a witch?

  Maybe I had nothing to lose by that point.

  I tried one more time, and when it went to voice message, I started to say something to him. About how we needed to talk and there was something important I needed to say to him. But then I erased the message and hung up. I grabbed my coat and headed out to meet Brett in the library

  Now that the entire class was on the case, I didn’t have any time left to lose. I had a lot of competition.

  But I had the ace up my sleeve, so to speak. The ice cream sticks. No one else had found them, not even Maddie, who had tried and tried but who hadn’t actually found the vital clue that would solve the case. Now that Brett was my partner, I didn’t mind that I had shared my info about the sticks with him. I had made a good call there.

  Akiro was finally calling me back just as Brett and I were heading out to the museum again.

  “Oh, shoot, I need to take this call,” I said to Brett, who was keen to get going and looked a little irritated. But I needed to speak to Akiro.

  He sounded awfully intrigued on the other end.

  “You left me an interesting message,” he said, and my heart stopped for a moment. I pressed erase on that message, right?

  “What . . . what did I say?”

  “It was empty . . . just a lot of breathing . . . but your silence spoke more than words could,” Akiro said, and I exhaled deeply with relief. I must have accidentally left that message during one of the many times I had tried to call.

  “We will talk soon,” I said to him, and he told me that he couldn’t wait to see me but that he was being held up somewhere. Strange, but I didn’t have time to quiz him on it. But there was a weird tension to his voice—like he really wanted to come and see me, but for some reason, he had to stay where he was. Even weirder, because the only person he knew in Melbourne was his cousin, so I didn’t know what could be taking so much of his attention away.

  “Any luck?” I asked Brett when I returned from taking the call. He had gone ahead of me into the museum and had been asking around for John Cassidy’s whereabouts. Maddie and Vicky would be not too far behind. Maddie might have missed the vital clue, but Vicky knew all about it.

  Brett shook his head and sighed. “I just wish we had some other advantage. Those ice cream sticks really don’t prove anything except a vague connection.”

  He seemed a little stressed.

  Well. There was something I could do to prove that John was the guilty party.

  But how would I explain to Brett that I had a sure-fire way to get proof? He couldn’t know that I’d used my psychic powers to find John.

  “I’ll be back,” I said and quietly slipped away to the museum bathroom so that I could focus in on John and read his mind. I’d crossed this line again and again over the months since I had been a detective. Maybe it was time to finally embrace it . . . maybe Maddie was right.

  I certainly didn’t want to admit that to her.

  But suddenly, I was interrupted by a scream coming from the other side of the bathroom door, and I ran out into the dimness of the museum.

  “Found him!” Maddie said and pointed towards John, who was trying to run away. It was like she had found the golden ticket. She shot her arm out and froze him for a second, and he had nowhere to run. I gasped in shock that Maddie would be so public with her magic, and even Vicky looked stunned.

  Maddie walked over towards John, and as soon as she was in front of him, she unfroze him so that he could speak.

  “Tell me what you did, or I am going to do that again,” she said in a low, threatening voice.

  He was shaking, and even though he tried to claim innocence, he was scared of Maddie, and so he just dropped his head.

  She already had her phone out to call the cops. The police arrived and arrested him so quickly, my head was spinning. I didn’t hear what Maddie’s evidence was, nor the grounds for the arrest, before he was whisked away. John was arrested on suspicion of killing Eddie Ian while the rest of us just watched.

  It didn’t matter how many more chocolate blocks the rest of us ate, we were never gonna feel better. Everyone groaned and dropped their heads the following morning when Maddie told the rest of the class that she had proof that John Cassidy had killed Eddie Ian.

  But Joe said there were still a lot of bonus grades up for grabs. The rest of us could still gather evidence and motives, and that it was still all to play for.

  Maddie just sat there smugly, flipping her hair over her shoulder.

  And I still didn’t trust her. />
  We were finally back together. On a real date at a cute little café. Though Akiro still seemed a little distracted, like there was somewhere else he was supposed to be. When I asked him about it, he said that he had been running a little fever, but assured me that it was nothing to worry about. He reached over to take my hand, but my phone started ringing from an unknown number.

  “I really feel like I should take this call,” I said a little worriedly, in case it was related to the case.

  “Ruby, I came all the way back here from Swift Valley . . .” He looked annoyed now, even when there was that same weird, distracted look to his face.

  Yeah, but I didn’t ask you to do that, I almost said. “I know you did,” I said instead and took a deep breath. “And I really appreciate it. But this is an important matter . . .”

  “You don’t even know who it is!”

  “Yes, but I’ve got a hunch. I’ll be right back,” I said and told him that he could start his lunch without me, and I wouldn’t be offended.

  “Jeez, thanks,” he mumbled.

  I recognized the voice on the other end of the line immediately. But I couldn’t believe it.

  It was John.

  “Ruby,” he said, sounding surprised that I’d picked up the phone. Kinda scared of what I was going to say to him in return.

  He had made bail. But I got the feeling that he was not sticking to the conditions of his release.

  “You’re in hiding,” I said, more as a statement than a question.

  “I have to be,” John said, and his voice was filled with fear as he explained. “Ruby, you are the only one I trust right now. You are the only one who can clear my name and find the real killer.”

  “What are you talking about, John?”

  “I think I am being set up.”

  I returned to the café to see my table empty and my boyfriend outside with another woman, staring into her brown eyes.

  Maddie reached out and took his hand, and he stared down at her, starstruck.