Things were slowing down at the Honeybee when I got back. Most of the pies had been picked up, and since we were closed the next day, we could skip the usual kitchen prep. Of course, the morning after Thanksgiving would see me at work earlier than ever to get ready for the Black Friday shoppers.
Mungo watched from the office doorway as I tied a red-checked apron over my gray ensemble.
“I talked to Declan,” Ben said.
I whirled around.
My uncle smiled tentatively at me. “He told me to stop being a jerk. That this marriage business was between you two and not my concern.”
I couldn’t help the grin that spread across my face.
“Don’t get cocky,” he said. “I still think you need to make a decision. The right decision.”
“Ben—”
He held up his hand. “In the meantime, Lucy told me about what you have planned tonight. Count me in.”
“Thanks.” I gave him a hug.
“Well, since Declan can’t be there to have your back, I figure I’d better step in to protect you.”
“Ben!” Lucy said from the register, where she’d apparently been listening to us.
He winked at me and moved out front.
“What was that all about?” Angie asked from where she was organizing canned goods in the pantry.
“He’s teasing me,” I said.
Protect you. Ben knew darn well I could take care of myself, even if he’d thrown a fit when someone tried to run me over with a Dumpster.
Still, it was nice to know he was on my side. I didn’t want to tangle with Dr. Dana’s murderer by myself.
As the day wound down and the last of the pies went out the door, the subtle current of energy beneath my skin increased bit by bit. I kept telling myself not to count too much on tonight. There were too many variables, too many possibilities, too many ways for it not to work out.
The most likely outcome would be a night spent in the back room of the Fox and Hound with Ben, Croft, and Angie. None of them would thank me when nothing came of my grand plan except an exhausted Thanksgiving and a murderer still free.
* * *
At eight o’clock, the main area of the Fox and Hound was dark, and the CLOSED sign hung in the window. We were all in the back room with the door tightly shut. Croft had even laid a piece of cardboard under the jamb to ensure no light would escape. Anyone who peered through the window facing Broughton would never know someone was still in the store.
“How long do you think we’ll need to wait?” Lucy asked.
“I wish you hadn’t insisted on coming along on this escapade,” Ben said. It came out gruffly, but I knew he would rather keep his beloved out of harm’s way.
“I was just wondering whether we planned on staying here until dawn.” She marched over and sat down on the folding chair next to Mimsey. The older witch was ensconced on one of the sliding rockers that usually sat in front of the fireplace. Croft and Ben had carried it into the storage room when she had entered the store at closing time and announced that she would be joining us for the duration.
Lucy had told Mimsey what we’d planned. She’d wanted to call all the spellbook club members, but I’d dissuaded her. There was no reason for nine of us to spend the night before Thanksgiving in the Fox and Hound. She’d agreed, but there was still more of a crowd than I’d expected.
Croft was there, of course. And Ben. I hadn’t been surprised when Mimsey decided to partake; heaven knew what her husband thought of his seventy-nine-year-old wife taking off like that. Perhaps he was used to it by now. And I certainly wasn’t going to tell Mimsey Carmichael no. Once she was in, Lucy had to come, too. Mungo sat by my feet, and Angie—nervous but unwilling to stay by herself in either her apartment or the carriage house—perched on the edge of a stool on the other side of him.
Already tensions were riding a little high. Other than Mimsey, we were sitting around on hard metal seats, and the room was chilly. Ben had grabbed pizza from Screamin’ Mimi’s, so we’d eaten. Still, the smell of garlic in the air had soon become oppressive in the closed space.
“I don’t think we’ll have to wait until dawn,” I told my aunt. “If the person who tried to break in before decides to try it again, they’ll know they could get caught by early bakers if they don’t show up before four a.m.”
“Four in the morning,” Croft said, weariness already threading his tone.
Ben came over to pat his wife on the shoulder. “Of course, the intruder might not worry too much about getting caught on Thanksgiving morning. Most businesses up and down the street won’t be opening at all.” He gave me a pointed look. “Including the Honeybee.”
I passed my hand over my face. Hadn’t thought of that.
“Now, don’t worry,” my uncle said. “All we can do is settle in as comfortably as possible and hope this works.”
No pressure.
A banging on the front door made me jump.
“What the heck?” Croft bolted to his feet.
We looked around at one another. The banging stopped. Croft reached over and turned out the light, plunging us into total darkness. He opened the door a fraction to look out.
“Whoever it was left. Good Lord, you’d think customers would understand the concept of a store being closed.”
“Maybe it wasn’t a customer,” I said. “Maybe it was someone checking to see if the store is empty.”
Angie sucked in her breath.
A fist pounded on the back door, and my heart jerked against my rib cage.
“Croft! Katie!” A deep voice, not loud, but insistent.
I hurried over and cracked the door. Detective Quinn stood in the dark alley. He wore faded blue jeans, a rag-wool sweater that had seen better days, and a worn bomber jacket. Opening the door farther, I grabbed him by the sleeve and dragged him inside. Quickly cranking the lock closed again, I turned to him.
“Listen, Quinn. Just because you don’t like this idea doesn’t mean you need to sabotage it. I mean, what harm can it do? We either catch the bad guy or we don’t. There’s no downside for you. I can’t believe you’re so—”
He grabbed my shoulders. “Settle down. I’m not sabotaging you.”
My arm waved wildly. “But you just announced our presence.”
“Will you relax? There’s no one out there. Believe me—I checked.”
“I assume that was you at the front door? How could you know no one was watching?”
“It’s too early—”
I shrugged off his hands and went to stand by Lucy and Ben.
He sighed and turned to the others. “Croft. Ms. Carmichael.”
From her rocker, Mimsey twinkled her blue eyes at him. “Detective. Welcome to our little party. I assume you’re here to help?”
He shot a glance at me. “Certainly. It’s not like I have anything else to do tonight.” Sarcastic. And then he turned to Angie. “And I want to keep an eye on things.”
She reddened and looked away.
* * *
Quinn ate a couple of pieces of pizza, then settled onto a chair and took out his phone. Soon he was tapping away, still working even on stakeout. Mimsey found a bodice-ripper romance on the storage shelves and dove in. Ben, Lucy, and Angie all followed suit, whiling the time away with their own selections from Croft’s stock. Croft himself sat with his feet up on another chair, arms crossed, and appeared to nod off.
Hours ticked by. Hushed conversation would flare for a few minutes and then quickly fade. They were all getting tired, and I was beginning to really regret the whole stupid idea. I couldn’t stay still and paced the short distance between the rack of chairs and the returns shelf over and over. Mungo trotted along beside me for a while but eventually went to lie in the corner and watch me.
As I paced, my brain replayed the events over the last few days. Our introduction to the concept of Radical Trust. Angie confronting Dr. Dana during her talk. Earl King denying the psychologist’s medical bona fides. A drained Phoebe Miller packing up her sister’s things. Using my Voice on Ronnie Lake. A book of tarot spells and partially burned candles. The burning spell on my lawn. Three satin ribbons.
I stopped pacing.
Ribbons.
Did druids use burning spells? I didn’t know, but the more I thought about it, it was hard to imagine Steve performing any kind of magic that required ribbons. So it had to be the same person I’d scared away in the alley. Right?
Except it was pretty hard imagining Nate performing a burning spell—or any kind of magic for that matter. I’d been fooled before, though.
I resumed my steps.
Cyanide. Who used cyanide to kill in the twenty-first century? Nate and Earl King had access, one via business and the other from his hobby. But something kept bothering me about that, too.
Cyanide. Study in Scarlet. Sherlock Holmes.
Poison is a woman’s weapon.
A bit sexist, that. But still, Holmes had been pretty smart for a fictional character.
Dr. Dana had written Nate as she died. Her killer, I’d assumed. But maybe Lucy was right. Maybe Dana Dobbs had no idea who had poisoned her sweet tea. So why Nate?
Because he was the last thing she thought of when she was dying? Because she loved her husband?
Something twisted inside of me at the thought.
So if not Nate, who? Earl? Maybe. Sophie? Possible, but my gut told me no. Ronnie Lake? Another possibility, but I couldn’t help but think that if she was the killer, she would have given some hint of that under the influence of my Voice.
“Hey, Katie. Keep a lookout for Phoebe Miller’s wallet,” Croft said in a sleepy voice.
Startled out of my train of thought, I paused before resuming my steps. “You can stop worrying about that. She told me she found it.”
“Oh, good. I’d wondered.” Croft stood and stretched. Lucy looked up at him absently, then went back to her book. “On Sunday she thought it might have fallen out of her pocket back here the night before, when the police brought her back to see . . . you know. Her sister.”
Quinn was watching us now.
“I couldn’t let her look for it then, though.” Croft looked pointedly at Quinn. “Since this area was all cordoned off with police tape. I’m glad she didn’t have to deal with the DMV and canceling her credit cards after all.”
But I was staring at him. Yellow tape or not, Phoebe had been back by the storage room door when I’d walked into the Fox and Hound bearing sympathy and restorative pumpkin spice cookies. Croft had been in the office. Had my sudden arrival stopped her from going farther?
And come to think of it, she’d seemed slightly flummoxed when I’d asked her about her wallet at the radio station.
The image of Phoebe standing in the Fox and Hound the morning after her sister died filled my mental movie screen. She’d been wearing a peacoat. A very bulky peacoat. Add a hat and the darkness of a predawn alley or the darkness of the street outside Margie’s house . . .
I hadn’t thought of Phoebe as particularly tall, but I was five-eight, and I’d had to adjust the mic at the memorial down a good three inches after she’d spoken into it. And the burning spell? Well, the only proof I had that the book of tarot spells and half-burned candles she’d been packing up at the radio station had been Dana’s had come from Phoebe herself.
Jaida said thirteen red candles were part of a classic tarot love spell. To force someone’s love.
Ugh.
“Quinn,” I said in a low voice. “I think I might have been all wrong about the identity of the murderer.”
Croft whirled toward me. “What?”
The others regarded me with frank curiosity, and not a little frustration.
Quinn put down his phone in such a deliberate, careful manner that I got the impression he was trying to control himself. His attention flicked to Angie, who was watching me with a narrowed gaze, then back to me.
“I think the killer is—”
“Shh!” Ben hissed.
In the instant silence, we all heard it. A scratching at the back door, metal on metal.
Quinn faded to the side of the entrance, and I leaped to the light switch. The room descended into darkness just as there was a snapping sound and the door opened to reveal a figure outlined by the lighter shade of night out in the alley.
Tall. Bulky. Hat.
A headlamp switched on, blinding me to everything but the narrow beam of light. I shrank against the wall, holding my breath, as the person took a step inside. Sniffed the air. Would our visitor flee at the scent of garlic from the pizza? I hadn’t thought of that, but Lucy had told me that garlic was more than pungent. There was a reason for the belief that it could repel vampires, because the odiferous bulbs actually did contain the potential magic to repel evil.
The figure took another step, then another. The headlamp swished back and forth across the room. Suddenly, it stopped.
Focused on Mimsey, still sitting in her rocking chair, beaming up at the newcomer.
“Hello!” she sang.
The figure turned to run, but the door to the alley slammed shut. I flipped the light switch.
Phoebe Miller stood squinting into the sudden illumination of the overhead light, eyes darting right and left as she tried to assess her situation. She whirled to find Quinn standing with his back to the door, preventing her escape. I obstructed the way into the bookstore. Other than Mimsey, the others had faded to the sidelines.
Phoebe wore the peacoat I remembered from her visit to the Fox and Hound, and a knit hat pulled down over her ears. Slowly, she reached up and turned off the headlamp.
“Do you know this woman, Katie?” Mimsey asked, still rocking slowly. Her feet didn’t quite touch the floor.
“That’s Dr. Dana’s sister,” I said. “Phoebe Miller.”
“Dear,” Mimsey said gently. “I believe what they say is, ‘The game is up.’”
Phoebe stared at the older woman, then at me. “What is this?”
“Well,” I said in an almost apologetic tone. “It’s a trap really. And you fell into it. Though, honestly, I don’t know for certain why you came.”
Quinn’s eyes narrowed.
“I mean, I understand that you killed your sister. That I figured out. You slipped the cyanide in her sweet tea and waited for her to die. You acted so grief stricken, so at sea, that no one suspected you.”
Standing on the very spot where Dr. Dana Dobbs had succumbed to death, her sister glared at me. “Who are you?”
“I’m the one who made the sweet tea, which you then poisoned. I’m the one you almost killed in the alley with the Dumpster.” I felt anger surging, blooming in my chest with red heat. “I’m the one who knows for certain that Angie Kissel didn’t kill your sister. That you did. And I’m the one who’s going to make sure you go to prison for your crime.”
Over her shoulder, Quinn managed to look skeptical, impressed, and amused at the same time. I didn’t know if she recognized him in his casual clothes.
“I’m sure the police can find out all they need about the details, but I want to know why you did it.”
She took off the hat and tossed her hair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Honestly, accusing me of killing my own sister.”
“We just caught you in the middle of a break-in,” I pointed out. “You’re not exactly in a position of power.”
Croft strode toward her and stopped a few yards away.
Fear flared on her face when she saw him; then it was replaced with calculation. “Mr. Barrow,” she said. I could almost see her brain scrambling for an explanation. “I know this was wrong, but I was so desperate to find my wallet, you see. It contains something quite sentimental—”
“You told me you found it in your car,” I said.
Croft made a rude noise.
She skewered me with her eyes. Opened her mouth. Closed it again.
“Let’s see here,” I said, starting to pace back and forth in front of her. It had helped me think earlier. Maybe it would now. I kept my gaze on her the whole time.
“The tarot spell book.”
She blinked.
“And the candles. Not your sister’s, were they? They were yours. And you’re the one who left that little campfire on my front lawn in an attempt to bind me from looking for her killer.”
Quinn’s brow knit in puzzlement.
Phoebe’s nostrils flared.
“But who did you want to . . . Oh.” I stopped. “Oh, my. You’re in love with Nate Dobbs.”
Tears suddenly filled her eyes.
I shook my head. “You’re such a good liar. The way you acted like you could barely stand him at the signing. The way you avoided him. I bet your sister, your trusting sister, never had a clue you two were having an affair.”
Mimsey watched us with an unreadable expression, but over by the shelving units, Lucy’s mouth was twisted into repugnance. Ben held her close to his side. Nearby, Angie gaped up at the tableau. Red fury rolled off Croft so strongly that I feared for his heart.
“We weren’t having an affair,” Phoebe whispered. “He was too good for that.”
“Right. Isn’t that why he wanted a divorce?” I asked.
“He wanted a divorce because my sister was watching his every move. Because he couldn’t stand it anymore.” Her voice grew louder. “Because he couldn’t stand her anymore. But she wouldn’t let him go.” She swallowed, hard. “And I didn’t have a chance with him unless he was free of her.”
“So you killed her,” I said. Our eyes were locked. The rest of the room seemed to have faded away. “The red candles and tarot spell book you implied were Dana’s at the radio station—you tried to use them to make Nate love you.”
Her breath came in ragged gasps.
“And you saw the book open on the table when you came back in with the police to see your sister before they took her to the morgue. The book where Dana had written his name.”
A sob, and her hand came up to cover her mouth as if she could keep the words inside.
I fell silent. Seconds ticked by.
And another piece fell into place.
“If it wasn’t you, then it was Nate,” I said airily. “I guess Dana really did name her killer moments before she died. I mean, he had access to the poison she was killed with, and she wouldn’t give him a divorce. Now he has his freedom, and I’m betting he gets the majority of her money, too.” I broke eye contact and turned away. “Maybe I was mistaken about what you told me about your wallet. But if that’s why you’re here, then Nate must be the killer. Croft, we need to call the police and show them the book.”
“No!” Phoebe wailed. “No, it wasn’t him. I saw what she’d written and knew the police would think he’d killed her. I didn’t know he worked with cyanide! I’d never have made it if I’d known.” She reached into her pocket, and through the thick fabric, I saw her hand close around something.
“You’re insane,” Croft said, shuffling closer. His eyes blazed, and his hands were clenched into fists by his sides. “A heartless, murdering psychopath. You deserve to rot for what you did.”
“Croft,” I warned.
She pulled her hand out of her pocket and raised it to his face.
Quinn saw and started toward her.
“No!” I yelled. It was as much at myself as at Phoebe. A familiar power had flared to life beneath my skin, erupting at a cellular level. I struggled to contain it, hyperaware of Quinn’s approach.
She grimaced and pressed down on the black plastic tube in her hand, squirting pepper spray into the bookstore owner’s eyes. He screamed and covered his face with both hands, staggering backward toward the wall.
Ben rushed her next, and she spun toward him.
I watched as if it was all in slow motion. “No, no, no.”
Spray erupted from the canister, heading straight for my uncle’s face. I closed my eyes and reached out my hand. My intention coiled out to grab the aerosol droplets from two yards away and fling them back into Phoebe’s face.
She cried out.
I opened my eyes.
My skin was still pulsing with an undercurrent of silvery light. A quick glance around revealed Angie staring at me with wonder, while Ben and Mimsey had turned their attention to Quinn. Lucy had rushed to Croft’s side and was already leading him out front to the restroom, murmuring comfort.
“What the hell was that, Lightfoot?” Quinn thundered.
I swallowed and took a deep breath and pointed to Phoebe, who had fallen to her knees at his feet. “I told you I’d get a confession.”
“Yeah, yeah. I recorded it. But that’s not what I’m talking about.” He looked wildly around. “Did you guys see that?”
Mimsey politely raised her eyebrows. “See what?”
Quinn took a pair of handcuffs from the pocket of his leather jacket. “Ben?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” my uncle said gruffly. “I’m calling an ambulance for Croft.”
“She glowed,” Phoebe said through her tears as Quinn helped her to her feet. Her face was swollen, and her eyes red. “She did it in the alley, too.” She pointed a shaking finger at me. “She’s a witch.”
I forced a laugh. “Right. I love it when a murderer calls me names.”
But Detective Quinn’s look was speculative as he began the process of wrapping things up.