“You wanted me to see you looking through that desk, didn’t you?” I asked Maddie. “It was part of your plan to frame John, wasn’t it? I got dragged into your scheme.”
She was grinning at me maniacally.
It looked like reason was not going to work on this one. I glanced over at Vicky. “We are going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.”
She nodded back to me. “I’ve got your back.”
I grinned back. “You always do.”
When I said the old-fashioned way, I really meant the magic way. “FREEZE!” I called out, so quickly that Maddie was not able to counteract it with a shield or reversal spell. Vicky was the one who reversed the spells on Akiro and John, then hid them away while I called the cops in.
She was led off in cuffs—but it was only her human crimes that she would be punished for. I wondered if there would ever be any justice for the spells she had put two innocent men under.
Akiro was stumbling towards me. I reached out for him
“Ruby,” he said, shaking his head as though he was in a daze. “I . . . I don’t know where I have been. Or what has happened to me these past couple of weeks.”
I hugged him tightly to me. “Don’t worry about any of that now, okay? We are safe, and we are together.”
John reached out and shook my hand. “You always were my best student, Ruby Sparrow.”
But what about Joe? I mean, it wasn’t like I had expected him to be there. But I needed him to know what I had been doing. It was well past five minutes after the exam had started. In fact, it wasn’t until the end of the exam that I arrived at ECL College, my head down a little as I waited for Joe to exit the classroom, sure that he was going to expel me for good.
But he had a news app on his phone that he’d spied while the exam was going on. And so he’d read about what happened. He knew what I had done.
“Well, I can see that you make a fine PI, Ruby . . . So, you can make up the exam that you missed. Provided that you will share one last sausage roll lunch with me.”
I sighed and nodded with relief. “I’m glad I don’t have to go back to teaching.”
Joe laughed and nodded back to me. “You’re telling me, kid. It’s a tough gig.”
A fine PI, sure. But what about a witch?
Epilogue
Home sweet home.
Indy had gone ahead via instant projection. But she had given me a lot to think about on the train ride home.
I was so happy to be returning to where my heart, home, business, and coven lay. And I was returning to Swift Valley with the two people in the world who meant the most to me. My best friend, and my boyfriend.
I leaned over to Vicky whilst Akiro was off at the food trolley getting me a sausage roll . . . one final one for the road, as Joe would say. I was gonna miss that guy. “What do you think about getting a new employee at the agency . . . a feline one?”
Vicky raised an eyebrow. “Has she passed her PI exam?”
I laughed and shook my head as I leaned back against the headrest. “No, but she has had all her shots. She will be safe to work with.”
She shrugged and said that it was my call. Even if it was a crazy one.
I giggled and said that I thought it might just be crazy enough to work. Anyway—who cared about the rules?
The train rolled into Swift Valley. Vicky needed her beauty sleep at her house, but I was itching to get to the office to hang something up.
“Looks good,” Akiro said, nodding towards the wall where my new certification was.
He was still a little bit dazed from the spell that Maddie had put him under. But he had managed to shake it off. Still, I could see some of the lingering effects of the spell. And it was hard for me to forget the star-struck way that he had looked at Maddie.
But he surprised me by what he said next.
“I love you, Ruby.” He reached down and tilted my head up by my chin. “I have known that for a long while. It just takes me a while to trust, that’s all. But if you tell me that you are not hiding anything from me, then I believe you.”
I held in my breath for a long time. Those had been the words I had been waiting to hear. They had also been the words that I was going to say to him. The words that would make everything all right between us. But now that he had said them to me—there was a heavy sense of guilt settling on my heart. He was standing there, waiting for me to say them back.
I realized I needed a new set of words.
“Akiro, I need to tell you something. I am a witch.”
Thanks for reading Cast a Spell. I hope you enjoyed this story, and all the stories in the Private Eye Witch Cozy Mystery series. If you could take a minute and leave a review for me, that would be really awesome.
The next story, and last story in the series, is called A Killer Spell and you can order it now on Amazon.
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