One of Orla’s espadrilles sat alone and undamaged by her bare foot. A thin red trickle of blood wound by the shoe. I watched it for what seemed like an eternity, my head swimming.
Then I remembered to breathe. I sucked in a whopping hit of oxygen. Then another. The darkness at the edges of my vision receded.
“Orla!” Lucy cried, and ran out to our friend.
The driver’s door of the red Toyota opened, and a very shaken middle-aged man got out. Declan and the other two EMTs, who seconds before had been eating their lunch inside the Honeybee, bent over the body. They murmured to one another as they worked together to check her vitals.
I stood with my hand over my mouth, staring in horror. Even from the sidewalk, I could tell there were no vitals to check.
Declan saw my aunt coming. He quickly stood and met her halfway. Catching her by the shoulders, he said something to her in a low voice. She shook her head emphatically as he led her back over to where I waited. He helped her to sit on the edge of a big barrel planter filled with purple and yellow petunias. Lucy swallowed hard and blinked back tears. My fiancé gave me a warning look and a slight shake of his head, then turned back to the accident.
A sick feeling swamped over me, and I felt my knees buckle. Strong hands gripped my elbows from behind. Uncle Ben murmured, “I’ve got you.”
“I’m okay.” I forced strength into my legs and pointed. “Lucy.”
He let go of me and moved to his wife. Her hands were on either side of her neck, her eyes locked on the body in the street. They dropped to her lap as she turned to stare at me.
“Did you see that?”
“I wasn’t looking—”
Jaida, Bianca, and Cookie rushed out of the open doorway. “What happened?” Jaida asked. “Oh, no. Who’s that? Is she okay?” She stood on tiptoe to try and see better.
“It’s Orla Black,” I said, my voice strangled. “We were just talking, and then Mungo . . . he barked. . . . I looked down . . . and I didn’t see.”
Bianca put her arm around my shoulders and gave a squeeze.
The driver who had hit Orla stood by the side of his car. Disbelief and horror creased his features, and he blinked rapidly as if hoping each time he’d open his eyes and discover the accident had all been a dream. “She just walked out in front of me. Stepped right off the curb,” he said to no one in particular. “She looked right at me, and then she walked in front of my car.”
The alarm bells going off in my mind grew louder. What had really just happened?
The EMTs stood as sirens approached. I’d been too stunned to think of calling 911, but thankfully someone had their wits about them. The police and ambulance arrived first, quickly followed by a ladder truck. Declan and the other two firemen spoke with their coworkers; then my fiancé came over to where I stood, still rooted to the spot where I’d first heard Lucy’s scream.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Is she dead?” I countered, even though I knew.
His look was answer enough.
“I didn’t see,” I said. “Mungo came out and started barking. I was looking at him to see what was wrong.”
Next to me, Cookie frowned. “He was in the reading area with us, calm as could be, and then all of a sudden he shot out of his bed and ran out the door. I thought maybe you’d called him.”
“Mungo came out before Orla was hit,” I said slowly. My brain wasn’t quite working at full speed. “I wonder if he was trying to warn me.” I cleared my throat. “If so, he wasn’t the only one.”
Lucy whirled to face me. “What do you mean?”
The other spellbook club members and Declan were looking at me, too.
“Nonna,” I said. “I smelled her gardenia perfume.”
Understanding dawned in my aunt’s eyes. “She spoke to you?” she asked quietly.
The spirit of my dead grandmother had reached through from the other side to warn me of impending danger before. In fact, she’d twice saved my life. She’d also talked to my mother at least once that I knew of, but hadn’t ever communicated directly with Lucy in the same way. My aunt kept hoping, though, and now a flicker of sorrow mixed with the curiosity on her face.
Tears threatened, burning my eyelids. “Nonna told me to help Orla. She said to hurry. But everything seemed to happen at the same time. I didn’t know what she meant. I didn’t—” A sob broke from my throat.
Declan stroked my hair. “It’s not your fault.”
I nodded, struggling to get myself back under control.
He took a deep breath. “Um, but there’s something you . . . Never mind.”
“What is it?” I managed.
His look contained such sweet tenderness that it nearly undid me all over again. “Later, hon. There’s enough going on right now. Are you going to be okay for a while? I know I was just doing inspections for overtime today, but I want to check in with the crew and see if I can help. As long as I’m here, you know?” He gave me a knowing look. “Maybe accompany the, er, Ms. Black to the hospital.”
I ventured a little smile, admiring his dedication. “Of course. I’m fine, really. Stunned, mostly. Numb. And somehow feeling like I should have been able to prevent Orla from walking in front of that car. Declan, I’m still not sure how it happened.”
“I know,” he murmured. “But trust me, whatever caused Ms. Black’s death, it’s awfully suspicious—and not your fault.” He kissed me on the cheek and walked over to where his buddies were gathered by the ladder truck.
Awfully suspicious? And had I heard a slight Irish accent beneath his words? There was something he wasn’t telling me. Was that what his Later, hon had been about?
Quickly, the authorities set up a temporary shield, so the gawkers wouldn’t have anything to ogle as the emergency personnel worked. As intended, people began to wander away. Croft Barrow’s eyes met mine, and his usually gruff expression softened before he shook his head sorrowfully and went back into his bookstore. Annette Lander, the owner of the Fiber Attic yarn shop on the other side of the Honeybee, stood inside her front window with two of her customers, gazing pensively over a pile of fuzzy wool skeins at the scene playing out in the middle of Broughton Street.
“Come on, everyone. Let’s go inside,” Jaida said. “There’s nothing we can do out here.”
There were murmurs of agreement.
Uniformed officers were questioning bystanders. Ben went over to one of them and spoke for a moment, pointing to the Honeybee. She nodded, and he came back over to us. “I let them know where we’ll be. They have enough of an audience without us adding to it. They’ll come speak to us when they can.”
I gave Ben a grateful look, sure that none of us had a desire to watch what was coming next. Everyone went inside, and Lucy flipped the sign in the window from OPEN to CLOSED.
Turning to join them, I saw something on the ground. It was the book Orla had just purchased for her granddaughter at the Fox and Hound. She must have dropped it before stepping into traffic, because it was on the sidewalk, still in a plastic bag with the bookstore logo on the side. I bent and picked it up. Sliding it out of the bag, I saw the title. Maeve, Traveler Girl.
Scanning the back-cover copy, I made my way with slow steps to the door of the Honeybee. It looked like the story of a young girl who had been part of a band of Irish Gypsies in the 1950s.
Orla. Taber. Fern. Nuala. All names as Irish as my dear Declan McCarthy.
A flash of color in my peripheral vision caught my attention. A short, stout figure hurried through the remaining crowd. Her bright orange pantsuit and the matching bow on the side of her white pageboy haircut looked like a flame cutting through the darkness. Mimsey Carmichael, the octogenarian de facto leader of the spellbook club, marched toward the hubbub with an air of determination. She was particularly fond of color and flower magic. Orange promoted creativity, self-expression, vitality, and fun, and was one of her favorite colors to wear.
She slowed on the other side of the police screen, looking at the ground. An officer shooed her along, but not before I saw Mimsey’s mouth form a tiny O. She bustled over to me.
“Lord love a duck, Katie. That’s Orla Black!” she said.
I nodded. “She was hit by a car.”
“Horrible.” Mimsey squinted at the stunned driver, who stood nearby speaking with a uniformed patrolman.
“I feel terrible for him,” I said. “How awful to be involved in an accident like that.”
She eyed me. “What happened?”
“Lucy can tell you more than I can. The others are all waiting inside.”
“All right.” Mimsey nodded and pushed open the door.
I was right behind her when another car pulled up to the scene, and Detective Peter Quinn got out.
Great.
The homicide detective and I had had a rather strained relationship since the previous November when a visiting author had been killed in the Fox and Hound. I’d reluctantly become involved in clearing the name of his primary suspect, which I’d also done when he’d been ready to arrest Ben for Mavis Templeton’s murder. In between, there had been four other investigations that I’d stuck my nose into, each of them with some kind of supernatural connection. And yes, that was all in the mere two years since I’d lived in Savannah, thank you very much.
The last situation had been unique in that Quinn, who’d always pooh-poohed any notion of the occult being real, despite repeated evidence to the contrary, had actually seen me perform magic. Since then, we’d generally avoided each other, even to the point of him giving up his usual Honeybee pastry fix. It was a shame, because I liked the guy. Barring the fact that he’d been willing to think my uncle might have been a killer, he was good at his job—smart, insightful, and more open-minded than he realized.
I paused in the doorway, waiting to see what Quinn would do. He surveyed the scene with his hands on his hips. His more-salt-than-pepper hair caught the sunlight, and his tanned patrician features looked grim. I couldn’t see the gray eyes behind the designer sunglasses, but I knew they were judging and assessing everything that was going on.
He looked up and saw me. His lips thinned, but he didn’t look away. Then his shoulders squared as if he was about to face something unpleasant, and he walked toward me. He passed the driver, who had turned an increasingly sickly shade of green. I pulled the door of the bakery closed and waited until Quinn stopped in front of me.
“I should have known you’d be out here,” he said, pulling off his glasses.
“Yes. How odd that I’d be out on the sidewalk in front of my place of business when there was an accident in the street.” I didn’t even try to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
He let a few beats pass, then: “Who’s the victim?”
I hesitated. “Victim?”
“Of the accident. Or suicide. From what I heard on the radio, it could be either one.”
Suicide? I hadn’t even thought of that.
“If you were on the radio, then I bet you know who she is. Was. Whatever,” I said.
He waited.
I sighed. “Orla Black. Her name is Orla Black.”
His lips twitched in triumph. “Now, how did I know you’d know who she was?”
“She was a regular Honeybee customer,” I said, and couldn’t help adding, “Like you used to be.”
He looked away.
“There’s something suspicious about this, Quinn,” I said, trying for the level of interaction we’d once enjoyed.
His eyes narrowed. “Like what?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Lucy and I were standing right here with her. I didn’t happen to be looking when it happened, but something is off.”
Expression stony, he said again, as if to an imbecile, “Like. What?”
Like my nonna warned me from beyond the veil. Like I’m pretty sure Connell gave Declan an intuitional nudge that Orla’s death was suspicious.
“Like there was no reason for her to step off the sidewalk right then.” I was fully aware of how lame it sounded.
So was Quinn. He gave me a wry look. After a moment, it softened a little. “I’m sorry, Katie. This kind of thing is hard to see. But trust me, it was an accident. Or, at worst, a suicide.”
I shook my head. “Not suicide. She was on the way to a meeting.” With her lawyer. Why? “And she’d just bought a book for her grandchild at the Fox and Hound. She seemed just fine.” I took a deep breath and barreled on. “And after all, you’re here. A homicide detective. So you must have some questions.”
“As I said, I heard the call on the radio, and I was in the area.” Which made sense—the precinct was only a few blocks away. “And given your predilection for getting involved in some nasty situations, I had to wonder.” He sighed and gestured vaguely toward the street. “But that’s no homicide unless someone pushed her. You were there. Who else was?”
“Just Lucy,” I said.
“Did either of you push Ms. Black into traffic?”
“Of course not!”
“Well, there you go.” Kindness flickered behind his eyes, then was gone. “Not every tragedy gets justice, Katie.” He glanced at the miserable driver of the red Toyota. “Or requires it.”
“It’s just that . . .” I trailed off. There was no convincing him. Heck, I didn’t even know what I was trying to convince him of. Just that something was wrong.
“Take care of yourself,” he said, and sliding his sunglasses back on, he turned away.
“Quinn,” I said.
He paused.
“You take care of yourself, too.”
He nodded and walked away.
I’d wanted to say something else, something more, but didn’t know how.
I turned and went inside. There was something off here, and I didn’t know what it was. However, it was evident from our brief conversation that this time Detective Quinn would not be investigating.
All the customers had left. Mimsey and Lucy were carrying trays of drinks and pastries over to the reading area. Bianca and Cookie were seated in the two poufy brocade chairs, while Jaida sat on the sofa. Ben carried one of the bistro chairs over and sat on the periphery of the circle. The books that the ladies had brought to contribute to the Honeybee library sat in haphazard piles on the coffee table. I hurried to move them to the floor in front of the bookshelves, and Mimsey and my aunt placed the trays where they had been. After motioning them to join Jaida on the sofa, I settled cross-legged on the floor. Mungo crawled into my lap and leaned against me.
As if that provided permission, the other familiars made themselves known. First Honeybee moved to sit behind Lucy’s head on the back of the sofa. Rafe, Cookie’s king snake, coiled out of her bag on the floor. He still gave me the shivers, but she didn’t even seem to notice when he wrapped himself around her slim ankle. Puck, Bianca’s ferret, poked his white nose out of a pocket in her skirt that I hadn’t noticed before, then emerged enough to show the black Zorro mask over his eyes. The only ones missing were Jaida’s Great Dane, Anubis, and Mimsey’s obnoxious parrot, Heckle.
Mimsey reached forward and took a croissant, held it for a few moments, then set it down on a napkin on the table untouched. She sighed and looked around at us. Her gaze settled on me.
“We saw you talking to Detective Quinn, Katie. Does that mean what I think it does?”
I shook my head. “Not if you think he’s investigating Orla’s death as a homicide. He only came by because he heard about what happened on his radio.” I made a face. “Since it happened on Broughton Street, he wanted to know if I was involved.”
“Involved! How?” Lucy sputtered.
I grimaced. “Well, you have to admit I’ve been around more than a few times when he’s been called out to a murder scene. Still, he’s sure this was either an accident or Orla committed suicide.”
Bianca leaned forward. “Suicide by car? That’s horrible.” Her voice was soft.
Mimsey emphatically shook her head. “And I don’t believe it. I’ve known Orla for over a decade, ever since her family moved up from Florida. She was a happy person—tough and smart, too. When she had a problem, she’d find a solution.”
Jaida looked thoughtful. “Still, you can’t really know what goes on in someone else’s mind.”
I tipped my head to one side. “I agree with Mimsey. I only knew Orla well enough to sell her a treat now and then.” And to be hooked by the beginning of a fortune she would never finish telling me. “But the timing was off.”
“What do you mean?” Cookie asked. She reached down and scritched behind Rafe’s beady little eyes.
Quelling a shudder, I said, “She had just bought a book for her granddaughter.” I held up the bag from the Fox and Hound and removed the volume so they could see the front. “It’s a story about an Irish Gypsy girl.”
I saw Ben raise an eyebrow, but he remained silent, letting us hash out what had happened among ourselves. He usually wasn’t involved in our discussions, and I wondered what he thought.
Lucy said slowly, “It was so strange.”
We all looked at her.
“Did you see her expression right before she stepped off the curb, Katie?”
“Huh-uh. This little guy”—I nuzzled the top of Mungo’s head with my chin—“came running out of the bakery and started barking. I was looking at him when I heard you scream.” I winced. “It was over by the time I looked up.”
My aunt took a deep breath. “Oh. I wish you’d seen her face.” She looked around at us. “Her eyes. They went blank. Completely blank. It was kind of scary. And even worse, she was right in the middle of a sentence. Suddenly she stopped talking, she looked across the street, her eyes became empty, and a split second later, she’d stepped in front of . . . that car.” Her voice broke on the last two words.
“That’s weird,” Jaida said, speculation in her voice. I could almost see the wheels turning in her head. She turned to me and said what had been in the back of my mind all along. “That doesn’t sound like a suicide or an accident.”
Lucy met my eyes, and understanding passed between us. “Tell them about Nonna,” she said.