Brownies and Broomsticks: A Magical Bakery Mystery

by Bailey Cates

  Then Ridge’s other hand moved, reaching for the chain that held the gate shut. The padlock dangled from one end, open. His fingers curled around the links, and he began pulling the chain through the vertical bar.

  He was letting himself out.

  Himself and his big, fat knife.

  I scrambled to my feet, a move that unfortunately involved waving my legs in the air much like Mungo before rolling to one side and launching upright. I heard Steve behind me, and hoped he possessed more grace than I did.

  What was I thinking? Of course he did.

  Ridge responded by yanking on the chain and the knife at the same time. Both were giving him trouble, though, and as I watched, ready to sprint, a red trickle bloomed on the side of his neck. Our eyes locked. He didn’t seem to recognize me. Or maybe the fear that emanated from him like a freakish halo overrode everything else.

  His eyes rolled back, and he sank to his knees. Shaking his head as if to clear it produced a low moan. The blood from the wound in his neck flowed more freely. His right hand released the knife, which hung on the storage unit fence like wicked fruit. The chain wound around the fingers of his other hand as his head lolled back, and he slumped to the floor.

  Or mostly to the floor. The chain held him partially suspended. It bent his neck to the side. Steve pulled at my arm, but I pushed him away.

  “We have to help him. He’ll die if we don’t!”

  He looked at Ridge, and his hand fell away from me. “Call 911.”

  But I was already on it, my hand trembling so much the phone knocked gently against my jawbone as I waited. When the dispatcher picked up I told her to send an ambulance, where we were, and that the police had an interest in Ethan Ridge. She tried to keep me on the line, but I could see Steve was having difficulty getting inside the enclosure, so I instructed her to send the ambulance around to the back door and ended the call.

  I hurried to Steve as he extricated the other end of the chain from the gate, keeping a firm hold on it so Ridge wouldn’t drop to the concrete below. Together we dragged the chain-link barrier open, the metal screeching against the floor so loud it made my teeth hurt. I slipped in through the opening and helped lower the wounded man gently to a prone position. Steve gave the gate another yank, winced at the noise, and joined me inside the storage space.

  “Press on his neck,” he said, ripping open the T-shirt to expose Ridge’s tan chest. “He has a knife wound.”

  I did, feeling a weak pulse beneath my fingers. “He’s been down here since early this evening. If the blade had hit his jugular he’d be dead by now.”

  “That’s his carotid,” he corrected. “Could just be a nick, or maybe it missed it altogether, but either way this guy has lost a lot of blood.” His face was inches from mine, and he snagged my gaze and held it. “He’s fading quickly, Katie.”

  “Can’t we help him?” I couldn’t keep the desperation out of my voice.

  He hesitated, then gave a small nod. “Maybe. Healing isn’t my strong suit, but I’ll try.”

  Healing? With magic? I stubbornly tamped down the hope that flared behind the thought. But if there was any chance …

  “What can I do?” I asked.

  Still looking at me, Steve put his left hand on the dying man’s chest and closed the fingers of his other hand around my wrist. His hand was hot against my skin, and I had to fight the temptation to pull away. “Let me draw on your power.”

  “Um. Okay.” Sounded easy enough.

  Finally breaking eye contact, Steve bowed his head.

  I didn’t know what healing protocol was, so I closed my eyes and concentrated on Steve’s hand, mentally sending power flowing into him through the contact of our skin. I had no idea if I was doing it right. In fact, I still didn’t know if I believed in the whole witch—

  “Stop it. You have to be wholehearted, or you might as well not do it at all.”

  Stunned, I opened my eyes and stared at the back of his head.

  He didn’t look up, just squeezed my wrist. “Katie. If you want to save this man’s life, you have to believe.”

  I closed my eyes and tried again, pouring everything I had into the link between us. Banishing all doubt. Determined not to let Ethan Ridge die. Wanting to be useful, to help him. Crackles of energy moved between us. Steve’s hand grew hotter and hotter on my arm. I began to imagine the faint smell of burning hair.

  Still, I didn’t stop.

  Power thrummed through me. It pulsated in time with my heart. Throbbed behind my eyelids. Sweat trickled down my forehead and threaded down my back. Panting, I opened my eyes. Steve’s were squeezed tight now. Moisture dotted his upper lip. The hand on Ethan’s chest shook.

  Sparks flickered at the edges of my vision. Colors took on new dimensions as if they glowed internally.

  And everywhere solid surfaces seemed to teem with movement. I blinked, but it didn’t stop. I became aware of the dragonfly amulet against my chest, chilled and getting colder by the second while everything else blazed.

  Beside me, Steve gasped and let go of my arm, breaking the link between us with a jolt. We fell back on the floor on each side of Ethan and stared wide-eyed at each other.

  After a few beats, I examined my wrist, expecting a burn or a bruise. The skin was perfectly smooth and unscathed. Looking up, I saw Steve wipe a trembling hand over his face.

  “What are you?” he whispered.

  “I think,” I answered slowly, “I think I really might be a witch after all.”

  He wheezed out a laugh. “I’ve never experienced anything like that before,” he said, taking another shaky breath.

  A loud banging on the back door made my heart buck. “Oops,” I said. “I should have unlocked the door.”

  “Then they might have walked in on something we wouldn’t have wanted them to see,” he said. He rose and staggered out to the hallway. “Be right there!” he called, but stopped to look back at me through the diamond-shaped wire. “You half scare me, you know.”

  But I was concentrating on Ridge. “He doesn’t look as pale.” And he seemed to breathe a little easier, too.

  Steve opened the door to flashing lights and a phalanx of first responders. He greeted a patrolman by name and they moved to one side, murmuring together. Paramedics hurried past and pulled the gate open as far as it would go, then entered the enclosure, where I still knelt beside the apartment manager. Two men carried large duffels, and two others brought in a collapsible gurney.

  I scrambled backward to allow them access. “His neck is bleeding. He’s lost a lot of blood.”

  Strong arms hoisted me to my feet and pulled me into the hallway. “Let them do their job.”

  I twisted away even as I recognized the voice. I turned to face Declan. “What are you doing here?”

  “My job. Katie, more to the point, how did you end up in this godforsaken hole in the middle of the night with a wounded animal?” He frowned down at me. Concern and frustration warred on his face.

  “He’s not an animal. He’s a human being. And he didn’t stab himself, either. Maybe you should worry more about who did this than about an unconscious man who can’t even defend himself to you.”

  Wrinkles creased his forehead under the dark curls, and his eyes flashed blue. “You seem to be doing a pretty good job of defending him, though. Is there something I don’t know?”

  “No, only … he … he almost died, right there in front of me. I don’t think we’d have been friends in real life or anything—in fact I’m sure we wouldn’t have—but anyone who almost dies while you’re fighting to keep him alive gets to have me on his side.”

  “Oh, honey.” He pulled me toward him and wrapped his arms around me. “Such a tender heart.”

  I gave him a gentle shove. “Bah.”

  “Hang on.” He went in and talked to one of the uniforms, returning with a handful of damp hand wipes. I accepted them with gratitude, and suppressing a shudder, began scrubbing off Ridge’s blood.

  �
��The team has things under control. Let me see if I can get away to take you home.”

  “No need.” Steve stood beside us. “She came with me, and I’ll make sure she gets home.”

  Declan looked between us. “She came with you, did she? Well, that figures.”

  “Why does that figure, Declan McCarthy?” My fists had found their way to my hips, and I matched them glare for glare. “Listen, I know you two have problems, but you both live in this town. Can’t you sit down and talk it out?” I wanted to go on, smooth the waters between these two new men that had barreled into my life in the last week, but the other uniformed personnel in the room were watching us and listening as hard as they could. My bet was that most of them, at least the firemen, knew the story between them already, but it wasn’t my place to talk about it in front of them.

  “No,” Steve said. “There is no talking it out. Now, are you ready to go?”

  “Not so fast.” Detective Quinn approached, wearing a tuxedo and a black tie. His thick gray hair had been tamed and brushed back from his forehead. Despite his fancy duds, exhaustion pinched the skin around his eyes and mouth. “I want to talk to you.”

  My heart sank. I glanced at Declan. He barely shook his head. There would be no help from that quarter. Oh, well. Might as well buck up and get it over with.

  “Sure, Detective. Where would you like to talk?”

  “Come outside. And Dawes?” He pointed a finger. “You’re next.”

  I was happy enough to escape the bedlam inside the basement. There seemed to be an awful lot of people for one little emergency. Well, not little. But still. Half of them were standing around watching the others work on Ridge, who was still unconscious. I could only hope he would live through the night. They unfolded the gurney, lifted him onto it, and wheeled him out right behind Quinn and me.

  He led me away from the fray. The lights on the ambulance were still painting the night in flashing swaths, but the other vehicles had doused theirs. In the rhythmic illumination, I watched the detective as he adjusted the cummerbund of his tuxedo and loosened his tie.

  “Must have been attending quite the fancy do,” I said. “Sorry to drag you away.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Why did you come back here?”

  “I kept thinking about the moving boxes in Ethan’s apartment, you know? He’d mentioned that he wasn’t going to stay on as manager here, so he must have been packing to move out. And then I remembered seeing the boxes down in the basement, in that storage area.”

  Quinn waited a few beats. When I didn’t add anything, he said, “That’s it? You and your boyfriend came over here because of moving boxes?”

  “It was just a hunch,” I said, obsessively rubbing at my fingers with the towelettes. “And he’s not my boyfriend.”

  A paramedic climbed into the back of the ambulance and closed the doors. The vehicle roared off, taking its flashing lights with it. Detective Quinn and I were left in darkness relieved only by the weak light that spilled from the open door.

  Which was fine. I didn’t need him trying to read my expression right then. I wasn’t lying, exactly. Just not sharing everything.

  See, Detective, I cast a location spell, and then called my sexy witch friend, and he got us inside, and we found a dying man and saved his life.

  The waves of power I’d felt as Steve healed Ethan still lapped in my veins, and I hugged my bare arms again. “It was a long shot, of course. I didn’t really expect to find him. After all, your people searched the apartment building, right? Do you know if they checked the basement?”

  “Of course. They discovered blood on the stairs. He may have left and come back.”

  “Perhaps,” I allowed. But neither of us believed that. Though I couldn’t really blame the police for not searching inside locked storage spaces. I didn’t know much about warrants, but it seemed like they would have needed one. Or more.

  “Tell me about that knife,” he said.

  A frisson of remembered fear ran through me. “I climbed the fence to see inside better. He was hiding under a bunch of empty boxes, and ran at me with the knife.” I swallowed. “He would have stabbed me right through the fence if Steve hadn’t pulled me down in time.”

  Quinn passed a hand over his face.

  I held up my palm. “I know, I know. You told me things could get dangerous. But would you have followed up if I’d called you? Would you have believed my hunch?”

  He hesitated. Then, “I don’t know. Maybe. After all, you’re the one who discovered he was missing in the first place.”

  “Oh. Well, I thought you were still mad at me for interfering. At least I brought someone with me. And if we hadn’t found him, Ethan could have been dead by morning.”

  His head inclined. “I’m not even going to try to argue with you. But please, do me a favor, okay?”

  Hmm. “What?”

  “Call me next time. I’ll listen.”

  I grinned. “Deal.”

  “I need to go talk to your newspaper guy now.”

  “Would you tell him—and Declan McCarthy—that I’ll see myself home without their help?”

  He glanced toward the doorway. “Are you sure?”

  I nodded.

  “Is your car here in the lot?”

  “No. It’s down at the convenience store on the corner.”

  He called to an officer, waved him over. “Walk Ms. Lightfoot to her car.”

  “Thank you,” I said, almost regretting my message to the two men waiting for me inside. But I felt raw and vulnerable after that intense contact with Steve, and I simply couldn’t bear them squabbling over me right then.

  Chapter 23

  I doused my headlights before pulling into the driveway a little before three a.m. so they wouldn’t wake the Coopersmiths. I closed the driver’s-side door as quietly as possible and practically tiptoed up the walk to my front door. Mungo greeted me on the other side with a wiggle and a bark.

  “Hey, boy. You’re a pretty clever pup, you know that?”

  I closed the door and went to turn on the floor lamp by the couch. Sitting down, I patted the purple fabric beside me. Mungo jumped up, and I looked into his soft brown eyes.

  “I’m sorry for what I said earlier. About you being just a dog.”

  He grinned.

  “Forgive me?”

  Yip!

  “Thanks.” I kissed him on the head. “Let me take a shower, and then I’ll tell you about what Steve and I did tonight!”

  I didn’t need any magic seven-layer bar to go to sleep, but I set my alarm anyway. When it went off an hour later, I awoke feeling fully rested. Mungo bounced up, ready to go. He snuggled up to my neck and licked my cheek.

  “Stop it.”

  More licking.

  I pushed him aside.

  He came right back.

  Pretty soon, I was giggling in the darkness. Flipping on the light, I said, “Okay, okay. I’m up. Are you happy?”

  He signaled his delight by furiously wagging his tail.

  “You ready to come to the Honeybee today?” Well, of course he was. And so was I, in a ridiculously good mood and energized to jump into the day’s baking. Today’s special would be cornmeal-maple donuts.

  Yum. That’s all there was to say to that.

  Before I left the house I called Candler Hospital. The woman who answered the phone confirmed that Ethan had been admitted and treated. I expected him to be in the ICU, but she informed me that he was in a regular room. Not just alive, but doing well, then.

  Nice to know. I thought about calling Steve to tell him, but that would have to wait. Most people had the good sense to be asleep at this time of day.

  Driving through the dark and deserted morning streets of Savannah, I promised myself a run that afternoon. I’d fed my running jones most afternoons when I lived in Akron. When I’d left that job, my runs had moved to the early hours of the morning, since those were no longer spent in the kitchen. But now that I was at work in the mornings again,
I needed to get back to my old afternoon routine. If I didn’t run, sometimes things got a little nuts.

  Though I had to admit, this morning I felt great after downing a cup of coffee. I’d grab a bite at the Honeybee when I got there. I reveled in the calm I felt, very much like the endorphin high after a really fabulous run.

  I remembered Steve’s fiery hand on my arm the night before. The current of power, of energy, from me to him—and then, I felt sure, to the life force of Ethan Ridge. I could sense Steve’s power, but I knew how much I’d contributed.

  A lot.

  I should be exhausted, giving all that away. But I wasn’t. I felt like Goldilocks in Baby Bear’s chair—just right.

  I’d always had too much energy. Maybe giving it away, using it, was actually good for me.

  No wonder I’d run so much over the years. Not to anything or from anything, only to expend excess energy. No matter how much I said I loved it, I’d really run out of desperation, to tone down the mania that thrummed constantly under my skin.

  The lights were already on in the Honeybee kitchen. Surprised, I locked the alley door behind me and called out, “Lucy?”

  Mungo popped his head out of my tote bag as my aunt bustled around the corner from the storeroom. “Good morning, Katie. Oh!” She stopped, pressed her fingertips over her lips, eyes dancing. “What have you been up to, dear?” Her tone suggested something lascivious at best.

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “My, yes. You had a wonderful evening, didn’t you?”

  I sighed and put Mungo down. He ran into the office, and I saw him take up his station on his favorite chair as I tied a plum-colored chef’s apron over my bakery uniform of skirt and T-shirt.

  “I wouldn’t call it wonderful.”

  Her knowing smile vanished, replaced by surprise. “Oh, dear. No wonder Honeybee woke me early today and urged me down here. I think you’d better tell me about it.”