Cookie didn’t take the news too badly. In fact, she didn’t take it badly at all. When we told her we’d decided to renovate the carriage house and continue to live there, I might even have detected a flicker of relief that she wouldn’t have to deal with our fussy real estate demands anymore. Plus, she’d managed to sell the town house down the street from Lucy and Ben, and was getting her full commission from that sale rather than the half that she’d offered to take from Declan and me.
She was also distracted as anything, reading parenting books and augmenting her maternity wardrobe with only slightly more conservative styles than usual. Then she brought in the ultrasound, and I knew the shopping was about to increase tenfold.
“Can you tell if it’s a girl or a boy?” Lucy asked, leaning closer. The spellbook club was gathered in the reading area of the Honeybee, with a new pile of books to supply the bookshelves. I’d brought back Telling Fortunes for Fun and Profit in case someone else needed it and thrown in a copy of Julie Andrews’ classic orphan tale, Mandy.
“Nope,” Bianca said. “At three months, it’s still a little bean of a thing. Maybe the next time.”
Mimsey, today dressed head to toe in fuchsia, looked over at Cookie. “Do you want to know?”
The mother-to-be shrugged. “I don’t know. Oscar kind of wants it to be a surprise. I can work with that. I’m already starting to decorate the nursery in gender-neutral colors. Actually, all colors.” She whipped out a catalog. “Look at this adorable little mobile for over the crib!”
Jaida, who was finally back to working in her newly decorated office, leaned closer. “Is that a constellation night-light?”
And so began the shopping. . . .
• • •
Steve walked in, and I reached for a cappuccino mug. He laid a copy of the Savannah Morning News on the counter. “Have you seen this?”
I peered at the article he was pointing at, and Ben took over making his drink. When he was done, he set it down in front of Steve and asked me, “What is it?”
“Taber O’Cleary has been arrested for Orla Black’s murder.” I looked up, unable to keep the surprise off my face. “He confessed.”
Steve nodded. “From what I hear from my former sources on the crime beat, John Black encouraged him to cooperate with the police.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I wonder what form that encouragement took.”
He shook his head. “Apparently, Taber was a kind of enforcer for his uncle. But then Orla began lobbying her son and daughter to move to California with her. Fern was open to the idea, but Taber didn’t want to go. So to prevent the breakup of the family—his own small one and the Black clan as a whole—Taber killed his mother-in-law—who happened to also be the woman John wanted to marry. That was bound to end poorly.”
“But Orla didn’t want to marry John.”
Steve smiled. “Rejection doesn’t make the heart grow less fond.”
A less-than-oblique reference to our history? “How’s Angie?”
His face softened, as did his smile. That was enough to put my mind at rest. “She’s opening her own nursery,” he said. “It’s hard work.”
“Her own business? That’s great.” And I had no doubt that Dawes Corp. was bankrolling it.
Good for them.
• • •
A smiling Vera Smythe came into the Honeybee. Her hair was back in a precise French twist, her eye makeup was flawlessly applied, and her pale pink lipstick immaculate. She wore a beige twinset with white slacks and beige heels that would have killed me in less than ten minutes.
Her arm was looped through that of a handsome man. He was a bit older than her, with a salt-and-pepper brush cut and soulful brown eyes. I noticed she was still wearing her wedding ring, then saw that he was wearing one, too. Then I saw that both rings had the Greek letter omega in the setting.
Matching wedding rings. This was Vera’s husband, not a date.
“You came back,” I said. “I’m so glad. What would you like to try today? We have caramel-dipped vanilla whoopie pies for our daily special. Or if you like a little tartness, the lemon bars turned out especially good.”
“A lemon bar sounds great,” he said. “And a cup of black pekoe tea, if you have it.”
“Coming right up,” I said.
“Katie, this is my husband, Robert,” she said. “This is Katie Lightfoot. I met her at Vase Value, and now I’m addicted to the baked goods here.”
He reddened a bit when she mentioned Mimsey’s flower shop.
“Welcome to the Honeybee Bakery, Robert. We hope you’ll come back again and again.”
“I’ll try the rosemary Parmesan muffin,” Vera said. “And lemon water.”
Rosemary for fidelity.
“Good choice.” I put their selections onto a tray, and Vera handed it to Robert. He carried it over to a table, while Vera lingered by the register.
“Are the flowers arriving again?” I asked with a smile.
“We’re not including flowers in our budget anymore,” Vera said.
When I looked surprised, she added, “I wanted to bring these books back. They were very helpful, but I don’t need them anymore.”
She placed the books she’d borrowed from the Honeybee library on the coffee counter. I recognized the one on divorce, but hadn’t seen the title of the other one: Mindful Loving.
“I’m glad,” I said. Vera could easily have returned the books to the shelves with no one the wiser. She wanted to talk.
“Well, one was helpful. The other one, it turns out, I didn’t need at all.” She sighed and looked at Robert over her shoulder. “See, that fortune-teller told me my husband was distracted from our marriage. Naturally, I immediately assumed that to mean he was having an affair. Then the carnations he’d sent every week for years stopped coming, and I was sure of it. I was devastated, but I wasn’t going to let him take advantage of me. Then I read that book.” She pointed to the second one. “And I decided to simply ask him why he wasn’t sending the flowers anymore. No accusations, no blame or defensiveness. And do you know what he said?”
I shook my head.
“That he was having financial problems in his business, and had to cut back.” She sounded almost delighted. Then she sobered. “It’s only temporary, but he was too ashamed to tell me. Poor man. And here I was, all ready to find a lawyer and start divorce proceedings.” She wagged a finger. “So whatever the fortune-teller told you, be careful about how you interpret it.”
Thinking of my worries about having to give up the carriage house in order to be with Declan, I had to agree. Maybe not all sacrifices felt like sacrifices in the end.
• • •
“I like deviled eggs. I could eat them every day,” Iris said.
“They’re okay,” I said. “But I think I like egg salad better. With lots of sour pickles, dill, and a little mustard. Some chopped capers, maybe. Scooped onto a soda cracker, or open-faced on a toasted English muffin.”
Iris slowly worked cold cubes of butter into a bowl of flour with her fingertips. I was cleaning while she practiced her scone-making technique, and we were passing the time by discussing options for using up leftover Easter eggs after the holiday.
“My stepmom soaks the peeled eggs in red wine before making them into deviled eggs,” Iris said. “They’re really pretty on a plate.”
I made a note to try that.
“You know the best recipe I’ve found for hard-boiled eggs is in chocolate chip cookies,” I said.
“Very funny.”
“No, I’m serious.”
Iris’ fingers stilled in the bowl as she peered at me. “Seriously?”
“Yup. You cut them up really small, and add them to the batter instead of raw eggs. The batter is a little drier, and the end result is a little more dense, but they’re really good.”
“Trust a baker to do something like that,” she muttered.
“Keep working that butter,” I said with a grin.
She went back to her scones, and I went back to scrubbing.
I heard Detective Quinn’s voice before I saw him. A part of me wanted to scurry into the office, shut the door, and pretend I didn’t know he was in the bakery. While I was debating whether to follow that instinct, Lucy called me out to the register.
Squaring my shoulders, I took a deep breath and came out from behind the rack of shelves I’d been wiping down. Quinn stood by the display case, waiting. Briskly, I joined my aunt.
“Detective,” I said, “what can we get for you today? The croissants are especially good.”
“Can we talk?” he asked.
Ah, those words almost no one wants to hear.
Lucy’s eyes darted between us.
Ben had been watching from the coffee counter, and walked over. “Hello, Peter.” He had his best poker face on, but I knew he was being protective.
Quinn inclined his head. “Ben. Good to see you. How have things been?”
“Fine.”
A silence stretched out for several seconds, long enough to hear a laughing couple pass by on the sidewalk outside the door.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” I said. “Come back to the office. We can talk there.”
The detective gave a quick nod and followed me through the kitchen. My aunt and uncle watched him every step of the way.
“We can talk in here, Detective,” I said, repeating myself but hoping to give Mungo a heads-up.
It worked. When I opened the door and walked in, he was nowhere to be seen. Quickly, I moved the afghan he slept on from the club chair and gestured to Quinn.
“Please, have a seat.”
He remained standing, looking all around the room. “Where’s the dog?”
I raised my eyebrows in question and blinked as innocently as I knew how.
Quinn’s lips turned up in a wry quirk. “He’s not in the reading area, so he must be back here. Did you really think I didn’t know?”
“Um . . .”
“I’m a homicide detective. Why do you think I’d care about your dog sleeping in the office?”
Mungo wiggled out from behind the file cabinet, and Quinn reached down to pet him. A slight smile still hovered on his face as he straightened; then it was gone.
“Is that what you wanted to talk to me about? My dog?”
Quinn looked away. He started to rub his hands together, then caught himself and abruptly stopped. “Not exactly.”
I folded my arms, ready for a lecture.
“I came to tell you that you were right, and I was wrong.”
My jaw slackened. “What?” I asked stupidly.
“You were right. I was wrong.” He sighed, and sat down in Mungo’s chair. “I should have listened to you.”
Slowly, I sank into the desk chair and swiveled to face him. “Um . . . thanks?”
He leaned back and regarded me. “So how did you know?”
“You mean about Orla?”
He looked briefly at the ceiling, then back at me. “Yes, about Orla. How did you know from the very beginning that her death was suspicious?”
“Oh.” I tried to think of an answer that wouldn’t involve familiars, my dead grandmother, or Connell. “You know that conversation we had after the murder on the movie set? About intuition and gut feelings?”
“It was more than that,” he said flatly.
I held his gaze. “Yeah. Maybe it was.”
“What?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Because I won’t believe you?”
I didn’t say anything. But I didn’t look away, either.
Finally, he looked down at his hands. Nodded to himself. Looked back up. “I saw you glow that night. In the back of the Fox and Hound.”
“Glow?”
“Stop it. This is the seventh time you’ve been responsible for bringing a murderer to justice in two years. That’s my job—”
“I didn’t mean to step on your toes.”
He held up his hand. “Wait. Let me finish. I was going to say, that’s my job—solving murders. It can be stressful, and difficult, but I love it, and I believe it’s important.”
“It is!” I said.
“And even though you make me crazy, getting in trouble and asking questions all over the place and making people mad, and . . .” He trailed off. Took a deep breath. “. . . and making me listen to your weird theories, you’ve helped me do my job.”
I blinked. Unsure of what to say, I didn’t say anything at all.
Quinn leaned forward. “So I think I’m not only stuck with you, but that there might be a reason I’m stuck with you.”
“Like fate?”
One shoulder rose and dropped. “Maybe something like that. Or maybe something else.”
My breath caught in my throat. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. I’ve thought a lot about how you seem to know things I don’t, or find out things I can’t. Part of it is because you’re a civilian, of course, and a woman. But there’s something else. And there are other things, too. That crazy scene in the graveyard, the strange connection between you and my old partner, the cases that ended up involving voodoo, and that thing in the swamp. Not to mention this last time. You glowed, Katie. Glowed. I saw it. And I saw you do something else that didn’t seem human.”
I laughed a shaky laugh. “Maybe you think I’m from outer space?”
He didn’t crack a smile. “Katie. Seriously. What are you?”
All my senses felt like they were in overdrive, almost like when I found myself in danger. But I didn’t feel any danger coming from Quinn. Only curiosity—and quite a bit of nervousness.
Well, he’d asked.
“I’m a witch.”
He barked a laugh, then covered his mouth with his hand. When he saw I was serious, he dropped it. “A witch.”
I nodded. “A hedgewitch, actually. Runs in the family.” Sorry, Lucy. Didn’t mean to out you without your permission. “Kitchen magic. Garden magic. Like the women healers of days gone by.”
“Okay.” He drew out the words. “So you’re into that kind of thing.”
I bristled.
“But that does not explain this—this attraction you have to murder. To finding criminals.”
“Apparently, I’m also what they call a catalyst,” I said reluctantly. Wasn’t it enough that I’d revealed I was a witch? Did I have to tell him the rest? “So things kind of happen around me.”
“Uh-huh. They sure do.”
“And, uh, Franklin Taite is the one who told me I’m also a lightwitch. That’s what I think you’re really asking. It’s kind of like a calling to seek out justice when needed.”
His eyes had widened more than I’d ever seen them. Had I told him too much? It didn’t matter. I plunged on.
“And other than Mavis Templeton, all of your cases that I’ve been involved in have had some kind of magical element to them. For all I know, hers did, too. In retrospect, I think she might have been a witch who practiced dark magic. Unlike me.”
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Finally, he spluttered, “Franklin Taite! He was in on this whole thing!”
“He was a hunter,” I said.
“A—” He clamped his mouth shut.
“A witch hunter. All evil really.” I shrugged. “But I don’t practice dark magic. I mean, there is a lot of gray magic, and it gets complicated, but yeah. He thought I was bad news at first—then there was that whole lightwitch thing.” I took a breath and looked at Mungo. My poor familiar looked stunned that I was telling Quinn all of this. “See, he saw me glow, too.” I held up my hand. “I only do it under duress, see. But he saw it, and that was when he told me I was a lightwitch. Of course he also lied about what that meant, and—”
Quinn held up both hands to stop me. “Okay, okay. That’s all I can absorb for the moment.”
I stopped talking. It had been like a flood I couldn’t hold back, such a relief to be able to tell him. But as soon as silence descended between us, I wanted to pull back the words, swallow them whole, make him forget that he’d heard them. Sitting there under his gaze, I felt raw and vulnerable, unsure and frightened.
For a nanosecond, I thought of using my Voice the same way that Taber O’Cleary had, to try to wipe Quinn’s memory clean of all that I’d just revealed.
No. No, no, no. I will not do that.
I raised my chin and waited.
“Well,” he said finally. “That certainly explains a lot. And it gives me a lot to think about.” He stood, and as he looked down at me, his gaze softened. “Don’t look like that, Katie. I know you think I’m an ogre sometimes, probably because sometimes I am. But I believe you. You know, as best I can. I know one thing for sure, though—you’re a good person, and you’ve helped me immeasurably.”
I stood. “I, uh, don’t go spreading what I told you around, you know?”
He looked insulted. “Of course not.” Then he gave me a little grin. “As if anyone would believe me. And you know, I’m glad we had this little talk.”
“Me, too,” I said, and opened the office door.
Lucy and Ben were still watching as we came back out front. Ben glowered, but Lucy was asking me a dozen questions with her eyes.
“I’ll take one of those croissants,” Quinn said, pulling out his wallet.
Quickly, I wrapped one up to go. He noticed and smiled when I handed it to him. “I’ve missed your pastries.” He walked to the door. Before exiting, he turned and grinned. “See you tomorrow for another one.”
Ben and Lucy were instantly at my side. “What did he say?”
“I told him I’m a hedgewitch. And a lightwitch.”
Lucy gasped, then recovered. “Being a hedgewitch is one thing. What did he think about the other?”
My eyes followed Detective Quinn through the window as he crossed the street to his car. “I’m not sure. But I think if there’s another magic-related crime in Savannah, we’ll be able to work together on it.”
Then I caught myself. Another magic-related crime in Savannah? Nah. After so many in the last two years, I was ready for a break.
• • •
That night, Declan and I were lying side by side in the bed in his apartment. His breathing had slowed, and I knew the next sound he’d make would be a little snort, then more deep breathing, as he drifted into a deep sleep. The moon shone through his bedroom window, illuminating the stack of boxes he’d already packed in anticipation of moving into our new home. I hadn’t realized how ready he’d been. Now it was going to be a while longer. Tomorrow we were meeting with an architect and contractors to talk about our plans to expand the carriage house. He thought it would probably take about four months for the project to be completed.
Four months for Carriage House 2.0, as I’d already begun to think of it, to be ready for occupancy by the Lightfoot-McCarthys. In the meantime, we’d stay at his place. Everything about it felt right, though. And there had been sacrifice—of the first version of the carriage house for the new one. Maybe that had been what Orla meant. Or perhaps she’d seen that I’d make the split-second decision to put myself between Taber and Declan. Had that been a sacrifice, though? Some would think so. To me, it had simply been the only thing I could do.
I suddenly remembered the future card I’d seen in my tarot spread. The Tower. The destruction of the old to bring in the new. But I hadn’t realized until that moment how the card had literally played out that night in the loft. The image of two people jumping out of a tower and falling to the ground below. The flames licking from the windows of the tower.
The loft had been the tower, my descent to the ground precarious on the ladder but ultimately successful. But the flames had been far more real than the stylized depictions on the Rider-Waite card, the destruction inside the tower more literal than metaphorical. I wondered what Jaida would say when I told her about it.
Declan gave the little snort. On my other side, Mungo echoed it.
Before my fiancé fell completely asleep, I reached over and took his hand.
“Mm.”
“You awake?” I asked.
“Mmph.”
“Declan, let’s get married on August fifteenth.”
The deep breathing stopped, and he propped himself up on one elbow to look at me. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Why August fifteenth?”
“Because the house should be ready by then, and it gives us plenty of time to plan the wedding. And it was Nonna’s birthday.”
“The house might not be done,” he said. “And do you really want to plan a wedding while your house is under construction?”
“Our house. And we’ll manage.”
“Our house. And okay.” He leaned over and kissed me.