The Goodbye Witch

by Heather Blake

  It should have been more than perfect. It should have been heaven. Except . . .

  We hadn’t talked about the case yet, declaring it off-limits during dinner. But now . . . I wanted answers. “Did Glinda ever explain her behavior this morning?”

  He smiled. “I’m surprised you held off this long from asking.”

  I nudged him. “Only because you’re so distracting.”

  “You tease, but I’m glad we had a little bit of normalcy for a while.”

  I tugged at the fringe on the lap blanket. “Normal is nice.”

  “Mimi told me what you said, about us being your normal. I’m glad, Darcy.”

  My heart thumped erratically. “Me, too.” I basked in the moment for a few seconds before saying, “Now what about Glinda?”

  Nick tipped his head back and laughed.

  I gave him a playful shove. He caught my hand and kissed it before saying, “Glinda claims she tried calling me on my cell.”

  “But not your landline?”

  “She said it slipped her mind.”

  I scoffed.

  “The situation with her might get worse before it gets better. I suspended her today.”

  “Not fired?”

  “Unfortunately, that’s not my call. It has to go through the village council review committee. My guess is that she’ll get another slap on the wrist.”

  She’d been reprimanded last year. “How many chances will the council give?”

  “Usually three.”

  I bit my lip. “How will this affect Mimi?”

  “I don’t know, Darcy. Mimi cares about her a lot.”

  I knew. Glinda had completely wormed her way into Mimi’s heart.

  “I’m planning to talk with Mimi tomorrow morning. She needs to be aware of what’s going on. She might not be able to fully understand the dynamics—”

  “I wouldn’t underestimate what she comprehends. She’s a smart girl.”

  “It won’t make her hurt any less if her friendship with Glinda dissolves because of what’s going on with the police force.”

  “No.” A lump wedged in my throat. “It won’t.”

  “Needless to say, Glinda is irate and taking no responsibility for her actions. Her behavior can go either way right now. She’ll either fall in line or become a loose cannon.”

  Why did I have the feeling that it was going to be the latter option? Not wanting to think about it, I said, “How’d the interview with Vince go?”

  “He’s definitely hiding something, but he clammed up and asked for a lawyer.”

  As a former murder suspect, he’d know not to say anything incriminating. “You don’t really think he killed Kyle, do you?”

  “No, but he does have a good motive. I mean, if I were in his shoes, and your ex was harassing you . . .” His eyes flashed.

  “Luckily for my ex, he’s happily married with a brand-new family.” I’d tried to keep my tone light, but even I could hear the tiny bit of bitterness that had seeped into my words.

  Nick nudged my chin. “Do you want me to hunt him down and kick his ass?”

  I smiled. “Sure.”

  Nick pulled me into his arms and said, “I would, you know, but while I’m there I might have to thank him. His loss was my gain. I know how lucky I am to have you in my life.”

  “Nick Sawyer, are you getting sappy on me?”

  “It happens once in a while.”

  I tucked my head into the curve of his neck and breathed in his scent. “I like it.”

  I tried to just enjoy the moment, the happiness, the love. But I couldn’t keep thoughts of the case from intruding on my warm and fuzzy haze.

  Finally giving in to my persistent curiosity, I said, “Did you ask the medical examiner’s office about Kyle’s paralysis?”

  “I called, and the ME said she’d try to move up the autopsy on her schedule, but she said she didn’t see any outward signs of muscle atrophy on his legs. Only that wound on his calf—which turned out to be some sort of burn.”

  “That’s just bizarre. Why would Will Chadwick think his brother was paralyzed if he wasn’t?”

  “The ME said she’d know for sure once she performs the postmortem exam and can take muscle samples.”

  On the screen, Eliza’s father was singing and dancing his way to his wedding—one of my favorite scenes, but tonight I found no entertainment in the movie. “It just doesn’t make sense. And the morphine? Was it Kyle’s? I mean, it would make sense that it was if he’d been in some sort of accident that paralyzed him. But otherwise, where did it come from?”

  “We’re looking into it, but it’s not easy. He could have had a fake ID for any kind of medical treatment, but with all his personal belongings missing . . . and morphine is not uncommon; it could have come from anywhere. I’m bringing Kyle’s whole family in for questioning again tomorrow. Maybe one of them will crack.”

  “I doubt it. If they admit to knowing about Kyle’s recent medical history, that’s pretty much confessing to harboring a fugitive. Isn’t that a felony?”

  “I spoke to the DA earlier, and he agreed to drop any charges against the family in exchange for information.”

  “Really?”

  “I think it’s our only hope to figuring this out. His family wants to know what happened to him as much as we do.”

  I recalled the worry I’d seen in his parents’ eyes, his brothers’. There was no denying their love for Kyle.

  I tried to put myself in their shoes. If Harper, in a fit of temper, attempted to kill Marcus . . . would I help her hide from the law?

  I bit the inside of my cheek. I wanted to believe I’d do the right thing, but . . . it was Harper. My baby sister. My heart. I’d stash her in a secluded tree house in a hot second. I sighed.

  “What?” Nick asked.

  “I’m just realizing yet again that sometimes life isn’t black and white.”

  He pulled me closer, resting his head atop mine.

  “But,” I said, “there may be another way to crack this case.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ve been thinking about Vince and his high-tech surveillance equipment. I have a feeling his cameras have nothing to do with catching robbers and everything to do with catching Crafters.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me. He’s a Seeker, after all.”

  “If you were a Seeker on a quest,” I hypothesized, “would you have only one camera in the village?”

  Nick stiffened, pulling his shoulders back. “No. I’d have hidden cameras everywhere.”

  “Right,” I said. “And if you’re especially concerned about your girlfriend . . .”

  “I’d have one near her house.” His eyes grew wide. “I need to talk to Vince again.”

  “You might need a warrant. He’s not going to willingly admit that he has cameras around the village.”

  “It might be why he failed the lie detector.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me,” I said, echoing his earlier words.

  He pulled me closer. “You’re pretty good at this snooping stuff.”

  “You flatterer.”

  He kissed my temple and I snuggled in closer to him and tried to focus on the TV. To let Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison distract me.

  It worked a little, but I could still feel the anxiety inside me, waiting to pounce as soon as I allowed thoughts of Starla’s situation to intrude on my conscious. She’d been on an emotional roller coaster and I felt as though I was along for the ride.

  As the credits rolled, Nick said, “As hard as I try, I’m not sure what you see in this movie.”

  I yawned and stretched. “It’s romantic. Plus the costumes and the music . . .”

  “Professor Higgins is kind of a jerk.”

  I smiled. “I know, but that’s his charm. The jerk was able to fall in love. I admit the ending would have been better if he showed more of a transformation, but I think Eliza knew what she was getting into.”

  He frowned at the TV.

 
I laughed and said, “Not everyone needs grand gestures. Sometimes it’s the little things that show someone how much they’re loved.”

  Dark eyes searched my face. “I agree, but don’t you think he should have, I don’t know, said ‘I love you’ or at least brought her a pair of slippers?”

  I gripped the front of his shirt and pulled him in closer. “Slippers?”

  Leaning in, he smiled. “Like you said, it’s the little things.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  As his lips settled on mine, I thought his kiss was a much better form of distraction than I had ever dreamed. Except for thoughts of him and me and an empty house for the whole night, pretty much everything else flew out of my head. We should have started the night off with this.

  I was happily lost in just feeling when my brain finally registered an odd sound. A cell phone. Reluctantly, I pushed Nick away.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Listen.”

  He tipped his head, and then groaned as he heard the sound, too. Mumbling something about bad timing, he reached behind the sofa for his phone on the console table. Gruffly, he answered the call. “Sawyer here.”

  I sat up, readjusted my sweater, and tried my best to make out the words of the caller. A flustered voice was talking a mile a minute.

  “Slow down,” Nick said, his tone hardening. “Say that again.”

  His gaze zipped to mine, then away again. I didn’t like what I’d seen in his eyes, the apprehension. The regret.

  Dragging a hand down his face, he said, “I understand.”

  Hanging up, he looked my way, a strange look on his face.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “I have to go. I’ll drive you home.”

  “Why?”

  “One of my officers has been painstakingly going through the trash from the Dumpster that was behind Starla’s house. When he unwrapped what looked like a wad of duct tape, he found . . .”

  I didn’t like his tone. “What?”

  “A syringe.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Sometime in the middle of the night, I bolted upright in bed and looked around, my eyes trying to focus in the dark.

  I reached over and flipped on the light, wincing at the sudden brightness.

  Slipping on my glasses, I took a longer look around the room now that I could fully see. There was no one here but Missy and me. I narrowed my gaze on her, and she blinked sleepily at me.

  Looking around the room, I said, “Did you hear something?”

  She wagged her tail. I didn’t know whether that meant yes or no.

  Turning, I glanced at the bedside clock. It was a little past three in the morning.

  Since I’d been home, I’d done my best to forget about the syringe and how it was another piece of circumstantial evidence that Starla had killed Kyle. I hadn’t had a chance to tell her about it, either. She’d still been out with Vince when I arrived home. I’d stayed up, trying to wait for her, passing the time by searching Melina’s diary for the invisibility spell, but at some point I had fallen asleep. I realized my eyes still ached from squinting at the journal’s small print. I made a mental note to stop by Spellbound tomorrow and pick up some reader cheater glasses to make the task a little less painful.

  Still reeling from the adrenaline rush of being woken out of a sound sleep, I flopped back onto my pillow and dragged the blankets up to my chin. My heartbeat still throbbed in my ears, pulsing loudly, a rhythmic thump-thump-thump. Drawing in a deep breath, I let it out slowly, and rubbed Missy’s head until she settled back to sleep.

  I set my glasses back on the nightstand and turned off the light. Shadows played on the walls, cast by the moonbeams slipping in under the edges of the window shades.

  My thoughts felt like they were caught in a tornado, twisting round and round.

  Missy shifted, adjusting to my fidgeting. I couldn’t quite see the look in her eyes because of the darkness and my poor vision, but I had the feeling she was giving me the evil eye for disrupting her beauty sleep.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to force out any thoughts of this case. I wanted peace. For me, yes, but more for Starla. I hated seeing her suffering.

  Flipping to my other side, I pounded my pillow again.

  Let it go, I willed myself. Right now, my focus should be squarely on Starla. Making sure she was okay. The mother hen in me was already plotting a girls’ weekend away. Somewhere warm and sunny, just like she wanted. I wondered if there was a memory cleanse I could use on her to erase this week from her memory. To erase the heartache. The anguish.

  You can’t fix everything.

  The reminder flitted through my head, irritating me. Huffing, I flopped onto my back and stared at the ceiling. I wanted to fix this. I wanted it more than anything.

  I willed myself to think of other things, to clear my head of all despairing thoughts. I mentally rearranged As You Wish’s office, organizing to my heart’s content. Slowly, I felt myself relaxing. So much so that I added cleaning up the space tomorrow morning to my morning to-do list. If I attempted it a little at a time, then Ve might not even notice the change.

  Soon, my thoughts started to drift to another subject that made my heart ache—in a good way this time.

  Mind blank; Conscious spark; Lost memories; Return to me.

  As much as I wanted to, I didn’t repeat the memory spell three times to cast it. I’d wait until my birthday, as Mimi had planned. But even the thought of seeing my mother’s face again filled me with such happiness that I almost felt guilty about it in light of Starla’s predicament.

  I swiped at the moisture in my eyes. For the first time in a long time, I was looking forward to my birthday—and I had Mimi to thank for it.

  I snuggled more deeply into the cocoon of my blankets. Slowly, I let the stress of the week go. But just as I was drifting off, I jumped at the sound of something hitting my window.

  Missy sat up, her ears perked—she heard the sound, too, and was quicker than I was to react. She leapt off the bed and dashed to the window, growling at the pane.

  What on earth? Throwing back the covers, I grabbed my glasses but kept the light off as I lifted the window shade to peek out.

  Snow fell heavily, coating everything in sight in white, including the shadowy figure of a man on the sidewalk. He reared back and hurled something upward. A second later, the object pinged against the windowpane. A pebble.

  Missy let out a bark.

  “Shh!” I whispered, not wanting her to wake everyone in the house.

  My heart pounding, I cracked open the window. Snowflakes rushed inside and melted immediately on my skin. “Who’s there?”

  “You don’t recognize my manly silhouette?” Nick’s voice floated upward.

  I smiled. “My apologies, but from up here you look like the Abominable Snowman. Plus, my glasses are fogging from the cold. Is everything okay? Why are you here?”

  Please not to arrest Starla . . .

  “I forgot something earlier. Can you come down?”

  “Give me a minute. I’ll meet you by the back door.”

  Quickly, I grabbed my robe and slipped into it. I stuck my feet into my raggedy slippers. Missy raced ahead of me to the bedroom door and nudged it fully open with her paw and dashed out. I flipped on the hallway light and quietly headed toward the stairs, wondering what Nick had forgotten. I didn’t recall seeing anything he’d left behind.

  Aunt Ve’s door was firmly closed, but the guest room door was open a crack. I gently pushed it open and peeked inside. The bed was empty, but Evan was asleep, snoring softly on the air mattress on the floor.

  My gaze zipped to the bathroom door. It was open wide and the room was dark—Starla wasn’t in there. Had she not come home yet?

  I had irrational visions of her and Vince skipping town, but as soon as I reached the top of the steps, I noticed flickering light filtering into the kitchen from the family room. Tr
ying to be as quiet as I could, I carefully navigated the stairs and saw that the light was coming from the TV set. The Phantom of the Opera was playing, the volume low. Starla sat tucked into the corner of the sofa, with a sleepy Tilda snuggled on her lap. There was a stack of silver wrappers piled high on the coffee table. I smiled. She’d found my stash of frozen Peppermint Patties.

  She glanced over her shoulder as the floor creaked. Using the back of her hand, she wiped away chocolate remnants from her mouth, and then said, “Did I wake you?”

  Tilda lifted an eyelid to give me a dirty look.

  “Not at all. Nick did. He’s waiting for me to open the back door.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Is he here to arrest me?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  She slumped in relief and in the depths of her eyes I saw just how worried she was about the prospect.

  “Booty call?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye.

  I smiled. “I don’t think so.”

  “Then why’s he here?”

  “He said he forgot something earlier. How long have you been awake?”

  “I haven’t gone to bed yet. Too much going through my head.”

  I could understand that.

  “Seemed like a good time to watch a movie to get my mind to concentrate on something else—anything else.” She smiled. “Wouldn’t you just love to dress up and go to a fancy dance?”

  “As long as the chandelier doesn’t crash down on me.”

  Laughing, she reached for another chocolate. “Yeah, that might put a damper on things.”

  “I’ll be right back,” I said. “I need to let Nick in.”

  She nodded and turned up the volume on the TV another click.

  Missy was sitting in the mudroom, glaring at the closed doggy door. She hated being locked inside. I peeked out the curtain and saw Nick pacing the porch. I released the deadbolt, and the noise turned his head.

  Missy raced out the door and danced around his feet. He bent and rubbed her head. “I was beginning to think you forgot about me,” he said, a smile tugging on his lips as he pulled off his hat and brushed snow from his shoulders.

  “Sorry.” My breath transformed into a white cloud of steam. “I was distracted by Starla—she’s in the family room watching a movie. Come inside. The snow’s really coming down.”