Spells and Scones (10 page)

My swallow was audible. “Sorry.”

His expression had hardened, but all he said was,
“So am I.” A couple of beats, then: “So are you looking to move from your current location?”

Confused, I scrambled to catch up. “Oh, the Honeybee? No, we love where we're at.”

He frowned. “Then . . . ?”

I pasted a big smile on my face. “My aunt and uncle—they own the bakery with me—live down the road there.” I gestured. “And we were talking about whether the area could support a second Honeybee bakery.”

He fished in his pocket and handed me a rumpled business card. “Another six months or so, and these spaces should be ready. Give me a call if you're still interested.”

I thanked him and hightailed it back to my car. He was still standing in the parking lot, watching, as I pulled away.

*   *   *

Declan was waiting when Mungo and I got home around five. I'd texted him to let him know the spellbook club was meeting and that I'd be a little late. He hadn't seemed too disturbed, since he was already planning to watch the Falcons game on the TV up in the loft. I found him sprawled on the futon in front of the screen, a litter of potato chips, onion dip, and an empty beer bottle on the floor. Even though I wasn't personally a fan, I couldn't begrudge him his football Sundays.

He jumped to his feet when he saw me, but after a kiss hello I waved him back to his makeshift lair. “Relax. I'll whip up something easy for dinner.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely. I'm a little on edge, and cooking soothes me.”

He frowned. “Something happened at the meeting?”

“Looks like you were right about me trying to find out
who killed Dr. Dana. But at least I've got the help of the other ladies.”

One side of his mouth pulled back in a combination grin and grimace. “Ah. Promise me you won't get hurt?”

“Believe me—I'll do my best.”

“And you've got my help if you need or want it. You know that.”

I nodded.

He gave me another kiss and settled back in front of the television. “Let me know if you change your mind and want some help in the kitchen.”

I assured him I would and went back downstairs. Honestly, I was glad he was occupied. We spent a lot of time together during his time off—which was all but the forty-eight-hour shift he worked at the firehouse each week—and the carriage house was small. As much as I loved the guy, sometimes I felt a little crowded. We could have spent more time at his place, an apartment in the historic district. But the furniture was uncomfortable, and that wouldn't really have solved my occasional problem of getting enough alone time.

And right now I needed to think about everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. So I mulled things over as I chopped potatoes, shallots, and peppers, tossed them with olive oil, chopped garlic, rosemary, and lemon zest, and dumped the whole shebang into my favorite old cast-iron skillet. Then I took out a couple of bone-in chicken breasts and plopped them on top, doused them with more lemon juice, oil, and salt and pepper, and placed the whole thing into the oven to roast into a melt-in-your-mouth one-dish meal.

Soon the scents of roasting chicken, garlic, and rosemary filled the little house. I decided it was a bit chilly to eat on the patio that night and set the tiny table in
the kitchen. Then I slipped on a fleece jacket, grabbed a lantern, notebook, and pen, and went out to the backyard gazebo. Mungo trotted along at my heel, pausing once to roll on his back in the grass.

Most of the backyard was cut into garden beds. Declan had helped me with a lot of the work, and now there were different spaces devoted to flowers and medicinal and culinary herbs, and a separate section by the back corner where the plants were specifically chosen for their magical properties. A small stream ran across that corner, live water that benefited the plants that surrounded it and the spells in which they were used. The gardens were tired this time of year, their growth slowing in the cooler temperatures and shorter days, but there hadn't been a frost yet.

I climbed the steps to the gazebo and sat in one of the mismatched thrift-store chairs. Mungo settled under the table, right in the middle of the five-pointed star in the center of the round floor. It was only ten inches in diameter, painted white with a purple border. A besom, a handmade broom traditional in some old spells, leaned against the railing. It was one of my favorite places to cast, especially garden spells, but I hadn't spent much time out there in the last month or so. The sun had set, though tangerine fingers streaked the low sky to the west. I could hear the stream and smell night-blooming jasmine.

Before lighting the lantern in the gloaming, I focused on a little tree that I'd planted a few feet away from the stream. It was a mountain ash, which is also known as a rowan tree. The Tree of the Goddess. I'd brought it home and planted it in late September. Tangled in its roots was a voodoo talisman that had once belonged to a mentor of mine. Franklin Taite had used
it to hunt out evil magic, though he did not think he had any magical gifts of his own. He did, of course, as well as a fervent desire to support the Light. But he was gone now, and I'd been given the talisman.

At first I thought I could just start using it like he had. However, it turned out that's not the way talismans work. It had gone through transformations from light to dark and then back to light again. Unlike a simple charm for luck, or an amulet for protection, it had been created for a specific purpose and a specific person. Once that purpose had been adulterated by evil intent and then actually used to kill, I didn't feel like I could, well,
trust
the talisman anymore. I'd consulted with the spellbook club, who had all been there when the talisman had come back to the light, and they had agreed to a woman that it would be best to deactivate its powers.

So I'd thanked it for its service and reverently buried it beneath the baby rowan. There it would remain as the tree matured. As I reflected on the crazy week I associated with the talisman, I found myself fingering the hair-thin silver circle that hung on a chain around my neck. It was an amulet of protection that I'd worn all year—given to me by Steve Dawes. I'd considered removing it, but it wasn't like I wore it because of him. I wore it because of the power it possessed. After all, who couldn't use a little extra protection?

I lit the oil lamp. It illuminated the interior of the gazebo, squeezing down my pupils and shutting out the dark that surrounded us. I opened the notebook and began to make a list.

Angie Kissel: motive, opportunity, former hedgewitch who possibly could decoct cyanide. Also innocent.

Earl King: motive, possible opportunity. Access to cyanide?

I tapped the pen against my teeth, then wrote,
Nate Dobbs: motive? Alibied by witnesses. Access to cyanide?

Phoebe Miller: motive? Also alibied by witnesses. Access to cyanide?

Frustrated, I put the pen down and stared at the list. It was awfully short, and the only one who fit the bill was Angie.

Which was why she needed my help.

Earl and Sophie King had left right after Dr. Dana had finished her reading. Could he have come back down the alley later? With or without his wife? And if he/they had, the same argument I'd given Quinn applied. How could he have convinced Dr. Dana to take the poison? As for Phoebe and Nate, they had alibis for the actual time of death, but it was possible that either of them could have slipped the poison into the sweet tea without her seeing. But why? My heart had gone out to Phoebe that morning. Even if I was reading her wrong, monetarily she had benefited much more from her sister being alive than from her being dead. Or had she? Was there life insurance of some sort? And how was Nate affected by the death of his wife?

I sighed and rubbed my eyes. Tomorrow Mimsey would call the manager of the radio station, and I'd see if I could find out anything more there. And since Quinn seemed determined to make the case against Angie without looking at other possibilities, I was going to have to find out more about Earl King—and hopefully have a chat. Too bad I hadn't been telling the truth about Mr. King wanting to hire the Honeybee.

“Katie?” The voice came drifting over the back fence. “Is that you?”

I blew out the lamp and rose. “Margie. Of course it's me.”

“It could be Declan,” she said, sounding a little defensive.

My eyes adjusted to the darkness as I went down the steps and over to the side of the yard. “Are you doing what I think you're doing?”

Her head popped up. In her back porch light I saw a wisp of creamy frosting on her lip. She licked it off with a sheepish expression.

“Really, Margie?”

“Shh. You're the only one who knows about my Twinkie habit.”

One of these days I'll have to make some real sponge cakes and fill them with real vanilla cream for her
.

“I've never told a soul,” I said. “How're you feeling today?”

“Oh, golly! I had a few bad dreams last night, but I guess things are mostly back to normal around here. Redding is getting ready for a four-day run over to Oklahoma City.”

“You okay with that?”

She took a big bite of yellow cake and closed her eyes as she chewed. Then they popped open, and she nodded. “Sure. We've gotten pretty good at figuring out how to make it work.” She snapped her fingers. “Speaking of that—I started Dr. Dana's book.”

I leaned my arms on the top of the fence. “What do you think?”

She looked troubled. “Well . . . some of the things she says to do seem a little . . .”

“Draconian?”

She blinked. “Um, I was thinking they were kind of severe, you know? Over-the-top.”

“Radical Trust, huh.”

“Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm not criticizing. The poor woman is dead, after all. I'm definitely going to finish the book.”

“Let me know what you think,” I said, turning toward the carriage house. “And give a call if you feel nervous with Redding gone. I've got to run in and check on supper right now, though.”

“Okeydokey. Thanks, Katie!”

I fell asleep reading on the couch after supper and then never managed to get back to proper sleep that night. Hours passed in that strange twilight between waking and sleeping, my mind swirling with images of Dr. Dana, sweet tea, Twinkies, and Angie Kissel scratching my familiar under his furry chin.

The dark hour of four thirty the next morning saw me downtown again. I parked in the nearly empty lot around the corner, and Mungo and I walked down Broughton toward the Honeybee. The street was abandoned at that hour on a Monday morning, and the sound of the key in the dead bolt seemed to echo down the sidewalk. I paused to eye the Fox and Hound before going inside the bakery and locking the door behind me. Hopefully, Croft would be able to open his store today.

I wove through the tables and chairs in the customer area, aided only by the quiet light we always left on in the corner of the kitchen. Back in the office, Mungo jumped up on his club chair and immediately fell back asleep. Unlike me, he was not in the least a lark. He wasn't an owl, either, though. My familiar was fond of sleep whatever the hour. Sleep and food.

After shucking my tote, I selected a yellow-and-green-striped chef's apron from the row of hooks on the wall and tied it on. Making my way through the calm of the pre-bustle kitchen, I started one of the ovens to preheat and then headed to the big refrigerator.

As I carefully removed pan after pan of sourdough loaves risen overnight to puffy goodness, my mind kept going back to Steve driving by the day before. A part of me had expected to hear from him sometime in the afternoon, and then later it had been in the back of my mind that he might call during the evening. He hadn't, though. Which was good. Declan was not going to be happy to hear that Steve had returned to Savannah.

They had a past. Part of it included me—there had been a time when I'd been attracted to both of them, but it hadn't taken long for me to choose Declan. Steve was sort of a bad boy, and I had to admit that had been part of his appeal. Heck, it still was, if I was being honest. Plus, he'd figured out I was a witch nearly as quickly as I'd learned of it, because Steve himself was a druid. I couldn't deny the
zing
between us, but then he'd decided to join a druidic clan with questionable ethics, and I had wanted nothing to do with it.

So there was that. But Declan had known Steve long before I'd moved to town. Steve's brother, Arnie, had been Declan's best friend and a fellow firefighter. A tragedy during a fire call had cost Arnie's life, and Steve had always blamed Declan for letting it happen. It hadn't been his fault, of course. Declan would never put anyone's life in danger. Arnie, like his brother, had tended to be rash and had made a decision with fatal repercussions. Steve refused to believe that.

The enmity between Steve and Declan was fierce and difficult. They had done their best to tame it when
I was around. That hadn't been easy, since Steve and I had tried to remain friends. For the most part it had worked out fine, until the events last August.

Where had Steve gone? What had he been doing? In the brief moment I'd seen him, he'd looked as healthy and fit as ever. More so, maybe. His tan had been deeper than I'd ever seen it, and his hair blonder than ever.

Sunshine, and lots of it.

Should I call him?
I shook my head, all alone there in the kitchen. No. If he wanted to talk to me, he knew my number. And if he didn't, then that was that.

I turned to check the oven temperature and saw the overflowing garbage by the back door.
Dang it.
Lucy and I had been so anxious to close down and chat with the spellbook club the afternoon before that we'd forgotten to take it out. Though to be fair, Ben usually schlepped the garbage out to the Dumpster in the alley—except on Sundays.

In the half-light of the kitchen, I slid the loaf pans onto the oven racks, inhaling the sour tang of the raw dough. I'd brought the starter from Akron when I'd moved, and in the year and a half since I'd been in Savannah it had taken on the flavors of the local yeasts, the South deepening and ripening it much as it had me in such a short time.

Timer set, I began to bundle up the garbage. Hauling the bag out of the bin, I opened the alley door and went outside. I paused to inhale the cool, humid air. I loved to run this time of morning, and I vowed to start again after Thanksgiving. The Savannah River, only a few blocks to the east, filled the air with its distinctive energy—mysterious and oddly thrilling, as if it had recorded the deep and unique history of the place in its ever-changing current.

One advantage to being an über-early riser was the opportunity to experience silence. It wasn't blackout quiet—birds were beginning to call to one another, the thrum of some kind of compressor vibrated down the alleyway, and my cotton skirt rustled against my canvas apron. The lack of engines, conversations, and the ubiquitous tour bus guides was notable, though.

So I heard the new sound quite clearly, though it was barely above a whisper. A scraping, surface against surface. I paused with the bag of garbage suspended over the Dumpster. My breath stilled as my ears twitched like Mungo's, and I tried to unravel what it might be. Cat? The wind moving a branch? But there were no branches back here. Only brick and metal, asphalt, fuse boxes, and back doors.

A flash of light to my left caught my eye. It lasted only a microsecond, but I recognized it anyway. Head high, sweeping quickly across brick. Someone was standing in the alley mere yards away, close to the building and wearing a bicycle headlamp like the one I sometimes used to garden in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep.

A shiver ran down my back, and my muscles froze.

The light flickered again, faint, as if shielded. Then I realized the person was standing in the alcove surrounding the back door of the Fox and Hound.

The scraping grew louder.

Someone is trying to break in to Croft's store.

“Hey!” I yelled before I had the good sense to think about it.

The figure backed out of the doorway, and I hesitated, hoping to see what the culprit looked like before he—she?—ran away.

Bulky. Shapeless. Tallish. Hat.

But whoever it was didn't run away. The interloper ran
toward
me.

Reason flooded back, and I dropped the garbage in the container. I turned on my heel and sprinted toward the open door of the Honeybee.

A rattle split the night, clanging and urgent. I spun around in time to see that the figure was pushing one of the big eight-yard Dumpsters toward me faster than I would have thought possible. The lumbering behemoth bore down on me like a freakish Mack truck. As I turned back to run into the bakery, my toe caught on the edge of a pothole in the alley, and I went down to my knees.

Terrified, I looked up to see the metal container blocking out the stars above. A scream rose in my throat as it crashed and bumped across the rough pavement straight for me. Instinctively, I swallowed my voice into my chest, squeezing the silent shriek into something hard and powerful.

The Dumpster suddenly stopped, one of its wheels also caught in a pothole, but its momentum tipped it up, up, up, until it teetered over my head. Falling . . .

“Nooo,” I mouthed, still on my knees with one hand on the ground. Time slowed as I drew strength from the earth below. My mind coiled out to the river flowing nearby and the air all around me. Finally, I accessed the fourth element, fire, in my own chest—my scream tucked away and hardened to a red ember of fear. My other hand came up, glowing with white light as I
pushed
the Dumpster away.

The heavy metal container flipped back onto its wheels, spinning halfway around with its own force.

Or maybe
my
force.

Hard to tell. All I knew was that I was more or less okay, and mighty glad about it.

The light faded quickly from my fingertips, and footsteps sounded down the alley. I peered around the Dumpster in time to see a figure turning the corner.

I tried to push myself to my feet but fell back, shaking all over. Taking a deep breath, I reminded myself to calm down.

You're safe. They're gone.

Wincing, I brushed gravel out of a cut on my knee.

Mungo came flying out of the bakery, barking like a crazy dog.

“Nice of you to show up,” I gasped, even though a part of me knew it had all happened in mere seconds.

He ran down the alley like a shot.

“Mungo!” I shouted. “Come back here.”

He spun like a top and hightailed it back to launch himself at me. I barely managed to keep my balance but finally got to my feet with him in my arms. He licked my neck and chin and cheeks and nose, stopping long enough to look into my eyes as if checking to see that I was really okay, then starting in all over again.

I was still shaking, but I had to giggle. “Stop it. You're making me all soggy.”

“Katie? Honey, where are . . . what are you doing out here?” Lucy asked from the doorway.

“I thought I was taking the garbage out,” I said. “Turns out I might have foiled a burglar.”

Her hand went to her throat. “Oh, dear.”

“Would you mind calling 911? I need to get cleaned up.”

“Well, good heavens, of course. Get in here. Let me look at you. What happened?”

I was glad to hear her lock the door behind me as I began to tell her.

*   *   *

A pair of patrol officers came and took my statement. Then they drove down the alley and lit up the area behind the bakery with the floodlight on their patrol car. I described what had happened as they took notes. One policeman gave the Dumpster a push, and it rumbled a few feet.

“You said it came at you pretty fast before you tripped?”

“It seemed like it was going sixty miles an hour,” I said.

He smiled. “I doubt that. But it's empty and rolls easily. You couldn't see anything about them? Tall, short? Anything about how they moved that seemed distinctive?”

I shook my head. “I'm sorry. The figure seemed a little taller than me, but other than that, I didn't see much. It all happened so fast.”

They called Croft, who showed up about half an hour later looking grizzled and disheveled and grumbling about being dragged out of bed before dawn. After Lucy gave him a couple of cups of coffee, his grumbles turned into a bitter diatribe about bad luck. Lucy offered him a slice of spice cake with the next cup of coffee, and I knew she was hoping the copious amounts of allspice in it would help with that luck problem of his.

After the police had gone, Lucy and I began taking loaves of sourdough out to cool on racks as quickly as possible, knowing we had to play a bit of catch-up with the morning baking despite my intentions to get an early start.

As we worked, I asked, “Do you think it was really bad luck that someone tried to break into the Fox and Hound this morning?”

She frowned and reached for the ingredients for the special we'd decided on for the day: chocolate croissants. “You mean you think it's related to the murder?”

I shrugged. “Seems kind of a weird coincidence otherwise.”

My aunt looked speculative.

I pointed to the butter she held. “I don't think we have time to make the croissants now.”

Lucy nodded. “You're right. Let's figure something else out.”

*   *   *

Ben came in a little after six thirty to open up. When Lucy had filled him in on what had happened, he turned and gave me a hard look. “What were you thinking, Katie?”

“Uncle Ben! All I did was take the garbage out. You can't possibly think what happened was my fault.”

“In the dark—,” he began, but I held up my hand.

“I run in the early hours all the time,” I said.

My aunt and uncle exchanged a significant look.

I shook my head emphatically. “No. I'm not going to live my life in fear.” My fists found their way to my hips. “Besides, I can take care of myself—and did. Now, I'm going to get cleaned up and get back to work. We're behind with the baking, if you hadn't noticed.” I stalked into the restroom and shut the door.

As I finally got around to picking the bits of asphalt out of my scraped knee, I knew I was lucky that I hadn't suffered a more severe injury. The incident in the alley hadn't been my first brush with danger. If I continued along the path of being a lightwitch, then it likely wouldn't be my last. I didn't relish the idea, believe me, but it didn't frighten me as much as it could have. As much as perhaps it should have.

A knock at the door. “Katie?” It was Lucy.

I opened it. Mungo stood beside her, worry creasing his furry face.

“I'm sorry,” we said at the same time, and then laughed.

Ben was watching from across the room. Relief eased onto his face when he heard us.

“He's just worried about you,” Lucy said.

“I know.”

“Let's take a look at that knee.”

“Lucy, I don't need—”

“Nonsense.” She pushed past me and grabbed the first-aid kit from under the sink. “Come out here where the light is better.”

I followed her out to the still-closed bakery and sat down in a bistro chair. With cheery thoroughness, my aunt bandaged my knee as if I were a little girl.

Which was kind of nice, actually.

Mungo supervised as she insisted on slathering my knee with antibiotic ointment and used up all the gauze in the kit. When she had finished, it felt like I had a cast around my knee, but I didn't dare complain. Besides, the ointment quickly numbed the stinging pain, and my skirt was almost long enough to cover the bandage. Soon I was back in the kitchen, and Ben was opening the door to a waiting customer.

As I measured and mixed, I tried to ignore the slightly spacey feeling that flooded my brain. It was a little like the endorphin high I got from running, but I knew from experience that this time it was a result of the supernatural “push” I'd given the Dumpster. It would wear off in an hour or so, and other than a scraped knee and feeling a bit disconnected, I was none the worse for wear.