“Work stuff,” Margaret said.
“Tell me more.” He rested his chin on his hand. “Work fascinates me. I could talk about it all day.”
Margaret grabbed a candy from the open jar and narrowed her eyes at him as she crunched away.
After she'd swallowed the candy, she asked in a light, concerned tone, “Jesse, is there something wrong with your vehicle? I noticed you got a lift in this morning with Zinnia.”
“Uh, no problems. We carpool sometimes.”
“I've noticed that.” She fixed him with her gaze.
He squirmed. “Well, you know how City Hall gives out those commendations to people who make an effort to reduce their environmental footprint?”
Margaret sniffed. “You never ask me to carpool with you.”
“That's because your van smells like sour milk and beef jerky.”
“You get used to it after a few hours.” She batted her eyelashes. “Listen, I can swing by your place any time. It's on the way. You're still in your dad's old house, aren't you?”
Jesse paused, seemingly at a loss for words, before answering, “Zinnia has a great stereo in her car.”
Margaret shrugged one shoulder coquettishly. “Does she? You haven't heard my singing voice. It's better than any stereo. What time should I pick you up on Monday? I wouldn't mind getting some of those environmental points.”
Jesse's handsome brow furrowed. He glanced back and forth between the two women. “Will there be snacks? Zinnia keeps snacks in her glove box.”
“I bet she does.” Margaret licked her lips. “Okay, Jesse. You've forced my hand. I really want you to carpool with me, so I'm going to pack my glove box full of candy. Will that get you into my van?”
“Oh, Margaret.” He shook his head as he got up from the desk. “You just offered me candy to get into your van. If that doesn't sound suspicious, I don't know what is.”
She giggled. “You might like my candy if you tried it, Jesse.”
He pointed a finger at her. “Margaret Mills, if you keep flirting with me like this, I'll have to make a report to Human Resources.”
She snorted. “It'll be your word against mine.”
“Zinnia will vouch for me.” He turned to Zinnia, grinning. “Won't you?”
Zinnia held up a finger and pulled a white headphone out of one ear. “Won't I what? I didn't hear any of that.” She blinked innocently. “You're not bothering Margaret again, are you, Jesse? Leave the poor woman alone. We're trying to get some work done here.” She made a brushing-off gesture with her hand. “Shoo. Back to your cave.”
Jesse leaned across her screen again, slowly helping himself to another handful of candy. He made eye contact the whole time, with those captivating blue eyes of his. And his perfect mouth was only inches from hers. What a tease! He finally finished getting his candy and left.
Both women watched his butt as he walked away. Unlike Gavin, Jesse Berman bought his trousers the exact right size.
Margaret said in a hushed tone, “He must know that I know about you two.”
“We both promised to keep it a secret at work, so I have to keep pretending I haven't talked to you about it.”
“Do you think he told anyone about your arrangement?”
“Men aren't like that.”
“He's from a different generation than us. The men talk about their feelings now. Didn't you get the memo?”
“Very funny.”
“I'm serious. And it's contagious. Last night, my husband asked me how I was feeling, then he went on for an hour about how sad he was about poor Annette. I missed the second half of my singing show. And he cried, Zinnia. The man had water coming out of both eyeballs. The last time I saw him cry was when that doctor who did his vasectomy handed him a bag of marbles and said he could keep what got removed.”
Zinnia bit her lower lip to keep a straight face. The town's only vasectomy surgeon was a bit of a nut, pardon the pun. “Are we allowed to laugh about that, or is it still too soon?”
Margaret looked past Zinnia, at Annette's empty desk. “I don't know. But it does feel good to laugh. And goodness knows there's always plenty to feel sad about.” She frowned. “Poor Annette.” She shook her head. “Any chance we can get a look at that security footage the police have?”
Zinnia had phoned Margaret earlier that morning, while Jesse was in the shower, to tell the other witch about her late night visit from Detective Fung.
Zinnia said, “I can ask, but you know how Fung is. He prefers for the information flow to go toward him only.”
“Those cops would probably be more appreciative of us and our special skills if they didn't have... you know. The others.” She waved a hand. “Whatever the shifter bunch is calling themselves these days.” She hunched forward, leaning in on the shared desk. “Sounds to me like it might have been one of them who got to Annette.”
“A shifter? Yes. All signs certainly point in that direction. That's got to be the new theory Fung is working on right now.”
Margaret whispered, “Or covering up.”
Zinnia sighed. “You and your crazy conspiracy theories.”
“It's not a crazy conspiracy theory if there really is a secret organization behind the workings of your town.”
“Maybe I'm part of the conspiracy.” Zinnia waggled her eyebrows. “Maybe I'm working for them.”
Margaret laughed loudly enough to attract the attention of Gavin, Dawna, and Carrot.
“Good one,” Margaret said to Zinnia. “They'd never let someone like you be a member.”
Gavin, Dawna, and Carrot were still looking their way.
Zinnia put her headphone back in her ear and resumed her work.
12:15 pm
The whole gang crowded around the break room table at lunch time. It was a rare occasion for them to eat together in the small room. Most of them usually ate at their desks. Even Jesse, who usually went out for lunch to avoid the smell of microwaved leftovers, had ordered in delivery so he could join them.
They discovered they were one chair short. They discussed bringing in Annette's unused desk chair but settled on one from the reception area, even though it was a couple inches too low.
Everyone was munching away—Carrot in the too-low reception chair—while Margaret regaled then with her latest tale from the trenches. That morning, her four children had gotten up early to make pancakes. Margaret and her husband slept through it all, right up until the fire trucks arrived.
The anecdote was interrupted by the beeps and buzzes of everyone getting a phone message simultaneously. It was an emergency notice from the mayor's office:
The coroner has announced that the City Hall employee who was found deceased on the premises on Tuesday of this week was killed by a wild animal who gained access to the ground level office through an open window. Therefore, all employees are advised to take measures to secure all windows are closed and locked, and to avoid being alone on the premises during non-office hours. Thank you for your utmost attention to this serious matter. We care about your safety.
Jesse made a tsk-tsk sound. “And yet, they still haven't fixed the security system at the staff entrance.”
Dawna said, “It's been so long, I forgot that door was supposed to be locked.”
Gavin made air quotes. “We care about your safety.” He rolled his eyes.
Margaret and Zinnia exchanged a look. Fung had said they were keeping the wild animal detail from the public. What could this announcement mean? Either Fung's word was no good, or someone over his head had released the information.
Carrot looked around the room, her blue eyes even more bugged out than usual. “Is that what really happened? Annette got attacked by a wild animal?”
“According to the coroner,” Jesse said.
Gavin added in, “And also according to the way her body looked. She had these deep gashes from her throat to her guts. I think some of her organs might have been missing. Don't wolves eat the liver first? Or am I thinking of some
other predator?”
Carrot's lips wavered. She looked like she might burst into tears.
“Wolves go for the liver, heart, and kidneys,” Jesse said. “And also the lungs and stomach lining.”
Dawna started to burp-hiccup. “I'm gonna be sick again.” She got to her feet and ran out, making horrible sounds as she did.
Zinnia started to follow Dawna, but Margaret was closer to the door and beat her to it.
Carrot, Gavin, Jesse, and Zinnia remained in the break room.
For some reason, everyone had lost interest in their food. They picked at their meals without eating. Talk of animals gnawing on a dear friend's organs did have that effect on appetite.
Had a wolf, or a shifter in wolf form, attacked Annette and then stood slobbering over her, eating the poor woman? The thought was too much to bear. Zinnia couldn't sit still any longer.
“Let's check the window,” Zinnia said, pushing away her food and getting to her feet. “Like the memo said.”
The other three jumped up and murmured agreement. They looked almost happy about checking the window. When faced with upsetting news, moving was always better than sitting still, even if it was just going into Karl's office to check a window.
In the small, private office, the four of them checked and rechecked the window latch.
“It only opens from inside,” Gavin said. He opened the window and leaned out, looking down. “Not much of a drop to the ground. I could climb through here. I think any one of us could. Even Karl.” He pulled his head back into the office and closed the window with a loud bang that made Carrot jump.
“This is so creepy, you guys,” Carrot said. “I can't believe you were all here right after, with Annette's blood all over the carpet. Just working. Like it was a regular day.”
Jesse frowned and said, “It wasn't a regular day, Carrot.”
She pulled her sleeves further down over her hands. “We shouldn't even be here now.”
Jesse kept frowning. “What would you suggest? Shutting down all of City Hall?”
Carrot blinked up at him. “Just for a few days.”
Gavin said, “Carrot, that's not going to bring her back. Annette is gone.”
Carrot stamped her foot and glared at the two men. “How can you be so cold? You men! You're the worst.”
Jesse waved a hand and then brought it to his chest. “Carrot, I don't know what you're getting at, but you're wrong. We all loved Annette. My mother died when I was a baby, so I never got to know her, but Annette was like a guardian angel or something. I like to think my mother sent Annette here to look out for me.” He cleared his throat. “By which I mean all of us. Not just me, of course.”
Carrot took this in and agreed, “She was very motherly, for a woman with no kids.”
Gavin chuckled. “Annette was nothing like my mother. She was much, much better.”
Carrot's expression brightened. “We should write all this stuff down for her memorial,” she said. “So Annette's family knows how much she was loved here at work.”
“Good idea,” Jesse said. He looked directly at Gavin and said, “Let's leave out the part about wolves eating her liver.”
Zinnia gave Jesse a head shake. He was known for his breezy, irreverent attitude, but sometimes he went too far.
Carrot's mood suddenly changed again. She balled up her hands into little fists. “Stop saying bad stuff about wolves.”
Jesse raised his chin and squinted down at the orange-haired young woman. “Hey, don't you have a pet wolf?”
“No,” she said, a little too vehemently.
“That's right,” Gavin said. “Carrot, you adopted that wild wolf a while back. What was his name again? Adolf?”
She shook her small fists at him. “Shut up, Gavin. Shut up!”
Gavin looked over at Zinnia. “Carrot has a pet wolf,” he said, in the singsong manner of a child tattling.
“I do not,” Carrot said.
“Do too,” Gavin said.
“Do not!” She suddenly struck him in the chest with both of her little fists. Gavin, whose muscles were all for show, went sprawling over a low filing cabinet.
He landed on the floor just as Dawna and Margaret returned from the washroom and entered Karl's office to see what was happening.
Margaret's eyes widened. She took one look at Gavin, who was doing his own impression of an overturned tortoise, and she turned to Zinnia and demanded, “What's going on in here?”
Zinnia held up both hands. “This isn't what it looks like.”
Gavin was still flat on his back, being pelted with file folders from the overturned filing cabinet.
Carrot was bouncing on the spot, fists raised.
Jesse could scarcely contain his amusement. He said to Margaret, “Carrot has a pet wolf named Adolf.”
“Do not!” Carrot turned and tried to run out of the office, but she tripped over her own feet and went sprawling.
As she landed, her V-neck shirt skewed off one shoulder to reveal one of her many tattoos. It was a dark-furred animal with glowing orange eyes. A wolf? Zinnia came over to help Carrot to her feet, but really she was trying to get a better look at the tattoo.
Chapter 13
12:50 pm
Carrot looked more skinny and pale than ever, sitting at the break- room table in the too-short reception chair with an ice pack on her elbow. She reminded Zinnia of a child who insisted on playing with the big kids and then cried when the inevitable horseplay injury occurred.
Carrot peeked under the ice pack on her elbow. “That's a big boo-boo,” she said of the bruise.
Zinnia snorted. Carrot was such a baby, even though she was twenty-five. Was Zinnia that old now, that she saw twenty-somethings as children? Carrot was an adult by anyone's definition. She lived on her own, held down a full-time job, and drove a big old Cadillac. Perhaps it was the dyed-orange hair that made her look like a silly puppet. Or perhaps it was the fact Jesse had slept with Carrot that made Zinnia see her in a critical way. That was probably it. Simple old-fashioned jealousy. What a cliché. The older woman, jealous of the younger threat. Zinnia wasn't happy to see herself in that light, but she certainly fit the parameters.
Carrot checked the bruise again and pouted.
Dawna rolled her eyes. “Girl, you did that to yourself. Nobody pushed you.”
“I know,” Carrot snapped defensively. She gave a pouty look to Jesse, probably looking for sympathy.
Jesse said, “We were just teasing you about your pet wolf. We didn't mean anything by it.” He pulled out the chair next to Carrot and took a seat.
Zinnia checked the time. It was ten minutes to one, so their lunch hour wasn't over yet.
Zinnia pulled out a chair and sat by her unfinished lunch. Margaret and Dawna did the same. One chair with an unfinished lunch in front of it remained empty. Gavin had split his recently repaired trousers when he fell and lost the battle with Karl's filing cabinet. He had excused himself to drive to his apartment at the Candy Factory for a change of clothes. Now it was just the five of them in the break room.
Margaret twirled her gray forehead curl and gave Zinnia a meaningful look. Zinnia had no idea what the other witch was trying to convey. Speak up? Do something? Margaret flashed her eyes twice, whatever that meant.
Zinnia spoke gently to Carrot, the way she would speak to a fool or a child. “We've got about nine minutes left for lunch. Why don't you tell us a little about your pet wolf?”
Carrot jolted upright in her chair and dropped the ice pack on the floor. “I don't have a pet wolf,” she said.
Zinnia pressed on. “What about Adolf? Gavin seemed pretty sure of himself that you know a wolf by that name.”
Carrot looked over at Jesse, her blue eyes bugging out. He gave her a nod to say go ahead. Carrot blinked rapidly, which settled her eyes back into her head.
She drew in a labored breath and said, “The only wolf I know personally is the one I call Alfie. Not Adolf.” She grimaced. “Alfie, like Alph
a.”
Dawna said, “Now we're getting somewhere.” She poked at her tightly curled black hair with two long orange fingernails. “Gavin must have mixed up some of the letters, just like Annette used to do with everyone's names.”
Jesse nodded. “Annette was not great with names.”
That was an understatement. Zinnia spoke up. “When I started working here, she called me Nina for months.”
Carrot looked into Zinnia's eyes across the table. “Nina is a pretty name. You'd be a beautiful Nina.”
“Thanks,” Zinnia said, feeling guilty for accepting a compliment from Carrot.
Margaret picked up a celery stick from her unfinished lunch. Before she took a bite, she waved it at Carrot, wand-like, and said, “Now tell us about this wolf friend of yours, Alfie. I'm sure he has nothing to do with that memo about wolves attacking people.” She crunched into the celery with gusto.
Zinnia gave Margaret an appreciative look. Margaret had just cast a minor compulsion spell—one that could only be cast with a wand, and she'd nearly done so without detection by Zinnia.
Carrot held her head higher. “Alfie would never hurt anyone,” she said.
“You can't trust a wild animal,” Jesse said. “They're not like—”
Margaret silenced Jesse with one of her stern motherly looks, plus a subtle shaking of a fresh celery stick.
Jesse clamped his mouth shut.
Margaret said to the group, swirling her celery stick, “Let's give Carrot and Alfie a chance, okay? No need to grab the torches and pitchforks yet.” She gave Carrot one of her gentle motherly looks along with a celery stick prodding. “Go on, sweetie.”
“There's not much to tell,” Carrot said, frowning.
Margaret set down the celery, picked up the ice pack from the floor, and gave it back to Carrot for her elbow. “How'd you meet Alfie?”
Carrot's frown turned to a soft, wistful smile. “I was walking at Towhee Marsh last summer, and I heard something whimpering in the bushes. I thought it was somebody's dog, so I figured I would take it to the vet, Dr. Katz.” She kept talking, delving into the details of the animal's injury and the effort of getting it loaded into her old Cadillac.
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