Wisteria Witches Mysteries Box Set 3

by Angela Pepper

  “She wanted me to know it was something evil and angry. She didn’t see it, but she felt it.”

  “And?” He raised an eyebrow.

  I didn’t want to tell him Fatima was a witch. I’d only had the information myself for less than five minutes. It was way too soon to consider breaking the young witch’s confidence.

  And yet, Fatima must have expected I would tell the detective about her rainbow demonstration. She wasn’t the brightest girl, but she must have figured out we were working together on the case.

  Bentley shifted impatiently in the driver’s seat, making the leather squeak. “Did she admit to being a witch?”

  Reluctantly, I nodded, even though I didn’t like his choice of verb. She hadn’t admitted anything. Did he go around admitting to being a detective? No. It wasn’t fair that being a witch came with so much baggage. Thousands of years of persecution will do that for a group of people.

  The steely-eyed detective didn’t smile, but the crow’s feet around his eyes disappeared. He looked like a person who’d just placed five difficult jigsaw puzzle pieces in a row. He was pleased at the results of his observational skills combined with a dose of good luck.

  “Are you happy now?” I asked, my voice tinged with the same defeated bitterness that every person uttering that phrase uses. Are you happy now? Now that you’ve gotten your way while everything I hold dear has been compromised?

  The pleasure spread across Bentley’s face, pulling up the corners of his mouth. “Since it runs in families, there’s a good chance my hunch about her aunt, Maisy, is correct. Both of the Nix women must be witches.” He reached into his jacket pocket, but then seemed to change his mind, resting his hands instead on the steering wheel. “How exactly did she tell you?”

  “She actually showed me. Like this.” I raised my hands, palms facing each other, leaving a four-inch gap. I didn’t have the foggiest idea how to make a rainbow, so I substituted, pulsing a flash of blue plasma between my hands. It blinked brighter than I expected. The air crackled. The interior of the vehicle dramatically pressurized and then released, as though we’d been plunged underwater and then popped. The blue plasma went supernova, blindingly bright.

  Bentley, who’d been leaning forward to see what I was doing, yelped and pulled away so quickly he banged the back of his head on the driver’s side window. By the sound of the impact, it would leave a bump.

  “Oops,” I said, blinking away the dark spots in my eyes. “That’s not such a smart thing to do in confined spaces.”

  He rubbed the back of his head. “You think?”

  “Fatima did a different spell. It was a pretty rainbow, and it didn’t have the same bite as my defensive magic.” I reached a hand toward him. “Want me to heal that bump on your noggin? It’ll only take a minute.”

  He pulled back from my hand, repeating the bump. “Don’t you dare touch my noggin, thank you.” He rubbed his head again. “I take full responsibility for myself,” he said. “I should have known better than to lean in. Those magical guns of yours are always loaded.”

  I clasped my hands together tightly. “You would have liked the rainbow,” I said.

  “I’m not so sure I would.”

  “I’d sure like to know how that rainbow spell of hers works. I can’t imagine what good it would do a witch, but it was very pretty.”

  “Perhaps you two could team up and shoot rainbows at this evil, angry thing that chops off heads. Why does that make me think of a Saturday morning cartoon?”

  “Don’t tease,” I said.

  He sighed and rubbed his head some more. “Maybe I’m onto something. Weaponized rainbows might be exactly what’s needed.”

  “We could try that on our monster, but first we need to locate it.” I fastened my seatbelt. “Where are we off to next? An interview with Arden Greyson? To confirm Fatima’s story and find out what he knows?”

  “I believe Mr. Greyson is still at the station, where they brought him from the marina.”

  “Great. Let’s get him while he’s fresh.”

  He gave me a wary look. “That’s not the best idea.”

  “I promise I won’t zap you again. I won’t zap anyone.”

  “Zara, it’s one thing for me to bring you with me in the field, but there are a lot of people at the station who’d be suspicious if I showed up with my own personal... librarian in tow.”

  “Every detective should be so lucky as to have a personal librarian.”

  “I’ll drop you off at your house. That is, unless you’d prefer to be dropped off somewhere else.”

  “You’re done with me already? I’ve outed two witches for you today. I’ve betrayed my own kind, and my only reward is that I’m being dumped?”

  “You aren’t being dumped.”

  “But you’re dropping me off the case. With not even a thank-you.”

  “You did get a coffee,” he deadpanned, pointing to the takeout cup in the center console.

  I gave him my fiercest librarian glare. The one reserved for the naughtiest patrons who smuggled in food and ate it while using the computers to access porn.

  Bentley ate up my fierce look without even flinching. He waved at the vet clinic bag on my lap. “Also, you picked up some cat food. Now you can cross that particular errand off your to-do list.”

  “Bentley, your sense of humor is so dry it’s amazing I’m not completely dehydrated from sitting in this car with you.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “Not many people appreciate it.”

  He shoulder-checked, then pulled the car out onto the street. At the intersection, he turned in the direction of my neighborhood. He really was taking me home.

  “I do appreciate your help on the case,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I’ll thank you again with a nice dinner once the case is solved.”

  “Assuming you can solve it without me.”

  “You may be a powerful witch, but I assure you, I’m not some bumbling fool.”

  “No comment,” I said.

  We drove in silence until I broke it. “Whether you take me with you or not, I’m still on this case. I’m your only contact with the ghost.”

  “I know.” He kept one hand on the steering wheel while he reached up with the other one and thumbed something under his shirt collar.

  A few minutes later, he reached up and touched the lump again.

  As much as I wanted to give him the silent treatment curiosity got the better of me. “Bentley, are you wearing some sort of talisman?”

  “What? No!” He adjusted his shoulders and posture, then touched the thing at his throat a third time.

  “What are you wearing under there? Is it a locket?”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  Now I needed to know. “Come on, Bentley. What have you got? A St. Christopher medallion? A lucky rabbit’s paw?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Then why do you keep touching it?”

  He sighed. Then he propped one elbow on the steering wheel and used both hands to unbutton his shirt collar.

  “You tell me what you see,” he said, angling his upper body so I could see what hung at his throat.

  A flash of sunshine glinting off a passing car blinded me temporarily. I blinked the bright spots from my eyes and focused on Bentley’s neck. The first thing I saw was a few strands of chest hair, and a few square inches of Bentley that I hadn’t seen before. I felt a twinge of guilt for badgering him into revealing himself to me, but not so much that I turned away.

  He wore a thick gold chain, and hanging on the chain was something long and narrow. It looked like nothing. Nothing at all. I blinked. And then it was something. A bullet.

  A bullet?

  “You tell me what you see,” he repeated.

  “You’re wearing a bullet around your neck,” I said. “That can’t be safe. Is it a rimfire bullet?”

  “It’s not what it appears to be,” he said in a calm
, soothing tone. “There’s no gunpowder, I assure you.”

  “So, it’s an artistic replica sort of thing?”

  “You could say that.” He held the steering wheel with his elbow again as he did up his collar.

  “But why? Why are you wearing a fake bullet?”

  He patted the lump under his shirt. “I don’t expect you to understand this, but I’m going to need it some day.”

  “Okay.” I rested my head back on the headrest of the passenger seat. “That’s cute that you’re superstitious. It gives you another dimension.”

  “What about you? Do you wear any talismans?”

  “Not really.” I touched the groove at my throat, imagining what it might feel like to have a round of ammunition there, even if it was a replica.

  A bullet.

  I’d done so many things that day. I’d worn a bunny suit at a crime scene, met the local medical examiner, partnered with a detective, identified another family of witches, learned that Bentley had some sort of weird death-wish-superstition thing, and I’d managed to pick up extra cat food before we ran out—for a change.

  Chapter 16

  It was 2:30 when Bentley dropped me off at my house. My car, Foxy Pumpkin, was parked in her usual spot on the street, so I expected to find my daughter inside the house. Thinking about seeing Zoey helped me shake off the grumpiness I felt about getting booted off the case.

  I walked in the house, kicked off my shoes, and called up the stairs, “Hi, Honey! I’m home!”

  There was a pattering of tiny feet. A red fox appeared at the top of the stair. Zoey-Fox took the steps down, transitioning into human form almost seamlessly. There was an awkward moment where she was hunched forward with her fingers on a step below herself. She nearly tripped, but didn’t. She straightened up and reached the bottom step in fully human form. Her clothes had made the transition smoothly, with not a button out of place. She wore a triumphant expression on her face.

  I did what any good mother would do. I clapped and cheered like her number one fan, which I was.

  “That was so smooth,” I gushed. “From four legs to two, while descending the stairs. You’re my hero!”

  She shrugged and tried to pretend it was no big deal. “I almost tripped over my hand and went down in a ball.”

  “But you didn’t,” I said. “And you’ll get better. Practice makes perfect. At least that’s what Aunt Zinnia has been beating into my head whenever I complain about pointless exercises like the egg-peeling thing.”

  Zoey crouched down to pet Boa, who was circling the cat food, sniffing all the divine smells from the veterinary clinic, and twitching her tail in pleasure.

  “You were running errands?” Zoey asked. “You ditched me at the museum to run errands?”

  “It’s not how it looks.” I grabbed the cat food and took it back to the kitchen. I was suddenly inside the kitchen much sooner than I expected. Something was different. I rotated slowly, scanning the room.

  “Zoey, is it my imagination, or has the walk to the kitchen gotten shorter? The kitchen’s bigger now, isn’t it?”

  Zoey pursed her lips and looked around, nodding. “I think it is,” she said. “About fifteen percent bigger.”

  “When did this happen? I swear it was the usual size before we left for the museum.”

  She scrunched her face. “When I got back from the museum, I was listening to music in my room. I heard some noise, but I thought it was just Ribbons or Boa jumping around. I didn’t think to check if our magical house was remodeling itself.”

  I patted one of the walls. “Thanks, house. That was very thoughtful of you. We have been spending a lot more time in the kitchen lately.”

  The house didn’t reply. It never had—not in words, anyway.

  I hadn’t known the house was magic when I bought it. When I’d first toured the place, I’d fallen in love at first sight. I’d adored it for what it appeared to be: a lovely old three-storey Victorian Gothic, the exterior painted a heart-racing shade of red and the interior needing a few decorating ideas. Upstairs were three bedrooms, which had magically turned into two bedrooms plus a linen closet before I’d moved in. The house had a funny way of changing itself to suit our needs—or to suit what it thought were our needs. A basement lair had appeared at the same time my new wyvern friend found himself looking for underground accommodations. Sometimes I wondered where the house’s true loyalty lay. It had been all too happy to literally squeeze me out of my own bedroom when my father had stayed with us in a temporary third bedroom. Ever since then, I’d been extra careful to show gratitude for any and all of the house’s self-remodeling decisions, whether I liked them or not. Truth be told, I liked the change to the kitchen, so showering the house with compliments wasn’t difficult.

  Zoey chimed in with a few compliments about the larger space, and helped put away Boa’s food.

  I mentally prepared to fill her in on the morning’s activities. I used to try to keep my adventures from her, but she was too clever and saw through my lies anyway.

  “Did you have lunch?” I asked.

  “I could eat,” she replied.

  “Well, obviously. You are a Riddle.”

  We pulled some leftover Thai takeout from the fridge and pulled up to the new kitchen island, which now had a brighter laminate surface, in addition to being nearly twice the square footage.

  “Nice choice on the island,” I said loudly while offering two thumbs up at the ceiling.

  “Enough about the reconfiguration,” Zoey said. “What did you do with Detective Bentley after you ditched me at the museum?”

  “We began our adventure with a no-holds-barred tour of the murder house. I mean, uh, the crime scene.”

  “Was it super-gross?”

  “Yes. I would definitely describe the scene of the crime as super-gross. I believe that’s what Bentley wrote in his official report.”

  “Did they find the head?”

  “It was in a trophy case.”

  Her hazel eyes widened. “Cool.”

  I pointed at her. “Not the reaction I was expecting.”

  She ran a hand through her shiny red hair casually. “I think I could help the police someday. I’ve got a really good sense of smell, especially in fox form.” She gave me a serious look. “I could have sniffed out that severed head in no time.”

  I leaned forward, gave her a pat on the head, and continued telling her about my day. After touring the crime scene, I’d had my conversation with Dr. Jerry Lund, the medical examiner, who was one of the key people in the know about the town’s supernatural secrets.

  From there, Bentley and I had gone to see the victim’s sister, Carrot Greyson, the tattoo artist. She was likely in shock from the news, but managed to give us a lead when she mentioned the feud her brother had with the owner of Dreamland Coffee, Maisy Nix. When we found out Maisy’s car had been on Beacon Street that morning, it seemed we were closing in on our chief suspect.

  Zoey listened without interrupting. If I paused too long to chew my Thai food, she waved impatiently for me to keep talking, even with my mouth full.

  I explained how the visit with Maisy Nix would have been a dead end, except I’d detected a counterspell at work, deflecting my threat detection spell. That, combined with Bentley’s suspicions about the woman, pointed toward her being a witch. Then Maisy told us her niece Fatima had borrowed her car, so our next logical step was to visit the younger Nix.

  Unfortunately, Fatima Nix hadn’t noticed much at the Greyson residence. She’d detected an angry, evil presence as she was leaving, but that wasn’t big news, since I’d felt it at the crime scene myself.

  However, she had revealed to me a pretty big secret. I described the rainbow light to Zoey, and what it all meant.

  “They’re witches,” I said. “The Nix family. Aunt and niece, just like Zinnia and yours truly. How do ya like them apples?”

  “Wow,” she said. “More witches.”

  “Like us,” I said.

>   “Like you,” she corrected.

  When I was done telling my sixteen-year-old fox-shifter daughter everything there was to know about the Greyson homicide investigation thus far, she was quiet for a long time.

  “Hey.” I poked her with a chopstick. “I haven’t broken you, have I? Should I have kept this to myself? It’s all pretty heavy for a teenager.”

  She forced a smile. “I’m not broken. Just thinking.” She rubbed her forehead and frowned. “Since magic runs in families, that means that everyone who knows you’re a witch must think I have powers, too.”

  “Or at least suspect you do,” I said.

  “And everyone who knows about Auntie Z must know about us.”

  I nodded. “Which is why Fatima Nix knew she could show me a magical rainbow without me passing out in terror.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not fair,” she said.

  “Life’s not fair.”

  She crossed her arms and stuck out her lower lip. It was a childish pout I hadn’t seen her do lately.

  “This sucks,” she said without elaborating.

  “So what if a few supernatural people know about us? We’re getting to know them all, too.”

  “It should be private.”

  “Should it? Really? I mean, aren’t we stronger if we all pull together, like a community?”

  Her pout increased.

  “Zoey, if you keep sticking out that lower lip, a bird is going to come along and poop on it.”

  “This isn’t funny,” she huffed.

  If it wasn’t funny, why was she making such a ridiculous pouting face? I probably shouldn’t have teased her, but I couldn’t help myself. That pout!

  “Zoey, I think I hear Marzipants flying around the living room, looking for you. I didn’t tell you, did I? Old Mrs. Pinkman wanted us to have her budgie, so she sent him here by bus.”

  “Even less funny,” she huffed.

  “It would be pretty funny if a budgie flew in here right now and pooped on that giant lower lip you have sticking out like a please-bomb-me target.” I rubbed my chin. “I wonder if the house takes requests. Maybe if you say ‘I wish’ and then you wish for something, it delivers. I wish... I wish a budgie would—”