“It’s not so bad,” I tried.
Nick frowned at me. “I also look like I’ve been abusing steroids for the last six months!”
“Without the back acne or mood swings!” I pointed out cheerfully. “So, ya know, it could be worse.”
Both of them looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Which, I had to concede, was entirely possible.
“Okay, okay. Sorry.” I sighed. “I don’t know. I’m at a loss here, too.”
“We’ll go to SPA headquarters tomorrow. Holly’s agent has to know something.”
“No!” I burst out.
The two men blinked at me.
“I just mean, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?” Nick asked.
I turned away for a moment. I didn’t want to scare Nick, but the truth was that after my checkered past with the SPA, I wasn’t sure that I fully trusted them. Even though my life was finally back on track, there was no way I could completely overlook the fact that they were the ones responsible for it taking years to get that way. I’d lost out on countless opportunities and been made to feel like a second-class citizen at best—and a criminal at worst—for the better part of a decade. I didn’t want that for Nick. He’d done nothing wrong.
“I just want some time,” I finally said, feeling both of them staring at my profile. “Come on, Nick. I’ll make up the couch for you. You’ll stay with us until we can get to the bottom of this. I’ll go over to your condo in the morning and grab anything that you need for the next couple of days.”
Without waiting, I started back toward the living room, my mind racing at a hundred miles an hour.
Adam and Nick followed behind and plunked down on the couch while I went to retrieve fresh linens from one of the closets off the kitchen. When I came back out, Adam took the sheets and we made up the larger of the two couches into a makeshift bed for Nick.
Adam’s bandage was soaked through by the time we finished. “Are you sure you don’t need stitches?” I asked him. Medicinal herbs and potions were a specialty of mine, but they worked best on burns and minor abrasions. I didn’t have the skill to heal something as serious as the wound on his chest.
“I’m fine, Holly. I’ve had worse.”
I didn’t doubt him, but couldn’t stop myself from worrying all the same. “Who was shooting at you? Did you catch their scent?”
A dark look crossed Adam’s face and he turned away.
I stopped fluffing the pillows. “Adam?”
“Guys, we’re gonna have to figure this out later. Right now, we've got other problems.”
I stilled. “What could possibly be more important than this?”
Adam pulled the curtain back a few more inches, letting in a stream of flashing red and blue lights.
“Bat wings.”
Chapter 6
“Evening officers,” Adam said, pulling open the manor’s front door to reveal two uniformed police officers on the front porch. He was slightly breathless from bolting upstairs to grab a shirt before answering the door, but he hid it well. “What brings you by?”
I hovered behind his right shoulder, fighting to urge to glance over and make sure Nick had made it out of the living room and into the kitchen without incident. He was awkward on his new legs and any thumps would catch the officer’s attention.
“I apologize for the late hour,” the first officer, a man who appeared to be in his mid-thirties, started. I vaguely recognized him from Siren’s Song, Beechwood Harbor’s entire force (which consisted of less than ten officers total) were regular customers at the town’s only coffee house. I couldn’t remember his name, only that he was a good tipper and always polite.
“Not a problem,” Adam replied. “What can we do for you?”
The officers exchanged a side glance, a quick flicker. “Have you heard any shots fired in the past hour? We had reports of something that sounded like gunfire from a few of your neighbors.”
I stiffened. Did they think it was one of us?
“We heard something,” Adam started, glancing at me for confirmation.
I nodded. “Sounded like it was coming from the woods behind the property. I figured it was someone scaring off a coyote. They like to wander around this time of the year, picking up trash and stuff from the neighborhoods.”
I bit down onto my lower lip, stopping myself from cringing. The officers would know all about the local coyotes. Wasn’t over-explanation the first sign of a liar?
“Right,” the second officer, a female with brunette hair, tied back from her face, agreed. “Is that a common occurrence then?”
Adam shook his head. “Not really. But we do see them from time to time. Some of the neighbors around here have chickens, though. Maybe one of them got nervous.”
“Right.” The male officer nodded and glanced between us. “Thank you for your time.”
“Anytime, officers.”
Adam was too good at schmoozing authorities. I was fairly certain it was thanks to years of practice and also sure that I didn’t want to know all of the reasons why he’d had the opportunities to brush up on that particular skill set.
The officers left and Adam closed the door. I sighed and started to go tell Nick he could come out of hiding, but Adam snagged my arm and pulled me back to his side. “Holly. There’s something I need to tell you. About tonight. Out there.”
His tone startled me, setting the hairs on my neck on end. “What?”
“There was something else out there.”
“What do you mean?”
He planted his hands on my shoulders. “We weren’t alone. After that first shot, I took off. I thought I could distract whoever was shooting and keep them away from Nick, seeing as he wasn’t in a position to run. When I turned back, there was a wolf with me.” He licked his lips, his eyes shifting back and forth before settling back on mine. “I thought it was Nick. That he’d completed the change and was with me. Obviously, it wasn’t.”
“Another wolf? There aren’t wolves in these woods.”
“Other than Nick’s kind.” Adam sighed. “Well, at least the kind he’s supposed to be.”
I squeezed my eyes tight.
“Something doesn’t feel right about this whole thing.” Adam shook his head. “He wasn’t scratched by a normal werewolf. Ben was under a spell. It wasn’t a full moon. It was all wrong. Hell, I was hoping that maybe Nick would be spared this whole mess. That maybe somehow his curse was different and he wouldn’t have to change.”
My eyes slid open and I nodded. “I was secretly hoping for the same thing.”
“The wolf with me in the woods wasn’t Nick. I’m sure of that now.” He let his hands fall away, sliding over my shoulders and then down my arms. “I circled back toward that clearing and that’s when that second shot grazed my chest.”
Everything inside me clenched as my eyes fell to the spot. It was covered by his shirt, but I knew the image would remain with me for a long time to come. “Why did you shift back after the shot?”
Adam frowned. “I saw your light. I knew you were out there and I had to warn you to go back.”
My heart sank. “I’m sorry, Adam. I—”
He pulled me into his arms, the rest of my words muffled against his chest.
“Did you see which way the wolf went?”
He shook his head. “No.”
I rubbed my eyes. “We can’t turn Nick over to the SPA, Adam. Stars only knows what they would do to him. Probably lock him up in a cage and spend the next decade poking and prodding at him with spell after spell.”
“Holly, he’s a mess!” Adam hissed. “What’s he supposed to do? He can’t go back to his condo like that, or to his office. We can’t keep him here, locked up like some kind of strange house pet.”
“I know that!” I dug the heels of my hands in a little deeper. “I’m too tired to think right now. We’ll figure it out in the morning. All that matters is that for the night, you’re both here and you’re safe.”
>
I blinked my eyes a few times, clearing the blur. Adam’s lips were set in a tense line. “What now?”
“I don’t like that there was another wolf in my woods.”
“You’ve never scented it before?”
“No.”
“And you’re sure it wasn’t an actual wolf? Or a really big coyote?”
“It was a were, Holly.”
I sighed and nodded. Fleeting thoughts moved like hummingbirds behind my eyes. The fingers of my mind would reach out, ready to grasp one, only to have it zip away again. I placed my palms on Adam’s broad chest, careful to avoid the raised bandage, and looked up at him. “Come on, let’s get some sleep.”
He resisted me for a moment, his eyes set on the kitchen door, but then nodded. “All right. But first thing in the morning, I’m going out on a run. I’ll retrace our steps. I’m going to figure out just who was running in my woods last night. And when I do, I’m going to make sure they know they’re not welcome next full moon.”
Adam was gone by the time I managed to peel my eyes open. I’d spent the night in my own bed, curled up with Boots. I’d wanted to be close to the living room where Nick was sleeping in case he needed anything. I woke and crept upstairs to wake Adam, only to find he was already gone. I backtracked downstairs and was halfway to the kitchen when a sharp knock sounded on the front door.
A slightly ruffled-looking Chief Lincoln stood on the welcome mat, dressed in plain clothes, but with his gun and police radio strapped to his hip—a loud and clear announcement that he wasn’t here for bear claws and chit-chat. Although, he probably wouldn’t say no to a pastry.
“Morning, Chief,” I greeted, displaying a tentative smile. “What can I do for you?”
“Good morning, Holly.” He did a quick once-over, noting my pajama pants, Adam’s baggy sweatshirt bearing some sport’s team logo, and a pair of slippers. With Chief it wasn’t anything to do with attraction. He was a spoken-for man, after all. It was just the way he was hardwired. If he ever got a wild hair and sprang for a tattoo, it would probably say something like “constant vigilance.” Cassie assured me he was actually fun at parties and that they laughed more often than not, but sometimes I had a hard time picturing it. “I realize it’s early, so I’ll make this brief.”
I smiled and opened the door a little wider. “Chief, it’s freezing out there. Come inside and I’ll make us both some coffee.”
He returned my smile and gave me a quick nod. “That would be nice.”
He shuffled his boots over the welcome mat, dragging off any traces of dirt, and then came inside. “Had another frost last night,” he told me.
“Makes me extra grateful to have a greenhouse,” I replied. “Though, it gets a little crowded this time of year.”
“Cassie told me you have a bit of a green thumb.”
“I do what I can,” I replied with a contained grin. If only he knew the truth of what my green thumb could do.
I shouldered open the kitchen door and turned back to say something when I realized Chief Lincoln had stopped walking midway. His gaze lingered on the couch where a large, Nick-shaped lump lay burrowed in a pile of blankets.
“Is that Nick Rivers?” Chief Lincoln asked, keeping his voice low.
My heart jumped into my throat so hard I nearly choked.
Further proof that I shouldn’t do anything until properly caffeinated.
“Uh—yes. But how did you—”
“Recognized the car in the drive,” Chief Lincoln replied before my sentence fully came to fruition. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
I smiled and silently pleaded that Nick would keep his head—and more importantly, his paws—covered until after Chief Lincoln had left the property. “We went out last night. Nick had a little too much to drink. You know, safety first.”
I cringed as Chief Lincoln laughed and passed through to the kitchen. I cast a pleading look back at Nick. I’d have to ask for his forgiveness later. In the past year, we’d made him out to be the town drunk. It was the only convenient cover-up for the things we’d once needed to keep secret.
“Posy?” I hissed in a low whisper. “Posy? Earl? Lacey?”
What other supernatural spectacles could pop out of the woodwork. Granted, we’d be safe if Posy or Earl sailed by. Though, I always hated having to pretend they weren’t there. Ignoring a ghost while around humans is no easy feat. I had no idea how Scarlet, the local ghost whisperer, managed to keep it all straight. With the ghosts, I’d be fine, but if Lacey strutted on though the kitchen, looking for her bottled blood, I’d probably have a few more questions to answer. She still didn’t know that the strange scene she’d stumbled into the night before had included Nick. And if she found him on the couch—
Better to get it over with and get him out of the manor as quickly and quietly as possible.
“I have a French roast,” I said with a breezy smile as I joined Chief Lincoln in the kitchen. “There’s also a little of Evangeline’s favorite. She goes for the vanilla. Personally, I’m not sure about it, but at the moment, caffeine in any form is acceptable.”
“The French roast is fine.” Chief Lincoln took a seat when I gestured toward the table. “I apologize for the late drop-by last night. I hope my officers didn’t keep you up too late.”
I put on the kettle and turned around once the burner was lit. “Oh, no. Not really. I guess it was just the interruption that threw me off.”
He inclined his head. “Not something you’ve heard around here before, then? The gunshots, I mean?”
I shook my head and went to the opposite end of the bright, sunflower yellow kitchen. “Not that I can remember.”
The manor’s kitchen was always neat as a pin, which was probably a small miracle considering that four people shared the space. The only problem was that organizing the kitchen was one of Evangeline’s favorite pastimes. Despite running a boutique day spa, she seemed to have oodles of spare time on her hands. Whenever she was stuck in the house for the day with nothing to do, she found some reason to reorganize something. About a month ago, she’d attacked Adam’s closet with merciless abandon, bagging up half of his clothing to take to a shelter a few towns over, and insisting he “up his game”—an order that was not well-received when Adam came home and had to spend the rest of the night unpacking the would-be donations and putting them back in their rightful place.
After a few minutes of searching, I found the coffee in the cupboard beside the cereal. A logical jump, but it irked me that I looked lost in my own home in front of a guest.
Chief Lincoln didn’t seem to notice. He’d pulled out his small notebook and was consulting it with a furrowed brow. When he looked up, it was almost like he had to remind himself where he was. “I checked the call logs and it doesn’t look like we’ve received any complaints about gunfire in the area before. So, I had my officers go out to canvass the neighborhood. No one knew who was responsible. They started combing through the woods this morning. I thought at most, they’d come back with a report of some dead animal. We could close it down and move on.” Chief paused and drew in a heavy breath. “Instead, they found a body.”
I spilled the scoop of coffee grounds onto the counter. As I hurried to sweep up the mess, my lips tried and failed to form a reply. “Wh—what?”
Chief Lincoln consulted his notebook. “It looks like someone else was out there in the woods last night. Now, we don’t know enough to determine if this was an accidental shooting or intentional. But there are some … oddities.”
The kettle sang and I hurried across the kitchen to retrieve it. “Like what?”
“For one, the man they found was stark naked.” Chief shifted uncomfortably. “No clothes means no wallet, which means no ID.”
I frowned as I poured the scalding water over the grounds in the bottom of the French press. “It was freezing out there last night. Like you said, another frost!”
“The body shows signs of exposure. I’ll have to wait on word from th
e county coroner to find out for sure, but I’d imagine it’s been out there for several hours.”
“And—uh, they were shot?”
“Yes. So, obviously we need to gather as much information as we can about the events of last night. We’ll be searching the woods. The neighboring police forces are coming in to assist. As you can imagine, we’ll have a lot of ground to cover. Whoever he was, we’ll find out.”
“Right.” I realized I’d been nodding since he started speaking and forced myself to stop. “Of course. Um, if you need help, Adam knows the woods better than most of us.” I swallowed hard. “He, uh, likes to camp.”
Chief Lincoln gave me a strange look but jotted down the note. “Right.”
When he looked up, he hesitated for a moment, considering me. Chief Lincoln and I shared a strange relationship. He was one-part chief of the BHPD but also my best friend’s soon-to-be-fiancé, if the buzz around town was to be trusted. Cassie and Jeffery Lincoln were coming up on their first anniversary and the gossip mavens predicted that Cassie would come back from their weekend getaway with a ring on the most important finger.
I shook my head. “It just doesn’t make any sense. Why would someone have been out roaming the woods in the middle of the night?”
The bigger question was whether or not whoever had been in the woods had seen any of us, but of course I kept that one to myself.
Chief Lincoln leveled me with a hard stare. “I know that look, Holly.”
“What look?”
He tilted his head, his lips a firm line. “You’re not to go poking around in the woods. I know you’ve come in handy in past investigations. You’re quick on your feet. But we’ve got it covered this time.”
Resisting the urge to argue, I slapped on a serene smile. “Of course.”
A mysterious werewolf in town. A dead body in the woods. It definitely sounded like a case for the BHPD.
Or not.
Chapter 7
Chief Lincoln drank half a cup of coffee while we made small talk about other town issues. I found out that he had no idea who was behind the town scavenger hunt. He didn’t say much about Cassie or their plans for their upcoming anniversary and I didn’t ask. When he wanted help, he’d ask. And if he did, I was prepped and ready with a brochure from an upscale jewelry store in Seattle. The ring Cassie had circled wasn’t particularly flashy. That wasn’t who she was. It was understated and delicate, but absolute perfection. A flawless stone that would glitter and flash and make her smile every time she saw it.
Lucky Witch: A Beechwood Harbor Magic Mystery (Beechwood Harbor Magic Mysteries Book 5) Page 5
