A Southern Charms Cozy Potluck Box Set Page 36

  The detective opened up a drawer in his desk. “What about her diary?” He took out the journal disguised as the History of Magic textbook and handed it to me.

  It felt a little like a violation of my former teacher’s emotions, using her words to anchor my efforts. But it couldn't get more personal than her own scribbled thoughts other than holding her hand, and we were not going there.

  I picked up the book, my fingers rubbing the worn cover. At least the food from breakfast provided me with lots of fuel. Breathing in deep, I centered myself, composing a careful rhyme in my head, needing as much help as I could possibly get.

  “Heed my words and listen well, as I weave my magic spell. Against myself, I will not rail. For this one task, I cannot fail. To find the brooch, I need to see. Oh, magic gift, please work for me.”

  Gathering my energy inside, I willed my powers to life. Gripping the diary in my hands until the pressure hurt, I shut my eyes closed and gave my magic a chance to work.

  With a gasp, I dropped the book. It fell to the floor with a thunderous thud.

  “What happened? It didn't work?” Mason asked, reaching out to me.

  “The exact opposite,” I said. “I know exactly where to go.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Mason decided against alerting the other wardens. He alone accompanied me, sensing the importance of the task. I didn’t have to follow the path of a glowing thread to find the missing piece. Images had revealed themselves to me with strong clarity, connecting me to the location without me having moved a muscle. We arrived at the house together, and I sat in the car, staring at the white picket fence with pink flowers gushing over it, wishing my magic hadn’t worked at all. The detective knocked on the door.

  Flint answered, his face brightening. “Charli. Detective Clairmont. What are you doing here?” When he caught sight of our faces, he stopped smiling. “Is there something wrong?”

  “Mr. Hollyspring, I need to enter your premises with Ms. Goodwin.” Mason’s cold professionalism kicked in.

  “You’re always welcome. Please.” He opened his door wider and ushered us inside. “Goss, honey, we have visitors,” he called out.

  I protested her presence. With her pregnancy, she didn’t need the worry. At the same time, if I found the brooch where I thought—no, knew—it was, she’d have enough to upset her.

  “Please stand back and allow Ms. Goodwin to work,” Mason insisted.

  “What’s going on?” Goss joined us in their living room. Before she could utter another word, Flint reached out to hold her hand, enduring a nervous sprinkling of pink dust.

  “Charli, please.” Mason held out his hand, insisting that I do what I came here to do.

  Drawing on a sliver of my magic, I captured the clear, glowing thread that formed. It tugged on me without much effort, and I followed its beckoning into the kitchen and straight to the counter. A ceramic unicorn head sat on the surface, and I pulled it to me, grasping it by its horn and opening the vessel. The scent of cinnamon filled my nose as I emptied the container of every last Snickerdoodle. At the very bottom of the cookie jar lay the brooch.

  “Don’t touch it,” warned Mason, joining me at my elbow.

  He spellcast a protective shield around the piece of jewelry and dumped it out. It clattered on the counter, its metal and simple jewels sparkling.

  “What is that?” asked Goss.

  Ignoring the slight shake of the detective’s head, I answered, “It’s Mrs. K’s brooch she received when she retired.”

  Flint stroked his beard, his brow furrowed. “What’s it doing there?”

  Mason pursed his lips. “Mr. and Mrs. Hollyspring, I need to take you to the warden station with me. If you come voluntarily, there doesn’t need to be any drama. But I have to take you in.”

  The gnome stepped in front of his wife. “Take me. She has nothing to do with it.”

  “And you do?” Mason asked.

  Flint opened his mouth to answer but closed it without a ready explanation. He hung his head. “She’s having terrible morning sickness. Can’t you just take me?”

  “Or how about you hold on a second while we think things through,” I suggested, raising an eyebrow at the detective. “None of this makes any sense.”

  “I can’t ignore my responsibilities. Neither is under arrest yet, but they have to be brought in. I thought you understood this, Charli.” He regarded the distraught couple for a beat, his frosty distance thawing a bit. “Listen, I’m willing to take you in, Flint, and leave your wife here in your home to keep her from being under too much duress. Mrs. Hollyspring, please do not go anywhere for the time being.” The detective waited for the gnome.

  Flint consoled his wife and promised that everything would be okay. In that touching moment, they broke my heart, and I hated that my magic had done this to them.

  In desperation, I pulled Mason into the living room. “You can’t do this.”

  “I thought you wanted Mrs. K’s death solved. Well, you helped find a crucial piece to the puzzle. Congratulations. But this is my job, Charli.” He frowned in disappointment.

  “I know. But it’s too convenient. First, Horatio looks guilty. Now, Flint will if word gets out. Both are involved in the election. The puzzle pieces fit too well.” My words flew out of my mouth to try and keep up with my brain.

  “What about Occam’s razor?” he asked.

  I remembered Horatio’s explanation. “The simplest answer is usually the right one, I know. But what if it’s too simple? This is more like someone just handed you not only the answers to the test but also all of the questions, too. And what about my part in all this?”

  Mason sighed. “I know you don’t like the results because it affects your friends, but aren’t you relieved that your magic worked?”

  “But that’s the thing. It didn’t before. And now all of a sudden, bam, it worked better than ever. Right when it needed to.” A sudden thought caught me off guard, and I tugged on Mason’s shirt. “What if I had tried to use my magic that time before in your office?”

  “Then you would have found the brooch just the same.”

  I turned my finger in the air, trying to get him to follow the logic to the next step. “And then Flint’s participation in the election would be—”

  “In jeopardy,” he completed. “Taking him out of the running.”

  “Like Horatio,” I added. “This has all been about the election. It has to be. And there are only two more candidates left, one being a very likely guilty party.”

  “Now you’re moving from theory to biased accusation. I know you don’t hold any affection for Raif, but your dislike of him isn’t foolproof evidence.”

  I kept the fact that I wasn’t thinking of the vampire to myself. My theories and efforts had already gotten my friends in trouble. I needed to investigate on my own before I threw another one under the bus.

  Mason continued. “I do see where you’re going with this, and I will consider the possibilities. But for now, I have to follow the evidence I have in hand.” He held up the brooch. “Mr. Hollyspring, if you please.”

  Goss exploded into hot tears and pink fairy dust in protest. I went to her side, holding onto her hand to watch her husband leave. When we all got to the door, an unexpected visitor waited for us.

  “Detective Clairmont, is it true that you’ve nabbed the murderer of Mrs. Kettlefields? And Flint, why did you feel the need to get rid of her?” Linsey hounded them, following close on their heels as Mason escorted Flint to his vehicle.

  I slammed the door shut and pulled the fairy deeper into the interior of her house. “Goss, whatever you do, do not answer the door until whoever it is identifies themselves. Even then, you may want to wait until Flint is home.”

  “You’re gonna stay with me, right?” Her little wings quivered.

  “I’m going to go find Ben and get him down to the station.” Guilt gnawed on me. If I had to pay out of my own pocket, I would make sure that Flint had an advocate on
his side. “Pixie poop,” I exclaimed. “Mason was my ride.”

  Goss sniffed and pulled herself together. “If it’s to help my Flinty, then here.” With a flourish of her hand, her wand appeared. She waved it a couple of times and opened a door onto the fairy path.

  I stepped through to a spot on Main Street, looking back to see her floating on the other side. “Thank you,” she managed before bursting into tears. The sparkling pink magical portal dwindled and closed.

  With little time to lose, I rushed past everyone and made it to Jed and Ben’s office, panting. After enlisting my friend’s help, I left, unsure of what to do next. The clock on the front of the town hall chimed. Lunchtime, although my appetite no longer existed.

  I spotted Dash’s motorcycle parked in front of The Rainbow’s End. The other two I’d seen before were gone. Fixing things with the shifter needed to be the next thing on my list. Maybe I could bribe him to talk to me with some food at the cafe.

  I entered Lucky’s bar and found the leprechaun out of sorts. He snorted. “Good, yer here. Take your furry friend and get him outta my place.”

  Scanning the bar, I couldn’t spot anyone I knew. A door banged open, and Dash stumbled out of one of the bathrooms in the back. “You know, it’s hard to hit a bulls-eye when the target’s movin’,” he slurred.

  “How long has he been here?” I asked Lucky.

  “Since last night. He never left, even after his shady comrades did. Drank until he passed out cold in his seat, so I let him sleep it off in me office.” The leprechaun’s Irish accent got thicker in his irritation. “But when I tried to shoo him out this mornin’, he threatened to go behind the bar to drink the libations. Broke a bottle or two already. I’ve been servin’ him beer to keep him from drinkin’ me outta my business.”

  “H-e-e-y, Charli’s here.” The drunken shifter spotted me. “What’s a hot place doin’ in a girl like you? Wait a minute,” he frowned. “That’s not right.” A belch thundered out of him, and he hiccupped at the end. Pointing a finger at me, he blinked hard to focus. “You’re not a girl. You’re a woman. A feisty one. I like feisty. Rawr.” He made a cat-like sound at me and attempted a wink.

  “I thought wolves growled, not purred,” I responded, not amused.

  His lower lip jutted out. “But I growled at you last night, and you left me.”

  “You told me to leave. Demanded for me to go home. Repeatedly,” I yelled.

  Dash staggered toward me. “That’s right. Had to hurt you to make you go because you keep tryin’ to fix me. I can’t be fixed. Too damaged.” He scrubbed his hand down his face. “Need to drink more. Want to forget that I hurt my family. That I screwed up the pack. That I can’t have you.”

  He wobbled and swayed where he stood. I feared he might break me if I tried to carry him out. “Lucky, I don’t think I can handle him on my own.”

  “Then call yer brother or one of the other wardens. He can’t stay here,” insisted the leprechaun.

  If Matt had one of Lee’s spell phones, this would be much easier to keep quiet. Then again, maybe the spectacled genius could use his intellect to solve the problem of a drunken wolf shifter.

  I took out my phone, hit a button, and spoke into it. “Lee, it’s Charli. Dash is drunk at Lucky’s. Come get him.” I sent the text and headed for the door.

  “Leavin’ me again?” Dash asked. “That’s right. You have to. ‘Cause I’m no good. No good.” He repeated the phrase over and over in a slur.

  Unable to take it anymore, I walked up to him and slapped his face as hard as I could. My hand ached from the impact, and I cradled it.

  No growl. No flashing amber eyes. Not one hair morphing into fur. He touched his face and rubbed it. “Ow.”

  “Did it hurt?” I shouted. “Good. Then maybe you’ll understand a fraction of how you’ve made me feel. I have more important things to deal with than your pity party of one. Get your life straightened out, Dash.”

  I rushed to the door and shoved it open. My hand pounded, but I pushed down the pain. Trying not to draw attention to myself by losing my cool in the middle of town, I drew in deep breaths to refocus.

  Whoever was taking things had access to all the places. He or she could slip in and out without being noticed, or perhaps they were invited in to begin with. I knew of one person who had that ability and whom I had witnessed doing something odd at my grandmother’s house.

  Unwilling to waste more time, I stole Lily’s bike from in front of Mimsy’s Whimsies and headed to Nana’s place to confirm my suspicions.

  Chapter Twenty

  Vaulting off my friend’s borrowed bike, I dropped it into the azalea bushes. I bounded up the porch steps and burst into my grandmother’s house.

  “Nana.” My voice bounced off the walls and echoed. “Nana, are you home?” I raced through each of the rooms downstairs, unable to find her.

  The scent of something burning led me to the kitchen. A cast iron skillet sat on top of the burner, the charred remains of some chicken no longer frying but scalding and smoking in the hot oil. I turned off the stove, the pit of my stomach dropping. A tall glass of sweet tea sat at the end of the kitchen table, condensation dripping down its sides. Panic surged through my chest, and my rapid heartbeat drummed in my ears.

  A small sniffling sound alerted me. Quieting down, I listened for it again. High-pitched whimpering echoed from the second floor, and I sprinted upstairs. My grandmother lay on the hardwood in the hallway, her body sprawled out in an unnatural position. A tiny figure hovered over her.

  “I didn’t do it, Charli. I swear.” Juniper blubbered. “She was like this when I came in.”

  Taking out my spell phone, I held the Menu button down hard until my thumb hurt. “Get away from my grandmother,” I spit out.

  Blue-green dust sprinkled off her shivering wings, covering my Nana’s face. “Please, let me explain.”

  A hundred things I could do to her flooded my head, all of them with the intent to cause harm. But none of them would get the information I needed from her. Okay, maybe some of them would work as a decent torture method.

  Unable to tamp down the boiling rage inside, my fingertips sparked. “Oh, you will most definitely talk. But first, I need to know. Is she…is she…” I couldn’t finish the question.

  Juniper nodded. “She’s still alive. Just knocked out. See? She’s breathing.”

  My grandmother’s chest rose and fell in rhythmic breaths, and hot tears pooled in my eyes from relief. A sob rose in my throat, but I held it back with a hard swallow.

  “Let’s say I believe you. That you didn’t harm my grandmother. Then what are you doing here?” I asked, my nostrils flaring at my effort to keep from hexing her tiny hiney.

  The fairy held up Nana’s lucky necklace. “I came to return this.”

  Rushing forward, I snatched it from her hand. “Why? Because you felt bad after you stole it? That’s what you were doing that day when I caught you with it, weren’t you?”

  Her face dropped. “I would never steal. What you saw wasn’t what you think. I wasn’t taking the necklace. I had just found it, hidden away.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?” I bellowed, magic flickering off my fingers. The phone I still held in one hand crackled, and a tiny puff of smoke curled out of the device. I dropped it on the floor.

  Juniper held up her minuscule hands. “I know this doesn’t look good. But you keep seeing only part of the truth.”

  “And I think that you’ve been taking things from your clients’ homes when you’re cleaning,” I accused. “You are the only one who has open access to all those places. And you’re the only one with a direct connection to the election.”

  “What?” she squealed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Why are you saying such things? I thought you were my friend.”

  My gut twisted in confusion. “I am.” But what I’d witnessed with my own eyes couldn’t be denied.

  “Then you have to trust my word, I would never h
urt you or your family. And I am not the guilty one. Charli, someone is trying to frame me. You have to believe me,” she implored.

  The simplest answer was usually right. And finding Juniper here like this made her the obvious culprit for everything. But hadn’t I hounded Mason about how things were a little too convenient?

  Before I said anything else, I bent down to check on Nana. In relief, I watched her sigh and roll on her side with a smile, deep in sleep, as if dreaming of something good.

  Satisfied that she wasn’t in immediate danger, I gave Juniper a chance. “Why do you think you’re being framed?”

  The fairy drifted closer to me. “Because I’ve been noticing things going missing in all of the houses we service, too. I didn’t want to accuse my employees without evidence, so I started going behind them when I could, doing my own investigating. Enough was disappearing that I was ready to go to the wardens. That’s when I discovered this.”

  With a gesture of her hand, she produced a wand. A portal appeared with a wave, and on the other side of the opened fairy path, a pile of suspicious items lay in the middle of a closet full of cleaning supplies.

  “Is that your place?” I asked.

  She nodded with a sniff. “I found it there this morning. Someone is trying to make it look like I’m the thief to cover their tracks. But I’m not.” She burst into tears, her small body vibrating in the air.

  If Mrs. K’s brooch was planted, and someone placed those things at Juniper’s place of business, then who was doing it and why? Or maybe Juniper was guilty, and she was committing a double bluff by trying to make it look like someone wanted her to get into trouble. Confused, I rubbed my temple.

  She held her head in her hands. “What am I going to do, Charli? Wait.” Her head popped up, her eyes filling with desperate hope. “Horatio told me that he’d suggested you go into business with your magic. Could I hire you to find out who is behind this?”