Sheesh, could I have been any more defensive about Mac?
I jerked a rack of steaming mugs from my industrial dishwasher and slammed it on Ground’s kitchen counter. The mugs inside clattered.
Plus, I’d seriously screwed up with those vines today.
The mugs rattled against each other like chattering teeth. I realized I was glaring.
Hastily, I stepped away from the plastic rack and exhaled.
The mugs stilled. I rubbed my hands on my apron.
Riga might have been wrong about me and Mac—I knew what she’d been insinuating. But at least she hadn’t been wrong about my emotions and magic.
And if I was going to go all Freudian, I had to wonder if I’d subconsciously meant to strangle Riga in vines. That, or I was out of control. Maybe I should try meditating again.
The ikat curtains that separated the kitchen from the café rustled. I’d committed a random act of sewing, roughly looping the curtain hooks back on. If you didn’t look too closely, you couldn’t tell they’d been damaged.
Darla edged into the tiny kitchen. “We’re done out there.” She dropped her apron in the cleaning bin and lifted her lightweight jacket off a peg by the storage closet.
“Great,” I said. “Thanks for everything you did today.” Like covering my witchy butt while I’d been sprouting killer vines.
She shrugged into the jacket, then hesitated by the alley door. “Your friend Mac’s death... How are you doing?”
“Honestly? I can’t stop thinking about it. It happened right here, practically inside Ground. I saw it happen and couldn’t do anything.”
She lowered her head. “I don’t think anyone could have done anything.”
Except for the person who’d pulled the trigger. They could have stopped themselves, but they hadn’t. The mugs rattled behind me, and I loosened my hands, breathed more deeply. The rattling stopped.
“I know he was shot,” Darla said quietly, “but... is there anything more to it?”
“More?”
She bit her bottom lip. “Anything... Doyle-ish.”
“Oh.” Darla and I had never talked about Doyle’s magic directly. And I thought that was a good thing. Bad things happened to people who knew too much. But saying nothing felt like a betrayal. Darla was good people.
Like Mac.
No, I couldn’t say more.
“I just worry about Stet—about his family,” she finished quickly.
“I worry too. And I don’t know why he was killed or if there’s anything... more.”
“I know you’ll do the right thing.” Darla patted my upper arm and walked into the alley. The heavy door clanged shut behind her.
Why did doing the right thing have to be so complicated? But Darla was right. And I had to make things right with certain people, starting with Riga.
I picked up my phone and hesitated. Making amends would be the adult thing to do. But I didn’t get the impression she was looking for apologies. I scrolled to the internet and found Stetson’s office number instead.
“Doyle Magazine,” a woman trilled.
I checked the clock on my phone. I’d thought—okay, hoped—I’d have to leave a message, but they were working late. “Hi, I’m, uh, trying to reach Stetson Davidge.”
“Who may I say is calling?”
I winced. He hadn’t been happy to see me at his mother’s house. But I couldn’t leave it at that. “Jayce Bonheim.”
“Please hold.”
Elevator music played over the phone. I waited.
“Yeah?” Stetson said.
“It’s Jayce. I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry if I upset your mother. Or you. Mac was a friend,” I said in a rush before he could hang up. “I keep thinking of our college days and he... He was shot outside Ground’s front door.” A lump squeezed shut my throat. “Stetson, I tried...” I trailed off.
My chest tightened. I’d tried to comfort Mac, but I’d been too late even for that. Mac had been dead before I’d reached him. Riga had been with Mac when he’d drawn his last breath, and I guess I was a little angry about that too. I needed to get over it.
There was a long silence.
“And yes,” I continued in a low voice. “I do want to know who killed your brother.”
“You need to stay away from my mom.”
It wasn’t possible in a small town, and Stetson knew it. “I won’t make any more surprise visits,” I said.
“Good.”
He hadn’t hung up on me, but how far could I push this? I thought of Mac, bleeding on my floor. I’d push it as far as I had to. “Brayden and I are going to be at Antoine’s tonight. Let us buy you a drink. Mac deserves to be remembered.”
“I’ll think about it.” He hung up.
Well, I’d tried. Who knew? Maybe he’d show. I called Brayden and told him about the call. “So what do you think? Antoine’s?”
“That’s confidence.” His laugh was a low rumble. “Do you think he’ll come?”
“Even if he doesn’t, there’s nothing to stop us from enjoying a beer. Life’s too short.” I sobered. “It really is.”
“I know,” Brayden said. “And I’ll meet you at Antoine’s in thirty minutes.”
I finished cleaning, double-checked the locks, and walked across the street to the bar.
Antoine’s is a Doyle institution. It’s a western bar, complete with swinging batwing doors and sawdust on the floors. It was still early, so I had no trouble finding us a booth.
I ordered a dirty martini from the waitress. It had been a long day, and the odds Stetson would show were low. The heck with beer. I deserved a real cocktail.
Idly, I studied a young couple, speaking intently to each other. Innocent tourists or black lodge members? I glanced at an unfamiliar man in a cowboy hat. It was black, and my pulse speeded.
I sat back in the booth. This was ridiculous. I could play the black lodge or tourist game all night, but it was no joke. Lodge members were here, somewhere, and I…
I should have gotten a description from Mrs. Steinberg of her visitors. Any one of them could be the enemy, could have shot Mac.
Digging my phone from my purse, I called her. She didn’t answer, and I left a message.
“It’s Jayce,” I shouted over the juke box and plugged one ear with my finger. “What did those people who... introduced themselves to you look like? And did they give you a name? I’m at Antoine’s,” I added irrelevantly and hung up.
Brayden slid into the booth beside me and looped an arm around my waist, pulling me close. “Hey, babe,” he said, voice husky. “Where’s my beer?”
I lightly punched his arm. “That better not be all you’re here for.”
Brayden grinned and kissed me. “Think he’ll show?” He smelled like soap, and the ends of his dark hair were damp. A five-o-clock shadow touched the hollows of his cheeks.
“I doubt it. But this isn’t such a bad place to wait, is it?”
“No. And I’m starving. There was a bad accident on the highway.”
“Oh, no.” I clasped his hand. Brayden took every loss to heart. “Was anyone…?”
“No. They’ll survive.”
“Thank God.”
“But I didn’t get a break to eat all day,” he said. “I’d just got home to shower and change when you called.”
The waitress appeared, and we ordered burgers. We finished them, and still Stetson hadn’t appeared. It wasn’t looking good. I ordered a glass of water and another martini. The crowd grew.
“How are you doing with Mac’s death, the lodge, everything?” Brayden asked. “How are you really?”
I toyed with my glass. “I know we’re all on a journey to the same destination. There’s no escaping it. But…”
“But what?”
“We’ll deal with whatever comes. What choice do we have? We have to go on, or what else is there? I’m just…” Heat stung my eyes. “Sometimes it seems too much.”
“You’re not alone in this, Jayce. I’ll always be here for you.”
But I knew he might not be, and I couldn’t meet his gaze. Oonagh had lost Mac. I’d come close to losing Brayden before, thanks to Doyle’s magic. “I know,” I lied and smiled. “I couldn’t do this without you.”
“It goes both ways. If I didn’t have you to come home too, I don’t think I could take another accident like today’s.”
I wasn’t the only one carrying a heavy burden, and suddenly, I felt ashamed. “Brayden, I—”
Riga’s friend, Brigitte, walked through the batwing doors. The crowd stilled like a crowd in an old western.
Brigitte scanned the room, her expression impassive, and walked to the bar. There was a collective exhalation, a release, and she perched on a barstool.
“Whoa,” Brayden said.
I straightened, relieved by the interruption. “Seriously? Another woman walks into the bar and you say whoa?”
“Well, you don’t see many women like that in Doyle. Not that I find her attractive or anything,” he said hastily.
I arched a brow. “Oh, that was sincere.”
“I mean, she looks like she walked off the cover of a magazine.”
“Worst. Save. Ever. And that’s Brigitte, the French woman I told you about.”
“She’s helping train you?”
“No.” I rubbed my thumb along the rim of my martini glass. “I mean, that’s what Riga said. But Brigitte wasn’t there for training today, which was, by the way, a complete disaster.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“My plant trick got out of control.”
“How out of control?”
I made a throttling motion with my hands.
“Oh,” he said. “But obviously you didn’t kill her, or I’d be helping you bury a body right—”
“Hey.” Stetson loomed over our table.
I gripped the stem of my martini glass more tightly.
“Stetson.” Brayden slid from the booth and stood. The two men shook hands. “I’m sorry about Mac,” Brayden said.
“Thanks.” Stetson looked down at me. “I’m sorry too, about yesterday.”
I nodded.
Brayden gestured to the empty bench, and Stetson sat.
“Can I buy you a drink?” Brayden asked.
The jukebox skipped, cutting short a song. Patsy Cline warbled about falling to pieces.
“Thanks,” Stetson said.
Brayden flagged down a waitress in the thickening crowd. Stetson ordered a beer.
A colony of bats fluttered inside over the batwing doors. They circled a brass hanging lamp three times and flew as quickly out.
The waitress returned. “Here you go, honey.” She set Stetson’s drink on the table and sashayed off.
Stetson sipped his beer. He met my gaze. “I guess I should be asking you what you saw the day....” He looked down at his broad hands.
“It happened so fast.” I drew my arms in closer. “Mac stopped by for coffee. We chatted.”
“Did he tell you why he was in town?” Stetson asked.
“He said he was taking a break,” I said slowly. Didn’t Stetson know why Mac had returned? “He suggested the four of us—he, Oonagh, Brayden and I—meet for dinner. And then he walked out and there was a gunshot. People were screaming. I saw Mac fall, and I ran to him, but he was gone.”
“The sheriff told me he died inside Ground though, not outside.”
I nodded. “There was a woman walking in while he was walking out. After he fell, she dragged him inside. I guess she thought the shooter might not be done, and that Mac was still...” My breath hitched.
Brayden rubbed my shoulder.
“Do you know who she was?”
A lamp exploded, showering the room with golden sparks. I glanced up, and something wormed in my solar plexus, a niggling idea that something was wrong. And then the thought slithered away.
I focused on the man across from me. How much could I tell Stetson? “We’ve met,” I said. “Her name’s Riga Hayworth.”
“What’s she doing here?”
“Tourism, I think.”
“What’s she look like?” he asked.
“Auburn hair. About my height. She’s a little older, maybe in her... forties? It’s hard to tell.” She could have been in her thirties, but there was something about her eyes… Fifties?
I sipped my martini. It was time I started asking instead of answering questions. “Why was Mac back in Doyle?”
He looked away. “Family visit. We weren’t able to make it to the wedding.” He met my gaze. “They eloped. Mom was hurt. They could have had the wedding here, but...” He shrugged.
“I’m surprised, since Oonagh’s family’s in Doyle,” I said.
“Not anymore,” Stetson said. “They moved a few months ago. But yeah, she grew up here.”
“I thought the name sounded familiar,” Brayden said.
“You did?” I asked.
“Oonagh’s a few years younger than you and Mac,” Stetson said to me. “You would have been in a different...” he trailed off, his cheeks darkening.
“Class?” I asked. “It’s okay. I’m not ashamed of being homeschooled.” Even if it had wrecked my childhood social life. But that was because of the magic, not the schooling. “Stetson, do you have any idea who—”
The jukebox hopped into the air, came down hard, and fell silent.
“I’m going to get another beer.” Stetson stood and pushed through the crowd toward the bar.
“Do you get the feeling something odd’s going on here?” Brayden asked.
I did, I really did. But the bar seemed normal. What was bothering me? “What do you mean?”
His face clouded. His mouth opened and shut, his brows drawing inward. “Is Stetson being too cooperative?”
“Not if he’s innocent. And he hasn’t given us that much information.”
Stetson returned. Pink and green sparks shot from his beer.
“Pretty,” I said, and frowned. Brayden was right. Something was off. I reached for the idea, and again, it slipped from my mental grasp.
Stetson took a gulp and belched purple smoke. “Not bad.”
“It seems strange,” I said, “that the day Mac returns to Doyle, someone shoots him. Did anyone else know he was coming home? Did he have any enemies here?”
The crowd parted, and Brigitte strolled to our booth. “Ah, it is you, Jayce Bonheim. I hear you nearly killed my familiar today. For the attempt, I salute you.” She bowed with a flourish. “Someone must keep Riga on her toes.”
“Familiar?” Brayden asked.
“Riga?” Stetson said.
She hiccupped. “Ah, and you must be Brayden. I have heard much about your bravery.” She stuck out her hand.
Brayden, looking baffled, shook it.
“But where are your other sisters?” she asked. “A night like this calls for witchery, does it not?”
I laughed uneasily and glanced at Stetson. “Right. They’re... I’m not sure where they are.”
“Ah, well. Perhaps it is better if the forces are disbursed.”
“You know this Riga woman?” Stetson asked.
“I have known Riga since she was a very foolish girl,” she said.
“Were you at Ground when the shooting happened?”
“No,” I said quickly. “She wasn’t.”
“But you must—” Brigitte went rigid, paling.
“What?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Riga,” she whispered. “She is in danger.”