“Helen Jenkins does floral arranging in her spare time,” Lila explained. “I found out because I was asking about the flowers in the vase on the counter at Tom’s. Tom said they were Siberian tulips.”
“That’s what he ordered from Edie.”
“Yep, and another thing he ordered,” she said, holding up the sprig of plant. “This is the leaf of the ivory glasswood. I stole it from the arrangement when he was busy.”
“The seed pods,” I said.
The fabric, the seed pods—that was two pieces of concrete evidence pointing to either Tom or Helen Jenkins. I was convinced, and that was enough to at least start looking for the final clues that would clinch this for good.
“What do we do now?” Lila asked.
I didn’t get a chance to answer. The doorbell chimed and Conri stepped into my shop holding a small bouquet of drooping wildflowers.
“Can we talk?” he said. He shoved the flowers toward me awkwardly.
Even though Conri probably wasn’t a murder suspect anymore, it didn’t stop him from being suspicious in general, not to mention a jerk. “Don’t worry, guaranteed to be completely harmless to cats,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said, taking the sad little bunch. I was touched by the gesture, but not enough to trust him.
“Do you want to go to the diner?” Conri said.
“No,” I said, too quickly. His eyebrows rose. “I mean, I’ll talk to you, but I don’t want to go to Tom’s. It’s a long story.”
“What about we go to Bar Armadillo or the Tea Rooms?”
“I’m not particularly hungry or thirsty,” I said. “Whatever you’ve got to say, you can tell me here.”
Lila moved past Conri, her bag over her shoulder. “I just have to go out for a second,” she said. I knew she was leaving us to our privacy and wished she wouldn’t. Maybe I should’ve agreed to go someplace public with him.
“Okay, but be careful, and don’t go anywhere near you know who.”
“I won’t, Mom,” Lila said.
The door closed with a tinkle of the chime, and Conri and I were alone together.
“What was that all about? Who does she need to be careful of?” He said.
“It’s nothing,” I said. It annoyed me that he was being so casual, as much as it annoyed me that I once again noticed how good he smelled. He obviously wasn’t there to fight. He had already proven he had the social skills of a newt—an antisocial newt at that. Maybe I could give him a teeny bit of leeway simply to hear what he had to say. But I wasn’t going to be nice about it. “What do you want to talk to me about?”
Conri shifted his weight from foot to foot. He cleared his throat and glanced around the room.
“I’m here to confess,” he said, barely audible.
“Why? Did you kill someone?” I said. It was a half joke.
“That doll thing Russet brought in—I swear, you have to believe me, I had nothing to do with it. There’s a common strip behind my house. Russet gets in there all the time and brings home all kinds of junk he digs up. Mostly it’s old bones and sometimes a can or two. He’s a treasure hunter.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I believe you. About that.”
“But the other stuff, the hex work, what you saw in the woods that night, that’s something I need to tell you about.”
“I’m listening,” I said. And I was, though while I was eager to hear what he was about to say, I was also reluctant to hear it in case I didn’t like what I heard.
“I’m not a witch or anything like… like…”
“Like me?”
“Yeah, but I don’t mean it like a bad thing. I actually like that you’re a witch.”
“Go on,” I said, trying to stay hard and ignore the little warm, melty emotions stirring at his words.
“I’m actually—well, it’s difficult for me to say. I’ve been using magic to help me deal with something. Something hard and personal. Something I want to change about myself.”
“Like what?”
“Like… I’m a…”
He was obviously having a tremendous amount of trouble spitting the words out. It was almost sweet. He was trying to disarm himself, let me in, and that’s never easy for anyone.
“Remember when I told you I was off doing a kind of meditation retreat?”
I couldn’t forget. It was the first thing that had cleared him, almost, of being a murder suspect. I nodded.
“Well, there’s a coven up on Grey Mountain that helps people, with magic.”
“Like rehab? Are you a drug addict?”
“What? Oh, God, no. Nothing like that.”
“What is it, then? Spit it out.”
“Okay, okay. Well, you know when you saw me in the woods…”
Another thing I wouldn’t forget in a hurry, for reasons that mostly involved the lines of his body and muscles that looked like they’d been carved out of rock.
“It was a full moon.”
“Yes.”
“And I was a man.”
“So I saw,” I said.
“It was the magic… I’m not usually…” Every word was painful for him to say. He had told me he liked being straight with people, but this kind of private talking looked like it was the least natural thing in the world for him to be doing.
“On the night you saw me, on the full moon, the magic was keeping me a man. But usually on a full moon, I’m a…”
The puzzle fell together in my head in a second.
“You’re a werewolf?” I said. I took an involuntary step backward. Hurt registered in his eyes.
Conri nodded. “I am a werewolf,” he said, exhaling. “I am a werewolf,” he repeated.
“But how?”
I had never met a werewolf. I had known of their existence and heard a few urban legends about packs in Loreton, but I’d never given it a lot of thought, and I certainly hadn’t expected to meet a werewolf in Blackthorn Springs, especially one that was working as a vet and was, apparently, trying to date me.
“I’m using the magic to try to help me not be a werewolf. My pendant is the main part of that, but there’s also the herbs and stuff I got from Edie. Caileigh, the high witch of the Grey Mountain coven, kind of specializes in magic jewelry. It’s working. You saw me—it was a full moon, and I hadn’t changed.”
“But why—”
“Why am I trying to stop the change? Because I don’t like who I am. For one night of the month, I’m a literal monster, dangerous as hell. Even during the day, when I’m back to being a human, I’m not right. I’m angry, and I’m a miserable asshole. And it starts before the moon too, like my body knows the change is coming. It goes away pretty much instantly on the last cycle day, and I go back to normal, but that week or so is sheer hell. It’s getting better. Caileigh told me the longer I can stay a man during the full moon, the more the anger, the other transformations, will go away too.”
I did a quick calculation. When I had first encountered the vet, he had been a snarling mess, angry and irrational. That wasn’t long before the full moon.
“But what about yesterday? The moon had cycled, and you were still an asshole.”
“I guess I was embarrassed about what you’d seen me doing. You’ve seen me naked, after all, in more ways than one. Not to mention the fact you were trying to accuse me of being a murderer.”
Now it was my turn to feel embarrassed. “You have to admit, the clues were confusing.”
We stood in silence. I didn’t know what to do or say, and Conri looked just as awkward. What did this mean for us now?
“Thank you for telling me,” I said. “It means a lot that you’ve been so honest. Finally.”
He smiled, an action that transformed him entirely.
“Can I ask you a question that might seem a bit odd, considering what we’re talking about here?” I said.
“Sure,” he said, looking puzzled.
“Do Tom and Helen Jenkins live near you?”
“They live right behind me on the other side of the common,” Conri said. “Why?”