by Esme Addison
“And Tegan was there all night?”
Her aunt rolled her eyes. “Tegan was the reason we were there. We were discussing a change to the black-magic policy, reducing it to only eight percent. A change of two measly points, and she went ballistic.”
If Lidia had left Botanika directly after work on Tuesday and gone to the meeting, she wouldn’t have had time to visit Randy and poison his tea. Of course, if Tegan had worked all day on Tuesday and then spent the night at the same meeting, then she had an alibi as well.
“Did Tegan leave at any time during the meeting?”
Her aunt gave her a knowing look. “Leave long enough to kill Randy, you mean?” She shook her head. “As much as I’d like to find out who did this, I don’t think Tegan had the opportunity.”
“Right. It’s not like she can be in two places at one time.”
“Well …” Lidia gazed thoughtfully at her niece. “There is a spell … one of those spells for trouble, but it requires a lot of energy and dark magic. And if Tegan had cast that particular spell on that night, there’s no way she would’ve had the stamina to throw the spectacular tantrum we all witnessed.”
So her aunt was Tegan’s alibi, and Tegan … She looked around the room at her family, suddenly excited. “Would Tegan vouch for your whereabouts at the time of the murder, substituting the purpose of the meeting with something … more Mundane than a Council meeting?”
Minka and Kamila made faces, while Lidia snorted out a most unladylike laugh. “That witch would rather see me hang than exonerate me from anything.” She shook her head. “Tegan Wesley wouldn’t help me out of a parking ticket.”
Alex’s face fell. “Okay … ” So, she should cross Tegan off her list? She didn’t feel quite ready to do that just yet, but she’d put her on the back burner for now. That left Bryn and Dylan. “By any chance, did you say anything to Tegan about Randy visiting Botanika on Monday?” Otherwise, how would the Wesleys have known how to poison him?
“She didn’t have to,” Minka answered. “Pepper was there, remember? She wrote up a little note on her blog about Mom going berserk on a customer. She didn’t mention names, but she dropped enough clues that anyone who read it would know who she was talking about.”
Alex rubbed her fingers across her tightening forehead. Her temples throbbed. “I think I should get to bed.”
“Minka,” Lidia said, “we have to teach Alex more about her powers. This has gotten very serious. She has to learn how to defend herself against the Wesleys.”
“I agree, Mom,” Minka replied. “You want me to do that? I’ll use the fountain. It’s perfect for practicing.”
“If you use the fountain, you’ll have to teach her yourself,” she said, and gestured to her ankle bracelet. “I’m a prisoner in here.”
Minka touched Alex on the arm. “You should get some rest. Being the victim of black magic will drain your energy if you don’t know how to protect yourself against it. I think it’s best that we start working on your skills after a good night’s sleep.”
Alex’s limbs were so heavy that she couldn’t possibly have argued otherwise. “Sounds good.”
“Come on, I’ll walk you upstairs.”
Minka and Alex left the room with Athena in tow, carrying Alex’s high heel gently in her mouth. When they arrived at her bedroom, Minka pulled some jars out of a basket and set them on the dresser. “Use the lavender cream tonight and the citrus and sage in the morning,” she instructed. “You’ll feel back to normal by breakfast time.”
“And if I don’t?” Alex grinned.
Minka shook her head gravely. “Black-magic hangover. Trust me, you don’t want to go there.”
She turned down the sheets on the bed while Alex removed her jewelry. “Thank you for taking such good care of me, Minka. I never would have believed that people like the Wesleys existed. But now I understand.”
“We’ve got to get our hands on something Randy owned so that we can cast a guidance spell. Then we’ll know exactly who did this.”
“I’ll work on it,” Alex promised. “I met Stephanie tonight. Maybe I’ll make up an excuse to visit her.”
“Maybe Monday,” Minka agreed. “Give it a few days so you don’t look too eager. There’s something else.” Minka sat on the bed. “When you mentioned that Dylan put a spell on you—what exactly did you mean?”
“Oh.” Alex whirled around, angry still as she thought back to the dance in the moonlight. “We were out on the patio, under the moon. It’s hard to explain it, but there was this feeling that came over me, like there was nothing else in the world. Blissful?” Alex sighed. “But it was magic, I know it was. I’ve literally never felt anything like it.”
“Yeah.” Minka hesitated. “But actually, only women can enchant men. It doesn’t work the other way. It’s a power specific to mermaids, and it only works on Mundanes. So, I just thought you should know that.”
Alex froze as she tried to process that information, but Minka kept talking, “Dylan doesn’t even practice magic, last I knew. He’s like Kamila, one of those Magicals who don’t want anything to do with their powers, so …” She let her thought trail. “I’m just saying. He didn’t cast an enchantment spell on you. It’s not possible, and he wouldn’t even try.”
“So he didn’t put a spell on me?” Alex flung herself back on the bed next to her cousin, still wearing her party dress. “I don’t understand.”
Minka smiled. “I think you do.” She patted her leg. “You just don’t like what it means.”
Chapter Sixteen
Like the Wesleys, Stephanie Bennett lived on the Peninsula. Despite Alex’s reluctance to return to the location of her accident, Minka urged her to pay her a visit on Monday afternoon.
“Kamila says she’s been cleared to empty Randy’s things out of the house they shared, and apparently she’s been bringing some boxes to her house. If you can manage to snatch something he owned, I can perform a guidance spell.”
Alex agreed to visit Stephanie. The sooner she found the killer, the sooner she could leave Bellamy Bay and start over at a great new job in New York City. Hopefully there was minimal witchcraft there.
She took Lidia’s sedan and arrived at a stately brick colonial just after lunchtime. Stephanie had the trunk of her black Porsche SUV open, and she was carrying large cardboard boxes into the house. She paused to stare as Alex pulled beside the curb. “What are you doing here?” she asked when Alex stepped out of the car.
Alex smiled because the universe had handed her a reason for stopping. “I saw you struggling with those boxes. Would you like a hand?”
“No,” Stephanie snapped. But when Alex crossed onto the driveway undeterred, she reconsidered. “Okay, fine. These are kind of heavy.”
“They looked it.” Alex pulled a box from the trunk. Yeesh, it must have weighed fifty pounds. “Where do you want these?”
“In the house.” Stephanie dropped the box she was carrying at her feet and unlocked the front door. “It’s all of Randy’s stuff. I have to go through it.” Her blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail, and she was dressed in an oversized blue denim shirt and white cotton capris. She blew a loose tendril of hair out of her face and held the front door open for Alex. “I should’ve hired someone.”
Alex went into the house, finding herself in a large foyer. The house was humble in comparison to the Wesleys’ place, but far from small. The term McMansion came to mind. Stephanie pointed to a side room. “You can just put it in there.”
There were piles of cardboard boxes stacked in the room Stephanie had gestured to, all marked similarly. Randy’s clothes. Randy’s shoes. Randy’s junk. Stephanie entered and set her box on top of the one Alex had just dropped. “You probably think it’s callous,” she said. “Me cleaning out his stuff like this, so soon after … But we were getting a divorce. He was already missing from my life.”
Stephanie paused and stood with her hands on her hips as she surveyed the inventory. Then her face crumpled a
nd she began to sob.
“Oh.” Alex rushed to her side. “Stephanie. I’m sorry. This must be very difficult.”
Stephanie covered her face with her hands, shaking with the force of her tears as Alex rubbed her arm. “I can’t believe he’s gone. There were so many things I would have changed.”
“Of course,” Alex said. “Death has a way of giving us perspective on what matters.”
With a shuddering breath, Stephanie lifted her head again and wiped off her cheeks. “Enough of that,” she said after a moment, regaining her calm again. “What’s done is done.” She shot Alex a critical stare. “I don’t even know you. And your aunt killed my husband. Why are you here?”
Alex tried not to be shaken by the widow’s sudden turn. “I wanted to offer my support, that’s all. When we met at the Wesleys’ party the other night, you said you didn’t have any family around here. I know what that’s like. My dad raised me on his own, and until about two weeks ago, I hadn’t seen my aunt and cousins in twenty years.” She tried to smile in the face of Stephanie’s glare. “Do you want any more help with the boxes?”
Stephanie looked as if she was about to say no again, but then thought better of it. “Okay. But let’s do it quickly.”
As Stephanie led the way out of the house, Alex noticed an open shoebox filled with trinkets and labeled Randy’s crap. Inside she spotted jeweled watches and class rings—was this what passed for garbage in Stephanie’s world? She was just about to paw through the box when Stephanie moved in the doorway. “I’m going to grab a drink. You want a whiskey?”
Alex put up a hand. “None for me, thanks.”
“Why don’t you go ahead to the car? Don’t wait for me.”
And so Alex finished emptying the Porsche while Stephanie sat on a box labeled Randy’s books and nursed her drink. When Alex had planted the final box in the room, Stephanie’s eyes were glassy.
“I did love him, you know. We were trying to work things out. We might have even stayed married if he’d been able to leave his mistress.” She threw her head back and finished her drink. “Men. Am I right?” Her smile was feeble.
Wow, did Stephanie display a spectrum of emotions. But her feelings toward her husband seemed complicated, especially if she hadn’t wanted to get divorced. Would she have killed him over jealousy?
“You knew he was cheating on you?” Alex asked, feeling like she was crossing into dangerous territory.
But Stephanie smiled. “Wives know these things. He was spending extra time getting ready in the morning, wearing a new cologne, going out for more ‘business dinners.’” She made air quotes. “More travel. Suddenly he was a stranger. It’s like I had no idea who he was.”
“Do you know who his mistress was?”
“Of course not,” she snorted. “Most likely some young girl looking for a sugar daddy. We couldn’t have children. It was devastating to both of us. I’ve always wondered if he strayed to try his luck with someone else.” She went to take another drink. Finding her tumbler empty, Stephanie stared sadly at the bottom of the glass. “But I loved him. I’m a fool.”
Randy had purchased a bottle of Violet when he was at Botanika. He’d called it something pretty for his something pretty. Now Alex saw firsthand how deeply Randy’s behavior had hurt his wife. “Stephanie, did Randy happen to buy you a bottle of perfume before he … died?”
Her eyes flashed. “No. Did he buy his girlfriend something? He did, didn’t he? No, wait.” She shook her head. “Don’t tell me. I gave my life to that man—”
She jumped to her feet. Without warning, she kicked the box she’d been sitting on and screamed. Alex backed away, knocking over the box of trinkets—the “crap.” The contents scattered across the floor.
“Sorry,” she muttered, and hurried to pick up the mess.
Stephanie stopped kicking and turned her anger to Alex. “Did you come here just to rub it in my face that my husband was seeing someone else? Did you come here to hurt me?” She pointed to the door. “I want you out. Now.”
Alex gestured to the clutter on the ground. “I will, but let me pick this up—”
“Get out,” Stephanie shrieked.
She didn’t need to say it again. Alex ran out the door and to her car. Once she was safely inside, she locked the doors in case Stephanie decided to follow her. Then she opened her fist. She’d managed to grab a gold cuff link marked with the initials RB.
Despite everything, Alex smiled.
* * *
They were waiting until midnight to cast the guidance spell. After casting accidental guidance spells of her own, Alex knew they worked just fine in the middle of the day, but Minka insisted on waiting, and Alex couldn’t do this alone.
“The stronger the moon, the better,” Minka had explained. “It enhances our powers.”
Alex passed the time impatiently, watching television with Lidia with one eye on the clock. Finally, at a quarter to twelve, while Alex was reading in her bedroom, Minka poked her head through the doorway and said, “Okay. You ready?”
Alex reached into her pocket and retrieved the cuff link. “Ready.”
“Let’s do this.”
As she rolled off the bed, Athena looked up from her spot on the floor, blinking her eyes. Then she stretched and followed Alex into Minka’s room, where Minka was reaching for a wooden box at the top of her closet.
“This is like three hundred years old,” she said as she handed it to Alex. “So don’t drop it.”
Alex unlatched the lid. Inside was a crystal bowl set in blue silk lining. The bowl was surprisingly heavy and etched with strange marks that resembled hieroglyphs. “Are these letters of some kind?”
“It’s mermaid language, I think,” Minka said. “That’s what Mom says, but it’s not like anyone can confirm it.” She lifted the bowl out of Alex’s hands. “Come on, we’re going outside.”
Athena nuzzled Alex’s hand. “I know, girl. It’s bedtime,” she said soothingly. “But this is important.” The German shepherd must have been convinced, because she walked beside Alex as they followed Minka into the backyard.
“I love that Mom has this fountain. You really need water that’s been charged by a full moon if you’re going to get a clear answer.” Minka gazed at the sky and smiled. “And we’re in luck.” She dipped the edge of the bowl into the pool of the fountain and then set the bowl on the bench. “The item, my dear.”
Alex dropped the cuff link into Minka’s open palm.
“Are we sure it’s Randy’s?” She squinted at the gold in the bright moonlight. “A guidance spell like this is hard to get right—”
“Now you tell me,” Alex said. “Do you realize what I had to go through to get this cuff link?”
“You have a better idea?” Minka cocked her head.
“Well, it has his initials on it, and it was in a box labeled Randy’s crap.”
“That’s good enough for me.” Minka dropped the cuff link into the crystal bowl.
“Can you teach me how to do this?” Alex asked. “It would be good to know how to do this kind of thing on purpose.”
“Oh, right. Okay, I’m going to drop the cuff link into the water first. Now. It’s important to get into the right mind-set. That means clearing your mind of everything except for the question you have, got it? No thinking about your grocery list or how your dog needs a bath.”
Alex looked at Athena, who smiled and thumped her tail. “All right.”
“Here, let’s hold hands. Like I was saying, this is tricky, but if we try it together, we might get somewhere.”
Alex gripped her cousin’s hand, focusing intently on her question: who killed Randy Bennett?
A full moon reflected in the still surface of the water in the crystal bowl, along with a wisp of a cloud. Then the water began to vibrate.
“Here it is,” Minka whispered, and tightened her grasp on Alex’s hand. Alex was too scared to breathe lest she screw up the entire spell.
They observed tiny rip
ples coursing through the bowl. The moon vanished as the clear water turned cloudy. Then a dark image took shape. “It’s a Magical,” Minka said.
“How do you know?”
“Because they’re all shadow. They won’t allow us to see them, which means they knew we would try.” Minka’s eyes narrowed. “A Magical killed him, all right. And they don’t feel remorse. There’s a dark energy around. This person is using a cloaking spell, disguising themselves.”
“Disguise? Like how?”
“It’s murky, but this is a Magical pretending to be something or someone they’re not. Could be a Magical disguising themselves as a Mundane.” Minka dragged a finger through the bowl, breaking the image in half. “What I know is that a cloaking spell is one of the spells for trouble. The Council says there is no legitimate reason to use it.”
“What’s a spell for trouble? I think I heard Ciocia Lidia mention it earlier.”
“It’s the Council’s formal list of banned spells. Spells for trouble are enchantments no one needs unless they’re up to no good—unless they’re practicing black magic. The cloaking spell is one of them.” A dark look crossed Minka’s face. “This person is extremely dangerous. We’re talking about someone who doesn’t hesitate to practice black magic, to use their powers for bad.” The image had vanished.
Alex’s heart was pounding. Dark energy. Extremely dangerous. Black magic. None of these were the answers she’d hoped for. “So we’re looking for a Magical. A Wesley?”
“I don’t know.” Minka picked the cuff link out of the water before she poured the contents of the bowl into the fountain. “This is bad.” She handed the cuff link back to Alex. “I guess part of me was hoping it was a Mundane. We can handle a Mundane, but a Magical?”
“But are we sure the guidance spell was correct? Randy wasn’t killed by magic.”
“That’s just to avoid the Council’s scrutiny,” Minka said. “If he had been killed by magic, they would’ve opened their own investigation. The guidance spell is never wrong.”
Her cousin was already walking back toward the house. Alex snapped her fingers at Athena, who jumped up to follow them. “Wait. What are we supposed to do now?”
