After Declan left I settled into Lucy and Ben’s guest bedroom with my laptop and the door closed to keep Honeybee out. In general, she respected my allergies and walked a wide berth around me, but she loved hanging out with Mungo and sometimes broke the rules. As for my familiar, he lay draped across my shins, lazily watching me work.
I felt almost transparent with weariness and giddy with relief that I no longer had to keep secrets from Declan. I mean, I hadn’t told him all about the Dragohs, or the spellbook club, but those weren’t just my secrets. Hopefully, the Dragohs wouldn’t be an issue for much longer, and in time I was sure I’d get permission to tell him about our coven.
Well. Maybe Dragohs wouldn’t be an issue, but a future member of the society might be.
Guilt stabbed through me. Steve had been so sweet and open lately. He’d taken care of me and stopped me from making a fool of myself during a moment of weakness.
Steve, Declan, Steve, Declan. I wanted them both in my life, I really did. But I wasn’t ready to settle down with either of them. Not yet. I still needed to find out more about who—and what—Katie Lightfoot was.
Additional guilt about neglecting my duties at the bakery lately impelled me to do a few things before calling it an early night and recharging for the next day. First, I pulled out the list of supplies we were running low on at the bakery. The local grocery warehouse allowed us to place orders online and then pick them up the next day. I added the items we needed, billed it to our account, and made a mental note to ask Ben to pick up the order the next morning. There were a few items I’d need for the special spread we were putting together for the Halloween party—a case of pumpkin puree for the pumpkin gingerbreads shaped like tiny squash, crispy apples to cover in salted caramel, extra eggs, and lots of sprinkles to decorate cookies and cupcakes.
Maybe I should make Margie’s Coca-Cola cupcakes for the party.
I shook my head. This order was already late. Just stick with the plan. Tomorrow was going to be another really long, really busy day. Thank goodness we’d have the professional help of Nel Sandstrom to lighten the load.
Speaking of Nel, I fished her file out and got going on her W-2 paperwork and the tax forms we had to fill out for the Honeybee’s accountant. Glancing at her application, I saw her address was in a rather upscale neighborhood. Probably living in her father’s house after his death, as Greer had planned to do…
I grabbed the application and ran my finger down to the bottom. Mungo’s head snapped up. Nel had listed three references. I’d called only one of them—the bakery in Athens where she’d worked the last nine years. I’d used my cell to call David Talbot, owner of the Halcyon Bakery, so Nel wouldn’t inadvertently pick up the Honeybee phone and hear me checking with her old boss. That call was the only one I’d made in the last week to a number I wasn’t familiar with.
I picked up my phone and scrolled to my own recent calls. There it was. The number matched the one on the application. I began to dial it again.
Yip!
I ended the call before it rang. “Right. Thanks, Mungo.” If this was the number for the phone I’d found on Greer Eastmore’s dresser, the police would know if I called it now.
But was it Greer’s phone? Or was it David Talbot’s?
I thought about calling the number from a pay phone, or blocking the caller ID on my own phone. But I didn’t trust the latter, and I’d have to leave the town house to call from a public phone. A better idea came to mind.
The Halcyon Bakery’s Web site was fancier than ours, but they focused more on specialty breads and decorated cakes. The phone number was different, but the man I’d talked to had told me that I’d reached his cell phone. The site said the owner’s name was indeed David Talbot, the name Nel had listed on the application.
Was it even possible that Greer Eastmore was in possession of the phone of a guy who owned a bakery in Athens?
I scrolled down to the bottom of the homepage and caught my breath. Mungo padded up to look at the screen with me. I clicked over to the STAFF page.
Mungo made a questioning sound.
“It says here that David Talbot is originally from Ireland. The man I spoke with had a strong Southern accent. And not only that, but Nel isn’t in this group photo. She should be.”
He tipped his head to the side.
“It was taken two years ago, when she was supposedly employed there.”
Yip!
Sure enough, a little more digging revealed how much Nel had lied in order to get a job at the Honeybee. First, I called the other two numbers she’d listed as references, figuring that even if Emily Post would have disapproved of the late hour I’d probably just get voice mail anyway. I was wrong. One number was a pizza place, and the other was a very confused teenager in Seattle.
At least it was earlier there.
Giving two blatantly fake references was a rookie mistake. Though, come to think of it, as potential employers we’d be more interested in her most recent job, especially since that was supposed to cover nine whole years of her baking experience. The others were short-term positions. Perhaps Nel had thought it worth the gamble. And, in fact, it had worked for a while.
Then I searched online for “lily airbrush cake” and bingo!—the exact same photo of the cake Lucy had loved so much from Nel’s portfolio filled the screen. The name of the person credited with the cake was definitely not Nel Sandstrom. A few more minutes of searching netted me two more fake photos of award-winning cake decoration—also not Nel’s work.
I slumped against the pillows. Looked at Mungo, who waited expectantly.
“Yeah, yeah. I guess I have to go tell Lucy and Ben now.”
* * *
The door to their bedroom was open. Lucy was propped against a mountain of blue-paisley-patterned pillows on the bed, legs tucked under her as she read a section of the newspaper from that morning. She wore white pajamas and had woven her wavy gray-blond hair into a thick braid, which fell over one shoulder. Purple-framed half-glasses perched on her nose, and Honeybee the cat curled in the crook of her legs, orange tabby stripes vivid in the light from the bedside lamp.
Ben, still in slacks and a polo shirt, sat in the overstuffed reading chair with another section of the News. He looked up when he saw me in the doorway. “What’s up?”
Lucy put down the paper, peering at me over the tops of her reading glasses and smiling. But her smile faded and her eyes grew wide as she listened to what I’d found out about our new employee. Ben’s jaw set and his eyes narrowed as he heard the catalog of Nel’s deceit.
When I finished, Lucy took off her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. “She lied about everything? Her experience, those beautiful cakes? How could we not know?”
Honeybee rose and stretched, then rubbed her head against Lucy’s arm. My aunt distractedly stroked her familiar, who purred encouragement.
“She’s a very good liar,” I said.
Lucy looked up at me. “And I wanted to believe her. I convinced Ben, too.”
He stood and walked over to the bed. “Don’t even try to take on the blame for this, Luce. I liked her, too.”
“Sometimes I think I’m intentionally naive,” she insisted.
He pushed a stray strand of hair from her forehead. “No, my darling wife. You have managed to retain the ability to look for the best in people. Do you know how rare that is?”
“He’s right,” I said. “Rare and valuable. Don’t ever get cynical on us, Aunt Lucy.”
A tentative smile tugged at her lips. “I’ll do my best. Sometimes it’s hard to stay optimistic, though.”
I looked at Ben and nodded. “That’s why we need you to stay just the way you are.”
* * *
Questions had swirled through my mind as I’d fallen asleep the night before. They were still there to greet me when I awoke, and stayed with me as I rushed around the Honeybee kitchen trying to get the regular day’s baking out of the way so we could get cracking on the food for the Halloween party that night. Why had Nel wanted to work at the Honeybee so badly? Other than being childhood friends, what was Nel’s recent connection with Greer Eastmore? Dead men tell no tales, but I was sure as heck going to get the answers out of Nel.
I realized I was gripping the edge of the counter, staring into space with my jaw clenched. I deliberately loosened it, did a few shoulder rolls, and began gathering ingredients for miniature ginger pecan Bundt cakes.
The woman we’d hired was really Nel Sandstrom—Steve knew her. But who the heck was the real Nel Sandstrom? She’d seemed so nice, and had totally fooled Cookie, Lucy, Ben…and me.
The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. And the angrier I got, the more things I wanted to say to her. I glanced at the clock. Almost six. She’d be coming in the door any minute.
Except she never did. By the time we opened at seven it was pretty obvious that Nel wasn’t going to show up for work. I tried the number she’d provided on her application and was immediately shunted over to voice mail. At least it was her voice inviting me to leave a message.
“Hi, Nel. It’s Katie. It’s after seven, and we were wondering where you are. Give me a call, okay?” It was difficult to keep my tone light.
Then I called the Halcyon Bakery—the real one—using the number I’d found on their Web site. Sure enough, David Talbot himself answered with a charming Irish lilt. He’d never heard of Nel Sandstrom. He wished me luck and we hung up.
“I’m calling Cookie,” Lucy said from the office doorway.
“Good,” I said. “In a few hours maybe you could call the other ladies, too,” I said. “They were going to help with the last-minute decorations, anyway. Maybe they could come a little early?”
She pointed her finger at me. “Good idea.”
The morning rush kept us busy for the next hour. Cookie showed up then, and responded to the news about Nel with more puzzlement than anger. When things slowed down a little, I left her and Lucy out front and got back to work in the kitchen. As my hands sifted and mixed, my mind went back to work on Nel.
Why on earth would anyone lie so she could work at a bakery? It had to be related to the murders somehow. But what did we have that she wanted?
She’d filled out the job application the very same day Declan and I found Lawrence Eastmore in Johnson Square. Now I wondered about that timing. The next night she’d been at Brandon Sikes’ art opening and convinced Cookie that she would make a great Honeybee employee. Then she’d shown up the day after that and charmed Ben and Lucy before I got back from the fund-raiser. The topper had been when she told us she was a practicing Wiccan—but who knew if that was even true? She’d known we were witches, though. Then Greer, posing as David Talbot, had given her a glowing recommendation.
I paused in kneading blueberries into a mound of scone dough, mulling over what I knew. So Nel had been working with Greer. I’d heard that murderers sometimes tried to involve themselves in the investigation, and in this case the real center of that investigation was definitely at the Honeybee, not the police precinct. Greer wasn’t even supposed to be in town when his father died, and he couldn’t fake bakery experience like Nel could. But if they were working together…how? Greer had been in Europe for years. I thought of the Parthenon wallpaper on his laptop. Nel’s application had listed addresses and employment in Athens, Georgia.
However, it had already been established that Nel was a liar.
Steve had mentioned Nel living in Athens. So had Andersen. They could have meant Athens, Greece.
Go, Bulldogs.
No, that had been Carolyn Powers, talking about her husband.
But Nel had definitely led us to believe she’d been in Athens, Georgia, before moving back to Savannah. My bet was she’d been living in Athens, Greece, all along. And in some kind of contact with Greer Eastmore.
I remembered the click on the office phone when Andersen Lane had called to ask me to find The 33 Curses. Had Nel listened in? The more I thought about it, the more it made a creepy kind of sense. Between that phone call and the next day I had been attacked. By Greer, as I’d first thought?
Or…could it have been Nel who had invaded my mind? She’d looked a bit tired when I saw her at the bakery the next day, but nothing like I’d expect if she’d worked that kind of magic against me.
I shook my head and reached for the butter. I needed more information about our absent employee, and I needed it soon.
* * *
Declan came in around noon with Scott and Randy. This time they were all out of uniform, though with all the logo T-shirts those guys wore there was no question that they were firefighters all the time, on duty or not.
“Coming to the party tonight?” I asked.
“You bet,” Declan said.
“How would you feel about helping me a little sooner than that? I feel kind of bad, asking after the whole, well, you know…”
Amusement played across his face. “You don’t have to feel bad. I thought I made that clear last night.”
Scott and Randy exchanged knowing looks.
“Thanks,” I said. “In twenty minutes? Half an hour?”
Declan nodded and took a bite of molasses oatmeal cookie.
Fifteen minutes later, Mimsey came in decked from head to toe in black in a skirt-and-tunic combination. Along with the black hose and black shoes, she might have looked downright witchy. The black satin bow in her hair kind of ruined that effect, though. But I knew she’d picked the color not only because it was Halloween, but because black was a deeply elemental color, representing the earth itself, and powerful in protection.
“Is everyone ready for tonight?” she crowed, her eyes shining.
Customers turned toward her, smiling and nodding. Ben waved from the reading area, where he was adding another loop of candy corn garland to the Halloween tree. I greeted her from behind the espresso machine, and Lucy hurried out of the kitchen. “Thanks for coming early,” she said. “We’re nearly ready, but Katie has to leave for a little while.”
Mimsey shot a look at me.
“Lucy will explain,” I said. No need to air anything about a Honeybee employee in public.
“Jaida was looking for a parking space. She’ll be here in a few minutes,” Mimsey said, emanating curiosity as she bustled into the kitchen and donned a royal blue apron covered with ruffles.
“Perfect.” I raised my eyebrows at Declan across the room.
He nodded and pushed back from the table. “Duty calls, guys.”
“Duty.” Randy snorted around another maple cardamom scone. “Right.”
I wrinkled my nose at him and took off my apron. In the office, Mungo happily jumped into my tote, and I smuggled him out to the sidewalk. Declan looked surprised to see that my dog had been in the bakery, but no way was I going to confront Nel without my little wolf. Maybe she was just a rotten liar, but evidence pointed to her being something worse.
Outside, I headed for my Bug, but Declan put his hand on my shoulder. “We’re going someplace?”
“To Nel Sandstrom’s.”
“Really? Well, what do you say I drive?”
It was true that he always looked a bit uncomfortable folded into the seat of my little car. “Okay, sure.”
We crossed Broughton Street to where he’d parked his big king cab pickup. He opened the door and lifted me in with one hand on my elbow. As we pulled into traffic, I told him about discovering Nel’s lies the night before and that I wanted to talk to her.
He frowned. “That’s pretty rotten. The Honeybee is too busy to have someone flake out on you like that.”
“She told us she was Wiccan,” I said, trying out our newfound honesty. How would Declan react to talk of magic sans alcohol and moonlight to soften the whole idea?
Unfortunately, he had such a good poker face I couldn’t tell what he thought. “Did that influence you?” he asked, the words measured.
“Probably,” I admitted. “But not as much as her fake portfolio of fancy cakes. She counted on my checking only one reference, too, if any.”
“Hmm.”
“There’s more, though. See, the guy who lied for her? Who said he owned the Halcyon Bakery? It was Greer Eastmore. The guy I wanted you to go with me to talk to yesterday.”
Declan looked over at me so fast I thought he’d pull a muscle. I hadn’t wanted to spoil last night, so I’d kind of conveniently forgotten to fill him in on the events of the previous afternoon.
“Keep your eyes on the road. Yes. The son of the man we found. And Declan? Um, he’s dead now, too.”
This time Declan didn’t mess around. He pulled to the side of the road and threw the truck into park. “Dead, how?” His voice held foreboding.
“Well, I’m not sure. There weren’t any wounds that I could see. He was simply…no longer alive. Maybe a heart attack, or something else. But there was something that reminded me of what happened to me the night before. The, er, attack I mentioned.”
He was staring at me. “Something reminded you—you saw him?”
“Oh. Yeah. After you ran out of my house, Steve offered to go with me.”
“I did not run out.”
I let that pass. “We were the ones who found him.”
“Katie! What the heck is going on with you?”
“Well, that whole witch thing might have something to do with it. Lucy seems to think I’m some kind of catalyst. I don’t know for sure how that works, but stuff seems to…happen around me sometimes.”
He grimaced. “I’ll say.”
“Anyway, Nel was connected to Greer, and I’m afraid she might have had something to do with Lawrence Eastmore as well.”
“Like she was involved in his death?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. But there’s some connection. And she lied. A lot. And I don’t know why. So, I’m going to ask her.”
“Shouldn’t you call the police?”
“And tell them what? That we didn’t properly vet our new employee, and that she happened to know the dead son of a dead man you and I found in Johnson Square?”
We looked at each other for a long moment. Then he sighed and pulled back into the street.