Wisteria Witches Mysteries Box Set 3

by Angela Pepper

  “I work at a library. I know all about that.”

  She sighed. “I thought you were exaggerating. Now I know better.” She gestured with her hands emphatically. “Gum. Stuck to the bottom of everything. I cleaned one bench, and when I came back to it an hour later, do you know what I found?”

  “More gum.”

  “More gum!” More hand gestures. “If Corvin wasn’t missing right now, I’d swear he was following me around all day, sticking gum under things to drive me crazy.”

  My skin prickled. “What makes you think someone was following you? Did you see anyone lurking around, watching you?”

  “It was just a joke, Mom.”

  We sat in silence for a while, me pulling her hair into a ponytail and tickling her face with the end.

  Suddenly, she sat upright. “Oh! I forgot to tell you something. The lady who went missing is the daughter of the museum’s head of security, Mr. Williams. You’d think he would take the day off, but he was there today. I heard from the head of maintenance that everyone in management asked him to take a leave, but he insisted on being there today. And he’ll be there tomorrow, too. They’re running a security drill on the Egyptian exhibit.”

  “Williams,” I said. “Does he have long, black hair?”

  “That’s him. And he wears black from head to toe.”

  “Louis Williams.” I frowned. “Zoey, he’s a person of interest in the case. There are two connections, which makes him look suspicious. He’s the missing woman’s father, and he’s also a friend of Mrs. Krinkle’s. So far, Bentley thinks the coincidence can be explained by logic. He regularly spent time with Mrs. Krinkle, driving her to meetings at the community center, so she might have been tuned in to his energy and his family’s. Her friendship with him might be why she built the model to try to prevent the kidnapping, but...”

  “But what?” Zoey asked.

  But nothing, I thought. Louis Williams working at the museum where my daughter had just gotten a job didn’t connect him to the case in a third way. It only connected him to my family. To me. And yet, hearing his name from my daughter’s lips filled me with dread.

  “You need to steer clear of Louis Williams,” I said.

  “It’s a small town,” Zoey said. “Just because he works at the museum doesn’t mean I can’t go work there tomorrow.”

  “I didn’t say you couldn’t work there.”

  “But you were going to.”

  She was right. I’d been considering it. “How about I pay you to do some chores around the house? Maybe you ought to avoid the museum and that man’s whole family until this thing settles.”

  She gave me a wide-eyed look. “I ought to avoid the museum? I ought to? You sound exactly like Auntie Z.”

  I clutched my chest. “Ouch. You really know how to hurt me.”

  She looked down at her hands and picked at her nails. “How about instead of being a terrible new employee and not showing up for my second shift tomorrow, I go there as planned, and ask around about the Williams family? I can report back to you. Think of me as your secret undercover agent.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t get involved.”

  She sighed and said, robotically, “I promise I’ll be extra careful, Auntie Z—I mean Mom.”

  “Extra-extra careful,” I said. “Also, I’ll be with you the whole time. I’ll use a glamour to disguise myself! People won’t find it odd if a leafy bush is following you around, would they?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll go to my job at the library, and scrape gum off benches there.” I waved a hand. “Not really. We make the pages do that.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “It’s like Frank says. Those advanced degrees really pay off sometimes.”

  We sat in silence for a moment, then Zoey said, “He’s going to be in so much trouble when I see him again.”

  “I know. I’m worried, too. And that poor woman.”

  “And her kids.”

  “And her husband.”

  She looked at me. “I don’t know what I would do if you disappeared.”

  “You’d be okay, until the fridge ran out of leftovers. Then, I don’t know.”

  Her eyes glistened. She threw herself into my arms. “Don’t go anywhere,” she sobbed into my shoulder.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I assured her.

  Chapter 22

  MONDAY MORNING

  I hated waking up to no news on the missing persons case.

  But, on the positive side, no news could be good news. At least I had not woken up to a ghost, or to an excited wyvern plus a scared cat reporting the appearance of a ghost in my house. That meant Veronica Tate and Corvin Moore were still alive. Probably.

  What if they weren’t? What if something awful had happened to them?

  Then leave this place. Move away, I thought. Or at least it seemed to have been my thought. Weirdly, I’d heard it inside my head in a voice that wasn’t quite my own.

  I looked around my bedroom. “Ribbons?”

  There was no response. The wyvern didn’t do mornings; he would be asleep for several hours yet.

  I wrote off the voice as perfectly understandable paranoia, got out of bed, and cast my usual spell on the closet.

  “Work today,” I said conversationally. “At the library, as usual for a Monday. But of course I’ll be happy to duck out to help Bentley if he needs me. And now that Kathy knows about everything, I won’t even have to make up some silly excuse.”

  The closet shuffled. I rubbed my hands, hoping for a gray wool suit or something equally conservative. Being a librarian was my career and my calling, and it was fulfilling and enjoyable work, but I didn’t want to be stuck at the library if I could be helping Bentley.

  Or kissing him, said the voice in my head. Mystery solved. It was definitely my voice. It only sounded different because it was creepily fixated on a man who had been, until quite recently, so boring that I’d been trying to set him up with my aunt. What had changed?

  Besides the fact he had supernatural powers.

  And that he was my sworn protector.

  And that he’d heroically saved my life, along with the lives of several of my friends.

  Besides all that.

  I scratched my head. I couldn’t put my finger on why my feelings for him had changed so much.

  The sea of colorful clothes before me divided, and out came one of my least conservative outfits. It was a frilly peasant blouse that could be worn on or off the shoulder, and an equally frilly skirt.

  “I take it I’ll be working a full shift at the library today?”

  My closet’s response was to send a pair of lace-up boots skipping out.

  I dressed in the feminine ensemble, and admired myself in the full-length mirror. I looked like someone heading to a photo shoot for a romance novel cover. How appropriate. It was the perfect outfit to wear while spending eighty-five percent of my mental resources daydreaming about kissing a dreamy detective.

  I reached into the skirt pockets to find they weren’t empty. One pocket had a tiny bottle of something in it. A magic potion? I took it out and read the label. It was not a potion. Just a bottle of flexible glue, from the hobby store.

  “Where did you come from?” I asked.

  The glue didn’t answer.

  I turned to the closet. “This is the same bottle of glue I took out of my jeans pocket yesterday before I did laundry, isn’t it?” The closet didn’t need to answer. I knew, without checking the ledge by the washing machine, that it was the same bottle. It must have flown upstairs and climbed into my skirt pocket, at my magical house’s behest.

  “Fine,” I said to my closet. “I trust you.” I slipped the glue back into my pocket, confident it would come in handy later. Perhaps I would need it to repair a very important library book, or to glue a rubber spider to the inside of Frank’s snack-time container.

  I would almost certainly do both of those things.

 
* * *

  “Nice try,” Frank said, plucking the rubber spider from the lid of his snack container.

  “I should have gone more subtle,” I said. “Perhaps a smaller spider.”

  Kathy came running into the break room, breathless. We turned to her in alarm. Was there news about the missing woman? A library emergency?

  She closed the door behind her and asked, “What did I miss?”

  Frank and I exchanged a look. Now that Kathy had revealed her secret to us, she wanted to know everything. Everything. All the time. It was a bit much.

  “You missed Zara’s genius prank,” Frank explained flatly. “She glued this giant tarantula inside the lid for my cookies.”

  Kathy gave me a confused look. “Why the glue? Why didn’t you just bury the spider under a couple of graham crackers?”

  I shrugged. “I had glue in my pocket, and I figured it had to be there for a reason.”

  Kathy nodded as she backed away. She slowly opened the door leading out to the circulation desk, stepped out, and left us to the remainder of our coffee break.

  “Poor thing,” Frank said once we were alone again. “She told us her big secret, and for what? To watch you cast that animation spell on the rubber tree and make it dance to ABBA?” He was referring to the magic demonstration we’d put on for Kathy on Friday.

  “She loved that performance, especially when I made all your sock puppets join in.”

  Frank crossed his arms. “I don’t know. The whole thing made me feel cheap and tawdry.” He whispered, “And not in the good way.”

  “I felt exactly the same way,” I said. “Like I’d sold out, artistically.”

  “And you weren’t even the one flapping your flamingo wings around like a crazy bird.”

  I shook my head as I poured myself a fresh mug of coffee. “I feel so bad for magicians. Putting on shows with magic, even if it is real, is awful. Honestly, I’d rather have some smelly creature trying to eat me than have to perform tricks for entertainment.”

  “Cheers to that,” Frank said, and he clinked his mug of coffee to mine. “Speaking of smelly creatures, my sister arrived in town on Saturday.”

  “And?”

  “She’s been dropping a lot of hints about the family, and Uncle Felix.”

  “The one who does the wacky séances with the Spirits of the Deep?”

  “That’s the one. I think he might be some sort of mage. We should probably have a heart to heart soon.”

  “You should. It’s good to connect with family over this stuff.”

  “Anyway, I haven’t told my sister about my new side gig as a flight attendant for Air Flamingo.” He frowned as he dipped a teddy-shaped graham cracker in his coffee. “But I’ve got a bad feeling there’s something big she wants to tell me.”

  “An in...? She’s got powers? No way.”

  “Yes way. When she was getting ready for bed last night, she asked me if I still thought her feet looked weird.” He flashed his eyes at me. “Her feet!”

  “Because she has, as you put it, weird chicken feet?”

  Frank kept frowning. “I told her they looked totally normal. They’re as big as rubber boots, and her bunions aren’t too pretty, but they’re regular enough. But then I was wondering, what if she’s a shifter, too, and this is her way of dropping hints to gradually break the news?”

  “She might be. And what if she is? Don’t you think it would be fun to have that in common with a family member? I felt way less alone in the world after I was reunited with my aunt. She’s quite the woman. A bit of a worrywart, but when you find out why she’s so cautious about stuff, it doesn’t seem so annoying.”

  “I get what you mean, Zara, but what if my sister’s not a flamingo? What if she’s something else?”

  “Like what?” I thought of the hellhound who was currently missing. I mentally linked two seemingly unconnected events to see if they fit. Was Frank’s sister connected to the kidnapping? She’d arrived Saturday, the same day Tate had disappeared. I would definitely mention it to Bentley, when I saw him next.

  Bentley.

  Sigh.

  When would I see him next?

  Frank waved his hands at me. “Are you still listening?”

  “Sort of,” I said. “I slipped away for a minute. What were you saying?” I took a sip of my coffee.

  Frank said, “What if my sister’s a chicken? A shifter chicken?”

  I nearly choked on my coffee. “Chickens aren’t people,” I said, then, “Are they?” I thought of the man I’d seen the day before, walking his dog and his rooster.

  “Not all chickens,” Frank said. “But some of them could be people.”

  “Right,” I said. “I don’t know if my information is accurate, but I understand that all shifters come from one genetic line. Everything from cougars to eagles. A wolf shifter can have a child who’s a crane. But families do stick to certain themes, and when the kids are different from the parents, it is unusual. That’s why Zoey identifies a fox shifter, as opposed to a shifter who happens to be a fox.”

  “But identities can be fluid,” Frank said. “Have you heard about shifters changing forms? Intentionally?”

  “Yes. You’re supposed to carry on like they’ve always been what they are.” I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. “Do you suppose your sister chose to be a chicken to keep a low profile? It’s easier to explain a chicken sighting than a flamingo.”

  “I don’t know. And I don’t know why it’s bothering me so much. Deep down, I love my sister. I should be able to accept her, whatever she is.”

  “Maybe we should get Kathy back in here and find out what she knows about shifter identities and all the politics.”

  He agreed, and so we did.

  Kathy was thrilled to be included in our conversation. She didn’t know much about bird shifter bloodlines, or whether or not they could be chickens, but promised to check some rare books she had hidden under lock and key at an undisclosed location, and then report back to us on Tuesday.

  All three of us got back to work after that.

  I was so busy with patrons and their research questions that I didn’t even think about magic the rest of the day. And I only thought about kissing about fifty-seven percent of the time. I blamed the frilly romantic skirt for half of that.

  At the end of my shift, I was clocking out, punching my card in the un-library-like timecard machine that went KERCHUNK, when I suddenly felt the pull of something magic.

  It was a mild sensation, near the base of my rib cage. If I didn’t have such a robust digestive system, I might have mistaken it for indigestion. But it was a real sensation, a magical one, and it could only mean one thing.

  The object-location spell I’d cast on the missing doll the day before was finally kicking in.

  Hope flared in my heart, making my whole body feel light as air—as light as a witch with a pre-flight buoyancy spell cast on her.

  Was this the break in the case everyone was waiting for? Would Veronica Tate be reunited with her husband and sons? Would Corvin be coming home to his family tonight?

  I grabbed my purse, said goodbye to my coworkers, and rushed out the door.

  Chapter 23

  KARL KORMAC

  CITY HALL - WISTERIA PERMITS DEPARTMENT

  4:50 PM

  Karl Kormac heard drawers being opened and the tell-tale jingle of purses being gathered out in the main office area of the Wisteria Permits Department.

  He hoisted himself out of his comfortable office chair, groaning as usual. He’d tried not groaning as he settled in or out of chairs, but it startled his subordinate employees for him to appear in their communal space unannounced. Giving the underlings some warning about his imminent arrival and wise oversight made for a more relaxed crew, and a relaxed crew was a productive crew.

  He noted the time on the clock on his wall. The clock was lying again. He mentally subtracted five minutes, and stepped out of his office.

  A few heads turned, but the subordi
nates didn’t stop gathering their things.

  Karl said, “Leaving already?” He allowed a small percentage of his spritely bluster to leak out with his words. “It’s not five o’clock yet.”

  Liza Gilbert, the young one he still thought of as the New Girl, gave him an innocent look. “It’s not?” She turned and looked at her boyfriend, the one with the name Karl often forgot.

  What’s-his-name said, grinning boyishly, “It’s five o’clock somewhere.”

  Gavin Gorman, the gnome, spoke up from his desk to correct the boyfriend. “Actually, that’s not how time works, Xavier. All time zones are an hour apart. The number of minutes past the hour at any given time is the same everywhere.”

  Margaret Mills, the witch, took the bait and charged into the fray like a thirsty rhino at the watering hole. “Actually, Gavin and Xavier, not all time zones are an hour apart. Around the world, there are a number of zones with thirty-minute offsets and even forty-five-minute offsets.”

  “Well, duh,” Gavin said, as though he’d known. He hadn’t. “But there aren’t any time zones offset by five minutes, which is basically what I meant.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you meant,” Margaret said. “What matters is what you said, and you said all time zones are an hour apart.”

  Gavin narrowed his eyes at his coworker. “What’s going on with you today, Mills? Did another witch steal your sense of humor?”

  There was a soft THWAP sound—the tip of a shoe hitting shin. Karl’s good sprite ears picked up the sound easily.

  Gavin, the recipient of the shin-kick, groaned and shot a dirty look across the two-person workstation he shared with his on-again-off-again girlfriend, the card mage.

  The card mage said to the gnome, “Be nice to Margaret. She’s having a tough day.”

  “We’re all having a tough day,” the gnome said. “It’s Monday.”

  The card mage, Dawna Jones, rolled her orange, cat-like eyes. “Be nice anyway.”

  While they continued to bicker, Karl glanced over at the empty office with the floral wallpaper. It wasn’t good that Zinnia Riddle was still away on her vacation. He needed her back at work, keeping a lid on Margaret and the others the way only she could. Sometimes it seemed like he and Zinnia were the only two adults working there.