Chocolate Truffles and Trouble

by Samantha Silver

  I watched in horror as Alex looked around at the boxes once more, confirmed that the one he was looking for wasn’t in the cabinet, and then scoured the room carefully. He looked over every inch before pulling out his wand and casting a spell.

  “Venus, goddess of thunder, reveal to me anyone here to plunder.”

  I closed my eyes as I braced for the impact of the spell, but I knew it wasn’t going to hurt. Not physically, anyway. When I opened my eyes once more and looked down, I could see myself exposed once again. The invisibility spell I had cast was broken, and Andrea was pressed against the far wall on the other side of the room.

  Finally daring to look up, the first thing I saw was Alex staring at me, his arms crossed, showing off his biceps. No, not now. This was so not the time to think about his muscles.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” I managed to say with a cheeky smile. Alex was obviously not amused.

  “Do you want to explain to me what it is you’re doing in the morgue at the hospital here in Spellford?” he asked.

  “Not particularly, to be honest,” I replied. That was when Andrea decided to jump in.

  “Fancy meeting you here, Alex,” she said, making her way over. “Megan used to study here, and we realized back home that she had lost something, but we didn’t want to bother anybody, so we simply cast a spell to come down here and have a look on our own.”

  “Really?” Alex said, raising an eyebrow. “You mean this box of items found on Olivia Stone’s body when she died all belonged to Megan?” He tapped the box underneath the metal table lightly. Evidently, my hiding place hadn’t been fantastic.

  “In our defense, we are only trying to help,” I shrugged.

  “What are you doing here, anyway?” Andrea asked, and Alex gave her a hard look.

  “Given as I am an Enforcer with the IPIU, I absolutely have good reason to be down here. On the other hand, let me go out on a limb and guess that the two of you are investigating Olivia Stone’s death on your own because you think there might be a link to Las Brujas and you’re trying to find evidence that your parents were framed.”

  Well, he nailed that one.

  “Yeah, that’s it,” I admitted with a shrug. “I knew Olivia, and I heard the rumors, and I thought maybe I could figure out something that might lead me to the gang. But what about you? This death was labeled an accident.”

  Alex raised an eyebrow at me. “Just because a local Enforcer declared something to be an accident doesn’t make it so. I heard about this death, and after what you told me about Professor Oak and the way Las Brujas was operating, I decided to open an investigation into them myself.”

  “There’s only one problem, though,” I said, motioning toward the box. “It turns out the potion Olivia was drinking from hadn’t been poisoned after all.”

  “Really?” Alex asked, his eyebrows rising in surprise this time. “Are you sure?”

  “The first thing we learn when we start studying to be Healers is how to identify poisons,” I explained. “I could cast that spell in my sleep, and the result was crystal clear: the remnants of potion inside that test tube have no poison in them.”

  “What about another test tube that she drank from?” Andrea asked.

  “There was only one,” I explained. “She drank one test tube soon after arriving at the party, but the only person she interacted with between unsealing the potion and drinking it was Kelly. Which means that either Kelly is the killer—which I honestly don’t really think is the case—or somebody poisoned the potions while Olivia was making them.”

  This was definitely a twist I hadn’t seen coming.

  Chapter 11

  “We are not going to discuss this as though you are a part of this investigation,” Alex told us. “Frankly, while I should report you for even being in here—and I’m tempted to do so—I will let you go if you leave now. But I want you to stay out of this. Las Brujas is a dangerous gang, and I don’t want you to get caught up with them.”

  “What if this has nothing to do with the gang?” Andrea asked. “After all, it sounds like it was more likely to be somebody close to Olivia who would have been at her house when she made the potions.”

  “Nonetheless, investigating a murder means getting yourself caught in the crosshairs of somebody who has killed before. It’s too dangerous for two untrained witches to go after a criminal on their own. I don’t want you investigating this.”

  “Frankly, we don’t even know this is a murder anymore,” I shrugged. “After all, the potion spell confirmed there was no poison inside the potion. Maybe it really was just an accident.”

  I personally didn’t believe it. After all, while accidents did happen, drinking two magical potions was absolutely not nearly enough to kill somebody unless they did something horribly wrong. And Olivia had been making these potions for years, from what I understood; she would have known exactly what she was doing and I highly doubted she would have accidentally made one toxic.

  “Well, in that case, there is nothing to investigate. Which means that regardless, the two of you need to go home and leave this investigation alone now.”

  “Alright,” Andrea said. “I just have one question, though: how in the name of Mars did you find out about this death, and why did you decide to investigate it as a murder?”

  Alex gave her a look that was definitely a bit of side-eye. “You do realize I’m an investigator for an agency that looks into paranormal crime that crosses multiple geographical areas, right? I’m not going to tell you how this case was brought to my attention, or why I decided to investigate it, as that could compromise my investigation. Now, why don’t the two of you get out of here before I start to regret my decision to let you go consequence-free?”

  “Thanks for not turning us in,” I said, making my way across the room, grabbing Andrea by the arm, and pulling her toward the door.

  “If we’re no longer investigating, that means Megan is free for dinner tonight,” Andrea called out as I wrenched her through the door and shut it behind us.

  “What is wrong with you?” I hissed at her, and Andrea shrugged.

  “It’s obvious the two of you are super interested in one another, and if neither one of you is going to do anything about it, well, somebody has to act as a catalyst.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m not looking for a relationship. Not now, not ever. Now come on, let’s get out of here before people start asking too many questions.”

  We made our way back outside and I squinted and held my hand up to the sun.

  “So, where to next?” Andrea asked. “I assume we have absolutely no intention of obeying Alex’s request that we drop this?”

  I shook my head. “Absolutely not. Mom and Dad are still in jail, and this could be one of our best opportunities to find out what’s going on with Las Brujas and maybe find a contact inside the gang who can help us prove their innocence. Kelly’s class should be finishing up right about now, and she said she was willing to meet us at the house and let us look through Olivia’s room to see if we could find any information.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Andrea said. “Let’s just hope that this time we’re not interrupted by Chief Enforcer Sexy.”

  I rolled my eyes at my sister as the two of us walked away from the hospital and back toward the house I had been at just the day before.

  Today, rather than going straight in through the front door, I knocked, and Kelly answered a moment later. She looked wary as she opened the door, but the expression was replaced with one of relief as soon as she saw who it was.

  “Oh, Megan, I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, looking past me and spotting Andrea.

  “Of course. This is Andy, my sister. She’s helping me try and figure out who killed Olivia.”

  Andrea gave Kelly a small smile. “Sorry we’re meeting under these circumstances.”

  “Me too,” Kelly said, opening the door wide and letting us in. “Sorry about the mess. I haven’t been able to bring myself to clean up
after yesterday’s memorial. Plus, I’ve been trying to stay away from the living room, since all sorts of reporters and various looky-loos have been coming by.”

  Kelly led us up the stairs to one of the upper levels of the house. “Have you discovered anything else that might help solve Olivia’s murder?”

  “We have, actually,” I replied. “We discovered that the potion Olivia drank second, the one that she was holding when she died, had absolutely no poison in it.”

  Kelly stopped on the stairs where she was, and the two of us practically ran into her, like it was some sort of comedy skit. “What?” Kelly asked. “Are you sure?”

  I nodded. “I am sure. I did the spell on it, and the goblin told me there was no poison in the potion.”

  “But that’s impossible,” Kelly breathed. “It had to be that one. That was the only potion she drank with anyone else around her.”

  “Except for the first one,” I said pointedly, and Kelly’s eyes widened even further.

  “You can’t honestly think that I poisoned her first potion,” Kelly replied. “No. No, I definitely didn’t do that.”

  “I don’t think you did,” I replied.

  “But I was the only person that was near Olivia when she unsealed it and when she drank it,” Kelly said. “I am one hundred percent sure of that. There was nobody else who had access to the potion at all.”

  “In that case, somebody had to have poisoned the potion while she was making it. I assume she made them all here?”

  “That’s right, in the kitchen,” Kelly nodded. “She made the ones for the party the day before.” She continued up the stairs and kept talking as she led us down a narrow hallway and opened a dark wooden door that led into Olivia’s room. The three of us went inside and Kelly shut the door behind us, sitting on the bed with its plain gray bedspread. “I can’t believe it. If the potion was poisoned while she was making it, that means it had to be somebody who was in the house that afternoon.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Can you tell us who that might’ve been?”

  “Sure, sure,” Kelly said distractedly. “But it means it wasn’t Jasmine. Jasmine wasn’t here. She never would have been allowed in the house, and she never would have come here anyway.”

  “So who was here?”

  “I was,” Kelly said immediately. “While Olivia was in the kitchen making her potions, I was sitting at the dining table studying. I saw everybody who came and went the entire time. There was Ryan, obviously. He came down and chatted with Livvie for a little bit. But I don’t think he would have poisoned her.”

  “What about the other people who live in the house?” I asked.

  “Well, Omar was here. He came into the kitchen to make some food at some point. Same with Tony.” I made a mental note to add Tony to my list of suspects; since he hadn’t been at the party, I had written him off earlier, but now that he had access to the potion while Olivia had been making it, he could have poisoned it. “Kevin was here, but I don’t remember him going into the kitchen. Tim had class all day; he wasn’t in the house at all.”

  “Is that it?” I asked, my eyebrows rising. “This is such a huge house. I can’t believe there’s only a handful of you living here.”

  Kelly shrugged. “It’s comfortable this way. Livvie and I have been best friends forever, and we get along with all the guys really well. The place actually belongs to Tony’s family; they’ve lived in the area for years and it was where his great-aunt or something lived until she died. She didn’t have any kids, so the house passed to Tony’s mom, who agreed to let us all live here rent-free while we study. We figure that even though it’s too big a house for all of us, it’s better to have too much space than too little, and this way we’re not bringing in any drama from people who aren’t part of our friend group. I know Ryan and Olivia were talking about moving out, though, the last few weeks. They wanted to get their own place, for a bit more privacy.” Kelly’s voice trailed off, lost in grief.

  I nodded. That made sense.

  “Does anyone else in the group drink the potions?” Andrea asked. “Maybe Olivia wasn’t the intended target. After all, she sold them to people who wanted them, right?”

  “She did, yeah,” Kelly said. “But none of us really drank any. Olivia had them at almost every party she went to. I don’t like how the potions make me feel, so I avoid them. Kevin is always going on about how his body is a temple and he’s going to treat it like one, but then he guzzles beer like it’s going out of style. Still, while apparently his temple is allowed to accept beer as sacrifice, potions are off-limits. Tim has had type 1 diabetes since he was a kid, and Olivia’s potions are super sweet, so he has to avoid them. Ryan will occasionally partake in a potion with Olivia though, and Tony will also have one from time to time. But Olivia was the only one who took them regularly, of the people in this house. Oh Moon, I can’t believe I’m telling you this, knowing that somebody in this house had to be the one that killed Olivia.”

  “There was no one from Las Brujas who came by while Olivia was making the potions?” I asked, and Kelly’s eyes widened.

  “Oh, you’re right, there was! I had completely forgotten.” She bit her lip nervously. “I can’t believe he might have killed her. One of their goons came by and wanted to speak to Olivia. I don’t like having them around, so I went upstairs for a little bit and grabbed a different book while he was around. I don’t know if they went into the kitchen or if he would have had access to the potion, but I do know that he was in the house for sure.”

  “Do you know who he was?” Andrea asked. “Maybe his name?”

  Kelly shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t. I tried to make an effort to learn as little about these people as possible. I can tell you what he looked like, though. He was a wizard. Tall, maybe a little over six feet. He had blond hair, but a dark blond. Blue eyes, and the world’s creepiest smile. Seriously. And he had a tattoo of a thunderbolt on his neck. My guess is he’s from one of the covens of thunder.”

  “Ok, thanks,” I said, nodding. This mystery man was now suspect number one on my list. Not only did he have access to Olivia and her potions, but I figured a gang member would be more likely to have a poisonous potion on him. He also probably wouldn’t care about collateral damage.

  “Anyway, I’ll leave all this to you,” Kelly said, motioning around. “It’s all as it was. I don’t want to touch anything in here until her parents come. Can you please leave everything the way you found it?”

  “Of course, we will,” I promised softly. This had to be hard for Kelly, and I appreciated her candor and honesty when talking to us. It was one of the reasons I didn’t think she was the one who had killed Olivia.

  Kelly nodded and left the room, and I couldn’t help but notice her trying to subtly wipe away a tear as she headed back out into the hallway.

  Chapter 12

  “So, where do you want to start?” Andrea asked.

  “I was thinking I’d look at her computer,” I said, motioning with my head to the laptop sitting on a plain wooden desk against the wall, completely surrounded by books. Every spare inch of space was covered in them, and even more textbooks were piled up on the floor next to the desk. The typical study space for a Healer student. So many books, so little space. I definitely didn’t miss that part of my studies.

  “Ok, I’ll go through all of the non-electronic stuff,” Andrea said. I made my way to the desk and sat down in front of the laptop, opening the lid. Like many paranormal computers, there was no password, but access was gained via facial recognition. This was done on purpose, since thanks to spells, passwords were all too easy to crack. Honestly, until the advent of facial recognition software, most paranormals had never even bothered with locking their computers.

  I looked around the room and, luckily, found a corkboard up on top of the dresser on which Olivia had kept a number of photos. They were mostly of her along with friends, mainly Kelly. I grabbed one picture of Olivia by herself, lying on the beach, and
held it up to the camera. In an instant, I was in.

  I began going through Olivia’s files rather aimlessly. There were a ton of Word documents, assignments she had typed out for various classes. I scanned through a few of them just in case she was hiding any suspicious information in them, but no. It appeared that Olivia Stone used her laptop for work, and work only.

  After about half an hour of completely fruitless searching, I moved on to her phone, which was next to the laptop. That was definitely strange; most people my age would have had their phones on them at all times. I wondered why this was here. Using the same photo to unlock it, I began scrolling through the apps. Olivia had a Hexagram account, the most popular social media app used by paranormals these days. I opened it up and scrolled through her feed. It was mostly just posts from her group of friends, or other students from Spellford. Nothing out of the ordinary or anyone who looked like they might have belonged to the gang, but I made a mental note to ask Kelly just in case.

  I went into her story archives—stories were posts that only stayed on the platform for twenty-four hours. They were great if you wanted to put up a picture or something that wasn’t important enough for your actual feed but that you still felt like sharing, more casual pictures or life events. It was also good if you wanted to post something but didn’t want it to stay up permanently. Like, for example, selling illegal potions you made in your kitchen to get high at a party.

  Sure enough, a decent amount of Olivia’s archived photos from her story were asking for orders for anyone looking for “party favors.” I had a sneaking suspicion I knew exactly what she meant by that. There was one post the day of the party, asking for anyone who was after a test tube. There were also a couple of other posts taken at the party and posted to social media before she died. One was her arriving at the party. Tim was grabbing a light jacket from the coat hook and came over, leaning in for a hug just as the camera shot cut away. The still-sealed test tube was visible in the video: red fluid, stoppered by a thin piece of cork, all surrounded by a thin layer of red wax. Sure enough, Olivia hadn’t even opened the test tube yet.