The Goodbye Witch

by Heather Blake

  Clarence’s tongue lolled. I couldn’t wait to tease Pepe about the “beast” he’d encountered at Liam’s apartment.

  “Ready?” Nick asked, shutting off the car and opening his door.

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  Liam started toward us. “This isn’t a great time.”

  “It never will be,” Nick said.

  “What’s this about?” Glinda asked.

  I lifted Clarence out of the car. “I think we have something that belongs to you. Or should I say Kyle?” Clarence slurped my cheek.

  Liam glanced back at Glinda. She said, “I told you he’s an escape artist.”

  He squirmed in my arms when he heard her voice. Maybe he wasn’t as smart as I thought he was.

  The back door to the farmhouse opened, and Cora and George came out. They headed toward us.

  “What’s this about?” George asked. “Couldn’t it wait?”

  “Not really,” Nick said.

  “Let’s go in the studio then,” Cora said. “It’s warmer in there.”

  The older couple led the way, with Liam and a limping Glinda behind them. Nick put his arm around me as we followed them inside. I set Clarence down as soon as the door closed, and he rushed straight over to Liam.

  Liam picked him up, and I admit I felt a pang as the dog licked Liam’s chin.

  “What’s so important that it couldn’t wait?” George asked as Will opened the studio’s door and slipped inside.

  “When you didn’t come back,” Will said, “I thought I’d join you.” He stood next to his brother. Clarence tried to lick him, too.

  Huh. It was probably for the best. Tilda would have been really put out if I’d brought him home with me.

  “Just trying to tie up some loose ends,” Nick said. “The final autopsy report came in. Kyle died of natural causes.”

  Cora slumped against her husband.

  George looked confused and said, “The morphine?”

  “Never reached his bloodstream,” Nick answered. “It was administered after death.”

  I glanced around. All the Chadwicks looked genuinely shocked at this news. But not Glinda. She was busy with a loose string on her cuff.

  “I don’t understand,” Will said, looking around.

  I said, “I think Glinda might be able to help you with an explanation. Right, Glinda?”

  She met curious looks with a defiant glare. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you do,” I said.

  “Glinda?” George’s gaze shifted between us. “I don’t understand.”

  “She’s the one who gave him the shot of morphine,” I said. “She’s the one who put him in Starla’s apartment. She’s the one who planted the syringe and duct tape to frame Starla.”

  “You’re delusional,” she said to me.

  “We also suspect she’s the one who helped him break out of jail and stole his belongings out of the evidence locker.”

  “Those are vastly different charges than framing Starla for murder,” Cora said, her hand at her throat. “Glinda wouldn’t do that.”

  “No, she wouldn’t,” Will said. “Besides, she didn’t know where he was. She never knew his location. Only the family.”

  George put his arm around his wife. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Darcy.”

  I lifted an eyebrow. “Maybe her boyfriend told her.”

  “Glinda didn’t know about the tree house,” Liam said.

  “I think you all underestimate Glinda. She would have made it her business to know where Kyle was. And Will and Liam didn’t exactly cover their tracks all that well. After all, Harper followed you fairly easily.”

  “This makes no sense,” Will said. “Even if she knew where the tree house was, she certainly couldn’t have known he had died that night.” He glanced at Nick. “You did say it was natural causes?”

  Nick nodded.

  “Maybe not, but she was working the night Kyle visited Starla at As You Wish. Maybe Liam called her and told her about the incident. Or maybe she heard the news at the police station. It doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that she went to check on Kyle. And when she found him already dead, she hatched a plan.”

  Liam’s brow furrowed as though working through the plausibility of this scenario.

  Will said to his brother, “You did call her from the Cauldron, after we left As You Wish.”

  “Leave Liam out of this,” Glinda snapped. “He had nothing to do with it.”

  And right then something else Pepe said came back to me.

  They were speculating what could have happened to Kyle and how long it would take before it was revealed that his death could not have been a suicide.

  If they had been speculating about what happened, then clearly Liam didn’t know what had happened to Kyle’s body. After all, they were in the privacy of a bedroom. There was no reason not to speak openly.

  Nick stood at my shoulder, showing with his presence that he supported what I was saying, and let me go on. “It’s interesting, Glinda, isn’t it?”

  “What?” she said through clenched teeth.

  “Just the other day you were saying that I had a perfect ready-made family in Nick and Mimi—something you always wanted.”

  I felt Nick tense—I hadn’t told him that part.

  “But it seems to me that these people, George and Cora and Liam and Will and probably Kyle, were your ready-made family. I mean, look at the way they jumped to your defense.”

  Tears shimmered in her eyes. “What’s your point?”

  “So why,” I said softly, “did you put them all through the misery of wondering what happened to Kyle? Unless . . . it wasn’t about them. Or Kyle. Or even Starla. Was it about hurting me?”

  She let out a strangled cry. “Why is everything always about you?”

  “Because you made it that way.”

  “I despise you,” she said, limping toward me to get into my face.

  “Girls!” George said, stepping in between us. “Whoa now.”

  He was a brave man, because Glinda had her claws out.

  It was then that I noticed she wore an ACE bandage under her black tights. But it wasn’t wrapped around her ankle—it was around her lower leg.

  “What are you staring at?” she hissed.

  And now that I thought about it, the other day in her slippers . . . her ankle hadn’t been the least bit bruised. The last piece of the puzzle clicked into place. “I thought you twisted your ankle?”

  She said, “I did.”

  I lifted my eyebrows. “Then you need an anatomy lesson.”

  “And you need to go to hell, Darcy.”

  Nick tensed behind me as I glared. “I don’t think there’s room for both of us.”

  “Gah!” she cried. “You think you’re so smart. If I was behind what happened to Kyle, it wouldn’t have been to hurt you, though that is a fringe benefit, I admit.”

  “Glinda?” Liam asked.

  She waved him off. “If I did it, it would be because I hated the way Starla had acted when she saw him. Like he was some sort of monster.”

  “To her he was,” I said.

  “But he wasn’t,” she said, her beautiful features twisted in pain. “It was only because he’d been sick. I thought Starla ought to see how it felt to be accused of something she didn’t do. To feel the backlash. The shame. The confusion of realizing people actually believed she could do such a thing. And to realize that she wasn’t perfect, either—I mean, how could she be? With you as a best friend?”

  I let the comment slide, hoping she’d keep spewing information.

  “Starla was fully prepared to kill him if she had to,” Glinda said. “Which just proves that anyone can be pushed to the limit under certain circumstances.”

  “Fair is foul,” I said, quoting the other part of the quote Glinda had left on the duct tape.

  “Exactly,” she said.

  “Oh, Glinda,” Cora said softly.

/>   “How did you move him?” Will asked.

  Liam kept silent, holding Clarence.

  “I think you should go,” Glinda said to Nick and me. “You’ve infringed enough. And you can’t prove I did anything.”

  She was mostly right. There was no way to prove she was the one to break Kyle out of jail or steal his belongings. But . . . “I don’t need to,” I said. “Your limp is all the evidence I need that you moved Kyle.”

  A dash of fear flickered in her eyes. “You’re crazy.”

  “Nick, which of Kyle’s leg had a burn?”

  “His right.”

  Everyone’s gaze went to her right leg, where the ACE bandage was barely visible through her tights.

  “We can let the Elder settle it. I’m sure she’d be very interested to take a look at the burn on your calf. One that matches Kyle’s from when you used the Special Delivery Spell on his body.”

  George said, “That spell doesn’t work on people.”

  “It does when the person is dead,” I said softly. Because at that point, with their spirit gone, they become an object.

  “Is that a burn on your leg, Glinda?” Cora asked.

  Glinda looked from face to face, and abruptly broke into sobs. “I just wanted Starla to feel what Kyle had felt.”

  Liam passed off Clarence and took Glinda in his arms, holding her tightly.

  I couldn’t help but remember Glinda’s meltdown in the street.

  You show up in this village all sweet and innocent, and within days, you have everyone eating out of your palm, including the Elder, who is notoriously picky. You’ve got a beautiful house, my dream job investigating for the Elder, a great family. You’re beautiful. You’re smart. You’re fun. And you’ve got Nick and Mimi as a perfect ready-made family for you. You have everything I’ve ever wanted, and now you’ve got a cute dog, too. I hope you’re happy.

  Only, I wasn’t happy. At all. In fact, I felt myself actually understanding why she did what she did. The Chadwicks had become her family. And like a true Chadwick, family came first. Always, even if that meant trying to teach a misguided lesson that didn’t need to be learned.

  Black and white. And interesting shades of gray.

  Foul is fair.

  The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if Glinda’s message hadn’t been about Kyle at all.

  But about herself.

  I was still wondering when my cell phone rang.

  I went to silence the sound but froze when I saw the Caller ID. I glanced at Nick. “It’s Cherise.”

  “Go. Take it.”

  “Hello?” I answered, heading for the studio’s front door.

  “Darcy, it’s Cherise.”

  Her voice chilled me to my bones.

  “I’m sorry to call you like this. . . .”

  I gripped the porch railing. “She’s gone, isn’t she?”

  There was a beat of silence. “A few minutes ago.”

  Drawing in a gulp of icy air, I felt my legs wobble and crouched down before I fell. Tears spilled from my eyes.

  Nick opened the front door, took one look at me, and immediately dropped and wrapped his arms around me.

  See you later.

  But I wouldn’t.

  I’d never see her again.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  “You don’t look any older,” Starla said early Saturday afternoon as we headed to the Witch’s Brew to get my free cup of birthday coffee. I’d almost forgotten to claim it.

  “I feel older.” This past week seemed to have aged me.

  Missy tugged on her leash.

  “Are you ready for your birthday dinner?” Starla asked. “Ve’s given us all orders to be on time and look extra-special.”

  “Ve’s gone a little birthday crazy with this dinner.” She was holding it at home and it had blossomed from close friends and family to a big dinner party. We were all to be seated at precisely eight o’clock for the festivities to begin. I wasn’t much in the mood to celebrate—not without Mrs. P.

  We passed Mrs. P’s bench on the green, and I slowed to a stop.

  Starla put her hand on my arm. “Can’t you practically see her sitting there?”

  I could. And I could hear her laugh, too. “It’s so strange not having her around.”

  “I know.”

  Mrs. P’s funeral had been yesterday and was raw and fresh in my memory. She’d been cremated and wanted her ashes sprinkled in the Pixie Cottage gardens, so she’d always live on in her beloved flower beds. We’d have to wait till the spring thaw before doing the actual sprinkling, so until then Harmony was keeping Mrs. P’s urn in a safe place.

  “Did I tell you that she wanted me to forgive Vince?” Starla said, her voice quiet.

  “You didn’t tell me, but it doesn’t surprise me that she tried to convince you. She’s a romantic at heart, and she has a soft spot for Vince.”

  “She told me life was too short to be unhappy.” Her gaze flitted across the green, toward Lotions and Potions.

  Starla had yet to speak to Vince, and I was beginning to wonder if I’d made a mistake in asking him to stick around.

  “If this past week proved anything, it’s that we should appreciate each and every day we have with those we love. Forgiveness has to be a big part of that, I suppose.”

  “Mmm,” she said noncommittally. “I think I met my forgiveness quota already.”

  She had met with Nick yesterday to express her desire that no charges be brought against Vince for the hacking or against Glinda for bringing Kyle’s body to her home. She simply wanted closure and healing and thought that would be the best way to achieve it.

  The village council urged Nick to let the whole matter go. With Glinda already off the police force they wanted to just sweep the whole matter under the rug. Nick hadn’t been too happy about that, but with most of his evidence being related to the Craft, he swallowed the bitter pill and agreed.

  I had mixed emotions about Glinda getting off so easily. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that whatever internal battles she faced were probably enough punishment. The last I heard the Chadwicks had closed ranks around Glinda. Liam had moved in with her and Clarence was still sneaking out. I hadn’t seen her since the big showdown and didn’t care if I ever saw her again.

  Mrs. P would want me to forgive and forget. I could forgive what she’d done, but I wasn’t sure if I could forget. And I damn well wouldn’t underestimate her ever again.

  “You don’t think you have a little forgiveness left? A teensy bit? This much.” I held two fingers a smidge apart.

  “Maybe,” Starla said with a slight smile. “I don’t know. But enough about that.” She fished in her bag and came up with a wrapped flat box. “Here.”

  “What’s this?”

  “A present, silly. Open it.”

  “But the party’s tonight. . . .”

  “Shh. Open it.”

  I couldn’t help the smile as I tore into the paper. I couldn’t remember the last time a nonfamily member had gotten me a birthday present.

  My life had changed so drastically in a year.

  For the better.

  I handed Starla the discarded paper. I couldn’t even imagine what was inside the package. Though it looked like a bracelet box, it was light as a feather and nothing clinked around as I shook it.

  “Just open it!” Starla said, bouncing on her toes.

  I carefully lifted the top off the box and stared at the pieces of paper inside. Tickets for a three-day cruise in the Bahamas. The trip was dated for next weekend.

  “What do you think?” she asked immediately, still bouncing. “I know, I know. You wanted to plan it. But I wanted to surprise you with it.” Her voice caught. “You’ve done so much for me this week, and I wouldn’t have gotten through it without your support. Your friendship. There’re two tickets. One for you and one for me.”

  Tears sprang as I hugged her. “This is too much.”

  “You’re worth it, Da
rcy Merriweather.”

  “Thank you,” I managed to say. She had no idea the gift she’d just given me—and it had nothing to do with the trip.

  She linked arms with me. “Yeah, well, don’t thank me yet. We have to find bathing suits in the dead of winter.”

  I shuddered.

  “Exactly,” she said as we crossed the green.

  I spotted Godfrey walking out of the Bewitching Boutique with a garment rack, see us, then turn around and walk back into his shop.

  “I’ll be glad when the Swing and Sway dance is over and done with.” I pulled open the door to the Witch’s Brew. “Everyone’s been acting so strangely.”

  She laughed, but the sound abruptly faded away as Vince walked out of the coffee shop. Her cheeks flamed red, and he immediately started stammering.

  “I, ah . . .” He gestured behind him. “I . . .”

  Nearby, a rooster crowed. I glanced across the street and saw Archie land in a maple tree. He motioned to me with his wing.

  Vince hadn’t noticed—he had eyes only for Starla.

  “Why don’t you two, ah, go for a walk?” I suggested. “There’s something I need to do.”

  Starla’s eyes widened, but Vince said, “Yes! A walk.”

  He held out his hand for her to take, and I held my breath, wondering if she’d accept the gesture.

  After a painful moment, she placed her hand in his, and I could breathe again. I crossed the street and met Archie under the tree. He was watching Starla and Vince walk down the sidewalk.

  He cleared his throat. “‘If you love a person, you can forgive anything.’”

  “I have no idea what it’s from, but it’s perfect.”

  “The Letter,” he said, fluffing his feathers. “And I have a knack for finding just the right words.”

  “You’re modest, too.”

  He laughed. “As much as I enjoy our banter, I have summoned your attention for a purpose. The Elder would like to see you at six p.m. this evening. As they say, be there or be square.”

  “No one says that.”

  “Spoilsport,” he accused.

  “Just pointing out the obvious. Why does the Elder want to see me?” I had already given her the full report on Starla’s case, and she had proclaimed mine a job well done.