For months, I’d been kicking around some ideas for how to create the best spell to get Connell back. The spellbook club had agreed with the ones I’d run by them. Now I needed some particulars.
Particulars that didn’t rely on Teddy acting as a tether.
I refused to wait to find someone else who could exist on both planes at once. Who knew how long that would take? I’d thought about trying to find a medium who could do the job, but there were two problems with that. First off, how would I know if they were legit? The medium who had inadvertently brought Connell to the fore was out of the country again, working on a movie set, and since that had been an accident, I didn’t think she’d be able to help us anyway. Which brought up the second objection, which was that mediums invited spirits to visit them of their own free will. Connell didn’t need an invitation. He was happy to come back. No, he needed to be neatly caught in the net of a spell and brought back.
So. How to combine a spell for finding lost objects with one designed to pierce the veil? Would it be a spell within a cast circle, or something different?
A cast circle, I thought. That was what I knew so well, and what felt most natural. Spells and rituals were about intention in the end, intention augmented by harnessing the power of the elements and of nature. Best to focus on that. Besides, that was how the spellbook club was used to working, too, and I was going to need their help.
After a bit, I came across a list of herbs that helped reach the other side. I opened my grimoire, my personal book of spells that I’d added to ever since learning I was a witch. I thought of it as my recipe book, complete with notes, comments, and possible additions to the rituals I performed or wanted to try. I was keeping all my research on the spell I was developing there. I made a note to add cinnamon, allspice, frankincense, and myrrh into the mix.
Nothing else caught my attention. I closed the book and gently tapped the end of the pen against my teeth. Mungo grunted and rolled over, looking at me upside down from the end of the bed. Then he righted himself and trundled up to snuggle in next to my hip.
Mimsey had suggested using graveyard dirt in the spell, which made sense. It might seem gory, but she’d explained that it was traditionally used in any kind of spell involving transition. Not only that, but it was used in all sorts of Samhain spells as a matter of course, to connect with departed ancestors and friends.
I made another note.
Need to ask Jaida to bring the right tarot card . . .
Another note.
Lucy and I needed to bring our hedgewitchery into play, too. I grabbed another spellbook and found what I was looking for—Samhain ritual cakes made with pumpkin, ginger, and cinnamon.
What else? Maybe I could find a suggestion online. I slipped out of bed, lifted Mungo to the floor, and padded out of the bedroom to trade out the spellbooks for my laptop. Rather than risk disturbing Declan, I settled on the sofa, tucking my legs beneath me. Mungo jumped up to join me, for all the world looking as if he were checking out the websites I brought up.
After ten minutes, I’d found nothing of interest and closed the laptop. I opened my grimoire to my notes on Connell. Next to those, the page was blank. Soon I found myself doodling names.
Leigh Markes. Aldo Bracket. Walker Stokes. Zoe Stokes. Paisley Long. Calista Markes. Jo . . . something.
All suspects. Perhaps. Not Zoe. No, I was pretty sure Zoe Stokes hadn’t snuck home from college to kill her mother, though it wasn’t impossible. But what possible motive could she have?
I couldn’t even guess.
Aldo Bracket, though. Could he have killed Leigh because she didn’t want to give him a show in her gallery? Really? He’d been promised the show, had apparently talked Leigh’s assistant into it once, and was trying again now that Leigh was dead. How important was that show to him? He didn’t seem, well, artistic. From what Steve had told me, he was a spoiled rich kid, possibly with a chip on his shoulder, and stranger still, he hadn’t even seemed to connect with his art.
I wonder if I could act like I was interested in purchasing a piece and get him to talk to me more about it. Maybe he’d let something slip . . .
And then there was Paisley herself. She’d been running Leigh’s gallery for a long time while Leigh took care of her father. Then, boom! Suddenly Leigh was back in charge, and one of the first things she did was reverse a decision Paisley had made about Aldo’s show. Who knew what other decisions she’d questioned, what she might have said to Paisley. I hadn’t known Leigh well, but she was no-nonsense and blunt. That wouldn’t go over well with everyone.
I wondered if it had contributed to her divorce. But her ex must have understood from the beginning that he was marrying an assertive woman. She didn’t exactly hide who she was. And from what Iris had said, Walker Stokes was hardly blameless. I hoped Jaida would find something in the public records or through her lawyerly channels that would help to unmuddy the picture I had of him.
Calista Markes and her sister hadn’t been on the best of terms, but I had no way to know if that was their normal relationship. I was an only child, but I knew sisters often squabbled without meaning much by it. But as they’d left the Honeybee, Leigh had said something to her friend Jo about how difficult Calista had become since their father had died. Perhaps the rift between them had ended in violence.
For all I knew, Jo had been the last person to see Leigh that evening. I didn’t know her last name, but she’d looked vaguely familiar. Without much hope, I opened my laptop again and considered. Leigh and Jo had seemed comfortable with each other. Jo knew Calista, too, and had easily commented on their father’s death.
So probably a family friend. At least a good friend.
I input Leigh’s name and simply “Jo,” then clicked on Images. Sure enough, a picture of Leigh and Jo taken at a fundraiser came up. The caption said her last name was Sterling.
When I searched for Jo Sterling, I found a treasure trove of information.
I’d thought she looked like a professional athlete, and it turned out I was right. Or at least she had been. Jo Sterling was thirty-seven and had been prominent on the women’s golf tour until a few years ago. Then a television viewer had emailed the golf powers that be, sure she’d seen a rule infraction during a tournament Jo was playing in. It had resulted in a multiple-stroke penalty the next day and had cost Jo the win. Two weeks later, she’d torn her rotator cuff and shortly after that announced her retirement.
Now she and her husband owned a fitness center on the north side of town.
I closed the laptop, placed it on the coffee table, and picked up Mungo. I needed more information about Walker Stokes, Calista Markes, and Aldo Bracket, as well as Jo Sterling. But more than anything, I needed to get some sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day.
The next morning, Iris and Lucy both came in early, and we got the regular baking done in short order. Then we started preparing what we could for the Halloween party. The candy corn cupcakes were already baked, wrapped, and frozen. I loved that when frozen cake thawed, it was not only easier to frost or ice, but even moister than it would have been without freezing. It was the same for Lucy’s “dirt” brownies. Now we made up sugar cookie dough for extra moon and star cookies, cut out the shapes, and froze those so we could bake them the morning of Halloween. By the time the midmorning rush hit the bakery, things were well in hand.
Lucy had brought her Dutch oven, an impressive black cast-iron beast that looked great perched on the coffee counter surrounded by garlands of autumn leaves and a few hairy spiders.
“Hey, Ben,” I said to my uncle as I arranged the last spider. He was lounging behind the counter with that morning’s paper. “Anything in there about Leigh’s murder?”
He made a wry face. “Plenty about her and her family, old-school, upstanding members of Savannah society that they were, but not much about the murder investigation. It’s officially ‘ongoing.’ ”
“Hm. I guess that doesn’t mean much. Detective Quinn isn’t going to give Steve any information that might endanger official inquiries.” He wouldn’t give me any, either, at least not intentionally. But it wasn’t time to give him a call yet. I still had more to find out on my own.
I tucked a spider leg behind a maple leaf and called it good. “You know the blonde who was here the other day with Leigh?”
Ben looked interested.
“I was poking around online last night and discovered she used to be a professional golfer.” Ben was a regular Sunday golfer and, to Lucy’s chagrin, often watched golf on television.
He snapped his fingers. “I thought I recognized her, but I didn’t know from where. What’s her name?”
“Jo Sterling.”
“Of course! Crazy what happened to her.”
“I saw the thing about a television viewer costing her a big win. That seemed pretty strange. How can that be legal? I mean, in the rules of golf or whatever.”
He shook his head. “Weird, huh. I think she tried to fight it, but it’s allowed. She retired soon after that. I wonder if that tournament is why.”
“She tore her rotator cuff,” I said.
He shrugged. “Either way, she’s out of the game now.”
My phone buzzed in my apron pocket. When I saw it was Jaida, I ducked into the kitchen to answer it.
“Hey.”
“Hey yourself,” she said. “I’ve been going through public records. I started with Leigh’s ex, since the police always look at the spouse or ex-spouse first.”
“Right. I’ve been wondering about him ever since Iris mentioned him.” I moved back to the office and closed the door. “Find anything?”
“A couple of things. First off, their divorce was final about two years ago. Two months later, he married again.”
I let out a low whistle. “That was fast.”
Mungo sat up on his club chair and cocked his head at me.
“Wasn’t it? Then again, we don’t know if Walker and Leigh had been separated for a while before the divorce—there were no separation papers filed, mind you, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t try a trial separation.”
“You’re right. Best not to jump to conclusions.”
“When they divorced, their daughter was eighteen and off to college, so there were no custody issues. However, nothing was mentioned about who was supposed to pay for her college. It wouldn’t be Walker, though, because he declared bankruptcy right after the divorce.”
“Ouch.” I sat down in the office chair. “Do you think Leigh took him for a lot of money?”
And would that be a motive for murder?
“It doesn’t look that way. On the other hand, he didn’t get much money from her, either, though he still retains part-ownership of the gallery. Hers was old family money, and her father made darn sure it was protected when she married Walker.”
“So he lost the benefit of that money when they split. Who filed for the divorce?” I asked.
“Leigh did,” Jaida said. “So that’s what I have so far. I checked to see if her father’s will has been probated yet, but it hasn’t. He only passed away last month, and it takes a while. He did, however, quit-claim the family home to Leigh’s sister, Calista Markes. It looks like he did that when he moved in with Leigh, presumably so she could care for him. Her address was on the papers he filed.”
“Katie!” Lucy opened the door. “You need to come out here. Cookie brought the baby by!”
“Oh, Jaida, I have to go. Cookie’s here with Isabella. Thank you so much for digging this info up. I know it’s taking time away from your work.”
“No problem. Like I said, Gregory’s covering for me. Let me know if you think of anything else I can do to help. And give that baby a kiss for me.”
“Will do!” I hung up and hurried out.
Cookie was standing by the coffee counter with Isabella in a baby sling wrapped around her chest, and Lucy was already cooing over the three-week-old bundle of joy. Isabella gurgled and smiled at my aunt, and a brilliant smile erupted on Lucy’s face. She and Ben had married relatively late in life and hadn’t had any children. Lucy was one of the most nurturing women I knew, gentle and thoughtful of others almost to a fault, but when I’d asked her if she missed having children, she’d been philosophical about it, telling me that it had been a choice she and Ben had made.
Nevertheless, I knew Cookie now had yet another built-in babysitter anytime she wanted one.
As I approached them, also melting a little at Isabella’s bright dark eyes and button nose, the thought of having my own child with Declan flashed across my mind. But that was for later. We’d already decided to wait at least a year or two after marrying.
“Oh, Katie. Look at this little one,” Lucy breathed.
I smiled at Cookie, who looked down at her daughter with a mellow expression of pure love. “She’s adorable.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, she is.”
Then she looked up. “We haven’t been out much, but I thought this would be a good time to start. My manman will be leaving soon, and Oscar and I will be on our own.” Another doting glance down at Isabella, whose eyes were starting to blink sleepily. “Anyway, I brought this for Iris’ friend Zoe.” She reached into her pocket and held out her hand. A beaded leather necklace dangled from her fingers. “The comfort amulet I mentioned yesterday.”
Lucy’s eyes quickly raked the customers in the bakery and said, “Come into the office. You can tell us all about it. Iris!”
Our friend followed us back to the office, but there was no way all four of us could fit in the small space. Instead, we gathered just outside, hidden from view and being overheard by a bank of cabinets.
“Yes, Lucy?” Iris came around the corner. “Oh, look at her!” she exclaimed as soon as she saw the baby. “Ooh.” She bent and gently stroked Isabella’s perfect, plump cheek with the back of her finger. “Hi, baby.”
Cookie smiled indulgently as Iris straightened, then held out the necklace to her. “Hi, honey. Listen, I wanted to drop this by for your friend Zoe. It’s a comfort amulet. Not in the traditional form, but perhaps something she might wear. I’ll leave it up to you whether to tell her the significance of the crystals and that it’s been magicked.”
“Magicked,” Iris repeated, her eyes wide. “And the crystals?”
Cookie had strung several different kinds on the leather cord, and now she listed them off. “There’s Apache tear to help with grief, rose quartz for calm and to feel the love of the universe, smoky quartz for sadness, clear quartz for clarity, onyx and carnelian to help ground her, moonstone for strength, and several amethysts mixed in. Amethyst is a soul stone, to help with balance, peace, sadness, and so many other things.”
“Wow.” Iris looked thoughtful. “I don’t know how open Zoe would be to the idea of a necklace with a spell on it, though. It can’t do any harm, can it?”
We all shook our heads.
“This is entirely white magic,” Cookie said with a smile.
Iris nodded. “I think I’ll just tell her I got it for her birthday, which was last month, and this is the first chance I’ve had to give it to her.”
“That’s fine,” Lucy said. “She doesn’t have to know what it is in order for it to help her.”
Iris’ eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Thanks, Cookie. I really appreciate you going to all this trouble for someone you don’t even know.”
Our friend waved her hand. “No worries.” An expression of sorrow came into her eyes. “I know what it’s like to lose someone.” She looked around at us. “We all do.”
Nods from each of us.
The rising sounds of voices out front alerted us to new customers. As we went back out to help Ben, Iris tucked the necklace Cookie had given her into her pocket. “Say, can I ask you a question?”
I looked back and saw Iris drawing Cookie aside. “Listen, I know you, um, dated quite a bit before you got married. How did you know Oscar was the one?”
Cookie grinned and said something. I didn’t know what it was, but I saw the look in her eye and suspected it was something along the lines of what she’d told me when I’d asked her the same question before marrying Declan.
When you knew, you knew.