They all got situated in their favorite chairs just as the setting sun splashed the sky with light-blue and pink tones that were reflected in the lake. The moon hung just over the horizon, a pale-white crescent in the sky.
Issy shoved a marshmallow onto her stick. The warm, coarse sand beneath her feet and the sound of the waves lapping on the beach relaxed her, and for the first time in days she felt the stress dissipate. Mesmerized by the orange flames curling around the puffy white marshmallow, she focused on turning it at just the right speed so that the flames toasted the outside a light golden brown, but not so much that it became a black bubbly mess.
“So, do you guys think there really are purple spotted salamanders out on that land?” Ember asked.
“It looks like it from the photo, and I don’t know why else Louella would have those photos,” Issy said. “They were genuine. Unfortunately, Owen is pretty high on himself after making that discovery. He’s certain that this was all about the rezoning. He thinks someone poisoned Louella to stop her from making it known that an endangered species was on the land, because if she did, no one would be able to build there.”
“It will probably become some sort of protected area now.” Gray used his stick to slide his marshmallow onto a chocolate bar and then sandwiched it in between two graham crackers. “So now we have to watch out for his investigation and the FBPI.”
“But at least you’re not in immediate danger from them,” Raine said.
“We still have to figure out who the killer is, and now it’s even more complicated. The killer might’ve wanted to get rid of Louella because they wanted the salamanders. Her death might have had nothing to do with the rezoning,” Issy pointed out.
“Which means it probably isn’t Hans,” Raine said. “I didn’t get any witchy vibe from him, and I don’t think he’s a paranormal. We need to go back and get Mortimer, though, so we can see if he’s had any paranormal dealings.”
“I do have another suspect,” Issy said. “Karen Dixon was at my shop this morning, and she was acting really odd.”
“She always acts odd,” Ember said.
“Yeah, she is a weird one, but I got the impression she was overly interested in this case,” Issy said.
“Probably has a crush on Gray,” Raine teased.
Ember licked gooey marshmallow from her thumb. “I heard she dabbled in dark magic, and if that’s true, she might want those spotted salamanders.”
“She said she didn’t do dark magic anymore.” Issy assembled her s’more and took a bite, the gooey marshmallow bursting in her mouth and mingling with the sweet chocolate and the crunchy graham cracker.
“Of course she would say that.” Ember rolled her eyes.
Gray sighed. “It’s obvious now that the shut-up spell was appropriate. Someone didn’t want Louella to talk about those salamanders, but we still don’t know if it was because they wanted them all for themselves or because they didn’t want to jeopardize the rezoning of the land.”
“And now we know why Louella was out there when she took the picture of you,” Raine said. “She wasn’t following you around—she was out there looking for these salamanders. They are nocturnal and are more active at night.”
“But how would Louella know that?” Ember asked.
Raine shrugged. “I have no idea.”
Issy sighed and looked out at the lake. Darkness came quickly after the sunset, and the lake was now an inky midnight blue. The moon had risen higher and turned yellow, the crescent shape reflected in the mirror surface of the water. Glittering stars twinkled, and the fire crackled its warm glow, highlighting the contours of her cousins’ faces at odd angles. A barn owl hooted in the distance.
The familiars crept closer. Bella jumped into Issy’s lap and snuggled in. The two kittens leaped up on Ember’s leg. Ember took one and gave the other to Raine so she would have a warm body to hold on to. Cosmo flew down from the tree, landing on the back of Gray’s chair, craning his head to inspect the s’more. Gray gave him a grape from his pocket, which the bird held in his claw as he peeled the skin expertly with his beak.
“I’m afraid this is getting sticky. Owen is going to be looking for whoever poisoned Louella. I think it’s a matter of pride for him to find the killer before the FBPI, and I think he might come looking in my direction,” Issy said.
Ember’s eyes flashed with concern. “Why is that?”
“He thinks she was poisoned. Louella threatened me, and she said she had something on Gray. You have jack-in-the-pulpit plants that could’ve poisoned her. She was poisoned right outside my shop, and I was standing right next to her. If you’re looking at this from a purely non-paranormal angle, I think I might appear to be pretty guilty,” Issy said. “You know, means, motive, opportunity, and all that.”
“Then we just need to step it up and find the real killer first,” Raine said.
“If only we knew where to look for him,” Gray said. “Or her.”
“Well, didn’t you say someone took your knife the night Louella snapped those photos of you?” Ember asked Gray.
“Yes. Someone must have, because it was gone when I got back to the circle I’d made in the woods.”
“And later on it ended up in Louella’s house,” Ember said. “Any idea how it got there? You’re sure no one was with you? You didn’t see anyone?”
Gray’s jaw tightened. “Yes, I’m sure.”
Issy’s intuitive sense tingled at Gray’s words. He wasn’t being straight with them. But why? It couldn’t have anything to do with those salamanders. Issy was sure he wouldn’t be involved in anything that had to do with dark magic. But why did he close up like that whenever they mentioned the ceremony?
“Gray didn’t see anyone out there… but they saw him. How else would they have known about the knife?” Ember said.
“And why put it in Louella’s house?” Raine asked.
“To frame him. Whoever did this is very clever, and they have an agenda,” Issy said.
“We need to find this person and stop them. But how?” Ember asked. “Gray didn’t see them, and Louella is dead.”
“I might know a way,” Issy said. “If I can find the salamanders, maybe I can read their thoughts. It’s worked with other animals, just not reptiles.” Issy turned to Gray. “They must be near where you were doing the ritual if Louella was out there. Can you tell me where it is?”
Gray nodded.
“Great, then it looks like I know what I’ll be doing on my lunch hour tomorrow.”
13
Issy spent the next morning doing some online research on the salamanders and discovered their ideal habitat consisted of fallen, decaying logs near a wet area. Gray had given her directions to his ritual site, so she left Hannah in charge of the store at lunchtime and headed to the spot. She parked on the nearest road, and she and Bella headed off to look for salamanders. Her cousins had offered to go with her, but she wanted to be alone. She needed to be free from distractions in order to try to read the salamanders’ thoughts.
Tapping into the thoughts of animals wasn’t a gift she’d fully developed. The smaller the animal, the harder they were to read. She wasn’t sure if she would pick anything up from the tiny reptiles, but it was worth a try.
Bella was happy to be out in the woods, and she frolicked along beside Issy as they made their own path through the old tall pine, delicate birch, and stately oak trees. Issy had dressed in a thin tank top and cotton shorts along with thick socks and work boots. It was close to ninety degrees out, and the shade from the trees gave her a little respite from the hot temperatures, but her feet were sweltering inside the boots.
Issy absorbed the ambiance of the forest as they walked. The smell of pine and damp earth. The rustling of leaves and chirping of birds. Up above, splotches of blue sky could be seen between the lush canopy of leaves. A blue jay swooped down from a pine tree, the sunlight turning its royal-blue feathers iridescent. Its raucous squawk rang through the forest.
A
fter fifteen minutes of walking she heard the low gurgle of a slowly running stream. It was only a foot wide, maybe four inches deep. Issy could see by the waterline on the numerous rocks in the stream and on its banks that it ran much higher in spring, but this was August, and most streams had dried to a trickle.
Beside the stream, a few large oak trees had fallen decades ago, their trunks nearly rotted out and carpeted with green moss. Large ferns—beech fern, ebony spleenwort, and fiddleheads—sprouted up around it, giving the area an almost prehistoric look. A perfect environment for the purple spotted salamander.
“What do you think, Bella? Are there any salamanders here?” Issy’s voice sounded loud in the quiet forest. She knew the salamanders were active at night. During the day they were probably burrowed into the mud or sleeping under rocks or inside the logs.
She bent down and brushed away some old leaves from under one of the fallen logs. Nothing there.
She picked up a few rocks and peered under them. No salamanders.
A large pine had fallen a few feet away from the stream, its form barely recognizable now. It had deteriorated so much that a spindly maple tree was growing out of it. Issy wedged the toe of her boot under part of it and managed to slide it a few inches, revealing four purple spotted salamanders.
They blinked up at her, almost as if they were squinting to avoid the sun, then wriggled back under the log.
“Oh, wait a minute, you guys. I want to talk to you.” Issy reached under the log and gently grabbed one of the salamanders. Its cold, clammy body squirmed and wriggled in her hand. She closed her fist around it loosely so as not to hurt the creature. Squatting there, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, holding it and focusing all her energy on reading the salamander’s thoughts.
Salamanders don’t have thoughts like humans. They don’t think in sentences. They think more in emotions, and those emotions flowed from the salamander into Issy.
Fear.
Run.
Someone is coming for them. Taking them.
Images flooded her brain. Damp hiding places under piles of leaves. Burrowing deep into the soft wood of the decaying trees. The steel toe of a black work boot, gigantic in size as seen from the perspective of the tiny salamander.
She zoned in on the image of the work boot, its color changing from black to tan. It seemed so real that Issy felt almost as if she’d been there, as if the salamander’s thoughts were becoming hers—
“What are you doing out here?”
Issy’s heart jerked in her chest.
She dropped the salamander. It scurried away, rustling through the leaves to get back to the log. It took her a second to realize the work boot was real. Someone was standing right in front of her.
Her eyes tracked upward. Strong, muscular thighs, trim waist, broad chest. Dex Nolan.
“Nature walk,” Issy squeaked.
Dex smiled down at her, one brow quirked. “You certainly take a lot of walks in the woods here.” He held out a hand. She accepted it. He pulled her up, and she slipped on a wet leaf, stumbling closer to him, breathing in the scent of clean soap and forbidden relationships. She tugged her hand back and lurched away from him, not wanting to be so close.
His eyes drifted to the log. “Was that one of those salamanders that Louella had on her camera?”
“What? That? No, that was a regular plain old fire newt.”
“Yip!” Bella corroborated her statement.
His brow furrowed, and he cast another glance at the log. “Shouldn’t you be at your shop right now? You seem to take an awful lot of time off to wander around in the woods. How do you manage to make a living?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact, I should be there. Gotta run.” Issy started back toward her car, turning and walking backward to address him. “I just need a break in the middle of the day. You know, get out and get some exercise. There are a lot of customers this time of day, so I leave one of my assistants in charge so I can take a breather.”
To her dismay, he jogged up to catch up with her. “Yeah. Me too. I like the outdoors. Is your car over on Varney Road?”
“Yep. The Toyota truck.” Shoot! Was he going to walk all the way to the truck with her? And what was he doing out here, anyway? Probably the same thing she was—trying to figure out which paranormal was interested in the salamanders. Too bad she was the one he just caught out here.
“The woods are different out here than they are back home,” Dex said. “Pretty, though.”
“Where is home?” Issy was annoyingly interested to know more about him.
“Ohio,” Dex said. “What about you? Did you grow up here in Silver Hollow?”
“I was born down in Massachusetts. Salem. But my family moved up here when I was little.” Issy looked around the forest. Just off in the distance she could see a tiny section of the sparkling blue lake. The pine trees, the birds, and the lake were a part of her, as if they were etched in her very soul. “I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.”
“Your whole family moved up? Your cousins and everything?”
“Yeah. We’re a close family.”
“Must be nice to have that.”
The sad tone in Dex’s voice tweaked her heart. Didn’t he have anyone? “You don’t have a big family?”
“Nah. Only child. My folks are dead now.”
Issy tried to ignore the tightening in her chest. It wouldn’t do to get too involved in the personal business of Dex Nolan. They were on opposite sides. She decided to turn the conversation back to business.
“So, are you guys any closer in tracking down the killer? Do you think it has something to do with the rezoning? Because if Louella made it public that there was an endangered species here, they couldn’t very well build a strip mall, right?” Might as well pump him for information, and she couldn’t very well let on that she knew he was really here after paranormals. He must not realize she was one—otherwise he would have taken her into custody already. Wouldn’t he?
Dex slowed the pace, his eyes drifting off into the woods, his brow slightly furrowed. “Sure seems that way. But we have to be careful—I wouldn’t want the wrong person to get arrested.”
Issy slid him a look out of the corner of her eye. Was that some kind of warning? “Just so you know, my cousin Gray didn’t have anything to do with it.”
Dex’s lack of a reply set Issy’s nerves jangling as they walked through a swarm of black flies, swatting them away from their faces, just before they stepped onto the dirt road.
A navy-blue Crown Victoria was parked behind Issy’s truck. “Is that your car?”
Dex nodded.
So he’d seen her car here and knew she was in the woods. He’d come in purposely to see what she was up to. Issy felt a tingle of foreboding. Was she a suspect?
Dex didn’t head toward his car, though—he followed her to hers and opened the driver’s door. Issy went to slide in then hesitated. He stood dangerously close to her. His energy was intoxicating. This close, she could see the flecks of gold in his hazel eyes and, deep inside them, a shadow of almost desperate concern.
Maybe Dex was a witch, because she felt as if he’d cast some kind of spell on her. Time slowed to a crawl. Even her heart seemed to be affected, the beat of it now thrumming in her veins.
“I think you should be careful about where you go. It might not be safe.” Dex’s sincere eyes dropped to her lips. She got the feeling there was a hidden meaning behind his words.
“Well, I don’t think I have anything to worry about.” Issy’s voice was soft, her own eyes now magnetically drawn to Dex’s sensual lips.
Dex’s arm dropped from the top of the truck window where he’d been holding the door open and reached for her waist. Without thinking, Issy stepped toward him. His face hovered above hers, and then their lips met.
Surprisingly, kissing Dex seemed like the most natural thing in the world. His lips were soft and tasted slightly salty. His body warm and hard. She pressed against him, her lips open
ing. Her arms tangled around his neck as he pulled her closer.
A low groan escaped Dex’s throat before he could stop it. Kissing her was wrong on so many levels—she was a suspect, a person of interest in the case at the very least, a virtual stranger with whom he had no business getting involved. And yet, holding her close in his arms felt like the rightest thing in his whole, crazy life. Even if her little dog was growling and attacking his ankle as if her tiny life depended on it.
Her lips tasted like sunshine and warm, bright hope. She was soft and sweet, and her silky curls tangled around his fingers as he slipped his hand behind her head and pulled her closer, still not quite believing that he was kissing her—the kindest, prettiest, quirkiest woman he’d met in a long, long time. He wanted to hold her hand and walk with her through the dappled woods, learn all about her childhood and her dreams. He didn’t want to stop kissing her even though he should. He really, really should. Just one more kiss, then…
Too soon, she placed her hands on his chest and stepped away, her pretty sea-green gaze lowered to the gravel beneath their feet. She leaned back against the side of the rusted-out monstrosity she seemed to think constituted a truck. Brown Betty, she’d called the thing. Piece of junk was more like it.
“Bella, no,” Issy said, her voice rough and slightly quivering. “Leave the man’s shoes alone.”
Dex glanced down at the little dog, which gave him a dark look before rushing back the side of her mistress again.
He licked his lips and still tasted Issy there, and his already-pounding pulse kicked a notch higher. In order to stop himself from reaching for her again, he moved back and jammed his hands through his hair. The case. What he should be thinking about right now was solving this case. Or rather proving there was nothing to solve… or at least nothing the FBPI would be interested in. He needed to get back to the safe, sterile, cold office where he belonged, not out here searching for silly, imaginary things that supposedly went bump in the night. Dex turned away and scanned the deserted stretch of roadway beside them. “So, um…”
A Spell Of Trouble (Silver Hollow Paranormal Cozy Mystery Series Book 1) Page 8
