We hurry back into the cafe, relieved to feel the warm air on our faces again.
“Hey, guys!” Aranya greets us. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it back before we closed.”
“Damien here was busy picking out burial plots for us.”
“Er, what?”
Damien laughs. “Our boss is referring to my brilliant acting abilities and plan to get information out of Ethan Davis without making him suspicious.”
“I admit, it was a pretty good plan.”
“By the way, Miranda stopp-”
Miranda bursts through the door as usual before Aranya can finish her sentence. “Hey you two! Aranya said you went to the mortuary. Did you get anything good? She also said the police found a syringe with cyanide in it in Chloe’s truck. I don’t believe it for a second. No way, no how.”
“How much coffee have you had today?” I ask.
“A lot! Why?” Miranda hovers in the doorway, stomping her feet and rubbing her hands together for warmth.
“Come inside, so we don’t all freeze to death, and we’ll tell you what happened. How many hot chocolates should I make?” Aranya giggles when everyone throws their hand in the air. “Okay, four.”
“Do you need help, boss?” she asks. Damien likes to call me boss, which was kind of weird at first, but then I decided it was mostly endearing. But now he has Aranya calling me boss as well. Whatever happened to just Charlotte? I’m afraid to say anything because I don’t want them to think I’m mad. Things I never realized I’d have to deal with before I inherited my Gran’s cafe. That and all the dead bodies.
“Nope! I’m good.” I duck into the kitchen to prepare the hot chocolate for my friends. Miranda has been helping me with potion work lately. It’s actually a difficult skill to master, and I much prefer practical skills like making objects move, but I can see where it would come in handy sometimes. And if it helps me make delicious hot chocolate, then even better.
Damien always lectures me on the importance of mise en place - getting all the ingredients out and ready before I cook - which I admit is often difficult for me to remember. I much prefer the ‘get one thing out at a time, only to discover I’m completely out of the last ingredient, and have to go to the store to get it’ method. And yes, I admit it, Damien’s way creates much less stress in my life, but it also requires discipline I don’t always have.
I work on levitating several ingredients to the work table all at once, which requires a great deal of concentration. It really bugs me when I mess up and drop something. Thankfully, I move everything to the worktable without breaking anything this time. I’ve got everything I need: almond milk, cocoa powder, sugar, dark chocolate chips, vanilla — rats — I don’t have any vanilla extract. Okay, almond extract will add something different here.
But when I begin to pour in a teaspoon of almond extract, I’m hit with a powerful, all-knowing wave of energy and I realize without a doubt that the secret ingredient in Chloe’s red velvet cupcakes is almond extract. That may also be why the real killer used it, because the cyanide would smell like almonds and mask any potential suspicion. I really wish I could control these kinds of revelations, because that would be far more useful than having them just pop up now and again.
I put the milk, cocoa powder, and sugar in a saucepan. Oops spilled a little milk. Okay, breathe and concentrate, you got this. Strange as it may seem, I find that using magic to hurl objects at a bad guy, is easier than using that same magic to add ingredients to a small pan in such a precise manner. Once everything is combined, I add the chocolate chips.
“Everything all right in there?” Miranda calls out.
“It’s all good!” I yell back. “Just trying to do it all with magic and trying not to spill anything!”
“Good girl!” she says.
When everything is melted and heated properly, I add in just a bit of potion that I created recently that’s supposed to bring some good cheer to those who drink it. I figure we can all use that right now.
Then I really get wild and levitate all four drinks on a tray out the door.
“Wow!” Damien whistles. “Well done!”
I breathe a sigh of relief and take a little bow. My friends are all well aware of my background. For most of my life, I denied my magic heritage. I was convinced that was the best way to ensure I didn’t turn out like my parents. Crooks. Once I got back to Crested Peaks though and met so many wonderful people, I realized witchcraft had nothing to do with my parents being horrible people.
But I’m also finding I have a lot of work to catch up on. Thankfully, Miranda has been a huge help in this area and gets after me to practice my new skills regularly. Sometimes I forget I can use them for more than just fending off gun-wielding maniacs.
“What do we have so far?” Miranda asks when I finally take a seat with the rest of them.
I start. “Unfortunately, the worst news is that police found a syringe with traces of cyanide in Chloe’s cupcake truck.”
“There’s no way!” Miranda responds in anger.
I put my hands up. “That’s what Drew said.”
“I don’t care what they found. There’s no way Chloe killed Morley. Sure, I bet there were times when she wanted to punch him right in the face, but she’d never kill someone.”
“I agree, and that’s why we’re investigating this, because I don’t think the police are doing very much to look beyond Chloe. And now I have something else to tell you.” They all stop mid-sip expecting some huge revelation. “The secret ingredient in Chloe’s red velvet cupcakes is almond extract.”
“Cyanide can smell like almonds,” Aranya points out.
“Exactly,” I nod my head.
Miranda gasps. “You had a reading.”
“I did.”
“And?” Damien prompts.
“And what? That was it.”
“That doesn’t seem very helpful,” he tells me.
“It may be later on, you know!” I retort.
“So we have Shauna shouting at Morley that she wished he were dead, right before he actually dies, and who then tells us very plainly that she’s glad he died.” Aranya reminds us.
“And then I ran into Neil last night when I had to pick up Marshall, Marcus, and Stumpy from the Hotel Glacier,” I tell them.
“You did?” Miranda asks.
“I swear I was there solely to track down my wayward critters, and there he was, right in front of me.”
“What did he say?” Aranya asks. “Was it similar to what Shauna said?”
“Uh, well, I didn’t exactly admit who I was, or that I had just talked to Shauna that day.”
“I’m shocked,” Damien retorts.
“Hey!” I say, pointing at him. “I’m not the one who made up a whole story about us needing couple’s burial plots!”
“What?” Miranda laughs.
“You won’t believe what he told Ethan,” I explain. “But first, I told Neil I lost my shoes-”
”-your shoes?” Damien asks.
“Will you let me finish? It was all I could come up with on the spur of the moment. I told him I was sitting near Morley’s table and must have left my shoes behind. I also asked him if he waited on Morley’s table that night, but he said no and that he switched with another server.”
“And now we get to my part,” Damien says. “I suggested that we pay a visit to Ethan Davis at the mortuary.”
“It was your idea?” Miranda asks in shock. “You hate that we do this.”
“I know, but I felt like I owed Charlotte one, so I suggested we go over there and talk to him.”
“I thought Morley fired him, though. Why was he at the mortuary?”
“Oh, just wait,” I tell her.
Then Damien proceeds to fill the other two in on that afternoon’s escapade at the mortuary. I think Miranda and Aranya were a mixture of horrified and amused that he would make up such a wild story and then play it off so well.
Miranda ticks the suspects off on her fingers. “So far, all have willingly and loudly admitted to being treated like crap by Morley.”
“Right,” I respond.
“I still don’t think we should overlook Owen Munoz either, though,” Damien points out.
“Does anyone know where to find him?” I ask. I’m dumbfounded when none of them know. “Seriously? Every single time I’ve wanted to talk to a suspect, one of you has always known when and where they are!”
“I’m at a loss this time,” Miranda says with a shrug.
“Me too boss,” Damien adds.
I glance at Aranya. “Don’t look at me. I’m new to this crazy game, remember?”
“Okay, so I guess the next task on our list is to figure out how to find Owen.”
Damien glances down at his phone when it rings and immediately starts to sweat. “Oh no, it’s DHHS!”
“Well, answer it!” I tell him.
“What do I say? What if they’re calling to say they’re rejecting our application?”
“You don’t know until you answer it!” I snap.
“Okay, okay,” he takes a deep breath, “hello, this is Damien Torres. Uh huh, uh huh, okay, sure, no problem, thank you.”
When he hangs up for one awful second, I’m convinced it was bad news. He looks kind of pale and like he’s about to throw up.
“The director said after the glowing recommendation from Detective Bailey, they’re fast-tracking our application and want to do the home visit tomorrow.”
Damien may have been so nervous he might throw up, but the rest of us explode in celebration.
He claps his hands against his face. “Do you realize how much we have to do before tomorrow?” he moans.
“You better go home and get started then,” I insist.
“And I’ll cover for you tomorrow! What time are they coming?” Aranya asks.
“11:30,” he squeaks.
“Plenty of time to get everything ready if you leave now,” I urge him. “Go! Get out of here and don’t come back until you’ve been approved!”
“Okay, yeah, thanks!” Damien mumbles as he grabs his coat and things and races for the door. Just as he opens the door, he pauses. “I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to thank you enough, every one of you.”
“Thank us by leaving!” Miranda shouts.
And with that, he’s out the door, racing past the window on his way to the parking lot.
“Ten bucks says he barfs on the social worker’s shoes tomorrow,” Miranda says.
“Oh, I think that’s a given,” I respond.