Pawsitively Swindled
Author: Melissa Erin Jackson
Date: 2000-01-01 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Cozy Mystery; Fantasy; Witches; Mystery; Paranormal; Romance; Magic
Description: Appearances can be deceiving. Amber Blackwood, Edgehill’s secret resident witch, recently found her parents’ grimoires and the powerful time spells within. The malevolent Penhallow clan has been ruthlessly seeking the grimoires so they can travel back in time to undo their clan’s cursed magic. Because the Penhallows will stop at nothing, Amber must find an impregnable hiding place for the grimoires, though she has no clue where to start looking. When her cousin Edgar suggests the game of Magic Cache, a magic-infused version of geocaching played by witches all over the world, Amber agrees to le
Publisher: Ringtail Press

Contents

1. Previously…
2. Chapter 1
3. Chapter 2
4. Chapter 3
5. Chapter 4
6. Chapter 5
7. Chapter 6
8. Chapter 7
9. Chapter 8
10. Chapter 9
11. Chapter 10
12. Chapter 11
13. Chapter 12
14. Chapter 13
15. Chapter 14
16. Chapter 15
17. Chapter 16
18. Chapter 17
19. Chapter 18
20. Chapter 19
21. Chapter 20
22. Chapter 21
23. Chapter 22
24. Chapter 23
25. Chapter 24
26. Chapter 25
27. Chapter 26
28. Chapter 27
29. Epilogue
30. About the Author
31. Acknowledgments

Copyright © 2020 Melissa Erin Jackson.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-7351500-0-0

Front cover design by Maggie Hall.
Stock art via Designed by Freepik, iStockPhoto, Shutterstock.
Interior design and ebook formatting by Michelle Raymond.

First published in 2020 by Ringtail Press.

www.melissajacksonbooks.com

To my fellow Murderinos

Previously in the Witch of Edgehill series …

Though Amber Blackwood has lived in her feline-obsessed town of Edgehill, Oregon, all her life, very few people know she’s a witch. She secretly creates magic-fueled toys she sells in her shop, The Quirky Whisker, and is successful at staying under the radar.

In January, however, her closest friend is fatally poisoned and Amber shoots to the top of Chief Brown’s suspect list. He’s been leery of her odd behavior for years and Melanie’s murder has given him reason to look at Amber more closely. By month’s end, not only does Amber help solve Melanie’s murder, but the chief learns Amber’s biggest secret.

The following month, while Amber tries to navigate the landmine of having the chief of police know she can wield magic, she’s also forced to confront her past—a past that has kept her tied to Edgehill even more than her love for the town. She learns that her parents’ deaths fourteen years before weren’t an accident after all. A fabled group of cursed witches, the Penhallows, have been searching for the Blackwood parents’ grimoires for years. Fourteen years ago, Neil Penhallow murdered the Blackwoods while attempting to steal the books with their powerful time-reversal spells. The Penhallows want to go back in time, using the spells, to ensure their family is never cursed to begin with. Altering time would have untold consequences, and Amber’s parents forfeited their lives to keep the books out of Penhallow hands. But when they died, the secret of where the books were hidden died too.

Just when Amber is taking her first foray into dating in years—with Jack Terrence, the owner of Purrcolate—Kieran Penhallow comes to Edgehill with plans to find the books once and for all. Amber manages to find them first, but not without a curious Jack following her, trying to figure out what she’s up to every time she sneaks off. Inside the books, Amber finds a spell that allows her to travel into Kieran’s mind to sever his connection to magic—thereby curing him of the curse, but also turning him fully human. Kieran almost kills Amber before she cures him, though, and Jack witnesses the violent attack. When the dust settles, Jack asks to have his memory of the event—and Amber, to a large extent—erased from his mind.

By the time March rolls around, all Amber wants to do is forget about her disastrous love life, and to help her friend, Kimberly Jones, throw the best Hair Ball possible—Edgehill’s biggest event aside from the annual Here and Meow Festival in May. As the new festival director, Kim has been worried she’ll never be able to fill the shoes left behind by the late Melanie Cole.

In the midst of gala preparations, Chloe Deidrick, the teenage daughter of Edgehill’s mayor, goes missing. Chloe, whom Amber used to babysit, had recently met a man on a chat app who turns out to be her biological father; he kidnapped her in an attempt to gain access to life insurance money Chloe will be entitled to when she turns eighteen. Between Amber’s magic, Chief Brown’s resources, and the sleuthing of a PI, Chloe is found and returned home safely.

Shortly afterward, Kim witnesses Amber’s use of magic, revealing Amber’s secret to yet another person. Kim is delighted. Amber is terrified that the bubbly, chatty Kimberly Jones won’t be able to keep a secret this big to herself.

To make matters worse, Jack’s memory returns soon after, and he now remembers everything, bringing the number of people who know her secret to three.

As Amber heads into April, keeping her secrets becomes even more pressing: she needs to find a proper hiding place for her parents’ grimoires before the Penhallows inevitably return.

Chapter 1

The mood in the Marbleglen Community Center was somber.

The Here and Meow Committee—Kimberly Jones, Ann Marie Stuart, Nathan Porter, Chloe Deidrick, and Amber Blackwood—was in enemy territory. Amber had weathered a round of complaints about the “injustice” of it all from Kim on their way over. The committee stood in a circle along with Mayor Frank Deidrick. They were, effectively, in a huddle.

“I know none of you are … happy about this,” Frank said, “but it would be a personal favor to me if you could at least pretend you wouldn’t rather stab yourself in the eyes with pencils than be here.”

“Is the pencil thing an option, or …?” Nathan asked.

The mayor shot him a withering look.

Nathan and Ann Marie shared a not-so-secret amused wince.

“Marbleglen has been having a rough couple of months—” Frank tried again.

“Uhh, Dad …” Chloe said, brows raised.

Edgehill had been having a rough few months, the most recent being Chloe Deidrick’s kidnapping by the biological father she hadn’t known existed. If anyone knew the definition of “rough,” it was the Deidricks.

“Chloe, honey, I didn’t mean …” Frank blew out a breath. “Mayor Sable has asked for my help. She offered her resources to help find you. It would be the least we could do to help her town now.”

Chloe seemed mollified by that, given how her arms were folded tightly against her chest, but no one else was.

Amber stood between Chloe and Kim, who clearly had been trying to keep her opinions to herself about this whole thing. Kim’s very strange relationship with authority told her she shouldn’t voice her opinion to someone above her station. But at the moment, Amber could tell Kim wouldn’t be able to keep it to herself much longer. She was like the bouncing lid on a boiling pot of water in a cartoon. Bouncing, bouncing—

“I’m sorry, but can you confirm something for me?” Kim asked in a squeaky voice.

Nathan and Ann Marie shared another amused look, but the mayor didn’t see this one.

“We don’t have to agree to anything today, right?” Kim asked, eyes wide. “Because I have everything for the Here and Meow on a very tight schedule and I’m worried this will throw all of that out of whack. I’ll speak for the group when I say an out-of-whack Kim isn’t good for anyone.”

The remainder of the group nodded vigorously, the memory of Kim the Galazilla no doubt still fresh in all their minds. It had taken an intervention from Amber to bring Kim back from the brink of becoming impossible to work with.

Frank’s hesitation caused Kim to let out a little shriek of indignation.

He held his hands up. “It’s just one event, Kimberly. That’s all. It’s an event that both towns were planning to do anyway, so—”

“Not on the same weekend!” Kim whisper-hissed. “Every time the festivals happen on the same weekend, something horrific happens.”

“Horrific seems a bit dramatic,” Frank said.

There was a collective step back, as if he’d managed to slap them all across the face at the same time.

“The people from Marbleglen—especially the members of the Floral Frenzy Flower Festival—or Floral Frenemies, as I call them,” said Ann Marie, “can’t be trusted. Surely you know that.”

“What I know,” Frank said, “is that this rivalry has been going on for far too long. I’m sure it’s all been a series of misunderstandings and coincidences. Mayor Sable and I have been comparing notes—”

“Excuse me again, sir. I’m sorry,” Kim said, her face growing red. “I know you’re the mayor and everything, and I should show, like, deference or what-have-you, but you weren’t in office when the two most egregious instances of sabotage happened.”

“Deference?” Frank asked, head cocked. “Geez, Kim. I’m not a dictator. All I’m saying is that Marbleglen’s success is our success. This rivalry spills over into everything we do here—not just in relation to the competing festivals. We should be working together so both towns get the most out of this hectic festival season, rather than actively working against each other.”

Chloe seemed to swing back to the committee’s side. “Dad, don’t you think it’s a possibility that they want to mooch off Edgehill’s success? The Best of Edgehill thing is so big now that I’m starting to see it mentioned on my socials by the most random people. The Here and Meow is getting to be huge and hardly anyone talks about the Floral Frenzy Flower Festival. I mean, we’re going to have John-freaking-Huntley here—what do they have? Flower floats?”

Amber knew she should jump in to offer support to her fellow Here and Meow Committee members, but she was just so tired. She hadn’t slept well the night before. It was a miracle she’d made it to this meeting at all.

Kim grunted, clearly on a roll now. “Four years ago, they held their festival on the exact same weekend as the Here and Meow, which severely cut into our profits. And, to make matters worse, on the final day, the stage where Koalafications was going to perform was drenched in green paint. It was poured all over the stage, the equipment, and on the fireworks stored in a locked shed. We had to cancel.”

“And, if I remember correctly,” Frank said, “it was a bunch of graduating seniors pulling a very ill-conceived prank. Edgehill teens.”

“That’s never actually been proven,” said Kim. “Plus, the head of their committee, Bianca Pace, showed up at the community center and said she was so sorry to hear about what had happened to our stage. She was so sorry to hear that Koalafications decided the show must go on and that they were going to play in Marbleglen. All the people who bought tickets for the Here and Meow concert went to the Floral Frenzy instead. The Here and Meow Festival was practically a ghost town the last day! When Bianca came over to ‘apologize,’ I swear to you, I saw green paint under her fingernails.”

“And the year after that,” Ann Marie cut in, “we tried to have a truce. Their committee set up a deal with Angora Threads for custom-made banners and our committee was promised a huge order of decorative flowers at a steep discount. By the time we got the bill, they had charged us full price—plus really ridiculous ‘design fees’—and we didn’t have enough in the budget for it. We had to have that fundraiser at the last minute to cover the cost. It was so embarrassing.”

“And ever since then,” Nathan said, “we’ve refused to work with them. There are too many signs that they’ve tried to sabotage us, so it’s better for everyone if they do things on their own. The Best of Edgehill started the year we cut off ties with them and we’ve been doing great ever since.”

“Amen,” Kim and Ann Marie said in unison.

It fell silent for a few long moments.

“It’s one event,” Frank said again. “We’re already here. It’ll look really bad for me—for all of us—to not agree now. I realize I should have said earlier that this was essentially non-negotiable, but I didn’t think you’d all be this upset about it.” Frank turned his weary gaze to Amber. She stifled a yawn. “Help me out here. Please.”

Ugh. Why was he putting her on the spot? Amber was just as bothered by this as the rest of them, even if all she wanted to do at the moment was curl up on the floor and take a nap. The people of Marbleglen had always had a snooty air about them; every person she’d met from there seemed to judge her simply for being from Edgehill.

Marbleglen had a booming economy even before the festival hoopla had begun. The town got its name from a rare-colored variety of rhododendron that had petals that resembled the swirling patterns found in marble. The variety was endemic to the Pacific Northwest, with an abundance of them growing in Marbleglen. It was said that when the man who discovered a huge field of navy-blue-and-white rhododendrons growing near what is now called Lake Myrtle, he’d dropped to his knees and wept, saying this “glen of marbled flowers” was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

Flower enthusiasts paid a pretty penny for the unique flowers, including several celebrities who wanted the flowers for their weddings and special events. And, like Edgehill, whose residents had built a town around their cats, Marbleglen had built the town around its flowers.

“Since we’re already here, the fallout from denying them in person might be worse than just agreeing. I think our hands are tied here, guys,” Amber said, then winced.

“Amber Blackwood!” Kim said, turning with her hands on her hips so she could glare at the side of Amber’s head. Amber felt like she was a child being scolded by her mother.

Amber turned as well. “Can you imagine what Bianca Pace would do if we said ‘no’ to her right now? In front of Mayor Sable and Chief Jameson?”

Kim pursed her lips, then peeked outside of the huddle. Marbleglen’s Floral Frenzy Committee, mayor, and chief of police waited at the front of the room near the stage. Bianca Pace seemed to sense Kim’s gaze on her and turned sharply in her seat to glare.

Kim squeaked and turned back toward the huddle. “Fine. But let it be known that I’m not happy about this!”

“Oh, that’s been made quite clear,” Frank said. “Let’s go join them, okay?”

He broke the huddle and walked away, knowing the rest would follow like obedient ducklings. Everyone muttered to themselves, but they trailed after the mayor anyway.

Holding the meeting in a room of this size for only fifteen people seemed rather excessive to Amber, but she knew it was a classic Marbleglen power move. The Edgehill Community Center wasn’t going to be featured in a magazine anytime soon, but it was a respectable building. The Marbleglen Community Center, however, from the outside, looked more like a giant greenhouse than a functional building meant for gatherings, with its sharp angles and glass sides. Inside, the floor was made of white marble shot through with swirling gray. The color palate was made up of sleek blacks, shiny chrome, and crisp whites. Even the black plastic chairs with their dark gray legs in the main room where Amber stood now looked expensive.

The same could be said for the Floral Frenzy Committee members. Amber sized them up as the Here and Meow group walked down the middle aisle. They all wore dark, pressed slacks, solid-colored button-up shirts, and crisp black blazers. They sat primly in the front row of chairs, like a row of news anchor robots. The women wore their hair in shiny waves down around their shoulders or up in tight buns. The men—one in his fifties, the other in his thirties—both were clean-shaven with dark, short cropped hair. Not one of them turned toward Amber’s group as they approached.

Mayor Deidrick stood at the mouth of the aisle and gestured for the Here and Meow Committee to fill in the first row on the left side, like children walking into an auditorium for a school assembly. Mayor Deidrick sat in the aisle seat, and Amber took a seat beside him, Kim on her other side.

On stage stood Mayor Sable, a petite woman with curly brown hair, and Chief Jameson. Amber had never met the man before but knew from Mayor Deidrick that Jameson would be here today. He was in his mid-fifties with salt-and-pepper hair and a glassy look to his brown eyes. Amber vaguely wondered if the man might be drunk. When he swayed on his feet, Amber was almost positive he was.

Mayor Sable addressed the group first. She gently pushed a pair of glasses higher up on her nose before she spoke. “Welcome, Here and Meow Committee and Mayor Deidrick. We’re so glad to have you here. Chief Jameson and I wanted to thank you in person for joining forces with us this year for our joint opening festival ceremonies. As you know, one of the Floral Frenzy’s pride and joys every year is our parade. We’re delighted that we’ll be able to combine our parade with your cat adoption event. It’s sure to bring in an influx of visitors for us both. We hope it will be a cat-egorical success.”

No one in the room reacted.

“Tough crowd,” Mayor Sable said, chuckling lightly. Then she turned to Chief Jameson and ushered him forward.

“We’re very happy to put our rivalry behind us,” Chief Jameson said, though his expression said he couldn’t possibly care about anything less. He said the words as if he were reading them off a teleprompter. “Both festivals are great for our local businesses. We hope that this joint event will give way to more collaboration between the towns. Our success is your success.”

He took a step back.

Silence descended on the room like a heavy blanket.

Nodding slightly when she realized he was done talking, Mayor Sable inched forward again, pursing her lips. “Thank you for that … rousing speech, Chief Jameson. We can always count on you to be a team player.”

That got Jameson’s hackles up, and he focused his bleary eyes on the back of the woman’s head like it was taking everything in his power not to clobber her here on stage.

“Bianca?” the mayor said. “Why don’t you say a few words? We can work out a few details while we’re all together.”

Instead of just standing and turning to face those assembled, Bianca Pace walked along the length of the stage to the stairs on the side of the room, then joined the mayor and chief. Bianca took her sweet time getting up there.

“Oh, please can I strangle her?” Kim whispered at Amber. “Just a little. A light strangling?”

“Shh!” Amber said.

Kim huffed and sat back, her arms crossed and one leg bouncing.

Bianca stood tall and proud in the middle of the stage, back ramrod straight, the mayor and chief standing behind her on either side like backup singers for a pop star. Her black hair fell just below her shoulders and was shiny as raven feathers. She wore black slacks, a silk white shirt tucked into it, black heels, and a blue paisley scarf tied around her neck. Scratch that: she didn’t look like a news anchor; she looked like a flight attendant from the 1950s. Amber felt a little self-conscious. She hadn’t bothered to wash her hair this morning; it was in a loose, greasy ponytail now.

Whitney Sadler would have adored Bianca: a well-to-do woman who looked down her nose—literally—at people for not being up to snuff.

Amber felt her lip curl slightly.

Then she tried to think of what her late best friend, Melanie Cole, would have done. Melanie had a knack for defusing uncomfortable situations even when a room was full of too-big, competing personalities.

“Meet them halfway,” she would say. “Just because they look poised on the outside doesn’t mean they’re not full of insecurities on the inside.”

Amber did her best to plaster on a smile.

Bianca swept her piercing gaze from one end of the aisle, starting with the mayor, and down to the other side, ending at Chloe. “Is this … all of you?” she asked, her voice smooth as butter. “Four adults and a child? I heard you were having a hard time keeping the committee well-staffed, fraught as it’s been with scandal and murder, but goodness, I didn’t believe the rumors.”

Chief Jameson choked back a laugh. Mayor Sable paled.

Bianca somehow hiked her nose up further. “No one wants to be here less than I do, and on a Saturday no less, given that I’ve been accused of everything from price-gouging to vandalism. Frankly, I would rather not deal with people who blame others for their shortcomings.” She flicked a lock of hair out of her face unnecessarily. “But when the mayor—” she turned to the woman behind her and nodded, “makes a personal request, we comply.”

Amber’s face flamed further.

“Now, the parade is, as the mayor said, our pride and joy, so we’ll be in charge of the float design, as we have the most experience with it. Not just anyone can design a float; they’re works of art. We have a reputation to uphold. Plus, I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but Marbleglen was recently voted—”

“The safest town in Oregon,” the entire Here and Meow Committee droned in unison.

Then a smattering of laughter sounded from the group.

“Oh! That was like a really weird Pavlovian response!” Kim said.

Marbleglen had received that designation for years, and it seemed every resident was keen to remind people of that fact—bringing it up in conversation even when it wasn’t relevant. Amber could only imagine how much more smug they’d grown as news about Edgehill’s last string of hardships had traveled north into Marbleglen’s gossip-hungry ears.

Bianca glared down at Kim like she wanted to heave both her shoes at Kim’s head, but was worried doing so might scuff the material. “As I was saying, since we want to maintain the same level of quality that our attendees expect—with our festival, anyway—we’ll need you to attend the float decorating sessions on the days we assign you. Don’t worry; it’ll be easy: it’s like paint-by-number. Even a child could do it.” She aimed a false smile at Chloe. “And you already have children on staff, so I think you’ll be fine.”

“Oh, good heavens,” Mayor Deidrick muttered under his breath from beside Amber. “I may have made a horrible mistake.”

“Now,” Bianca said, hands clasped in front of her. “What kind of budget are you working with? Do we need to supply the float materials for you? I only ask because your finance chair came down with a bad case of homicidal tendencies, so I don’t know if you’re currently in dire straits. I have a really great accountant who could help you all balance your books, but he’s not cheap and—”

Kim jumped to her feet and everyone flinched. Bianca gasped delicately and held her hands to her chest as if Kim were a rabid dog that might try to bite her. “Now you listen here!”

Amber sunk down in her seat and covered her face as the room filled with shouts and name calling.

“Yikes,” Mayor Deidrick hissed. “Is it too late to move?”

Amber laughed, despite herself. Sorry, Melanie. We tried. But some people are just awful.

Chapter 2

The day following the joint committee fiasco, instead of meeting her cousin Edgar in town for their weekly Sunday morning pancake breakfast, Amber was tromping around in the tall weeds of his property at the crack of dawn, swatting away tickling grasses and biting insects alike. Thick beams of warm sunlight cut through the gaps in the canopy of leaves above her. If she angled her head just right, they looked like fat fingers reaching toward the ground.

Between dealing with the stress of Kim slowly becoming unhinged again under the pressure of the looming Here and Meow Festival, Jack Terrence remembering that Amber was a witch, and developing a serious case of sleep deprivation thanks to ever-present Penhallow nightmares, Amber was doing all she could to keep herself distracted. The nightmares had begun in earnest after Jack’s memories returned. The brief contact their hands had made caused a jolt of magic to zap them both. That zap had not only reversed the memory-erase spell but had also done something to Amber’s own memories. The ones from that night were more vivid now, rousing her from sleep most nights.

But she didn’t want to think about any of that right now. Some people would say she was “ignoring her life spinning out of control.” She would tell those people to shove it.

She kept marching forward, willing herself to stop imagining what critters might be lurking in the foliage surrounding her. The grass came to her waist in some spots. It was surely snake habitat, wasn’t it? The more she walked, knocking the weeds out of her way, the more she was sure it wasn’t snakes out here. It was scorpions. Stinging scorpions that were so deadly, one sting would paralyze her instantly, and then a swarm of scorpions would come and devour her body. Were scorpions carnivorous?

Perhaps the nightmare-induced insomnia was getting to her.

That and the lack of coffee this morning.

Yelping, she slapped an open palm onto the back of her hand. Scorpion! her brain shrieked. But it was more likely a mosquito.

That would give her malaria.

“Are you even trying?”

Squinting, she angled her head up and then turned to the left, where a small shed stood beside a sagging oak tree. Edgar, her annoying cousin-turned-magic-tutor, was perched on the roof of said shed like some kind of smirking, bearded gargoyle. He sat on the spot where the roof came to a peak, his feet dangling off the edge. He casually peeled an orange, dropping bits of rind into the tall weeds below.

“Of course I’m trying,” Amber said, one hand on her hip and the other shielding her face from the sun. “But it’s not my fault that you’ve clearly never heard of a lawnmower. How is anyone supposed to find anything out here?”

“And you say I’m grumpy.” Edgar, having successfully peeled the orange now, pulled off a wedge and popped it in his mouth. “You’re supposed to be using your magic. You don’t need landscaping equipment.”

Amber pursed her lips, surveying the wild jungle that was her cousin’s yard. His large, ramshackle house was back the way she’d come, sitting several hundred feet away. She turned that direction. Sunlight winked off the shiny surface of Edgar’s new pickup truck parked in front of the wooden house. Amber’s dusty rental car sat beside it, looking as dejected as Amber felt. The gravel road leading off the property stretched out before her and disappeared around a bend. She could escape. It wouldn’t take much. She could sprint to her car, peel out of here, and get a gingerbread latte from Coffee Cat.

Her eyes slipped closed for a moment, head titled back a fraction, as she pictured herself in the warm and cozy café. Maybe Jack would be there across from her, playfully chastising her for choosing a hoity-toity place like Coffee Cat over his own Purrcolate.

She didn’t like how often her mind strayed to Jack lately. A little over a week ago, he’d hit her with the bombshell that the memories erased by Amber’s Aunt Gretchen had come back to him. And he had, as he put it, remembered everything.

Everything! Which included her being attacked on this very property by a cursed Penhallow witch, who tried to choke her to death so he could gain access to her mother’s grimoire. That was the attack that plagued Amber’s mind every night—assuming she could fall asleep in the first place—and left her so bone-deep tired that she worried about things like paralytic scorpion stings.

She hoped being back on Edgar’s property would help her process what had happened to her. Edgar promised that the more she came back, the easier it would get. “Face your fears,” he’d said.

But this was only the third time she’d been back here. The first time had been two days ago and she’d gotten halfway up the long driveway before it all came back to her. She’d slammed on the brakes, her breath coming in shallow gasps. She vividly remembered the feel of Kieran Penhallow’s magic wrapping around her neck like a vise as he growled, “Give me the book, Blackwood!” at her like a man possessed. The horrible sight of Willow and Aunt Gretchen being flung through the air, the two women hitting the ground in crumpled heaps.

She’d thrown the car into reverse, slammed on the gas, and zipped backwards down the driveway, back out onto the road, and then cried the whole way home.

But she was back a day later—early yesterday morning before the disastrous committee meeting—and had made it all the way across the driveway without completely losing it, and then had successfully pulled her car into the spot beside Edgar’s truck. It had taken her an hour to get out of the car, though.

Edgar had coaxed her to the wild area she stood in now. He’d taken one of her shaking hands in his big, strong ones, and had gently led her away from the spot where Kieran had tried to kill her, away from the house, and toward the shed. They had stopped in the middle of the field of tall grass, and he’d stood in front of her. “Breathe.”

She’d done so. Taking his cues, letting his steady presence calm her, until he was able to let go and she could stand there without feeling like her lungs were going to collapse in on themselves.

“You’re safe here,” he’d said. “I won’t let anything happen to you, cousin. Do you trust me?”

She had nodded.

“Good,” he’d said. “Now do what you came here to do.” In a dramatic, over-the-top tone better suited for a host on a gameshow, he’d said, “It’s time to play Magic Cache!”

She’d called on her magic and rooted around in this grassy area, in the shed, around the shed, in the bushes, along the ivy-choked chain-link fence, around the base of trees. Nothing. After a couple hours, she’d given up.

That night, after nightmares had left her skin clammy and her heart racing, she’d gotten up, pored over the map of Edgar’s property that he’d given her several days before, and then had shown up here, bright and early, to try again.

As she’d slowly driven down the rutted driveway in the wee hours this morning, she couldn’t help remembering how many times over the last few years she’d shown up here with peace offerings—everything from pastries to an expensive marble cat statue—in hopes that her reclusive, grumpy shut-in of a cousin would finally open the door for her. It had only been recently that he’d let her in, both literally and figuratively.

But when she’d shown up today, all those dark, painful memories evaporated like the dew from his sagging porch warmed by sun, steam rising in waving tendrils from the wooden railings. He’d been sitting on his creaky steps, a mug of coffee clutched in his hands, and a second one sitting beside him. He’d known she’d be back. Whether that was because he knew firsthand how stubborn and persistent a Blackwood could be, or because he was haunted by Penhallow-nightmares too, she couldn’t be sure.

All she knew was that she was beyond grateful that she had Edgar Henbane in her life again.

“You do know that Magic Cache is something children play, right?” Edgar asked now, instantly ruining any fuzzy feelings she had for him. He still sat on the roof of his shed. He popped another orange wedge in his mouth. “This is how witch kids have Easter egg hunts.”

“I can’t tell if you’re insulting or encouraging me,” she said.

“The first one.”

When she glared at him, he merely laughed.

“You’re thinking too hard,” he said. “Locator spells are about listening to magic. You need to rely on your senses, not your brain.”

Amber dropped her hand to her side and scanned his overgrown property in dismay.

Edgar sighed. “Remember what I told you: there is magic in everything. There’s a baseline of one percent magic in all things—from a seed to a rock. Even though Edgehill is considered magic-free because the only witches in it are you and me, every town in every city on every continent has magic. Ambient magic, you could say.

“Although spells used on cache items are weak, once they’re in place, a witch isn’t needed to ever recast the spell. The ambient magic around the item is enough to keep the spell alive. Ambient magic is strongest in nature—so, believe it or not, my overgrown yard in desperate need of a lawnmower is actually a great example of where best to hide a cache. And, now, it’s giving off a very low pulse of magic like a beacon for you to find.”

“So it’s kind of like a solar-powered light,” Amber said.

“Exactly,” he said. “The magic used on the item, for the sake of this explanation, would give off a reading on your magical Geiger counter as, let’s say, a one-point-five percent. It’s a very faint uptick in energy and you need your magic to find it; your eyes won’t help you. Think about being in a dark room and touching the walls in search of a light switch. You know it’s there, but you can’t see it, so you have to rely on your sense of touch. With Magic Cache, your magic is a sixth sense. It’ll be subtle, though; it’s not going to be as easy to notice as the signature a Penhallow leaves behind.”

Amber remembered that sticky, molasses-like feel a little too well. A Penhallow’s signature was like a giant spider web.

A mosquito whined by her ear and she swatted it away.

“Okay,” Edgar said, sounding ever-patient even though she was sure he’d much rather be doing literally anything else on a Sunday morning. “What does it feel like when you’ve done a locator spell to find your cell phone—again?”

She ignored the slight, absently touching a hand to her stomach. “Like I’m being yanked forward by my belly button.”

“Interesting,” he said. “It’s the center of the chest for me. Anyway, that’s the feeling you’re looking for. Magic Cache is about honing your locator ability. It’s the equivalent of learning multiplication tables or cursive handwriting for non-witch kids in elementary school. It’s a useful skill, but as you get older, you only really use locator spells to find stuff you’ve lost, which is the most basic version of the spell. When you don’t remember what nine-times-seven is, you use a calculator, and adults mostly only use cursive for their signatures, which are often illegible scrawls anyway. With Magic Cache, you’re improving that very basic skill to something that can be used with pinpoint precision if you work hard enough at it. You’re training to be a mathematician or a master calligrapher.”

“You’re very philosophical this morning.”

“I’m trying to really dig deep into this tutor persona you’ve forced on me,” he said, eating another wedge of his orange.

“I didn’t force you to do anything,” she said. “You said, ‘I’ve got an idea for what we can do with the grimoires, but I’m going to have to help you get better at magic first because good grief, it’s embarrassing.’”

“I didn’t say embarrassing, and I definitely didn’t say ‘good grief.’” He wrinkled his nose. “I believe I said ‘utterly tragic.’”

If only she had the skills needed to magically shove him off the roof and into the scorpion-infested grass. “I hate you.”

He grinned.

“I don’t know why you think insult—oh,” she said, suddenly frozen like a deer who’s just spotted a hunter hiding in the brush. She placed a hand on her stomach. Then she felt the tug. It was faint, so faint she could easily convince herself it had been her imagination. But then it happened again.

“Listen to it,” Edgar said, his tone calm and encouraging. “It’ll tell you where to go.”

She closed her eyes and waited, vaguely annoyed with her cousin because she realized he’d been taunting her as a way to refocus her attention, to stop her from demanding her magic to do what she wanted. Edgar had told her that once she’d conducted the locator spell, it would remain active for several hours. Her magic had been searching for the object in question for half an hour now, rooting around like a pig in search of truffles.

Where is it? she asked for the millionth time this morning, but she was calmer now. Normally she was firm and confident when she made her inquiries. The stronger her convictions, the more her magic behaved as she wished. For Magic Cache, Edgar had instructed her to be gentler.

So she asked her question then simply waited. When a tall stalk of grass grazed her hand, she didn’t flinch. She could hear the song of a small bird nearby. Then a second. A critter scuttled through the grasses, the sound like the crinkle of paper.

Tug.

With her eyes still closed, she moved forward, inching toward the item giving off weak pulses of magic.

Tug.

She angled a little to the left, then kept moving. She followed the sensation blindly, letting her magic guide her forward like a child grasping her hand and pulling her along.

“Careful,” Edgar chided softly.

She cracked open an eye to find herself nose-to-wall with the shed.

Keeping her eyes open, she rounded the back of the beige-colored shed. Her magic urged her toward its base, where the wood had begun to rot. Pushing weeds out of her way, she saw the rounded edge of something metallic sticking out from beneath a chunk of rotted wood.

“I think I found it!” she said, grinning. She plucked the small, two-inch-wide metal tin out of its hiding place. Wiping the wet earth from its base and edges, she opened the box. Inside was a small rubber cat, one that looked very much like the ones Amber’s mother had given her and Willow when they were children. Hers was white; this one was brown.

“One by one, let’s have some fun,” she whispered. “Two by two, let’s turn it blue.”

The cat’s brown fur turned a navy blue for a few seconds before turning brown again.

“Belle gave me that when I was ten or so,” she heard, and turned quickly to find Edgar standing a few feet away. She hadn’t even heard him approach, let alone get off the roof of the shed.

“I still have mine,” she said, running a finger along the ridges of the cat’s “fur.” It still lay in the small tin.

“Take it out,” Edgar said.

The moment she did, a clipboard on a hook appeared before her eyes and she flinched, startled. It hung on the back of the shed, and a pen on a string dangled from the hook in the board’s clip. There was only one thing written on it.

E. Henbane. Cache creator. April 2nd.

He’d hidden it a week ago.

“Every Magic Cache item has a guest log or book that appears once the item is picked up. Magic Cache is played all over the world. Some items have been in place for hundreds of years. The guest books for some end up looking like giant reference books. I tried finding some existing ones for you in town, but there aren’t any. Edgehill is a Magic Cache wasteland. Sad, really.”

Amber grabbed the dangling pen and added her name to the second line.

A. Blackwood. April 9th.

When she put the cat back in the tin, the clipboard and pen vanished again. She touched the spot where it had been, her fingers meeting only wood. She slid the small tin back into its place under the rotting base of the shed.

“Okay,” she said, turning to him. “That was fun. What next, oh wonderful magic tutor?”

He pivoted and walked away from her. “Find the other six.”

“Six?”

“Like I said, your magic skills are utterly tragic,” he said, rounding the shed and disappearing from view. “We have a lot of work to do!”

Had she really just been thinking she was “beyond grateful” to have her cousin back in her life? She took it back.

Yet she followed after him all the same.

Chapter 3

After a week of playing Magic Cache with Edgar, Amber started to feel like her locator abilities were improving. Of course, every time she thought her speed was getting better, Edgar would make the object smaller or hide it in a truly obnoxious place—like inside a bird feeder hanging from branches several feet out of range without aid of a ladder.

A new wrinkle to the game was him hiding a cache, and then calling her and saying, “It’s in place. Go!” like he was in a spy movie, before dramatically disconnecting the call. It was expected that she’d drop everything to go find whatever it was he’d hidden for her. He still wouldn’t tell her what any of this had to do with finding a hiding spot for the grimoires, but she was trying to trust his methods.

So, when her phone rang at seven on Sunday morning, a week after she’d found her first cache item, she knew it was Edgar in spy mode again. He’d finally gotten a cell phone a couple days before, yet still insisted on calling her rather than sending a text like a normal person.

Groaning, she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, threw back her comforter and picked up her cell. “Do you always have to do this so early?” she asked by way of greeting. “Are you just constantly trying to get out of our Sunday breakfasts?”

“When I called you during work hours, you pitched a fit,” he said.

“Not everyone has the luxury of working from home like you do,” she said.

“You live in your workplace,” he said. “So it’s basically the same thing.”

She pulled the phone away from her ear so she could glare at it. It didn’t have the same effect as glaring at his smug face. When she put the phone back to her ear, she said, “So you’ve hidden another one?”

“Yep!” he said. “If you find this one, we can move on to phase two.”

“What the heck is phase two?” she asked, stifling a yawn.

“I’m not at liberty to say,” he said. “Hopefully the Bowen sisters are helping you out this morning, because this one is a doozy. It might take you all day. Use the entire map of Edgehill this time.” Then, as usual, he dramatically disconnected the call.

She tossed the phone onto her bed and flopped onto her back. Tom Cat immediately draped his body across her stomach. Ignoring Amber and Tom both, Alley was curled up on the bench seat.

The same bench seat Amber’s parents’ cloaked grimoires were hidden beneath.

She’d only had the books hidden in her studio apartment for about a month. At first, it had been a comfort to have them nearby. Somehow it felt as if her parents were there watching over her. The books had been spelled so that, for now, only Amber or Willow were allowed to open them. Even with safeguards in place, the longer the books were there, the more she worried the cloaking spells she and Edgar had put on them wouldn’t last. She was convinced they were leaking small quantities of magic, just like the cache items, and it was only a matter of time before a Penhallow highly skilled in locator spells would be able to trace the magic back to Edgehill. The thought of Penhallows taking her parents’ books from her because she wasn’t strong enough to protect them made her stomach lurch.

Only one person could make her feel better. She eased Tom off her, then sat up, her bare feet on the floor, and grabbed her cell off her comforter.

Even though Amber herself was not terribly fond of mornings, her sister was. Willow likely had already been up for a while, had gone for a run, and was now eating breakfast before she headed off to her job at an advertising firm where she was one of the art designers.

Willow answered on the second ring, clearly chewing as she said, “Not only are you finally calling me back, but you’re doing so at the crack of dawn?”

Tom inched forward so he could awkwardly rest his head on Amber’s thigh, then closed his eyes. Amber idly ran a finger back and forth between his ears until he was purring up a storm. “Good morning to you, too.”

Willow swallowed whatever she’d been eating. “What’s going on with you? Aunt G is getting really worried. Neither one of us has heard much from you in almost two weeks. I swear Aunt G is thinking about coming down there to check on you.”

Without preamble, Amber said, “Jack’s memories came back.”

Willow didn’t say anything right away, but Amber could perfectly picture her sister’s wide brown eyes and hung-open mouth. “Uh … how?”

“He was in the running for Best of Edgehill—he lost both categories, by the way—”

“Aw, nuts,” Willow said.

“—and I was getting some information from him on his submissions and taking a few pictures. Our hands touched and … zap.”

A short burst of Willow’s tinkling laughter came through the phone, but it was more disbelieving than amused. “Oh, that sneaky witch!”

“What?”

Willow huffed out a breath. Amber could picture her sister now with pursed lips. “She only used a temporary memory erase spell. They’re easier than the real deal, since any magic used on the mind is tricky, like a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. She must have done something so that touch would trigger the spell to dissolve.”

Amber clenched her jaw. Her gut had already told her this was likely the case but hearing it made her even more upset with her aunt. “She could have warned me.”

“She was trying to be helpful, I’m sure,” Willow said, tone softer now. “You know Aunt G isn’t good at the mushy feeling stuff. She’s practical to a fault. She probably thought, ‘I’ll just do this temporarily so they can try this again when they aren’t so worked up.’”

That very much sounded like her aunt, but Amber still didn’t like it. She’d barely gotten used to Jack looking at her like an intriguing stranger, and now Amber had to deal with him knowing all over again that she was a witch. She didn’t want to worry about this on top of everything else.

Amber couldn’t remember why she’d called her sister now; hearing Willow’s light, sweet voice hadn’t been the balm to her exhaustion that she’d hoped it would be. “I have to go, Will.”

She disconnected the call and then flopped onto her back. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Alley fastidiously grooming the spaces between her toes on a back foot. She still lay on the bench seat.

The grimoires. Must keep them safe. At the moment, her only solid idea on how to keep them safe was to follow Edgar’s lead.

Which was why—even if she didn’t understand it—she would keep playing Magic Cache.

At seven a.m.

Because her cousin was a monster.

After getting ready in fifteen minutes flat, she pulled open the drawer on her coffee table that held her small collection of maps and took them out. The hand-drawn one of Edgar’s property was on top—the only one she’d been using all week—and she reluctantly slipped it back into the drawer, revealing the Edgehill one below it.

She wasn’t sure if she felt pride that Edgar thought she was ready to move beyond his property, or irritation that he was advancing her too soon.

His voice echoed in her head. “You do know that Magic Cache is something children play, right?”

Grumbling, she unfolded the map and spread it out on her coffee table. She actively refused to acknowledge the state of her dining room table, which was stacked so high with her toy-making supplies that the mere sight of the chaos made her palms sweat. The Here and Meow was a little over a month away now, and the amount of pending orders was so daunting that, in between dreams last night of being choked by Kieran Penhallow, she’d had another where she’d been attacked by a giant plastic panther. Willow was due to come visit soon to help. Until then, Amber would pretend none of it existed.

Part of the difficulty of Magic Cache was that when she usually did a locator spell, she had an idea of what she was looking for. When she needed to find her phone, she pictured it in her mind. When she tried to find Chloe Deidrick, she held onto one of Chloe’s lipstick tubes—an object that still held some of her energy—and relived a memory she’d shared with the girl.

As Amber stared at the map now, she didn’t have the faintest clue how to approach finding Edgar’s hidden item. When she knew it was on his property, she could stand in his yard, ask her magic to find the object, and she merely waited. It was an extremely passive form of magic.

Now, she realized, with all of Edgehill as the hiding place, she couldn’t approach this the same way. It was too much ground to cover. It also felt like cheating to pick up the baseball cap Edgar had forgotten in her apartment and use that as a jumping-off point. She’d then be using her magic to locate Edgar’s. It wasn’t his magic she sought; it was the object he’d hidden.

What she needed to find was the anomaly in the ambient magic. She needed to locate the tiny blip that rose above the one percent baseline.

Which meant crafting a spell and then scrying for the anomaly. That would get her close enough to the area in question so that she’d then be able to use a locator spell on the narrowed-down location. Scrying, unfortunately, would be like searching for an invisible needle in an invisible haystack.

No wonder he’d said it would take all day.

But Lily and Daisy Bowen were scheduled to run the store for her today, so Amber set to work writing a spell.

Her first attempt—one for finding small spikes in magic—was so vague and general that when she conducted it, nearly sixty small black dots popped up on her map. All the dots were located in parks, near streams, and, strangely, around a spot where she knew an old home was being renovated. She had a sneaking suspicion that the spike in energy there was due to ghosts—as there was often an uptick in spiritual activity when a ghost’s former home was being altered in some way—and she absolutely wasn’t going near there if she could help it.

It would be just like Edgar, though, to hide an object for her in a haunted house.

The spell had taken her half an hour to write, and then another half hour to perfect a reversal spell that removed all the dots from her map so she could start over.

Attempt two had resulted, somehow, in all the street names on the map vanishing.

Spell five worked, she knew, because every inked line on the map—from the sketches of trees, to the words labeling town monuments—had glowed a faint gold. No dots popped up on the map, though. No thick black X marking the spot.

Pulling out her scrying materials, she held her magic-strengthening amethyst crystal firmly in one hand. When she asked her magic for some guidance, her free hand was almost immediately jerked to the right until it landed in an area near the Edgehill Coroner’s office. Her stomach twisted. The last time she’d been there had been the day she’d used a memory retrieval spell on Melanie’s body. She could almost still feel the cold, hard skin of her best friend’s hand in hers. She shivered.

After conducting the ritual three more times, she had the same result: her fist landing on the north end of town. No specific location, because of course it wouldn’t be that easy.

After feeding Tom and Alley breakfast, Amber stuffed the map into her purse, put on a pair of sturdy tennis shoes—because goodness knew what terrain Edgar had chosen for her today—and hurried down the steps.

She had narrowed the cache’s location to a ten-block radius. As she drove—radio off and window down, letting in the cool mid-spring air—she asked her magic for help. She’d slowly creep around a corner, ask her magic to find the cache item, and then wait for that telltale tug forward. When it didn’t come, she’d go up the next street and then down another.

It wasn’t until she reached the intersection of Mew Way and Sphynx Road, idling at a stop sign with the coroner’s office to her right, that she felt it.

Forward, it said.

She glared straight ahead. He wouldn’t dare, would he? This would be even worse than a haunted house.

Tug.

Sphynx, after two blocks, tuned into Buttercup Road. Lips pursed, she rolled through the intersection. There was still time for the item to materialize before those two blocks. It had to. Edgar wouldn’t do this to her. The item had to be close.

She passed the Edge of Glen Pizza Parlor on her left and a few houses on her right. Then she crossed through Camellia Way. Still, her magic gently urged her forward.

One more block for her magic to tug her left or right.

I’m going to wring your neck, Edgar. Don’t make me go any farther.

More houses. And then she crossed Gardenia Street, and Sphynx turned into Buttercup. Street signs suddenly weren’t topped by metallic cats; sign faces had intricately painted flowers in their corners. The farther she went, the more she saw people’s front doors hung with wreaths made of peonies, lilies, and carnations. White picket fences were laden with roses.

Yet her magic tugged her forward once more.

She could no longer deny it. Her cousin had hidden the cache item—she shuddered—in Marbleglen.

Aside from the joint committee meeting last week, Amber hadn’t actually been in Marbleglen in a few years. There were easier, more direct routes to both Salem and Portland from Edgehill that didn’t involve driving through the flower-obsessed town. She did her best to keep her eyes focused forward, with her magic honed in on the cache item, and not the increasingly distracting riot of color all around her.

Spring was upon them, to be sure, but spring in Edgehill in comparison to spring in Marbleglen was no contest. Nearly every house here had a lawn full of flowers, with bees and butterflies flitting about in the late morning sun. Two blocks later, she came across a park on her left, a wide-open space of bright green grass ringed in leafy trees. Someone threw a ball for his dog, who tore across the middle of the massive park with such speed, little clumps of grass were torn up by its paws. A pair of women ran side by side pushing strollers along the wide sidewalk. A man sat on a bench facing the park, reading a book.

Picturesque, peaceful, very clean, and full of color and life.

Amber wrinkled her nose. This place was horrible.

The tug near her abdomen urged her to turn left. She followed her magic and slowly cruised down streets of this residential area, with blooming gardens and well-tended lawns. The longer she drove, the more she saw signs for “Sorrel Garden.” After ten minutes—part of which involved driving past “Parking Lot D” several times before she realized this was where her magic wanted her to go—she pulled into the garden’s lot. There were at least fifty spots, a third of which were occupied.

The parking spots were to the right of the garden’s entrance, and ahead of her, a row of Italian blue cypress trees stretched as far as she could see, running along the front of the parking lot and beyond. The thin evergreen trees stretched at least forty feet into the air, while their bases were no more than five feet wide. They grew so close together that Amber couldn’t see anything on the other side. The only break in the trees came from the cement path that had a metal archway positioned above it. The fence of trees started up again on the other side of the garden’s entrance.

Climbing out of her car, she zipped up her loose jacket and headed for the five-foot-tall wooden sign that stood to the left of the path. She stood before it, shielding her eyes from the sun peeking over the top of the sign’s peaked roof, and studied the map.

Sorrel Garden was spoon-shaped, wide at the top and thin at the end, reminiscent of a flower petal. Parking Lot D, where she was now, was positioned at the topmost part of the petal, and Parking Lot A was down near the garden’s thin base.

Sorrel, explained the block of informative text to the right of the garden’s map explained, was an edible weed. This garden—Marbleglen’s southwest garden, of which there were four total—was primarily home to edible plants. Amber peered around the side of the map and down the cement path that snaked past the towering evergreen trees before it disappeared into the sea of green.

Forward, her magic said.

Edgar was in so much trouble.

Giving the hem of her jacket a little yank and blowing out a breath that came out in a muted burst of steam despite the bright sunlight, she started down the cement path.

Welcome to Sorrel Garden! The words were etched into the arch of the metallic sign above her, twisting metal vines and leaves wrapped around the sign’s poles.

It was chillier in the garden, the sun only reaching past the tall tree-fence in patches. As she walked, she found herself paying less attention to the tug in her stomach and more to the expansive sea of green all around her. While there were a variety of trees here, the true stars of the garden were the smaller shrubs and bushes that completely covered the ground on either side of the path she walked down. There were a few flowers dotted here and there, but they were smaller than anything she’d expect to see in a typical garden full of the bright, wide heads of tulips, roses, and irises.

Amber didn’t know much about plants. What she did know was thanks mostly to Aunt Gretchen, a master kitchen witch. Her aunt would love Sorrel Garden. Amber wrinkled her nose. She didn’t want to think about her aunt right now.

The flowers here were delicate things—purple and white and yellow, and no bigger than her palm. Amber found herself wanting to return here in summer, when the wild brambles of berry bushes farther into the garden would ripen, adding reds and blues to the color palate, and when the shrubbery covering the ground would be full and lush.

After rounding a slight bend in the cement pathway, she spotted a few topiaries stippled amongst the greenery. To the right was a four-foot tall butterfly, its green wings outstretched and decorated with swirling patterns of yellow and dark brown. To the left, closer to the edge of the path, were four foot-long topiary bunnies forming a semi-circle around a plant she didn’t recognize, but one she guessed would be leafy and wide in summer.

As she got closer, a jolt from her magic told her this was where the cache was hidden. Squatting before the topiary bunnies, she glanced left and right. No one was coming from the direction she’d been, and though she did see someone on the path to her left, she was so far down that she was nothing more than a speck in the distance.

Blowing out a steadying breath, she poked around near the bunnies, their little wire skeletons not offering much give to her probing fingers. Where was this thing? What if it was something truly tiny, like a seed?

Could she legally disown Edgar? She would consult a lawyer once she was safely back in Edgehill … assuming she didn’t give an unsuspecting non-witch a heart attack when she finally found the cache item and a guestbook materialized out of thin air.

She wondered if there could possibly be a cloaking spell on the item. It was in a public place, after all. What would stop a bored kid, wandering the gardens with his parents, from finding the object amongst one of the bunnies’ paws and making off with it?

Knowing whatever spell was keeping the item hidden had to be a relatively simple one that could be kept active by ambient magic—which had to be abundant here, given all the plants—she crafted a simple reveal spell in her head. Glancing both ways again to confirm she was still alone, she conducted the spell.

She bit down on her bottom lip, gaze roving over the family of four topiary bunnies, the small plant in front of them, and the sea of green stretching out behind the bunnies in three directions. She was just about to try the spell again when a small wooden rabbit appeared between the paws of its much bigger topiary counterpart behind it. The item sat on its hind legs with its front paws held close to its chest, and its ears stuck up at attention. Tentatively, she grabbed it. The wood was a bit denser than she’d expected, the color a warm caramel brown. It fit easily in the palm of her hand. Though a good deal of the etching was worn away now, she could still see the marks of its fur, the lines marking the inside rim of its ears, and the detailed painting of its alert and bright eyes.

Moments later, she yelped. She’d been perched on the balls of her feet, but now found herself on her butt. A small red book lay on the cement path before her feet. The excited thrill that went through her at actually finding the item made her jealous of all the witch kids who got to do this growing up. Snatching up the three-inch-tall book—careful not to drop the wooden rabbit—she opened it. A small golfer pencil almost fell out, but she caught it before that hit the ground too.

There were five entries here. Her brow furrowed more and more with each line she read.

S. Ricinus. Cache Creator. September 23rd.

V. White. Cheers from England! Brilliant cache location. April 18th.

S. Ricinus. Cache maintenance. June 1st.

K. Rivers. Hello from North Carolina! Beautiful spot. April 30th.

S. Ricinus. Cache maintenance. June 1st.

Amber blinked rapidly several times. None of the words in front of her changed. “S. Ricinus,” since he or she had not only created the cache but had been back to check on it multiple times, was possibly local. The Floral Frenzy Festival, over the last few years anyway, happened sometime between late-April and mid-May. Did “S. Ricinus” come by on the first of June to check on the cache once the flood of flower festival attendees had left? Sure, there was another upswell in summer, but perhaps the first was early enough into the season that it was slower here and he or she could more easily get to their cache without worry of being seen.

Then Amber realized two things in rapid succession.

One: Edgar hadn’t sent her here after all.

Two: there was a witch in Marbleglen.

Chapter 4

The cement was cold, and a small rock dug into her ankle, yet Amber couldn’t get herself to stand up. Couldn’t get herself to look away from the five lines of text and the realization that there was at least one other witch in the area aside from herself and Edgar.

I have to find this person …

As she worked through the best way to find S. Ricinus, she picked up the tiny golfer pencil and quickly added her name to the sixth line. It was such a small way to insert herself into this existing-below-the-surface magical world she knew so little about, but it felt good for some reason.

I’m here, the act said.

A. Blackwood. April 16th.

And then an idea hit her. Shooting another quick glance left and right, she determined the person to her left was still far enough away. With the wooden rabbit clutched in one hand, she set the book on her knee. Using her free hand, she touched the tip of three fingers to each of the S. Ricinus lines; perhaps some of the person’s energy was trapped in the penciled words.

She hoped a simple locator spell, similar to the one she used on the PI, Alan Peterson’s, business card, would make a dot pop up on her map—even though the map was currently stuffed into her purse in the car. She had no idea what the range was on spells like this, but she figured it was her best bet. Putting the cache item back in its original place would make the guestbook disappear, but what would happen if she tried to remove either item from the cache site? Would it break the weak spells keeping it in place? No point in ruining the Magic Cache fun for the next person just because she was losing her cookies over another witch being nearby.

The moment she’d conducted the locator spell, though, she heard a muted pop, the guestbook vanished off her knee and the wooden rabbit grew hot in her hand. She yelped and dropped it. With a soft clatter, it hit cotton-tail-first on the cement and then lay on its side. The tips of its ears were charred black. The small rabbit looked quite aggrieved.

“Well, that’s not good,” she muttered to herself. “Sorry, little guy.”

Panic made her palms sweat and her heart thrum, like a kid who had just broken her mother’s favorite vase and now needed a plan to hide the evidence.

Tentatively, she picked the wooden rabbit up again, thankfully cool once more, and got to her feet so she could reach the spot where the item’s original hiding place had been. Except placing it before the topiary bunny didn’t trigger the cloaking spell.

Glancing to her left, she saw a man with a camera strapped around his neck moving closer. Close enough that she could tell he was watching her. Namely in a “What in the world is that weird lady doing?” kind of way.

Amber grabbed the semi-charred wooden rabbit and quickly headed back the way she’d come. She felt guilty taking the cache item with her, but she’d already messed up the magic here somehow, so the least she could do was try to find S. Ricinus, apologize profusely, and return the rabbit.

Once she got back to the car—a fine sheen of sweat dotting her forehead and dampening the back of her shirt—she hurriedly pulled her purse out of its hiding place in the back seat. She grabbed her map of Edgehill, hoping a dot would be hovering near the small sliver of Marbleglen included to the north. Miraculously, there was a dot there, but it sat in the white space at the top of the map. It moved back and forth across an inch distance. If Amber didn’t know any better, she’d have said the dot was pacing.

Tossing the map onto the passenger seat with her purse, she fished her phone out of the cup holder in the center console and looked up the nearest visitor center. She quickly found one in Parking Lot A, at the bottom of the spoon-shaped Sorrel Garden.

As she drove to the visitor center—the wall of Italian blue cypress lining the edge of the garden the entire way—she wondered what she’d do if she was able to track down S. Ricinus. The idea of meeting other witches was so novel to her, she didn’t even know where to begin. Aside from her family, the only other witch she’d ever met had been a cursed Penhallow.

And he’d tried to kill her.

Once she was sure she knew where she was going, she called Edgar.

“Don’t tell me you’ve given up already,” he said by way of greeting.

“I found a cache,” she said. “It wasn’t yours. There’s a witch in Marbleglen.”

“You’re kidding!” Edgar said. “I didn’t even think to look for any there.”

She walked him through the events of her morning. “Do you know any Ricinus witch families?”

Edgar was quiet a moment, and she could picture his dark bushy brows crammed together on his forehead. “Doesn’t ring a bell. Aunt G might know.”

“I’m not speaking to her right now,” Amber blurted.

“Why?”

Jack’s smiling face appeared in her mind.

“I’ll tell you about it later,” she said. “Just wanted you to know your cache will have to wait.” She ended the call before he could reply.

Parking Lot A was nearly full. Amber supposed that was because it was close to the center of town. The visitor center was little more than a glorified kiosk, but the woman behind the counter was cheery and happily passed over a map of Marbleglen when Amber asked for one. The woman also gave her a brochure that detailed the four gardens of Marbleglen, and suggested which ones were best to visit this time of year.

Once back in her car, currently wedged between two SUVs, Amber first laid out her map of Edgehill, where the dot still paced, and then spread out the map of Marbleglen above it, lining them up as best she could. The town had been designed to resemble a flower from the air. There was a town center that was arranged in a circle, and from there, four spoon-shaped gardens radiated out from it, like a four-petaled flower.

Amber watched as the pacing dot at the top of the Edgehill map gave a little quiver and then darted from one sheet to the other. It moved away from the southwest Sorrel Garden and toward the east. It stopped at a house halfway between Sorrel and the southeastern Lilac Garden.

An excited trill fluttered in her stomach. That little dot represented another witch.

Before she could convince herself not to, she started up her dusty rental car and headed for the home of S. Ricinus.

The house was on Amaryllis Way, halfway up a block that was just as picturesque and peaceful as the rest of Marbleglen. Houses in this neighborhood sat facing a center grassy island that ran down the middle of the street. A couple sat on a blanket in this cultivated meadow while their baby attempted to crawl toward a stuffed animal a foot away.

Amber pulled up outside of 93 Amaryllis, parked at the curb, and then … just sat there. She leaned over the center console to peer out at the one-story cerulean cottage. Boxes full of plants that were just beginning to flower hung under the four windows, and a wreath made of twisted strands of wood framed the small latticework spyhole in the middle of the door. The property was surrounded by a low wooden fence, the front of which was ringed with well-tended hedges. Beyond it was a variety of garden boxes and potted plants. To the left, four white Adirondack chairs sat around a fire pit covered by a dome-shaped cage. And, in the right-hand corner, a middle-aged man wearing thick gray gloves, khakis, and a ratty T-shirt was busy at work filling a wheelbarrow.

S. Ricinus. Or at least someone who knew the person, if the dot on her map was to be believed.

Amber got out of the car and immediately stuck her hand in her pocket to make sure the small, charred wooden rabbit was still there. It felt strange being here, but the rabbit would at least be a conversation starter.

She had just reached the semi-ajar gate when the man looked up from his trek across the garden. He was a perfectly normal looking middle-aged man. His short brown hair had started to gray at the temples, and faint wrinkles lined his forehead and at the corners of his eyes. He held the handles of the wheelbarrow that was now full of fresh soil.

“Hi, sir,” she said, waving awkwardly. She inched past the gate; the rabbit was gripped so tightly in her hand that it started to hurt. “My name is—”

“A. Blackwood?” he asked, setting the wheelbarrow down.

She opened her mouth, then closed it. Then she took the rabbit out of her pocket and held it out to him, closing the distance between them as she did so.

He pulled off one of his dirty gloves and tucked it under an arm, then took the rabbit from her. “Well, that’s a shame,” he said. “My grandfather made this.”

Amber winced. “I’m really sorry. I—”

The man held up a hand, then scanned the quiet street behind her. The baby playing in the grass let out a high peal of laughter.

Apparently deeming the coast clear, he placed the rabbit flat in his open palm, muttered a quick incantation, and then swiped his still-gloved palm over the other. The rabbit was instantly restored to its former glory. “You thirsty?” he asked.

Before Amber could reply, he turned in on his heel and headed for the front door. She still stood there, open-mouthed, when he looked over his shoulder at her from the doorway. “I’ve got fresh lemonade.”

At a loss, she followed him in.

The house was small—maybe four rooms in all. He led her through the small living room and into the kitchen. It was a cramped space that felt even smaller thanks to all the dark colors. The cabinets were unfinished wood, the accents dark green. A wooden table took up most of the space in the room and was piled high with dried plants and flowers, piles of thin wooden pieces, and what looked like wreaths in various stages of completion. Even more plants hung from the ceiling—she supposed to help them dry.

While it felt like the kitchen of a crafter, it also felt like the kitchen of a witch.

“Sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting company. I make wreaths.”

She stood awkwardly in the doorway as he cleared a small corner of the table for them, then gestured for her to sit in one of the worn chairs. As she slipped into one, she said, “My apartment looks like this, too. Well, sort of. I make toys—magically animated ones. Though no one knows they’re magic. I have bits of plastic, pots of paint, and spells everywhere.”

It felt strangely exhilarating to talk freely about her magic with a total stranger.

The man placed two glasses of lemonade on the table, then sat gingerly in the chair diagonally from her. He dropped his pair of dirty gloves on the table. “So did you just come by to return the cache item?”

His tone implied he knew she was here for more than that; she appreciated that he was giving her an out if she wanted it.

“I’m Simon, by the way,” he said.

“Amber.” She ran a finger down the light sheen of condensation on her glass. “So this might sound a little strange, but I only learned about Magic Cache about a week ago. I was wondering if you could tell me why the guest book vanished?”

He stared at her a beat, gaze roving her face. “I’m guessing you conducted a spell on the book or the item for some reason.”

“Locator spell.”

“Ah,” he said, nodding. “The magic on cache items is so weak, any spell you conduct on them that’s stronger than a basic cloaking spell is more or less going to short circuit the whole thing. Your locator spell overloaded it and negated all the spells. It’s tradition to place a boomerang spell on guest books so they’re sent back to the cache creator if the guest log or item is damaged or removed.”

Amber winced. “I really am sorry.”

“No harm done.” With a snap of his fingers, the small, familiar red book landed on the table with a muted thud. He set the restored wooden rabbit on top of it.

“Oh!” She tucked her lips under her teeth. She was at a loss again. What was she supposed to ask this man? She had so many questions about magic, it was overwhelming. She picked up the glass of lemonade and slowly sipped it, no longer sure what to do with her hands.

She desperately wanted to ask what he knew about her parents, the coveted time-travel spell, and the Penhallow curse, but that would be getting ahead of herself. It would be just like her to meet someone new and bypass all the getting-to-know-you small talk and veer straight into the Land of Too Much Information.

Besides, just because he wasn’t a Penhallow—at least she hoped not—it didn’t mean that he didn’t associate with them. She knew nothing about him.

Next to his arm was a small stack of what looked like flyers. “Join us and Mayor Sable on Monday night for the Marbleglen Public Safety Meeting!” they read. “We’ll stop the Marbleglen Bandit ourselves!”

“Marbleglen Bandit?” Amber asked, realizing too late that she’d said that out loud.

“Yep,” Simon said. “Despite being the safest town in Oregon, we’ve got a vandal on our hands.”

Amber hadn’t heard anything about it. Perhaps this was the “rough couple of months” Mayor Deidrick had alluded to. Bianca Pace and her band of Floral Frenemies certainly hadn’t brought it up. Kim would find this endlessly satisfying.

“About a month ago, a crime spree—that’s what they called it on the news, anyway—swept through the town. And yet, a month later, do you think there’s been a single arrest made? Nope. Chief Jameson is an incompetent buffoon,” Simon said. “It’s also a terribly kept secret among locals that the whole police department is rotten to the core. Bribery, fraud, theft. The mayor before Sable just looked the other way; he was too busy working on his golf game. Mayor Sable is doing what she can, but the chief and his minions are too set in their ways now. There’s a relatively new guy—Juan Reyes—who seems okay, but he’s vastly outnumbered.” Simon pursed his lips, shaking his head. “A bunch of us are fed up, so I created a group where we can talk about this stuff openly. It’s really grown over the last few weeks. There’s a town hall tomorrow and I’ll be leading a Q&A with Mayor Sable.”

“What kind of crime spree was it?” Amber asked.

“Over the course of one night, several cars were vandalized in an apartment complex parking lot; graffiti was sprayed over a beloved mural in the center of town; the doors on all the coops were opened overnight on a chicken farm—several of the birds are still missing; and someone destroyed a farmer’s entire supply of peppermint oil.”

“Would one person be able to do all that in one night?” Amber asked. “That sounds like a bunch of bandits.”

“That’s one theory,” Simon said. “Marbleglen High graduates have a senior prank every year. A lot of people are speculating that a bunch of them went on a bender and took the prank too far. It was one night of destruction, and then nothing. But even if that’s the case, the chief and his squad of goons haven’t done anything to crack down on it. What would stop the bandits from trying to do something like this again? It cost victims a lot of money to repair the damages and they’ve gotten no relief from Jameson.”

Unsure of what else to say, Amber said, “I hope something comes out of your talk with the mayor.”

“Thanks,” he said slowly, head cocked to the side and one elbow propped on the table. “I know you didn’t come all the way over here to talk about Marbleglen politics. It’s my passion lately, so once you get me going, I can’t shut up.” He laughed. “What did you want to talk about? You can ask me anything you want. I’m always happy to talk to other witches. They’re few and far between here.”

Amber had so many questions that now her brain had shut down completely. She idly sipped her lemonade. Would it be strange if she just bolted out of here without another word?

“You’re Annabelle Henbane’s daughter, aren’t you?”

Amber almost choked. She set down the glass and coughed, rubbing at her watering eyes. “How did you know that?”

“Your mother grew up in Delin Springs,” he said, which was neither a question nor an answer.

Amber nodded.

“I grew up in a hybrid town in western Louisiana. Your mother and I were similar in age; I figure she would be about my age now had she not passed away. With Delin Springs in southeast Texas, we heard about the goings-on there quite often since it was less than an hour away. The rumors about your mother being a prodigy with time spells was like hearing a fourteen-year-old just graduated Harvard with a degree in quantum physics. It wasn’t—still isn’t—anything most of us were capable of, so a lot of us from that area started to see her as an almost mythical creature.

“A lot of my family has been in law enforcement in one way or another, and my late wife was an officer too. I suppose that’s why I’m getting involved in the public safety issues here now. Anyway, when I was a kid and a major crime happened that involved magic, I usually heard about it from a chatty aunt or uncle. Word spread fast that a man in Delin Springs had been murdered, and that another had been driven mad—both because of magic. Then people realized that the entire Henbane clan of four had packed up and left that same night.” Simon eyed her for a moment, then added, “It took a few days for authorities to piece it together that the murdered man in the woods who no one in Delin Springs recognized was actually a Penhallow.”

Amber swallowed.

“I’d always wondered what happened to Annabelle,” Simon said. “I had a bit of a crush on her, to be honest. I never met her, but so many of us were taken with the idea of her. This powerful witch who had such a bright future of magical innovation ahead of her, and then she just … vanished.

“My late wife, because of her job, found out that Annabelle had become a Blackwood and had two children—but she only learned that after Annabelle died. No one realized it was them until the investigation started. Your parents did an exceptional job of staying hidden.”

Amber mulled that over for a moment. “So law enforcement from witch towns investigated the fire?”

“Oh yeah. My wife was actually called out there,” he said. “Between the claims of blue fire, neighbors not calling the fire in until it was too late, and the fact that there was a thick magical signature outside the house, there was no doubt it had been a Penhallow who had killed them. But the day your parents died, the Penhallows dropped off the map. It’s still considered an open case as far as I know.”

Amber found herself grateful that people from the magic community—a community her parents had turned their backs on—had cared enough to investigate their deaths. Yet, Amber was also upset none of those people had ever talked to her, Willow, or Aunt Gretchen. Amber had felt so alone in her conviction that Penhallows had been behind the fire.

“Was it true that they raised you to be magic-free?” he asked. “Is that why you don’t know much about Magic Cache? Most kids learn it in elementary school.”

“Yes,” she admitted, cheeks hot. “Guess you could say I’m a late bloomer.”

Simon laughed. It was a nice, easy sound. “Any idea why they chose Edgehill of all places? Most witches believe the place is cursed. Did they choose a place no one would think to look for them?”

Amber’s brows scrunched together. “Cursed?”

Simon shrugged and waved his hand dismissively. “I’m sure a lot of it is myth. Stories parents tell their kids to freak them out. It was a popular story when I was kid, anyway. I’d heard it enough times growing up that when my wife and I were looking to relocate, we didn’t even consider it as a possibility. Even choosing Marbleglen felt risky since Edgehill is right next door, but my wife loved flowers on a nearly obsessive level, so it was sort of inevitable that we’d end up in a place like this.”

Amber merely stared at him. She hadn’t the first clue what he was talking about.

Simon kept talking, though she couldn’t be sure whether it was because he was clueless to her confusion or barreling right past it so as to not embarrass her by acknowledging it. “My wife and I loved Magic Cache. It was actually how we met; we were in our twenties, on break for college, and were both out caching. When we realized we were after the same one, we made a bet on who would find it first. She did, of course. She was always a master at locator spells and tracking in general. It’s what made her such a great detective.

“Anyway, after we were married, we kept planning to go on a cross-country caching trip, but life kept getting in the way. Then our daughter was born. Then my wife got sick and … well. It never happened. A few years ago, I decided to go on the trip in her honor. It was a bittersweet experience. When I got back, I decided to add a few Marbleglen caches in some of her favorite places. She loved rabbits and she used to take our dog on a walk every morning through Sorrel Garden.

“I almost, almost went into Edgehill to hide one, but as silly as it is, I was scared to hit one of those supposed magic veins and blow myself to smithereens.” He chuckled.

“Okay, I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Amber finally said. “Curse? Myth? Magic veins?”

Slowly, the good humor drained from his face. “You really don’t know the story?”

She shook her head.

“Wow,” he said, sitting up a little straighter. “So the story goes that over a hundred years ago, there were magic towns all over the world. Edgehill was one of them, much like your mother’s Delin Springs. But one day, something happened. Magic went haywire, causing witches across the globe to get sick—some dropped dead, others went mad. The council, before it disbanded around the same time, claimed they had no idea what it was, but they would look into it. Nothing ever came from the supposed investigation, so theories have been floating around for years.

“But whatever this thing was, it resulted in magic veins—pockets of intense power that could go off like a bomb if triggered—popping up in a handful of towns across the globe. Apparently, for a while, the magic under the ground in Edgehill erupted like a volcano. It’s believed that the magic that came out caused magic sickness, and it caused all the witches in Edgehill to eventually flee the town. A few years after the witches left, their familiars—the cats—all made their way back to the town and have been waiting for their witches to return for generations. It’s a nice story, regardless of whether it’s true—the cat part, I mean. You have to admit it’s pretty strange that there are so many cats there …”

Amber blinked in rapid succession. Could Tom and Alley be descendants of cat familiars?

She’d never heard anything like this. She wondered if her parents had known the story. Had something supernatural lured them to Edgehill without them knowing why?

“I always thought your parents had chosen it specifically for its history,” Simon said. “Perhaps I just liked the idea that even if Annabelle had turned her back on magic, she’d found comfort in being in a place that had once been home to witches—maybe a way to feel closer to Delin Springs even if she felt like she could never go back. I could relate to that idea since I’d grown up in a hybrid town. Making the transition to a place that’s more or less magic-free can be really difficult.”

There was that phrase again. “What’s a hybrid town?”

Simon took a sip of his lemonade. “Just like it sounds, I guess. A witch town means you can use your magic freely. You get used to things—and people—appearing and disappearing at any given time. Sometimes animals talk. Pranks in high school get out of control really fast when magic is a factor. But witch towns are also like prisons. You can only be your true self when you’re there. It can start to feel like you have a split personality.

“In hybrid towns, there are non-witches living alongside witches. They’re the kind of places people go when magic skips a generation and you have non-witch parents with a witch child. Or witch parents with a non-witch child. It can be great to be out in the open with your abilities with non-witches, but being a non-witch in a town where there are magic-wielding criminals? They can be very dangerous places.”

“Is that why you left yours?” Amber asked.

“Partly,” he said. “Our daughter didn’t inherit any of our powers. My wife was offered a very cushy detective post in the hybrid town of Wendel, Washington, so that’s where we went. But it was very hard on Bianca. Imagine the horrors and insecurities of middle school, and then add on the fact that you didn’t get a lick of magic from your parents. She lasted all of a week in high school before she couldn’t take it anymore and we eventually settled in Marbleglen.”

“So you had to do what my parents did,” she said. “Go from a place where using magic was natural to a place where you had to hide it.”

Simon nodded. “It was a difficult transition at first, but after living in Wendel, my wife and I both thought it would be nice to have a slower, less dangerous life. Marbleglen is the polar opposite of Wendel. We both fell in love with it. And Bianca thrived here. Now she even heads the Floral Frenzy Festival Committee.”

Amber almost choked on her lemonade again. “Your daughter is Bianca Pace?”

Simon grinned. “Yes. You’ve met her?”

Have I ever. “Just briefly.”

“Huh,” he said, smiling. “Small world.”

“Are there any other witches in Marbleglen?” she asked, still reeling from the revelation that snooty, uppity Bianca Pace had a witch for a father.

Simon shook his head. “Not that I know of. Another reason I put caches in town was in hopes it would put me in contact with a few other witches. I don’t necessarily miss the hectic life in Wendel, but there’s just something about being around other witches. You can let your guard down in a way you can’t with non-witches. I was instantly comfortable around you, for example. Witches just give off a good energy, I think.” He studied her for a long moment. “What made you stay in Edgehill after your parents passed away?”

Amber chewed on her bottom lip, debating on whether she should mention Edgar and deciding against it. “Willow, my sister, left; I stayed. It can be lonely being the only witch for miles, but Edgehill is my home. It always will be. Cursed or not.”

Simon picked up his glass and held it out to her. “Well, now you have me.”

Smiling, she grabbed her glass and gently clicked it against his before taking a sip.

“If only you didn’t have to mangle my grandfather’s prized woodworking piece in order for us to find each other,” he said, but he was still smiling warmly at her.

Just then, the front door opened, startling them both. Amber couldn’t see the door from where she sat.

“Dad?” came a voice from the living room. “You here? I brought one of Pete’s old suits for you for the dinner.”

Amber’s eyes widened, recognizing the voice instantly. Her gaze flicked to the other end of the kitchen where a door promised her a quick escape. The world outside the sheer white curtains boasted a clear blue sky and a decided lack of Bianca Pace.

“We’re in here!” he called over his shoulder, not getting up.

“We?” Bianca asked. “We who? Since when do you—”

Bianca came up short in the doorway when she spotted Amber sitting at the table with her father. The hanger for a zipped-up garment bag hung from her hand. Her eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”

Simon quickly stood, whirling on his daughter. “What on earth has gotten into you? Amber is a guest. My guest, and you’re in my home.” He took the bag from her and hung it from the knob on one of the cabinets behind him.

Despite being in her early thirties, like Amber, the poised woman rolled her eyes as if she were a teenager. “Relax, Dad. I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m just surprised to see a member of the Here and Meow Committee cozying up to my father, of all people.”

If Simon was surprised that Amber had a seat on the committee of his daughter’s rival festival, he didn’t show it. Was he going to tell Bianca that Amber was a witch? Even if Bianca was well-versed in the witch world, Amber couldn’t imagine Bianca not using that knowledge to her advantage somehow.

Some small part of Amber felt pity for Bianca. Her ever-present snotty personality was likely based, at least a little, on the fact that she felt insecure about not being a witch herself.

“Amber came to see me because she was playing Magic Cache and the spell glitched,” Simon said. “She brought Papa’s wooden rabbit back to me because the cloak on it malfunctioned.”

Welp, I guess that’s out in the open now.

Bianca’s gaze slowly turned back to Amber and a small smile inched its way onto her beautiful face. “Amber Blackwood is a witch? Wow.” She gave Amber an up-and-down scan. “So much makes sense now.”

Amber swallowed, her mouth suddenly parched. She downed the rest of her lemonade and then quickly got to her feet. Scanning the table, she pulled out a small notepad buried under a pile of wreath supplies and the golfer pencil that rested against the small red guestbook, and quickly wrote down her phone number. “It was really great meeting you, Simon. That’s my cell,” she said, tapping a finger against the pad of paper. “Maybe we can meet up again sometime, if that’s okay?”

He smiled and held out his hand. Amber shook it; his fingers were rough and strong. He was a man who clearly worked a lot with his hands. He patted the back of her hand with his. “Any time. We witches have to stick together, right?”

She nodded, face flushed. “Good luck with the meeting with Mayor Sable tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” he said. “We’ll need it. But, hopefully, the next step will be getting rid of useless Chief Jameson. Marbleglen will be much better off once he’s gone.”

Amber only managed to laugh awkwardly, as she was distracted by the way Bianca’s lip was curled in Amber’s direction. She needed to get out of here.

“Bye, Bianca,” she said, and scurried past her.

When Amber was tucked safely back in her car, it wasn’t her cousin who she called right away. It was Kim.

“Oh my God, Amber, hi!” Kim said, breathless. It was hard to know if Kim had just been doing jumping jacks or if this was her default tone. “I came by the shop earlier to see if you wanted to get lunch, but the Bowen girls said you were out and they had no idea where you went or when you’d be back.”

“I’ve had the weirdest day,” she said. “But weirdest of all? Bianca Pace knows I’m a witch.”

“What?” Kim practically screamed into the phone. “I’m coming to your place with two bottles of wine. Be ready to talk.”

Amber dropped her phone into her purse—Kim had hung up without another word—and hazarded a glance toward Simon’s house. Bianca stood before one of the windows, her arms crossed. Amber was too far away to see her expression, but she figured “glaring” wasn’t a bad guess. Gulping, Amber pulled away from the curb. The list of people who knew about her abilities seemed to be growing at an alarming speed.

Her safe—but lonely—reclusive lifestyle was quickly becoming a thing of the past.

Chapter 5

After an animated conversation with Kim, a bottle of wine, and watching in amusement as Kim semi-drunkenly waltzed around the studio apartment with Alley in her arms, Amber relieved the Bowen girls at 3 p.m. so they could enjoy the rest of their Sunday. Even with the festival a little over a month away, Sunday evenings would still be slow enough that she could work the shop comfortably alone for a couple more weeks. She kept busy by assisting customers, filling phone orders, and working on more spell ideas for her graduation-themed animated toys. Her current challenge was a giraffe whose head kept snapping off mid-neck every time she tried to add a movement spell to flip the graduation cap off its head without use of its hooves.

It was nearing 6 p.m. and she was behind the counter restocking the tea supplies when the bell above her shop door chimed. She groaned. Why did customers have to come in five minutes before closing?

Blowing out a breath, she turned around and placed the basket of tea on the counter, then plastered on a friendly face and opened her mouth to greet her customer. But the smile and cheery welcome died immediately.

Jack Terrence was standing her in shop.

Amber swallowed. “Hi, Jack.”

Her face flamed. Why must her voice crack as if she were still a nervous teenager?

He skirted around the pair of pyramid-shaped bookshelves that prevented a straight shot from door to counter, and then stopped in front of her. He hadn’t shaved off the short beard he’d started growing recently, and she resisted the urge to tell him how much she liked it. “Hey,” he said. “Can we talk?”

Ugh. Three words that struck fear in anyone’s heart.

Would he turn on his heel and walk back out if she said no? It had worked the night of the gala, when he’d sat beside her and told her that the memory-erase spell had malfunctioned—that he remembered everything now. She’d told him then that she couldn’t talk about it—not yet anyway. Too many potential witnesses. Too much cleanup for her to do after the gala ended.

“Maybe sometime next week then?” he’d asked, brows raised.

She’d agreed, he’d wished her a nice evening, and she’d been avoiding him ever since. It had been over two weeks at this point. Then, to be safe, she also started avoiding his brother Larry, which meant avoiding Purrcolate at all costs.

When Jack called, Amber didn’t answer. She didn’t reply to text messages or emails; it was the same treatment she was giving Aunt Gretchen. The list of people she steered clear of was growing even faster than the list of people who knew her secret.

Amber bit her lip now as she studied Jack’s uncharacteristic borderline irritated expression.

Clearly, since he was standing before her, right at closing, he had finally grown impatient with her juvenile reaction to, well, everything. He would no longer take no for an answer. He’d respect her boundaries, she knew, but if she shut him down again, especially in person when she so very clearly had run out of excuses, she could very well could lose him entirely. Which was worse than hashing this out with him.

“Sure,” she finally said. “We can go upstairs. I have to feed the cats.”

As she rounded the counter so she could lock up, he stayed rooted to the spot, silently watching her walk past him one way to the door, then the other toward the stairs. She stopped at the “Employees Only” door and glanced over her shoulder at him.

“My apartment is up here.”

Once they were upstairs—Jack still hadn’t said a word since he’d asked if they could talk—he stood near the top of the staircase while she busied herself with feeding the cats. Tom and Alley both seemed unsure if the new visitor or their food bowls should be the focus of their attention—which was saying a lot in Tom’s case.

Finally, Amber turned to face Jack and managed a small smile. She wrung her hands, then folded her arms tight across her chest. “So what did you want to talk about?”

Without a word, he walked over to her small couch and sat down. He gestured for her to do the same.

There was a small comfort in knowing that she didn’t have to hide the half-formed spells littering both the coffee and dining room table. He already knew.

Her heart thumped hard as she sat next to him, her knees pressed together, and her gaze focused on a small pile of brightly painted plastic peacock feathers lying on her coffee table. Was he upset with her about the spell wearing off? Would he want Aunt Gretchen to come back to recast it? Would Amber have to watch the recognition go out of his eyes once more, like a room going dark? She wasn’t sure she could go through that all over again.

“Are you avoiding me because you hate me now?” he finally asked.

Amber’s head snapped up. “What?”

Jack frowned slightly. His back was rounded, his shoulders up by his ears, and his dark brows were pulled together. He almost looked angry. “I know now that you tried to keep me from learning any of this,” he said, gesturing vaguely to her apartment, but she suspected he meant magic in general. He kept his gaze focused on anything but her. “You’re holding onto big secrets—secrets your parents fought to keep from everyone, even from you, your aunt, and your sister—and I know letting anyone in on that has to be a big deal for you. Sharing it with people who aren’t witches, I mean. And I … God, Amber,” he said, turning to her suddenly and taking one of her hands in his.

Amber flinched at the contact, more from surprise than anything else, but she didn’t pull away either.

Jack didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy squeezing her hand and staring at her as if the intensity of his expression would tell her everything his words were failing to convey. “You told me who you are, I freaked out, and just … left. You had just been through hell and I … left. I’m the worst kind of jerk.”

It was then that Amber realized she’d started crying. Now it was she who couldn’t look at him. Her bottom lip shook as tears tracked down her face. She felt too wrung out to wipe them away.

In a softer tone, one hand still gripping hers, he said, “I like you a lot, Amber. I always have. And … seeing what that guy—what Kieran—did to you … it scared me so dang bad. Mostly because I realized I could never protect you from something like that. Somehow I felt terrified and totally worthless at the same time. Me asking your aunt to erase it all wasn’t just a ‘holy crap, this stuff is terrifying,’ but also ‘holy crap, she deserves to be with someone who can make sure nothing like this ever happens again.’”

Amber looked up at him then, her vision burry from the tears.

Before she could reply, he said, “I know that’s unrealistic. It was selfish, too. I was just thinking about myself and how scared I was, not that I should have stuck around to at least make sure you were okay.”

That made Amber cry harder. It was everything she’d wanted him to say—everything she’d shamefully let herself fantasize about as she lay awake after a nightmare had forcefully pulled her from sleep in the middle of the night. But she knew she wasn’t blameless in all this.

“I was awful to you,” she said.

He stilled, then cocked his head at her. “You were awful to me?”

“I lied to you so many times. When Kieran was here, I used truth spells on you every time we talked,” she said. “It started to get so easy to explain away every strange thing that happened. I lied and made up ridiculous excuses—all because I really like you too, Jack. I just didn’t want you to get caught up in any of this. My family and I didn’t know who to trust when Kieran was here. The Penhallow switched faces so many times, it was hard to know who was who. Then I ditched you at the end of our date … I mean, of course you followed me to Edgar’s house. You were worried about me—I knew you were worried—and my weird behavior led you straight to the one place I didn’t want you to go. If something had happened to you that night, I—”

He reached up and cupped her face. “Stop.”

Amber took in a shuddering breath.

Jack dropped his hand from her face but still held onto her hand. That intense look was back. “Maybe we can both agree that we were the worst kind of jerks?”

Amber let out a surprised, watery laugh. She sniffled. “Does that mean you forgive me?”

Brows arched, he said, “Only if you forgive me. My offense was way worse.”

“Kinda.”

He gasped in mock offense.

Smiling, Amber said, “I really am sorry, though. I shouldn’t have—”

“What? Shouldn’t have gone out with me?” he asked. “Shouldn’t have been endlessly charmed by me?”

She rolled her eyes.

Then his serious tone was back. “What’s the alternative? Keep to yourself until another witch shows up in Edgehill, or pack up and move? Seems like a lonely way to live.”

She nodded. “It is.”

“Well, I promise I’m not going anywhere this time,” he said. “Even if that’s just as a friend. I want you in my life, witch powers and all, in whatever capacity you want.”

“I want you in my life, too,” Amber managed before she started crying again.

She didn’t know what “in her life” meant yet, but she’d take it—whatever it was.

Jack got up to get her a tissue from the box on her counter, then thought better of it and brought the whole thing. He gave her a couple minutes to compose herself before he asked, “Can I ask you something a little weird?”

She cocked a brow at him. “We’re not well past weird already?”

He laughed. “Are you and Connor … seeing each other?”

“Definitely not!”

There was a slight smile at that. “I’m not being a jealous creep, I swear. It’s just … he seems kind of obsessed with you? We’ve met up a handful of times recently. He claimed it was for a story he was doing for the Gazette on the Best of Edgehill competition.”

“I’m really sorry you lost,” Amber said quickly. “I’m not sure I ever said that.”

He waved the apology as if it were a pesky fly. “We’ll take them next year. And, honestly, as long as it didn’t go to the she-demon, it’s all good with me.”

The she-demon was Paulette Newsome of Clawsome Coffee. While Amber had felt sorry for Jack’s loss, she had been delighted about Paulette’s.

“Anyway,” he said, “he found ways to bring you into the conversation every time we talked. At first it seemed normal, since you’re on the Here and Meow Committee. But I think now that my memories are back, and the competition is over … I don’t know, the clarity makes something about it all seem really strange now. I don’t think he knows about you being a witch, but it feels like he might be close to a theory.”

Amber only reveled in Jack’s casual use of “witch” as if it were as normal as saying “brunette” before the rest of what he’d said had caught up with her. “What kind of theory?”

“Not sure,” he said. “But … he seems to think you’re more than one person? He mentioned that he thought there were some eerie similarities between you and Cassie Westbottom—you know, that woman who was helping the chief with Chloe’s disappearance—and I swear he was trying to hint that you were like the same person.” Jack laughed, shaking his head.

“Uh … that was me.”

Jack immediately stopped laughing. “Wait, what?”

“Glamour spell,” she said. “The chief has known for a while that I’m a witch, and he needed some help finding Chloe, so I glamoured myself to look like someone else so it wouldn’t be strange to anyone that Amber Blackwood was there.”

“Except Connor noticed.”

“He followed me one day,” she said. “I went to a deserted part of town, glamoured myself to look like Cassie, and then when I was driving back out of the area, Connor was there. There was no reason for him to be there unless he was following me.”

Jack slumped a little. “That doesn’t seem … great, right? What if he publishes something about this? Wouldn’t that bring more attention to you? I’m guessing you want to lay as low as possible because of the Penhallows.”

Amber heaved out a breath, staring off into space. Wonderful. Another thing she needed to worry about: Nosy Connor Declan getting even nosier. A couple months ago, Amber had briefly considered the idea of dating Connor, but his job at the Edgehill Gazette had complicated things when he’d started questioning her as if she might have something to do with Melanie’s death. He’d been snooping around ever since. Things got even more complicated when it became clear, at least to Amber, that Willow was still carrying a torch for her high school crush. Connor was all Willow’s, as far as Amber was concerned.

“Maybe I should have Aunt G wipe his memory,” she said.

Jack laughed but sobered quickly when he saw Amber’s pinched forehead.

When she glanced over at him and saw the worry in his eyes, she laughed lightly. “I was kidding!”

But Amber would need to figure out something—and soon.

Two nights later, when Amber was rudely roused from sleep by her cell phone, she already knew who it was. Given how bright it was growing outside, she guessed it was at least seven in the morning this time, but why on earth was he always up so early lately?

Briefly puzzled by the unfamiliar number on her screen, she groggily asked, “Can’t this wait?”

“No, it can’t,” a decidedly female voice said. A very frantic-sounding woman.

Confusion cleared the grogginess. “Who is this?”

“Bianca.”

Shock made her sit up. “Bianca?”

She blew out a shaky breath. “My dad was arrested late last night … or, I guess early this morning, technically …”

“For what?”

Another shaky breath. “The murder of Chief Jameson.”

“What?” Amber said, loudly enough that it started both cats awake. Tom hissed for good measure before darting under the bed. Alley glared at her from Amber’s other pillow, then tucked her face under a paw and went back to sleep.

“I was his one call from the Lincoln County Jail this morning,” Bianca said. “County, Amber. How is my dad in County? He’s almost two hours away in a place filled with thieves and murderers.”

Amber’s head spun. “What happened?”

“He led the Q&A at the town hall meeting with Mayor Sable last night,” Bianca said in a rush. If Amber had to guess, she’d say the woman was pacing as she talked. “Then, later, there was this big fancy dinner for a bunch of prominent people from town.”

Amber remembered Bianca showing up to Simon’s house with a garment bag. “Oh, that’s what the suit was for.”

“Right,” Bianca said. “It was at the chief’s house. Dad wasn’t really excited about it because he’s not really the partying type, but other members of the safety committee were going to be there, so he felt like he had to at least make an appearance. He was hoping it would be a way to schmooze with leaders of the town and, I don’t know, make some important decisions, maybe? But it sounds like it was just an excuse for people to get sloshed on Chief Jameson’s liquor supply.

“Dad’s words were really slurred when he called me from the party. He told me: ‘A vase smashed and the chief is really angry and he’s not very nice, you know?’ And then he said something like, ‘I think my drink was drugged, baby. I think they drugged me. My magic is dying.’”

“Dying?” Amber asked. “What does that mean?”

“Medications and drugs can have a really strange effect on magic sometimes,” Bianca said. “I think after they drugged him, someone at the dinner party killed the chief, and now they’re pinning it on my dad.”

After a pause, Amber asked, “Is there any way he was drunk?”

“No,” Bianca said. “My grandpa—Dad’s dad—was an alcoholic, and Dad hasn’t touched alcohol since he was twenty-five. He said he could tell he would be as bad as his dad, so he gave the stuff up. I mean he drinks the occasional beer or whatever, but never in my life have I seen him drunk. We’re very close.”

Amber blew out a breath. “I don’t know what to say, Bianca.”

“Dad wants your help.”

“Me? Why me?”

“Because you have memory magic,” Bianca said as if that were obvious. “There’s a black hole in his mind from about 9 p.m. until 1 a.m., when all of a sudden he was in the back of a cop car. He’s supposed to get arraigned on Thursday—in two days. I didn’t even know what that was; I had to look it up. They’re going to set his bail, get him a lawyer, and set court dates.”

“How I am supposed to help him if he’s in jail?” Amber asked.

“Come with me to the arraignment.”

“I don’t think they’re going to let me get anywhere near him,” Amber said. “I’m not even family. How am I supposed to get into physical contact with a prisoner?”

“With your magic, obviously!” Bianca snapped. “He didn’t do this, Amber. There’s absolutely no way. None. And he asked for you specifically! He knows you can get to the bottom of this. What’s the point in having magic if you don’t help people with it?”

“I don’t really know if—”

Bianca cursed colorfully. “I don’t know why I bothered. I’ll figure it out myself.”

The call went dead.

Chapter 6

As Amber lay awake, Bianca’s words cycled through her head: He knows you can get to the bottom of this. What’s the point in having magic if you don’t help people with it?

When the looping guilt became unbearable, Amber quickly got dressed and went downstairs into the shop.

Chief Brown had told Amber on numerous occasions that she wasn’t an officer of the law. She had no business getting involved in another murder investigation. Especially when it hadn’t happened in Edgehill, the victim was a police chief in a town full of corrupt cops, and the key suspect was two hours away in a county jail.

This one might be too big for her, even with magic at her disposal. After all, at the end of the day, Amber was still only a toy maker.

Doing her level best to stay distracted, she had been so caught up in restocking the shelves that when a knock sounded on her front door sometime later, she jumped. Standing out on the sidewalk was Amber’s across-the-way neighbor, Betty Harris. Amber hurried over to unlock the door and let in the sixty-something African American woman with short hair, shrewd brown eyes, and a penchant for collecting the town’s best gossip.

“Hey, sugar,” she said, stepping inside. “Have you heard?”

Amber waited for Betty’s shop cat, a fluffy gray-and-white Maine coon named Savannah, to saunter into The Quirky Whisker after her owner, before Amber closed the door. The bell above it jangled. Savannah strolled past the humans and around the end of the counter, where Amber always kept a small bowl of cat treats.

Then she turned her attention back to Betty. “Is this about Chief Jameson?”

Betty nodded, and given her raised brows, was clearly a little surprised that Amber had learned this nugget of information so soon. “My friend June lives in Belhaven but works at Marbleglen General. She was there when Chief Jameson was wheeled in. He was pronounced dead shortly after. Gunshot to the chest.”

Amber pursed her lips.

“June says there’s been a bit of a crime spree in Marbleglen lately. Robberies, vandalism, and now this?” Betty shook her head and clucked her tongue. “Do you know if Chief Brown knew him?”

Amber shrugged helplessly. “No idea.”

I don’t know why I bothered, Bianca’s voice echoed in her head. I’ll figure it out myself.

Her phone chimed in her back pocket. Then Betty’s chimed too. Amber pulled hers out to see a message from the mayor’s office—Mayor Deidrick had started a program when he took office that would allow citizens of Edgehill to be informed of important events by text. It was how word had spread so quickly two months ago when a maid had been found murdered in the Manx Hotel. Amber had feared then that the “elderly woman found deceased under unusual circumstances” had been her aunt.

The message now read, “Town Hall Meeting tonight at 5PM. Topic of the evening: Safety.”

Betty frowned at her phone’s screen. “Between what’s happening there and what’s happened here recently, it makes a person a little anxious. If Edgehill and Marbleglen aren’t safe anymore, it seems like no place is.”

Amber, Betty, and her husband Bobby all rode over to the community center together. They met up with the Here and Meow Committee, as well as Nathan’s wife Jolene, and one of Amber’s shop regulars, Henrietta Bishop. As they chatted outside the center for a few minutes, Amber, looking just past Henrietta’s unruly mop of wild red hair, saw the Terrence brothers heading across the parking lot. She and Jack waved to each other, but he moved past her group, Larry looking between Amber, his brother, and back again.

A few minutes before five, the whole group had taken up their seats near the middle of the auditorium-like room. Amber had Betty on one side and Kim on the other. Kim and Ann Marie were in a heated discussion about parade floats on one side, and Betty and Bobby were discussing something about baking equipment on the other.

Amber’s leg started to bounce, her energy—and thereby her magic—needing an outlet of some kind. There was a nervous quality to the energy in the room. Amber wondered if anyone on the Here and Meow Committee knew that the prime suspect in the murder was the Bianca Pace’s father.

The mayor arrived at the podium, joined by Chief Brown, Mayor Sable, and a man Amber didn’t recognize. The man looked to be in his mid-to-late fifties, of medium height and build, and mostly bald. The trio stood to the left of Mayor Deidrick.

“Thank you all for being here tonight,” Mayor Deidrick said. “We wanted to call this meeting to discuss safety concerns afflicting Edgehill and Marbleglen alike.” Hardly a sound went through the crowd at the name of Edgehill’s rival town. “As some of you know, there has been a recent uptick in criminal activity in Marbleglen. Cars have been vandalized, murals have been destroyed by graffiti, and livestock and crops have been harmed or destroyed. It is with a heavy heart that I must tell you all that Chief Eric Jameson of Marbleglen was murdered last night in his own home. I speak for all of Edgehill, Mayor Sable, when I say that we are sorry for your loss.”

The Edgehill crowd shifted uncomfortably in their seats, but there were no gasps of surprise. By noon, news had traveled like wildfire through most of the town.

The mayor turned to his left. “Chief Brown, would you like to say a few words?”

Chief Brown nodded awkwardly and took the spot behind the podium that Mayor Deidrick had just vacated. His blond hair had recently been cut short, and his face was clean-shaven, as usual. His blue-eyed gaze scanned the room for a moment, and Amber wondered if he had been searching for her. It felt like a self-centered thought until she heard what he said next.

“Because of events several weeks ago when a pair of vehicles on Edgar Henbane’s property were set on fire by supposed vandals,” the chief said, “both Mayor Deidrick and Mayor Sable believed it would be in both towns’ best interests to compare notes on any suspicious behavior.”

Amber knew then that the chief’s scan of the audience had been for her. Because, given that he was an exceedingly honest man, he wanted to at least share a look of “you’re making me be less than truthful with all these people!” before he continued to pretend he didn’t already know who had caused so much destruction to Edgar’s property. But the chief of police certainly couldn’t stand up there and tell them that Edgehill was safe from the Marbleglen Bandit, as the “supposed vandals” who torched two cars was a single person—a cursed witch, to be exact. A cursed witch who had since been neutralized by Amber Blackwood who, by the way, was also a witch.

“I knew Chief Jameson and was devastated by the news of his passing—especially one as violent as this. They currently have a suspect in custody, but we still ask that you report any suspicious activity,” Chief Brown said. “I will be offering any resources I can to the Marbleglen police department while they get to the bottom of this heinous crime. Any assistance or information you can provide law enforcement would be greatly appreciated. We have every reason to believe that the incident at the Henbane residence was unrelated to what is happening in Marbleglen now, but clearly whatever is happening in that town is escalating. Keep your eyes and ears open. Marbleglen needs our help.”

For once, there was no protest from the Edgehill crowd.

Mayor Sable switched places with Chief Brown behind the podium and angled the microphone down a couple of inches. “I just wanted to take the time to thank Chief Brown and Mayor Deidrick with their help in this matter. There has been quite a bit of unrest in Marbleglen as of late, but it has been such a comfort to have the support of these two fine men. The third man up here with us is one you all likely don’t know but is someone who has worked tirelessly in Marbleglen for years: Nicolas Daniels. He worked alongside our chief for nearly a decade and is the best person now to help us heal as a community. Please give a warm welcome to Chief Nicolas Daniels.”

Chief Daniels then took his place behind the podium to the sound of a smattering of lukewarm applause. He smiled out at the Edgehill crowd and gripped either side of the podium. He puffed out his chest as he said, “As Mayor Sable said, I may be new to you all, but I’m not new to Marbleglen. I know as well as anyone that Marbleglen and Edgehill have a long-standing rivalry, but I hope we can look past our differences now. Marbleglen has been known as a safe town—the safest town in Oregon—for decades. I want nothing more than to get back to a place where everyone feels safe, especially as we head into this busy festival season. I look forward to working with both Mayor Deidrick and Chief Brown as we navigate these new waters together.”

Amber wondered if it was standard for the position of chief of police to be filled so quickly.

Within twenty minutes, the meeting had come to a close, and people slowly started to trickle back out into the parking lot. Amber was just about to follow her group out the door when she got a text message. It was from Chief Brown. Need to talk when you have a chance.

She fired a message back. I can call you when I get home. I got a ride here with Betty, so I don’t want to hold her up.

I’ll drive you back.

It wasn’t a demand, but the message was clear: he wanted to talk to her right now. After relaying this to Betty and Bobby, they nodded good-naturedly and left, hand in hand.

Kim, however, pulled Amber aside. “Just to confirm,” she said tentatively, “you and the chief are not … canoodling?”

“Kim!”

“Sorry!” she said, throwing up her hands in innocence. “I know! I’m sorry. I was just so sure for so long that you two were … you know … knocking boots!”

“Kim, I need you to leave,” Amber said, face flushed.

“Okay! I’m going! I’ll talk to you later.” Kim started to walk away, then came back and gave Amber a quick, bracing hug.

Amber laughed and shooed her away.

With her back against a far wall, Amber waited as the community center slowly emptied out. Chief Brown, Chief Daniels, Mayor Deidrick, and Mayor Sable were each cornered by worried Edgehill residents peppering them with questions. Shoulders were squeezed and hands were patted as the group of authority figures nodded with brows furrowed as they listened. Daniels, however, looked more like a smarmy politician who was pleased as punch to win his election because his opponent had just been hit by a bus.

After a few minutes, Chief Brown glanced past the residents before him and spotted Amber waiting on the other side of the room. He apologized to the man he’d been talking to, excused himself, and then walked over to meet Amber.

“Hey, chief, I can wait if—”

Without breaking stride, he gently grabbed Amber’s elbow and guided her out the door. “That last guy wasn’t even talking about safety concerns or Chief Jameson’s death. He was going on and on about root rot afflicting his potted trees.” He unhanded her but kept his pace. Glancing at her sidelong, he asked, “Do I look like a man who knows anything about root rot?”

Amber managed a laugh.

He didn’t speak again until they were in his cruiser. Then he let out a gusty sigh. “Okay.” He turned to face her. “Is it true you were at Simon Ricinus’s house on Sunday?”

Amber gaped at him. “How would you know that?”

“I believe it was you who once said the people of Edgehill are very nosy,” the chief said. “That seems to be even more true about the people of Marbleglen. What’s important is whether or not this rumor is true, and if it is true, why were you meeting with a man in Marbleglen of all places just days before the man is accused of murdering the head of police?”

It all sounded so terrible when he worded it that way.

Amber turned in her seat, too, then told him about Magic Cache and how she’d ended up at Simon’s house. “I swear this is all a really awful coincidence.”

“Geez,” the chief said. “How am I suddenly surrounded by witches?”

Deciding the question was rhetorical, Amber said, “Bianca seems to think the entire police force in Marbleglen is rotten.”

“Not all of them,” he said. “There’s a new guy—Reyes. I’ve worked with him a few times, and he helped us with the Chloe case. He’s a good guy. The rest of them though …” The chief’s nostrils flared in distaste.

Simon had mentioned Reyes, too.

Amber said, “Bianca thinks someone at the party drugged her father and then pinned the murder on him.”

The chief looked less than convinced. “This isn’t … magic related, is it? Are the Penhallows back?”

“Not as far as I know. Simon lives mostly magic-free,” Amber said. “I just can’t figure out why Simon would be framed. If people in attendance at that dinner thought Simon was a threat to whatever shady business the department was involved in, why kill Jameson and not Simon?”

“Maybe Jameson wasn’t privy to whatever is going on,” the chief said. “Perhaps he was the weakest link.”

Amber recalled her conversation with Simon. “As much as I like the guy, we have to keep the possibility open that Simon actually did it, right?”

“Always,” the chief said.

“Before I left his house, he said he wanted to get rid of ‘useless’ Chief Jameson. He said, ‘Marbleglen will be much better off once he’s gone.’ I’m sure he meant that figuratively, but—”

“What if he didn’t,” the chief finished for her.

Knowing the chief wouldn’t like a word of what she said next, she hurried to say, “Simon used Bianca as a messenger to ask me to help prove his innocence. A chunk of his memory is missing and he wants me to use my magic to find what he can’t remember.”

Predictably, his cheeks reddened slightly and his mouth bunched up. “Simon is in County. How would you even get access to him? Wait, you know what? Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. Do not, under any circumstances, do your magic thing to try to solve this case, you hear me? There’s something off about this Daniels guy. The last thing I need is him finding you in the middle of any of this.”

Amber held her hands up. “I already told Bianca I didn’t think I could help her.”

“Okay,” he said, after squinting at her for a moment, and then started up the car.

I don’t know why I bothered. I’ll figure it out myself.

When guilt for not agreeing to help Bianca started to ease its way back in, Amber changed the subject to something more pleasant—namely the chief’s new daughter, Isabelle. Despite being a somewhat gruff, slightly conservative guy, the way most of that persona slipped away when he talked about his family made him rather charming.

With only a few blocks to go before they reached The Quirky Whisker, she asked, “Did you know Chief Jameson well?”

The chief shrugged. “We worked together in Portland for a while—back when I was fresh out of academy in Tennessee. I’d met Jessica in Nashville, since she was going to school out there. When we graduated, we wanted to move somewhere closer to her family in Oregon. Eric—Chief Jameson—and I were on the same beat there for several years, but Eric had a tendency to get in trouble for being mouthy and having a nasty temper. Eventually he got himself relocated to Marbleglen as a kind of punishment since the place saw so little crime. Eric’s father was a DA—called in quite a few favors over the years trying to keep Eric out of hot water. Guess his father figured Marbleglen was a good fit for Eric. He couldn’t get into much trouble out here since there’s very little trouble to find.”

And yet he’d met his demise in Marbleglen. If that wasn’t irony, Amber didn’t know what was.

The chief pulled up to the curb.

“Thanks for the ride,” Amber said as she climbed out.

“No problem,” he said. “Be safe.”

She watched him drive away.

A moment later, the hair on the back of her neck rose. Someone was watching her. She scanned up one side of Russian Blue Avenue and then the other. The lights inside Purrfectly Scrumptious across the street were out, except for a faint hint of yellow surrounding the door in the back that led to the kitchens. No one was walking down either side of the sidewalk. She saw no faces peering out from shop windows or from behind bushes.

She shook the feeling off and let herself inside the shop, telling herself she merely needed to get more sleep.

If Edgehill and Marbleglen aren’t safe anymore, it seems like no place is, Betty had said.

Amber cast a quick alarm spell on her windows and doors, just in case.

Chapter 7

That night, Amber lay awake staring at the ceiling. She’d attempted to turn in early, as she was bone-deep exhausted, but, as usual, once she laid down, she couldn’t sleep. She wasn’t sure if she was worried someone was outside lurking in her bushes or worried about Simon and Bianca. For the dozenth time since Bianca had called her the morning before, Amber hit redial on Bianca’s number.

Amazingly, this time, she answered. “You change your mind, witch?”

Amber sat up. Bianca was unmistakably intoxicated, her words slurring. “Have you been able to talk to your dad again?”

“Why do you care?” Bianca mumbled. “Not your town, not your problem? I bet if it had been your precious chief, you’d be burning Edgehill to the ground trying to find his killer.”

Yikes.

“I just don’t know how to help you,” Amber said. “My precious chief, as you call him, is going to help—we just had a town hall meeting about it. He can offer your dad more than I can. And I do care. I’m worried about you. I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”

Bianca didn’t reply, but Amber could still hear her breathing. If Amber had to guess, she’d say Bianca was outside. Was she out wandering around at night while drunk?

“His arraignment is tomorrow,” Bianca finally said. “Murder is going to mean a hefty bail for him to get out. I could maybe get twenty thousand together, but any higher than that, and he’ll be stuck in there until his court date.”

“Can you post bond with a bail bondsman?” Amber asked. “Isn’t that what they do on TV?”

“Not in Oregon,” Bianca said. “He’s got to pay the full amount to get out.”

Amber frowned. “Where are you?”

“Why. Do. You. Care?” Bianca let out a long, bitter laugh. “You know, you not caring shouldn’t surprise me. No one cares. I thought I had friends in this town. But I clearly don’t. First sign of a scandal and they all tuck tail and run.”

“I wouldn’t keep calling you if I didn’t care.”

Bianca was silent for a few beats. Her voice was soft and a little robotic as she said, “I think I know who’s doing this to Dad. If no one is going to be an advocate for him, then I will.”

Amber’s stomach flipped. Bianca was unmistakably going to do something stupid. Was she out now heading for the supposed framer’s house? Could Amber figure out where this person was before Bianca got there? Hurriedly, Amber grabbed her laptop and set it up on the coffee table, shoving aside her toy-making supplies as she did. Then she took her Marbleglen map out of the drawer, laying it out near her computer. She hit a key to wake up the screen. “Who?”

“Officer—now Chief—Nicolas Daniels,” Bianca said with a finality that Amber didn’t like at all.

Amber typed the guy’s name into her search bar. It didn’t take long to find the now-familiar smiling face of a middle-aged man in uniform on the Marbleglen Police Department website. This picture, rather than her distant view of him while he was on stage, revealed that while he was mostly bald, his thin sideburns implied he was a redhead. He had a faint smattering of freckles along his nose and cheeks. His eyes were a dull green.

“Why do you think it’s him?” Amber asked, then put the phone on speaker.

While Bianca talked, Amber—using the picture of Daniels and the map—mentally uttered the spell and scried for the man’s location. A dot popped up on Larkspur Lane.

“It’s no secret he’s wanted the chief’s position for ages,” Bianca said. “Everyone, even Jameson’s own staff, thought the guy should go. Maybe they decided to finally clean house.”

Trying to think of anything she could to keep Bianca talking, Amber asked, “Do you think Daniels would do the deed himself or would one of the officers down the totem pole be recruited to help him?”

Keeping the phone on speaker, Amber opened her text threads and found the one with Kim. It was just after nine in the evening. She hoped her friend wasn’t busy. She knew asking Kim to help her with this was risky, as Kim hated Bianca Pace even more than she hated Marbleglen, but there weren’t too many people Amber could contact at random like this.

Kim! Are you busy?

“I guess it could have been a lackey,” Bianca said, some of the conviction leaving her voice.

Amber then conducted a second locator spell, this one on Bianca. It took a few tries—Bianca didn’t currently want to be found, but Amber figured that Bianca being rather drunk helped make it easier. A second dot appeared on her map. Bianca’s dot was a few blocks from Simon’s house. Had she been at her dad’s with a bottle of wine or seven, gotten drunk, and then decided to take her accusations to Daniels? Amber supposed it was a small blessing that the woman was on foot and not that her grand plan was to slam her car into Daniels’s living room.

“Which lackey could it be?” Amber asked.

Bianca started running through her theories, but Amber wasn’t really listening.

Kim had replied. Nope! What’s up?

I’ll explain better later, but the person accused of murdering Chief Jameson is Bianca’s father. She’s currently very drunk and is going to confront the new chief who she thinks is framing her dad. We need to go get her.

1. Boo! Why did it have to be her? 2. Where is she?

Not sure yet. We can use my magical GPS to help find her.

Cool! Leaving now!

Amber darted around her studio apartment while Bianca’s tinny voice rang out in the dark room. She pulled on a mostly clean pair of jeans, slipped a hoodie over her head, and put on tennis shoes. Grabbing her purse, the magicked map of Marbleglen, and her phone, Amber hurried down the stairs. Luckily Bianca was both so drunk and so caught up in explaining her myriad theories that she hadn’t yet figured out that Amber was planning to ambush her.

Kim pulled up just as Amber got outside. Taking the phone off speaker, Amber stuck her phone in the front pocket of her hoodie, then ran around to the driver’s side and tried to come up with the most diplomatic way to say, “Please let me drive because your driving makes me incredibly nervous.”

Amber pulled the map out of her purse and unfolded it. “Wanna keep track of the map for me? This dot is Bianca and this one is Daniels. We need to get to the Bianca dot before she does something kooky.”

“Ooh!” Kim said, eyeing the map in delight. Putting the car in park, she flung open her door, took the map from Amber, and then hurried over to the passenger side.

Once inside Kim’s car, Amber took out her cell phone and pressed it to her ear. She immediately winced; Bianca was in mid-rant.

“—who are you talking to!”

“Bianca, I—”

“You can’t stop me! Daniels needs to pay for this.”

“Bianca, just—”

The call ended.

Crap. “Crap!”

Tossing her phone and purse to a bewildered Kim, Amber took off down Russian Blue Avenue.

“Tell. Me. Everything,” Kim said.

Amber did, speeding through the mostly quiet streets of Edgehill.

Kim did her best to stay silent as she listened to Amber talk, saying only, “Shut the front door!” where appropriate.

Once they were in Marbleglen, Kim gave Amber instructions on how to get to the Bianca dot. It didn’t take them long to find her. She was wandering down the sidewalk ahead of them, walking in the same direction as Amber was driving. Her jet-black hair was pulled into a high, messy ponytail, and she wore what looked like a pair of maroon silk pajamas and fuzzy brown slippers.

Amber sped up and pulled alongside the woman, rolling down the passenger-side window. She felt like an absolute creeper.

Kim leaned out a bit. “Bianca?”

The black-haired woman’s head quickly whipped in their direction, shock widening her eyes. When recognition set in, Bianca frowned and faced forward again. After a beat, she suddenly shouted, “You can’t stop me!”

Then she broke out into a run.

“Oh, crap!” Kim said. “Pull up to the corner. I’ll get out and try to head her off. I just need you to know that I’m not above tackling a drunk woman to the ground.”

Amber managed a faint laugh, then hit the gas. This stretch of road was lined by hedges, so even if Bianca decided to take a shortcut, she’d have to launch over the bushes to do it. And, given that she was currently running with all the grace of a newborn giraffe, Amber was fairly certain they could catch her.

Whipping around the corner, Amber hit the brakes at the end of the sidewalk. Kim threw her door open and was off like a shot, barreling toward Bianca. Amber climbed out and ran back the way she’d just driven, with the hedge-lined sidewalk to her left, assuming that once Bianca’s drunken brain registered that someone was barreling toward her, she’d about-face and go the other way. Amber needed to get behind her before she did so.

Amber had just passed Bianca who was running haphazardly in the other direction, when the woman yelped. Bianca did her best to stop, but her slippers didn’t have much traction. Kim had reached her, but both women were squared off now, arms out and bodies hunched toward the ground as if they were in a boxing ring. Since Bianca was distracted, Amber beelined for the knee-high hedges to her left. She cursed under her breath as she waded through, her tennis shoes doing little to help her. She nearly pitched over headfirst onto the sidewalk when a branch tried very hard to keep her shoe. Just as she’d freed herself and made it to the sidewalk, Bianca finally decided she was no match for Kim, let out a battle cry, threw something that very much looked like a flask, and then ran in Amber’s direction.

“Ugh!” said Bianca, coming up short again. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy. “Not you, too! Leave me alone. You made it perfectly clear that you don’t want to help me. I’m doing this on my own—without help from a witch. A useless witch who won’t use her magic to help an innocent man!”

Amber glanced to her right, toward the house they stood outside of. The front door was a few feet from the sidewalk. Then she looked left.

“Oh, what?” Bianca asked, arms outstretched. Her voice got a little louder with every sentence. “You worried someone will hear? You’re worried everyone will know your little secret? Hmm? Is that it?”

Amber shot a glance at Kim over Bianca’s shoulder. Kim had closed the distance once Bianca’s back was turned to her. “Get ready to catch her.”

“Catch me?” Bianca asked. “What are you going to do? You going to—”

“Bianca, sleep,” Amber said.

Bianca’s eyes immediately rolled back in her head, but Kim already had her arms sliding under the woman’s shoulders to catch her.

“Oof! She’s heavy!” Kim said, stumbling as she tried to keep the dead-weight woman upright. Then she whisper-hissed, “This is the second body I’ve helped you move in a month!”

“Shh!” Amber said, hurrying forward to grab Bianca under her knees. “I really hope no one sees this.”

They turned sideways so they could carry Bianca back the way Kim had come, to the car waiting for them at the end of the sidewalk, Kim’s door still open. If Amber had known she would need to move a body, she would have picked a better parking spot.

They worked quickly, but someone could look out a window at any moment. What if someone came home from a late night at the office and saw two women stuffing another into the back of a car? Amber and Kim might end up dealing directly with an irate neighbor rather than the police, as it sounded like Marbleglen had lost faith in the police department in general. But even if Amber and Kim were cleared of the suspicion of being a crime duo, there was still a scandal here. Two members of the Edgehill Here and Meow Committee carting off the unconscious body of the leader of the Marbleglen Floral Frenzy Flower Committee? Neither Amber nor Kim would ever live it down.

After getting Bianca into the backseat without triggering a baseball-bat-wielding vigilante, Amber and Kim climbed in front. Amber slammed the door and then thunked her head onto the headrest.

Kim let out a gusty “Hoo boy! What a night!” as they closed the doors of the car, all three safely inside. After a beat, she said, “Now what? We don’t know where she lives.”

“We need to sober her up—partly so she can tell us where she lives and partly so she’s less likely to angrily scream to anyone listening that I’m a witch.”

“Waffles,” Kim said.

“What?”

“We need to get her some waffles,” she said. “It’s basically been scientifically proven that waffles are a balm to the soul.”

Amber was almost positive that wasn’t true, but her stomach rumbled at the mere mention of them.

Kim nodded, as if she were agreeing with Amber’s stomach, and buckled her seat belt. “For all her faults, Bianca Pace is very shrewd. She’s going to be horrified by her behavior when she sobers up. I can almost guarantee it. We just need to get her less drunk and full of waffles so we can get her home and she can sleep this off. Maybe we can help her figure out the grand conspiracy tomorrow, but for now, all she needs is waffles.”

As Amber pulled out onto the street, and Kim pulled out her phone to find the nearest late-night diner, Amber said, “Thanks for helping me. I know Bianca isn’t your favorite person.”

Kim waved the comment away. “It’s true; she’s not. But no one deserves to go through something like this alone. It doesn’t matter if her dad is guilty or not, or how much I like her.”

“You’re kind of great,” Amber said.

Kim looked up from her phone long enough to smile at her. “I agree.”

Kim gave Amber directions to a diner that was open twenty-four hours. Calluna’s Corner was situated halfway between the Rhododendron and Lilac Gardens, on the east side of town. It was, according to Kim, just a hop, skip, and a jump from Lake Myrtle. The lake was a tourist destination, as the famous marbled rhododendrons grew most prevalently there.

Located at the back of a small strip mall that was fairly dead, Calluna’s Corner was the only place open at a quarter to ten. Still, at least a dozen cars were parked out front. Amber found a spot far away from the late-night diners, in an obscure location near a wall and partially blocked by a row of hedges.

Leaving the car running, Amber threw it into park, unstrapped her seat belt, and turned her attention to a wide-eyed Kim in the passenger seat. “Okay, when I take the sleep spell off her, she’s likely going to come out swinging. These things wear off on their own in half an hour or so, but since she’s pretty sloshed, it might take longer if we let it fade naturally. Waking someone from a sleep spell too early is like throwing a bucket of cold water on her head.”

Kim just stared at her.

Amber sat back a little, suddenly self-conscious that all of this had already gotten too weird for her friend.

“Everything you just said was the coolest thing I’ve ever heard,” she said. “It’s like I’m in a movie!”

“I need you to focus, Kim!”

She sat up straighter and nodded vigorously. “Focus. I can do that.”

Amber blew out a steadying breath and then turned to face their sleeping captive. She lay sprawled on her side, one arm flung over the seat with her knuckles resting on the floor. The cuff of her long-sleeved silken maroon pajamas rested against her wrist. Her cheek was smashed against the dark fabric, and several strands of her jet-black hair had come loose from Bianca’s already messy ponytail and lay strewn across her face. She snored softly.

Waking her up was sure to be traumatic for all involved, but Amber wanted to get her tucked away safely in her own bed as soon as possible, and with a close friend informed of the situation so he or she could be there the next time Bianca cooked up another scheme that involved too much alcohol and wild theories.

And in order to do all that, Amber needed Sleeping Beauty to be awake.

“All right,” she said. “Remember: this will be like waking up a bear—a drunken bear.”

Calling on her magic, Amber reached between the front seats and placed her hand on Bianca’s. The contact gave Amber’s magic a little jolt. Wake up, she told her magic, and that same jolt gave Bianca a zap, too.

Sitting bolt upright, she gasped awake—like a drowning victim breaking the surface a mere moment before perishing. She coughed and clawed at her throat and then froze when her wild eyes focused on Amber.

Then she screamed. A blood-curdling, I’m-looking-at-a-demon scream. Then Kim screamed back, hands balled into fists and pressed tight against her cheeks as her gaze zipped from Bianca to Amber and back again.

Good grief!

“Relax! Both of you!” Amber yelped, her shoulders pulled up to her ears.

But they just kept screaming. Bianca, hands clutching her temples, squeezed her eyes shut.

The frenetic energy in the car was driving Amber’s magic absolutely batty. It felt like a physical thing thrashing around under her skin, as if it also wanted to scream and was frustrated that it lacked a mouth.

Amber needed to release it before she started screaming too. She also needed to calm Bianca down. Bianca was scared and alone. She’d had a plan—albeit a terrible one—that had likely made her feel a tiny bit better. Bianca had been sure that her father was innocent, and that Chief Daniels had something to do with the frame job. Since the police of Marbleglen were either corrupt, incompetent, or both, Bianca felt the need to take care of this problem herself. Maybe she’d come up with the plan while drunk. Or she’d needed to be drunk to have the courage to see it through. Either way, Amber and Kim, by ambushing Bianca, had taken that little bit of control away from a woman who likely wasn’t used to being without it. And now she was falling apart.

Amber needed to get Bianca to snap out of this.

With her attention focused squarely on Bianca—which was difficult while sitting in the front seat—Amber said, “BIANCA!”

The screaming continued, but it forced Bianca’s eyes to pop open. Once she had eye contact, Amber poured her magic into a truth spell.

“Do you, Bianca Pace, believe that Nicolas Daniels killed Eric Jameson?” she asked.

“I don’t know!” Bianca wailed, then abruptly stopped screaming. Which made Kim stop, too. The admission caused Bianca to deflate, and she slumped against the backseat as if the words had knocked the air from her lungs. Amber’s ears were thankful for it. Bianca gently gripped her own throat; Amber wondered if it felt raw.

Bianca worked her jaw, staring at Amber with something close to hate now. “Don’t use magic on me without permission.” She said the word “magic” as if it were the foulest of curse words. Moments later, her bottom lip started to shake. She pressed a hand to her stomach and let out a low, keening wail. “I know you don’t have any reason to believe me, but my father didn’t do this. He’s going to rot in prison if I don’t do something.”

“I still don’t know what it is we can do; that hasn’t changed,” Amber said. “But we want to try, okay? I can talk to Chief Brown again. He—”

“No cops,” Bianca snapped.

“Oh, he’s one of the good guys!” Kim said. “Truly. He knows Amber’s a witch and everything. He lets her help her on cases sometimes.”

Bianca, eyebrows raised, turned her focus to Amber in a silent question.

“It’s true,” Amber said.

Bianca scooted forward on the back seat, both hands gripping the headrest on Kim’s seat as she focused a very pathetic puppy dog look at Amber. “Will you please go with me to the arraignment tomorrow?”

“Bianca, I don’t know—” Amber started.

With face scrunched up in what looked like something close to pain, Bianca said, “I … I’m not asking you to go as a witch. I just need a friend tomorrow and I figured out very recently that I don’t have any. Things got real and the only people who came to save me were strangers whose birthright it is to hate me.”

Amber shot a look at Kim who very enthusiastically nodded. Blowing out a sigh, Amber sagged. “Okay, I’ll go with you.”

“Yeah?” Bianca asked, sitting up straighter.

“Yeah,” Amber said.

“Also!” Kim said. “We want to buy you waffles.”

Bianca sniffed. “I am kind of hungry.” But then she looked down at herself, suddenly realizing she was dressed in silk pajamas. “Oh my God! I can’t go out in public like this! I’ve been wearing these things for nearly two days.” She tentatively lifted an arm and gave the underside a sniff. Her head reeled back. “Oh my God.”

After a brief discussion, they agreed to go back to Bianca’s so she could clean herself up, and then they’d backtrack to Calluna’s Corner.

Bianca lived only a few minutes away in an apartment nestled in a sprawling two-story dark gray complex. The accents were all a striking black, and the apartment front doors were bright spots of color—red, orange, bright blue. Tall trees ringed the property, and the porches on the lower floor had poles and porch roofs overtaken by ivy.

Amber and Kim followed the pajama-clad Bianca up a short flight of stairs and toward an orange door with a “17” made of black metal hung below the peephole.

“This is me,” Bianca said, unnecessarily, given that she’d just slipped her key into the lock. Amber would have expected someone like Bianca to live in a mini mansion on a few acres of land, complete with maid and butler. Not in a two-bedroom apartment.

Amber and Kim followed her inside, and when Bianca flipped on the entryway light, Amber took in the sparsely decorated living room. There was a two-seater couch in the middle of the living room, and across from it, an open laptop sat on a large box. There were moving boxes stacked all over the place. Amber wasn’t sure if Bianca was in the process of moving out, or if she’d only just moved in.

“Sorry about all this,” Bianca said, holding fast to one of her elbows as she surveyed her box-laden living room. “I’ve only been here a couple weeks. My husband Peter and I split up.”

With that, she quickly walked out of the room and down a short hallway. Moments later, a door snicked shut, followed by the sound of a shower turning on.

“She’s making it very hard to for me to hate her!” Kim grumbled.

Amber nodded in agreement.

For the next few minutes, Kim and Amber waited awkwardly in Bianca’s living room, not saying much of anything. Amber assumed Kim was feeling as profoundly uncomfortable as she was.

The awkward silence continued after Bianca had changed, after they’d gotten back into the car, and had driven the short distance to Calluna’s Corner.

Kim finally broke once Amber parked. Amber was impressed Kim had kept quiet for as long as she had. “Does your husband know what happened to your father?” she blurted.

Bianca heaved a weary sigh from the back seat. “I suppose everyone knows at this point. But I haven’t heard from him, if that’s what you mean. You and Amber are the only people who have really tried to see how I’m doing.”

Kim sagged in her seat and then quickly turned to face Bianca in the back. “That’s awful. I’m really sorry all this is happening to you.”

Amber caught a faint ghost of a smile flit across Bianca’s striking features. Then it was gone again. “Are you still buying me waffles, or …”

“Yes, definitely!” Kim said.

The décor of Calluna’s Corner was like a homey diner from the 1980s—the color palate was all pastel: soft yellow bench seats, sea green tabletops, and foam-pink bar stools lining the bar. The walls were covered in flower-heavy wallpaper.

There were ten or so diners inside and nearly every head turned to watch the trio of women as they stood at the front of the diner while they waited to be seated. Could the patrons somehow sense that they had Edgehill interlopers in their midst, or were they all too aware of who Bianca’s father was and what he’d been accused of doing?

The waitress did a slight double-take when she approached Amber and her group, but plastered on a friendly face and led them to a booth that had windows on the right side and the dining counter lined with pink bar stools on the left.

Once they had all ordered, and the waitress had wandered off to tend to someone else, Amber turned toward Bianca, who sat beside her and said, “Do you have any idea what we can expect at the arraignment?”

Bianca shrugged. Her phone lay on the green tabletop and she tapped her finger on the face of it twice. The screen lit up, showing a background picture of her and her father, both of them with their heads thrown back as they laughed. Sighing, she said, “Even though it’s something the public can attend, I think we’ll have to watch it in a separate room on a TV. We have to make the trek to the jail pretty early.”

Good thing Amber hardly slept anymore, so she’d have little problem getting up.

“Do you have someone who can maybe stay with you tonight?” Kim asked.

Bianca crossed her arms on the table and looked up. “What, you worried I’ll go after Daniels again if I’m left to my own devices?”

“Yes,” Amber said bluntly.

Bianca huffed a humorless laugh. “You’ll be happy to hear that the shower sobered me up a little and the shame is starting to crash in hard, so my plans to be a vigilante are waning rather significantly by the second.” She chewed on her bottom lip for a second. “Thanks again for, you know, saving me from doing something really stupid.”

Kim fidgeted in her booth seat. Amber knew Kim well enough to know she was warring with the urge to ask Bianca every personal question swirling in her head and the knowledge that she should keep her mouth shut and not prod the woman. Awkward situations made Kim either deathly silent or unable to stop talking. Amber hoped that Kim could hold out until the waffles arrived, because at least then her mouth would be occupied. “Why did you and your husband split up?”

Amber mentally thunked herself on the forehead. Kim shot her a pained look as if to say, “I tried not to ask. I really did.”

“You don’t have—” Amber started, but Bianca cut her off.

“No, it’s okay,” Bianca said. “When we got married, we both were in agreement that we didn’t want children. But the longer we were together, the more his opinions on that changed. For me, I … the abilities you and my father have are genetic. It’s known to skip a generation, like it did with me. It’s possible that even with two parents without abilities, our child would have them. I thought Peter was on the same page as me when it came to having kids, so I never had the ‘my parents are kind of weird and because of it, our kid might be able to fly’ discussion or whatever.”

Kim’s gaze snapped to Amber. She leaned forward so far, she was practically lying flat on the table. “So you can fly?”

Amber groaned. “No!”

Kim sat back in her seat and huffed, clearly disappointed.

Amber said to Bianca, “And it’s not like it’s something you can get a test for to find out what the likelihood is that your child will inherit it.”

Bianca nodded. “Exactly.”

Kim eyed them both. “Would it really be so bad if your kid could do … magic?” She very dramatically mouthed the last word.

“It’s hard to constantly have to keep it a secret,” Amber said.

“And unless you’re living in a hybrid town, it’s best to hide it,” Bianca added. “And hybrid towns are a whole other thing. I wouldn’t want to raise a kid there.”

“So … you’re just never going to tell your husband why you don’t want kids?” Kim asked.

Bianca sighed. “I haven’t decided. I’m scared of how he’ll react.”

“Maybe you need to give him a chance to decide for himself,” Kim said. “Maybe he’d be cool with it either way. But as it is now, you’re both miserable and he’s in the dark. Personally, if my husband was like, ‘Yo, babe, I can turn people you don’t like into toads,’ I’d be like, ‘Sign me up right now.’”

Bianca snorted.

Their waffles showed up soon afterward, and they all tucked into their late-night breakfast. Amber went for a plain Belgian waffle with a healthy dose of whipped cream. Kim had ordered one smothered in strawberries and powdered sugar. Bianca’s had blueberries, bananas, and Nutella.

Amber was halfway through her sugar-infused dinner when someone appeared beside the table. She expected to see their waitress, but instead she found a blonde woman with bright blue eyes and an even brighter smile. Her long, so-blonde-it-was-nearly-white hair was tied back in a French braid that flopped over one shoulder. All her attention was focused on Bianca.

“Hello, Ms. Pace,” she said, her voice light and professional. “How are you faring in the wake of your father’s arrest?”

Bianca’s hardened exterior had softened around Amber and Kim over the last hour or so, but with this woman here, Bianca instantly walled herself up again. Amber could almost see the bricks being laid one by one in rapid succession to keep this woman from seeing anything Bianca didn’t want her to. Her nose hiked up in the air and she arched one perfect eyebrow. “This isn’t the time or place, Molly.”

Without waiting for an invitation, Molly slid into the booth next to Kim, who squeaked and scooted over, shielding her food as she went.

“What do you want?” Bianca asked. “You here to tell me all the ways my dad is guilty, too? You were at that dinner party; I can’t imagine you missing it. What, you saw my dad drunkenly stumbling around the chief’s house, screaming his head off about how he hated Jameson?” She addressed Amber and Kim in turn as she said, “Molly works at The Marbleglen Herald, where she gets paid to ruin the lives and good times of as many people as possible.”

“I was there, yes,” Molly said, barreling past the slight. “But so was everyone else—well, those who have a place of power in town, anyway. I guess the committee for the Floral Frenzy doesn’t count.”

Bianca pursed her lips so hard, they turned white.

“Who else was there?” Amber asked, hoping to defuse some of the tension.

Molly turned her attention to Amber and gave her a quick once-over. There was something very thorough about it, as if Molly were a robot and her eyes had just performed a quick electric scan of her, run a diagnostic in her wire-filled brain, and then deemed Amber worthy of speaking to. “Well the chief for one, obviously. Then there were the full-time officers, Mayor Sable, business owners, Simon’s makeshift safety committee, most of the reporters from the Herald, the town council. But it was more or less a PR stunt, to be honest. My editor gives me photography assignments sometimes; he said I needed to get as many photos as possible of all the important people of Marbleglen getting along. The town council is really worried that the crime spree is going to disrupt tourism this year for the festival. Simon’s safety meetings weren’t helping the cause, so they came up with this dinner idea to show that the town was working hard to ‘band together in this difficult time.’ Unity! A sense of community!”

“And you didn’t think that was a good idea?” Amber asked, unable to ignore the sarcasm in Molly’s tone.

“Of course she didn’t,” Bianca said, punctuating her words with a bitter laugh. “Molly thrives on chaos. A story about the Marbleglen Bandit—with Molly’s byline—was in the Herald the morning after it happened. She bundled it with a discussion about Chloe Deidrick’s kidnapping. By the evening, the story ran on a few local news channels; they used pull quotes from Molly’s article. It was only a ten-minute piece, but it was more or less ‘small towns aren’t as safe as they used to be’ and they mentioned the Floral Frenzy Festival by name. And since I’m the one who heads the festival, you better believe I was well aware of the fallout when a handful of vendors pulled out from attending and a few comments popped up on the festival’s social media page saying they don’t feel safe bringing their kids here until the crime spree ends. It was a single night of attacks, yet Molly called it a spree.”

“The chief of police was murdered a month later, Bianca,” Molly said.

“I’m well aware of that,” Bianca snapped. “But the supposed spree and the murder aren’t even related. You made a bad situation sound even worse than it already was and now people seem to think Marbleglen is a hotbed of criminal activity. But this is your M.O., isn’t it, Molly? Take something relatively small and blow it out of proportion as long as it moves a ton of papers? I guess I should have known back then that you were just hitting your stride.”

“You can’t still be mad at me about that,” Molly said. “It was high school!”

“I’m not the only one still ticked,” Bianca said, then addressed Amber and Kim. “Little Miss Molly Hargrove here wrote an article that was originally about the low attendance of high school dances, but then turned it into a story about how several of the seniors were going to 18-and-up clubs in the city and engaging in ‘risky behavior.’ All we were doing was dancing in a place that didn’t require we keep exactly six inches apart.”

Molly’s face crunched up. “That’s not even what the article was about! It was about the school administration being out of touch with the student body and how they needed to adapt to the interests of modern students.”

Bianca rolled her eyes. “Call it what you want, but it caused a crackdown that was so widespread, that within six months—because parents lost their minds about Marbleglen High becoming a cesspool of sin—we had even more rules. And school uniforms. Molly became a social pariah practically overnight.”

“Exactly!” Molly said. “So you should feel pity for me, if anything.”

“You might have gotten pity if you didn’t get worse after that. You called it a crime spree, Molly. It wasn’t a spree. It was a group of senior kids pulling a bunch of nonsense in town as a prank. They do something like this every year; everyone knows that. It just got really out of hand this time. Write a story about the chaos of today’s youth, not about a crime spree that doesn’t exist. All you did was scare off much-needed vendors. Vendors we really can’t afford to lose when we’re running our festival at the same time as the horrible show-stealing Here and Meow.” Then she winced. “No offense, ladies.”

“Offense taken,” Amber and Kim said in unison.

“Jinx!” Kim said, grinning.

“Anyway,” Bianca said, a flush creeping up her neck and into her face, “I repeat: What do you want?”

Molly leaned forward a fraction, and the three of them mirrored her. “I don’t think your father is guilty.”

Bianca’s head reared back as if Molly had struck her.

“Why?” Amber asked.

“I feel like I know him pretty well. He and I had been working on a story together just before he was arrested.”

“About what?” Kim blurted.

Bianca crossed her arms. “Bull. He’s never even mentioned this to me.”

“He didn’t want you to know,” Molly said. “Ask him about it. His arraignment is tomorrow, isn’t it? If he can’t make bail, you can visit him and ask. If he does, he’ll be home soon enough. I hope y’all have a boatload of cash, though. I hear the arraignment judge is especially hard on cop killers.” When Bianca only stared at her, Molly said, “What could I possibly gain from lying to you about this?”

“I don’t know,” Bianca said. “But you’re a snake. You always have a reason for slithering out of whatever dark hole you live in.”

Kim gasped.

Amber felt an urge to apologize to Molly on Bianca’s behalf, but Molly didn’t look the least bit fazed. Maybe Molly was just used to people talking to her like this.

“There are two stories here,” Molly said, undeterred, her hands crossed primly in front of her. “There’s the story you’ll hear most. The story where Simon Ricinus clearly hated Chief Jameson. Simon, upset about the years of rumored police corruption, is sent over the edge after a crime spree sweeps through the safest town in Oregon. The department doesn’t seem to be lifting a finger to help the victims, so a fed-up Simon rallies the troops and creates a committee that’s hell-bent on undermining the chief of police. Then in a fit of rage—helped along by opportunity—Simon takes matters into his own hands and ends the Chief Jameson Problem with a bullet to the chest. Bam!” Molly said, slapping a hand down on the table and making everyone jump. “He snapped. It’s the quiet ones you have to be leery of, right?”

“That’s not what happened,” Bianca said indignantly.

Molly shrugged. “Something happened that night that caused Chief Jameson to become enraged—I mean he was screaming at everyone to get out of his house. Daniels and Sable were trying to calm him down—I think even Simon tried—but Jameson wasn’t listening to anyone. Eventually Mayor Sable asked everyone to leave. By the time I left, there were ten people there—probably less. One of those remaining people is who actually killed Jameson, and then that person pinned it on Simon.”

“Why though?” Kim asked. “Why are you so sure it wasn’t Simon?”

But instead of answering Kim, Molly focused on Bianca. “If you’ve lived in Marbleglen for long enough, you know the police here are … shifty.”

“Understatement,” Bianca said. “Daniels has a reputation for pulling people over for bogus speeding tickets—usually scared teenagers who haven’t had their licenses for very long—and letting them go if they slip him cash. There’s rumors about stuff disappearing out of evidence.”

“Ugh,” Amber said.

“I got an anonymous tip from a guy about a month ago,” Molly said. “He did something to disguise his voice; I had no way of guessing who he was. He said that he had proof the Marbleglen police department was up to something illegal. He gave me a couple leads to run down. I eventually figured out it was Simon who had called me.”

Bianca still looked unconvinced.

“Talk to him,” Molly said. “Once he confirms everything I’ve said, we’ll talk again. My guess is, he’s not getting out on bail. So you’ll have to make the trip out to the prison again to have your chat. Maybe Simon will do okay in prison, though, since he’s rumored to have killed a cop. Maybe it’ll give him street cred.” She glanced around the mostly deserted diner. “I’ve probably said too much. I’m already on Chief Daniels’s naughty list and that guy has eyes and ears everywhere.” She fished a business card out of her pocket and slid it across the table to Bianca. “Call me when you talk to your dad, okay?” She stood, snatched a blueberry off Bianca’s plate, popped it in her mouth, and strode out.

Amber watched her go, still reeling from everything Molly had said.

Oh, Simon, what did you get yourself mixed up in?

They polished off the rest of their waffles in silence, paid the bill, and then Amber and Kim drove Bianca back to her apartment. When Amber pulled up out front, Bianca seemed a little reluctant to get out.

Finally, she said, “Thank you both. Honestly. Even if Edgehill is a blight on this earth, you two are all right.”

Amber bristled, but when she turned in her seat to glare at Bianca, the woman was grinning at her. “You’re not so bad either. What time did you want to head out in the morning?”

“Text me your address. I’ll pick you up at seven,” Bianca said, and Amber sighed. She had to be presentable at seven? Bah.

Bianca gave Kim’s shoulder a quick squeeze, said, “Thanks again,” then got out and slowly made her way up the steps to her apartment.

A glance at the dashboard clock told Amber it was just after midnight. She yawned so deeply, her eyes watered. Perhaps the trick to a full night’s sleep was being so tired, she could hardly function anymore.

“All right, out you go,” Kim said. “I’ll drive us back.”

Amber couldn’t argue with her. Once Amber had settled into the passenger seat and Kim started the drive back home, Amber was plagued by what Molly had said.

Then in a fit of rage—helped along by opportunity—Simon takes matters into his own hands and ends the Chief Jameson Problem with a bullet to the chest. Bam! He snapped. It’s the quiet ones you have to be leery of, right?

There was the logical, straightforward answer, and then there was the conspiracy theory. But what if the conspiracy theory was true?

Chapter 8

The drive to the Lincoln County jail Thursday morning was awkward at best. Bianca had offered Amber a wide, tired smile, and a “Good morning” when Amber had climbed into her white BMW waiting at the curb, but she’d hardly said anything since. Amber wasn’t sure if it was because Bianca wasn’t a morning person or because she was so uncomfortable with this whole situation that she didn’t know what to say now.

Amber didn’t know her well enough to know if letting her stew in her embarrassment was better than forcing her to confront it, so Amber just stayed quiet.

It took an hour and a half to get to the jail—a massive boxy structure made primarily of concrete. Where one would expect to find wide windows on most other buildings, here there were large red squares of brick. The only windows on the main building were small rectangular slats.

Bianca didn’t say anything as she found a parking spot, or when they went through the particulars of getting checked in. She did, however, remain ramrod straight and hardly seemed to blink. Amber wondered if her jaw hurt from how tightly she kept it shut.

Amber and Bianca were eventually led down a sterile-looking hallway with white linoleum flooring and too-bright fluorescent lights to a door marked “Arraignment Room.” It was a small space with nothing in it other than three rows of plastic chairs, stark white walls, and a pair of flat-screen TVs mounted on the wall at the front of the room. The chairs—which didn’t have legs—were mounted on metal beams that were bolted to the ground, eight per row. The unblinking eye of a camera was perched on the wall between the TV screens.

There were a few people already inside. Amber wasn’t surprised to see Molly Hargrove there, but the low growl that came out of Bianca clearly indicated that she was. Molly, who sat front and center, looked up from her conversation with a young man next to her when Amber and Bianca walked in. Molly made a move to stand up, but Bianca held up one perfectly manicured finger, halting Molly mid-rise. The message was clear: Not today, Hargrove.

Wisely, Molly sat back down.

Amber followed Bianca to the back of the room where Bianca took a seat.

Bianca wrinkled her nose. “Ugh. This place is even drearier than the DMV.”

Settling into an uncomfortable chair next to Bianca, Amber had to agree.

The TV on the left featured an empty judge’s chair, a golden seal on the wooden wall behind it reading the “The Great Seal of the State of Oregon.” The screen on the right showed a small wood-paneled courtroom. A podium stood at the start of a narrow aisle flanked by rows of wooden benches. To the far right was the hint of what looked like a jury box, but the angle of the camera didn’t allow Amber to see all of it. A few people sat in the benches and an armed guard stood beside the closed courtroom door, stance wide and hands clasped in front of his waist.

Within a few minutes, an older man in a black robe—maybe in his late sixties—took his place in the chair before the Seal of Oregon. Bianca sat up straighter.

A man and a woman were each arraigned before it was Simon’s turn. When he was led into the room cuffed and in an orange jumpsuit, Bianca let out a soft gasp and pressed a hand to her mouth. Wordlessly, and without looking at her, Amber held out a hand. Bianca clasped it with her free hand and squeezed hard.

Moments after Simon took his place in front of the podium before the judge, the door to the viewing room opened and in walked Chief Daniels. Amber’s eyes widened, and she gave Bianca’s hand a squeeze of her own.

Stiffening, Bianca lowered her hand from her mouth and whispered, “Guess he’s here to make sure the cover-up is complete.”

Amber wondered why he wasn’t in the courtroom for this—but perhaps he hadn’t been the arresting officer.

Chief Daniels only had eyes for the screen. He didn’t even sit down, just took a wide stance—much like the armed guard in the courtroom—and crossed his arms over his chest.

As the judge went through the details of the case, Amber watched Simon’s face. It was the same, kind face she remembered, same salt-and-pepper hair, laugh lines around his eyes and mouth, and calm demeanor. He looked like the kind of man who made wreaths and worked in his garden, and did his best to stay a fixture in his adult daughter’s life.

Was it also the face of a murderer?

Amber supposed murderers came in all shapes and sizes, regardless of their hobbies.

The judge asked for Simon’s plea, and he predictably said, “Not guilty.”

Chief Daniels scoffed.

Bianca squeezed Amber’s hand a little tighter.

When it came time to set Simon’s bail, the judge said, “The crime you are accused of committing, Simon Ricinus, is one most heinous. Because of the nature of this murder, as I understand it, I set your bail at—”

Amber cocked her head when the judge abruptly stopped talking, one eye squinted shut and the heel of his palm pressed against his temple. He shook his head slightly, then ever so slowly, the man relaxed. He dropped his hand back to the bench, his shoulders dropped from their hunched position by the man’s ears, and his features sagged into a neutral position.

“But,” the judge said, his forehead scrunching up, “because you have shown that you are not an immediate threat to yourself or society at large, I will set your bail at twenty thousand dollars and sentence you to house arrest until your court date in three weeks.”

“What?” Chief Daniels shouted, hands on his head now. Amber wondered if the man wished he still had hair so he could pull it. “It should have been the maximum bail! Two hundred and fifty thousand, not twenty!” He cursed very loudly and then stormed out of the room.

Amber and Bianca shared a wide-eyed stare.

“My dad is coming home?” Bianca asked, bewildered. Then, voice lowered, she said, “Thank you. I don’t know how you did it, but thank you.”

Amber shook her head. “I didn’t do anything.”

“What … then how did …”

They turned back to the screen where Simon was getting the details of his house arrest. When that was done and he was led back the way he’d come, Simon stopped abruptly to look at the camera. Amber stilled, feeling as if Simon were looking directly at her. Like he somehow knew she was there.

Three weeks, he mouthed, then nodded and allowed himself to be escorted away.

“Oh crap,” Amber said. “Your dad put a spell on the judge.”

Somehow, after all that, Amber had to return to Edgehill and The Quirky Whisker that afternoon as if nothing had happened. Bianca had dropped Amber off at home and then had rushed back to Simon’s house to tidy the place up for his arrival. From what they gleaned, Simon would be able to sleep in his own bed by that evening.

That must have been one heck of a spell.

After Amber had closed up shop for the night, she still hadn’t heard from Bianca. Worse still, Amber had to drive across town to Purrcolate for another joint meeting of the two committees.

One day, Amber mused, she would be able to walk into Purrcolate without some intense emotion raging inside her. Though she and Jack had forgiven each other, she hadn’t seen him since the night he came by The Quirky Whisker to talk to her. She wasn’t avoiding him now. She replied to his texts—she was still ignoring the ones from her aunt—and answered his calls, but they were friendly chats, nothing more. For now, Amber was okay with that. Her stomach was still in knots, though.

The familiar scents of brewing coffee and baking scones greeted her when she walked in. As did the cheery Jack, who waved at her from behind the counter.

“Hey, Amber,” he said, waving her over.

The knots in her stomach tightened when Larry, Jack’s brother, came out the swinging doors of the kitchen, whistling to himself—only to have the tune die on his lips when he spotted Amber. Instead of giving his usual friendly greeting, he nodded at her once, like the polite gesture you would offer a stranger, and then focused on the display case of pastries.

Sighing, she met Jack at the other end of the counter, near the register. If he was fazed by his brother’s reception, he didn’t show it. He propped one hand flat on the counter and the other on his hip. As his gaze roamed her face, a bit of his good cheer faded.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “I know this is exactly the wrong thing to say to a woman, but you look really tired.”

She smiled weakly. “Kim and I had to rescue a drunken Bianca Pace from herself last night. Didn’t get in until late.”

His dark brows shot toward his hairline. “Your life is more exciting than mine. Last night, I went home, kicked up my feet, put on a movie and … promptly fell asleep on the couch. I woke up in the middle of the night in a pool of my own drool.”

Amber laughed. “Very attractive.”

He flushed. “Is Bianca okay?”

“As good as she can be,” Amber said, not wanting to get into the details yet.

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.”

An awkward silence descended on them.

Jack rubbed the back of his neck, looked at her, and then looked away. “Hey, I was wondering if—”

“Amber?” Kim called out, her head poked out of the conference room door.

Taking a step back, Amber made eye contact with her friend and waved. Then did her best to angle a discreet nod in Jack’s direction.

“Oh,” Kim mouthed dramatically and backed into the conference room again.

When Amber returned her attention to Jack, he was nearly the color of a strawberry. “You were wondering if …?”

Jack waved a hand dismissively. “Eh, don’t worry about it. Sounds like you’re needed in there.”

With an awkward nod, Amber said, “Right. Okay. I’ll talk to you later, then.”

She hurried past the display case where Larry was still busily laying out pastries. Neither one verbally acknowledged the other, but Amber felt Larry’s eyes on her the whole way.

While the first meeting with the Floral Frenzy Committee had devolved into a shouting match, Amber hoped this one would be more civil. Kim led the Here and Meow from one side of the table, while a fifty-year-old posh and polished man named Harlo ran the Floral Frenemy side.

The two leaders hashed out quite a few details in short order. Everyone took copious notes. No foul names were called. No arguments started. Then they switched to the topic of the parade.

Amber still wasn’t sure how she felt about the mayors deciding that Edgehill and Marbleglen showing a united front would be a good PR move for Marbleglen, as a way to combat the widespread rumors of not only a crime spree, but now a murder in the quaint town.

It was more or less a PR stunt, to be honest, Molly had said.

It was more work to keep up the “safest town in Oregon” designation than Amber realized. She’d figured the extent of it had been to “be so condescendingly superior that criminals are too scared to even set foot here.”

Every year, the kickoff event for Edgehill was a huge cat adoption event. Nine Lives Cat Rescue spent all year rescuing cats from kitten mills, taking in cats from overpopulated local shelters—especially adult cats—and welcoming every black cat they could find. Because there was still a stigma attached to black cats, they were offered at steep discounts, or in exchange for a donation to Nine Lives.

The yearly event had grown in popularity alongside the Best of Edgehill competition—partly because the social media team at Nine Lives were geniuses … the plethora of cute kitten photos didn’t hurt either—and hundreds of kittens and adult cats found forever homes just before the cat-infused whirlwind of the three-day festival started. Amber always volunteered at the black cat event, and it was a small miracle when she managed to come home without another cat one to join her pair at home.

For Marbleglen, their event was a flower-laden parade. While they hoped to someday have a parade that could compete with the likes of the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California, or the Corso Zundert Flower Parade in the Netherlands, this year they only had three floats, each one standing nearly ten feet tall.

“We started decorating the first float last weekend,” Harlo said. “We’ll need at least two, preferably three more weekends in order to complete the rest. We have about thirty guaranteed volunteers, but we’ll need quite a few more if we want to be done in time for the festival. We’re also a little behind schedule on starting the Edgehill float because we’re waiting for another shipment of tapioca pearls. We underestimated how many we needed.”

Amber didn’t have the faintest clue what a tapioca pearl was.

“We have a volunteer pool of about a hundred people right now,” Kim said. “We’ll contact everyone and see who is able to help out this weekend.” She shot a quick glance down the table at Ann Marie and Chloe, the faces of volunteer services, who nodded and scribbled notes on the sheets in front of them.

“Excellent,” Harlo said. “We’ve been meeting on weekends at 10 a.m. and working for six to eight hours. We’ll meet on Sunday this week for our first joint session, but both days for the remaining weekends after that. We provide a catered lunch. I’ll text you the location of the float barn.”

“Great,” said Kim. “You were able to design a float to feature cats so last minute?”

Harlo nodded. “Just barely. That’s why you can’t start until Sunday. Our engineers needed an extra day. That’s the one we need the tapioca pearls for. We’re giving two of the three cats several patches of white around their faces and stripes down their backs. The third one is going to be almost all black. We have buckets of black onion seeds. We were thinking that we could have several live cats on that float as well—with handlers, of course, but it would be the most obvious way to combine our floats with your adoption event.”

“I love it!” Kim said.

After a few more particulars, the meeting started to wind down. People relaxed in their seats, and several others reached across the table to snag one of Jack’s blueberry scones.

“Do you guys know how Bianca is doing?” Chloe asked. “I mean … she’s probably really freaked out right now.”

Everyone seemed to still. Leave it to a teenager to shut down every adult in the room with a single question.

Harlo opened his mouth, then shut it again. The pair of brunettes to his left looked at each other, shrugged slightly, and winced. The only other man aside from Harlo slouched in his seat a bit and fiddled with his pen.

Finally, one of the women said, “I texted her this morning, but she didn’t reply.”

In a tone that surprised even herself, it seemed, Kim said, “Have any of you gone to see her? Ask how her dad’s arraignment went?”

Kim herself knew how the arraignment went, because she’d called Amber this afternoon on her lunch break and said, “Tell. Me. Everything.” When Amber told her that she was sure Simon had bewitched the judge, Kim had shrieked, “I hate that I had to work!”

“Oh, did the arraignment happen already?” someone asked now.

Everyone else offered the same round of shrugging shoulders, diverted eye contact, and fidgeting.

“I know she can be … difficult,” Kim started.

Harlo snorted. Then he immediately sighed and scratched at his temple. His dark hair had started to go gray there. “Bianca Pace isn’t really the type of person who needs people. She never gives off the impression that she wants anything to do with any of us outside this committee. I know that sounds harsh, given the circumstances, but you don’t know Bianca Pace the way we do. She’s got her husband to help her through this, anyway.”

The rest of the Floral Frenemies nodded solemnly.

A hollow sensation filled Amber’s stomach. Kim leaned forward to look past Ann Marie who sat between them, and they shared a frown. These people didn’t know Bianca at all. Recalling how quickly Bianca could flip between a normal human being and ice princess extraordinaire, Amber knew Bianca had, at least in part, caused these people to think the worst of her.

Perhaps they feared Bianca now—worried the same supposedly violent tendency in her father had been passed onto Bianca.

After the group had disbanded, and Amber had said goodbye to the Here and Meow Committee, she lingered so she could talk to Jack. He’d said he’d been “wondering” about something. Now her curiosity was piqued.

She met him at the counter and ordered a pair of raspberry-and-orange scones. He seemed slightly less flustered when he had a task to complete, and by the time he was ringing her up, the pink in his cheeks had faded.

“How’d the meeting go?” he asked as he counted out her change.

“No screaming match this time, so pretty good,” she said, taking both her change and the small white bag with her pastries in it. She fussed with the bag but didn’t say goodbye. Suddenly, she couldn’t stand the quiet. “I know we haven’t figured out what this is, but maybe the next time you watch a movie, you can let me know? I can bring popcorn.”

His grin was so wide, she was sure it must have hurt. “That sounds great. I can’t promise I won’t pass out during the opening credits though. I’m apparently a boring old man now.”

“Passing out on the couch actually sounds incredible.”

He nodded once, his brows furrowed.

She gasped with unnecessary dramatics when her phone buzzed in her back pocket, startling her. It snapped her out of the very vivid daydream of her and Jack passed out on the couch together, her head on his shoulder. “I’ll, uh, see you later?”

Jack wished her a good night, frowning. She knew he was worried about her and her obvious lack of sleep, but he couldn’t chase away her nightmares any more than he could have chased away Kieran Penhallow. She hated that she was causing those lines to mar his forehead, but she was also grateful he hadn’t truly given up on her yet.

As she headed for the door, she held her bag of pastries with one hand and fished her phone out of her back pocket with the other. She got the door to Purrcolate open with an elbow and had just managed to answer the call before it went to voicemail.

“Hey, Amber.”

Startled, she said, “Hey, chief. What’s up?”

But Amber didn’t hear his reply, because someone behind her called her name when she’d only made it a few steps outside.

“Hang on a sec, Owen,” she said, then grimaced. Since when did she call him Owen? Amber turned, expecting to see Jack, but instead found his brother.

Larry had his hands on his hips. “I’m going to make this quick. You know I like you, Amber. I always have. And I like you for my brother. But whatever has been happening between you lately needs to stop.” He sliced a hand through the air. “I don’t like seeing Jack like this. One day he’s running around clicking his heels together because you deigned to say hello to him, then the next day, the two of you refuse to look at each other and he’s so down in the dumps that all he does is mope around his apartment. Now he’s back to staring at you like he’s a lovesick puppy. Figure out what you want from him and stick to it. The guy is completely head over heels for you, and if you’re not head over heels too, you have to cut him loose so he can grieve this in peace and move on.”

Amber stared at him, openmouthed.

“I hope you choose him,” he said, then turned and walked back inside the shop.

It took her a few stunned seconds to remember that the chief was still on the phone. Amber pressed the phone to her ear, then beelined for her car, her face on fire. “You still there?” Please don’t still be there …

“Ouch,” the chief said.

Groaning, Amber said, “Can we please talk about literally anything other than me getting schooled by Larry Terrence?”

He chuckled. “I was calling because I think I need Cassie Westbottom’s help.”

“Really?” she asked, curiosity crowding out her embarrassment. “What for?”

“I got a call from Wilma Jameson this afternoon—Chief Jameson’s eighteen-year-old daughter,” he said. “I met her several years ago at some function when Eric and I worked together. She said she doesn’t trust the police force in Marbleglen and suspects the guy in custody isn’t who killed her father.”

“Whoa,” Amber said. “That makes three people in the Simon Was Framed category. Why does Wilma think Simon is innocent?”

“Wouldn’t tell me over phone,” he said. “Can Cassie join me tomorrow? Wading into this whole thing has already got me nervous; someone coming with me who can assure that the person I’m talking to is telling the truth would put me at ease.”

“Cassie Westbottom would be honored,” Amber said. “Oh, and don’t be mad—”

“I hate when you start sentences that way …”

“I went with Bianca to her father’s arraignment today.”

He was silent for a long time. “And?”

Amber explained the low bail amount, the house arrest, Chief Daniels’s reaction to the sentencing, and the fact that Simon had used magic to obviate being stuck in jail until his court date.

“Honestly,” the chief said, “the part that worries me the most is Daniels’s reaction. If Simon is truly being framed, and Daniels is part of it, who knows what he’ll do to Simon now that he’s out of jail. If Simon’s memory comes back before his court date, that could throw a wrench in Daniels’s plan. Daniels might decide that the best course of action is to shut Simon up for good. We have to tread carefully here.”

“I agree,” Amber said.

Yet, as Amber hung up with the chief and made the short drive home, she worried that she, Bianca, and the chief were already in over their heads.

Chapter 9

Amber was in the midst of getting ready the following morning when Bianca called.

“What’s happening?” Amber said, snatching up her phone and answering immediately. “Is he home?”

“Hi, Amber.”

“Simon!” Amber said. “How are you?”

“As well as a man can be after being in jail for three days.”

Amber winced.

“Listen,” he said quickly, his voice hushed. “I don’t have long. My parole officer is here in the house talking to Bianca and I slipped into the bathroom to call you from her phone. I’m guessing I have five minutes tops before he gets suspicious. Anyway. My best guess is that I was roofied. I’ve heard women mention that Rohypnol makes you feel like your magic is dying. A huge chunk of my memory is just … gone. Do you think you can unlock it? That’s the Henbane affinity, right?”

“It is, but I don’t know if—”

“All I’m asking is that you try,” he said in a rush. “We’ll have to get you on the approved visitor list, which could take a few days. Then you can come here and see what you can find, okay? I’ve got an ankle bracelet on and can only travel to the grocery store at this point. Plus the Marbleglen police force is, let’s say, furious that I’m out on bail. So they’ll be watching me even closer than my assigned officer will be.”

Amber swallowed, her head spinning. “Okay.”

“Great. We’ll be in touch.”

The call ended.

Amber already felt like she needed a nap and she hadn’t even had her meeting with Chief Brown and Wilma Jameson yet.

At just after noon, Amber pulled into Parking Lot C of Sorrel Garden. As she’d driven to Marbleglen, she’d changed her appearance in waves. At an empty intersection, she switched her eyes from brown to green. At a stop sign, a quickly uttered spell and a hand waved in front of her face widened her nose.

Changing her hair was what could potentially shock someone the most should they happen to witness her long, dark brown wavy hair suddenly shrink up into an A-line bob and then turn blonde. When she reached Parking Lot C, she still hadn’t changed her hair color. Luckily, the lot only had four cars in it, all but one empty. And the occupied one had the chief in it. Amber quickly altered her hair, and then climbed out of her car, walked to the passenger door of the chief’s personal car two spots away, and let herself in.

Chief Brown was dressed like Owen today: jeans, a black T-shirt, and a baseball cap. It was always so strange to see him in plain clothes rather than his uniform. He seemed to have a similar reaction to her appearance, as he lightly wrinkled his nose at her. “Cassie,” he said in greeting.

“Owen,” Amber said, dropping her purse to the floor and strapping herself in. Once the chief pulled back out onto the road, she said, “Do you have any idea what to expect with Wilma?”

The chief shook his head, drumming the fingers of his left hand on the steering wheel. The afternoon light glinted off his wedding band. “I hadn’t spent much time with Eric recently. We worked the beat for a while, like I told you, but he was here in Marbleglen while I was in Portland. We met up for drinks when I first got the position in Edgehill, but it didn’t go beyond that. He was a nice enough guy, but it’s clear he had problems. I just don’t know if his death was caused by problems of his own making or if trouble found him this time.”

Amber mulled that over. Last night, she’d done as much research as she could on Jameson but didn’t turn up much more than the chief had already told her. It seemed like once the hotheaded man had been transferred to Marbleglen, he’d stayed out of the spotlight.

Wilma Jameson lived in a small apartment building to the west of Sorrel Garden. It was a bit tucked away from the nearest main road, and while the property boasted several large beautiful trees, the complex itself was the first run-down place Amber had seen in the town.

The chief parked at the curb. Across the street was a row of tiny weather-worn houses, most ringed in black iron fences. A man in shorts and a dingy white T-shirt, the armpits yellowed, stood on his porch, watering his lawn with a hose. An unlit cigarette hung from his mouth. When the chief offered the man a wave, the man merely stared at him, water splashing onto his tiny patchy lawn.

The asphalt parking lot for the ten-unit complex was cracked, weeds poking up through the spaces. The wooden fences that encased the five downstairs apartments had been painted a sickly light brown; it looked like the job had been completed by someone who had had much better things to do. Hints of salmon pink peeked out from beneath thin streaks of brown. One of the downstairs units had a garden, but the vines were browning and hanging limply over the fence, likely wanting to escape this dingy place as much as the residents did.

Amber walked alongside the chief across the cracked driveway. A dog yipped incessantly from one of the top floor apartments.

“She’s in Unit 3,” the chief said, strolling forward with a confidence Amber didn’t feel herself, even while wearing a face that wasn’t hers.

Unit 3 was on the direct opposite side of the parking lot from the street entrance. An older model Honda sat in the spot for the apartment. Amber wondered if Wilma was usually off work or school at this time of day on a Friday. Maybe she was just home for lunch.

The chief led the way past the fenced-in patio and the cement stairs leading to Wilma’s upstairs neighbor in Unit 4. Wilma’s door was painted the same sickly light brown as the fences. Both the light and the temperature dropped; Amber and the chief now stood in the shadow of the floor above them. A thick doormat—unadorned with anything but dirt—lay in front of the door. The chief knocked.

A rail-thin young woman with long, stringy brown hair opened the door a few seconds later. A small white dog bounded out, all wagging tail and flopping tongue, as it hopped around Amber and the chief’s feet.

“Get back in here, Scooter!” the woman said.

Scooter complied, darting back into the apartment and then yipping excitedly. “C’mon in!” Scooter seemed to be saying. “My home is your home.”

“Sorry,” the woman said, stepping to the side to let them in. “He really likes company.”

The chief removed his baseball cap as he stepped over the threshold, then stood in the middle of the living room. The carpet was a light gray and dotted with faint stains. Amber wondered if those were courtesy of Scooter. The furniture was a mishmash: a futon with a black mattress and frame, a chunky brown recliner that looked like a relic of the 1970s, a rectangular light-brown coffee table with an open laptop on it, the image on the screen frozen. There was no TV. There was one bookshelf that was mostly stuffed with odds and ends, rather than books. A dying houseplant sat beside it. The futon sat below a cutout in the wall, beyond which was a small kitchen. A hallway led from the living room toward the kitchen and the rest of the apartment.

After closing the door, the woman hurried past them and cleared the pillows and blankets off the futon, piling them on the side. Scooter immediately launched onto the pile of blankets with all the enthusiasm of a kid diving into a pile of autumn leaves. He turned in three circles, then plopped down and closed his eyes.

“Please, have a seat,” Wilma said, motioning to the futon. As Amber and the chief did so, Wilma herself perched on the end of the recliner’s cushion. Then she popped back up. “Did you want something to drink or anything?”

“No, no,” the chief said, sitting beside Amber, resting his elbows on his knees. He still fiddled with his hat. His blond hair was a bit mussed. “So, Wilma … can I call you Wilma?”

Wilma sat down again, hands on her knees. “Sure. I know it’s an old lady name, but I kinda like that about it. I don’t like to be called Wil or anything, if that’s what you mean. It was my grandma’s name.”

“All right, Wilma it is,” the chief said. “This here is Cassie Westbottom. She’s a consultant I bring with me on more … unique cases. She’s a psychic.”

Amber bit down on her bottom lip to keep herself from flinching. She never knew when he was going to add in that extra tidbit.

Wilma’s gaze shifted to Amber, eying her from blonde head to ballet-flat-clad feet. Then the young woman nodded. “I’ll take all the help I can get. I’ll be the first to admit that Dad and I didn’t always have the best relationship. We don’t—didn’t—live that far apart, but I hadn’t seen him in almost six months—not since my mom’s funeral. He called, though. For a while it was just on birthdays and holidays and stuff, but after Mom died, he started calling once every couple weeks. For the past month or so, he called every couple days. It was kinda nice, since I’ve been missing my mom pretty bad. My parents divorced when I was eight, and it was mostly just her and me until a little bit ago. Her heart gave out on her.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” the chief said, and Amber wondered which part he’d meant. Maybe all of it.

Wilma shrugged a shoulder. “Yeah, well. It’s all a lot of crap, really, but what can you do? My mom left my dad because he had a real bad drinking problem. He wasn’t abusive or anything, but he spent a lot of money on booze. Spent even more gambling. Mom finally had enough and left him when he spent both of their paychecks from one month within a few hours of cashing them. All we had to eat that month was ramen.

“I’m telling you all this because even though he wasn’t the best guy, and he was a crap father, he deserves better than what he got. He was even kind of trying there at the end. He kept talking about retiring early. Said the job just wasn’t what it used to be. But I don’t think it was the job. I think it’s because that force of his is awful. Two times last week, he said he thought one of his officers would just ‘take him out,’ if he could.”

“Daniels?” Amber asked, recalling Bianca’s drunken speculations.

Wilma looked at her in surprise.

“Yeah, him. I mean, maybe he meant him. Hard to know—Dad didn’t use names.” Wilma scratched the side of her nose, then rolled her shoulders. She eyed her sleeping dog still perched on top of the mound of blankets piled beside the couch. “But one of the cops, yeah.” Wilma’s leg started to bounce.

Without saying anything to the chief, Amber got off the futon and squatted before Wilma, drawing the young woman’s attention. Amber offered her hand to Wilma, palm up.

Swallowing hard, Wilma placed her hand in Amber’s. The young woman had small, delicate hands. They were cold to the touch. “I’ve never met a psychic before,” Wilma said in a hushed tone.

Neither have I, Amber wanted to say, placing her second hand over Wilma’s. Pulling her magic to the surface, Amber poured her energy into a truth spell. “What has you so nervous about Nicolas Daniels, Wilma Jameson?”

“He came here yesterday,” Wilma blurted, then her eyes widened. “Daniels, I mean. I know he’s the new chief now, so I guess he can do whatever he wants, but it felt … weird that he was here.”

As Amber’s magic retreated, she nodded in a way she hoped was sagely. An “Ah, yes, I thought so” nod. Standing, Amber let Wilma’s hand go and then rejoined a bewildered-looking chief on the futon. “You can speak freely with us. We just want to help.”

When Wilma still hadn’t spoken, the chief asked, “What was the nature of Daniels’s visit?”

Wilma scratched the side of her nose again. “You won’t tell anyone you were here, right? You’re not like, chief buddies, with Daniels?”

“Definitely not chief buddies,” he said. “I hardly know the guy.”

Wilma let out a slow exhale, then readjusted herself on the end of her cushion. “Okay, so at first, I thought he wanted to ask me if I knew anything about this Simon Rice guy.”

“Ricinus,” Amber said.

“Yeah, him,” Wilma said. “But Daniels didn’t mention Simon at all. He just kept asking how often I saw and talked to my dad. He said they were going over his phone records and that they saw Dad had called me more in the last couple months than he had in a long time and wanted to know why.”

Amber’s brows furrowed.

“I just said we were discussing stuff with my mom’s affairs, since I figured that was a safe answer,” Wilma said. “But it didn’t feel like Daniels was asking me anything about suspects or motives or alibis or any of that other stuff they talk about on cop shows. Daniels claimed he was just trying to take over Dad’s old case load since he was the new chief now, but I don’t buy it. He asked me like six different ways if Dad ever discussed cases with me. Don’t they rephrase questions to see if you always give the same answer even if the question is a little different? Like that’s how they try to catch you in a lie? Well, I said no each time, ’cause Dad hasn’t really talked about cases, but I also didn’t want to tell that Daniels guy anything. He gave me the creeps.”

“You said your father hasn’t really discussed cases with you?” the chief asked. “Does that mean he has told you work-related things recently?”

“Kinda,” Wilma said, chewing on one of her cuticles. “He’s only really ever brought up one. And I can’t even say it’s a case ’cause I don’t have a lot of details or anything. It’s just a name Dad brought up a lot in the last couple weeks. He said there’s some guy named Joe Cooper who’s on the department’s short list, but that Dad didn’t like what was happening with Cooper. Whatever was going down, it felt even too shady for Dad, which is saying a lot. He kept saying this Cooper guy was going to be the reason Dad got out of the force. I don’t know if Cooper was threatening him or if Cooper found out something about the sleazy officers who work for Dad, or if it was something else—but Dad didn’t like it, whatever it was. If Dad didn’t like it, and then he wound up dead …” Wilma shrugged helplessly. “It all just feels really bad, you know? I’d never heard Dad talk like that before—that he needed to get out of the force, I mean. If I didn’t know better, I’d have said Dad was spooked. And my dad didn’t get spooked.”

“But you don’t have any idea what this specific trouble was?” the chief asked.

Wilma shook her head. “No, sorry. It was always a rollercoaster with Dad. Half the time when I talked to him, he was drunk. So normally I wouldn’t put too much stock into what he said, but he called me so many times in the last couple months. Like even creepy Daniels knew there was something weird about that. Dad was a mess of self-loathing when he was sober. Just … too much of a coward to own up to the fact that he’d screwed up with me and Mom. Too much of an ego to be vulnerable or whatever. He’d obviously wanted me in his life, though, ’cause he kept calling me. I think I was all he really had by the end. But he also knew where I lived, and I still never saw him. He never said sorry. He just called when he was drunk, rambling about this Cooper guy and how he was going to be the end of him. It just feels like it’s gotta mean something. Especially because it seems like Daniels was fishing for information about Dad’s work. Cooper was the only guy Dad talked about. Never that Simon guy.” She shrugged again. “I know that’s not a lot to go on. And sorry I made you come all the way out here for this. I just felt weird talking about it on the phone.”

“Please, don’t apologize,” the chief said. “You have to do what makes you feel safe. I’m glad you could take the time to meet with us. This definitely gives us a place to start.” He nodded at Amber. “Cassie and I here will see what we can scrounge up about Cooper. I’m helping Mayor Sable out in any way I can even if this is beyond my jurisdiction, so I would appreciate it if you kept this meeting between us. Especially as far as Cassie is concerned.”

“Oh, trust me,” Wilma said. “I’m not saying nothing to no one. Not in this town.”

“So what made you take the risk to call Chief Brown?” Amber asked. “You’re not worried Daniels will find out about it?”

“I kinda worried about that, yeah. But I just couldn’t live with myself if I thought I could help Simon from going down for something he didn’t do. I know it sounds like something from that board game Clue, but someone at that dinner party killed my dad and pinned it on Simon. Figure out who all was there and you’ll have your list of suspects.”

Based on what Molly had said, the party had dwindled down to no more than ten by the time Molly had left. Amber wondered if her magic could somehow get her such a list.

“That’s a good idea.” The chief stood, still holding his cap, and Amber followed suit. Rounding the coffee table, the chief stuck out his hand toward Wilma. “If you think of anything else, please let me know.”

“Yeah, of course,” Wilma said, standing as well so she could shake his hand.

Scooter, alert to the movement in the room, leapt off his makeshift bed and was bounding around again.

“I know you and Dad weren’t super close,” Wilma said to the chief, “but I know he always liked you. You seem like a good guy.”

“That’s very kind of you to say,” the chief said, stuffing the cap back over his blond hair. “We’ll be in touch, okay?”

When it was Amber’s turn to say goodbye to Wilma, she grasped Wilma’s hand and smiled, doing her best to seem ethereal and psychic-y. “It was nice meeting you. I hope when we meet again, we’ll have some more information for you.” But when Amber tried to let go, the girl held firm. Amber’s brows ticked up in question.

Wilma shot a look at Chief Brown who was a few feet away at the front door, currently distracted by Scooter. The chief was busily rubbing the dog’s belly, as Scooter had very dramatically draped his little body across one of the chief’s tennis shoes, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.

“I know you’re helping Chief Brown, and Chief Brown is helping Mayor Sable,” Wilma said softly, hand still holding Amber’s, her voice low. Amber leaned in to hear her better. “But the mayor was at that party, too. Don’t rule her out.”

Chapter 10

It wasn’t until they were back in the chief’s car and heading away from Wilma Jameson’s run-down little apartment complex that the chief spoke. “What did Wilma say to you when we were leaving?”

“She seems to think we can’t trust Mayor Sable either,” Amber said.

The chief hmm-ed. After a minute of thought, he said, “Well, she’s our main entrance into this case at the moment. I’m involved solely because she said, ‘I could use some help on this.’ She was an added resource for us when we were on the hunt for Chloe. I would think she wouldn’t be recruiting outside help if she was neck-deep in whatever this is.”

“Do you think she assumed you might be the same breed of cop as Daniels and she didn’t really expect you to dig too deep into this one?” Amber asked.

He let out another hmm. “Holding onto a healthy dose of skepticism when it comes to her wouldn’t be a terrible idea.”

Since he was clearly bothered by the idea of Mayor Sable being as sketchy as Daniels, Amber changed the subject. “Any idea who Joe Cooper is?”

“Not a clue.”

She chewed on the inside of her cheek. “What do you think about pulling Alan Peterson into this?”

“My gut tells me something is very, very off here in Marbleglen,” he said.

“So is that a yes or …”

“Call Alan,” he said. “Tell him as little as possible, though. He’s a good PI. He’s a big reason why we found Chloe. But … if Daniels is as sketchy as we think, we want Alan to make as little a splash as possible to not tip this guy off until we know what we’re dealing with.”

Amber nodded. “I can tell him I’m calling him on behalf of Bianca; I’ll leave you and Mayor Sable out of it entirely.”

“Good,” he said.

“I have one other suggestion, but I’m ninety-nine percent sure you won’t like it,” Amber said.

The chief sighed. “What?”

“I think what Wilma said about the game Clue makes sense,” she said. “If Simon really was roofied, the person who actually killed Chief Jameson was at that dinner party. He’s trying to make arrangements for me to come visit him, but even if I’m able to use memory magic on him, it might not work. Manufactured drugs and magic aren’t a good combination. That black hole in his memory might stay that way.”

“Good to know,” he said. “We also need to figure out if a single person was responsible for Jameson’s murder and framing Simon, or if it was a group effort. Both will be hard to prove. What’s your detestable suggestion?”

“If I can get into Jameson’s house, I can see for myself who was there,” she said. “A memory reveal spell could potentially show me the crime itself, too. The objects in that house won’t have compromised memories.”

“Not happening,” he said. “Not right away, anyway.” He wagged a finger at her. “No breaking and entering, Amber Blackwood! I will arrest you for that.”

Amber wrinkled her nose and crossed her arms. “Fine.”

“I didn’t say no forever, but all of that is a last resort,” he said. “We’re going to stick to old-fashioned sleuthing—and a little witchcraft—until we have a better sense of what’s going on.”

When he pulled into Parking Lot C, the chief cleared his throat, halting Amber from getting out of the car right away. He turned in his seat a little.

“What?” she asked, massaging her cheeks. “Is there something on my face?’

“The nose is almost yours again.” He chuckled a little awkwardly. “I … uhh … I just wanted to apologize if I ever made you felt unwelcome in Edgehill. I know I was … not the most agreeable person for you to deal with when I first started here. I still have flashbacks of the day I came to break the news about Melanie Cole’s death. Instead of treating you like a person who just found out a close friend had died, I confronted you. I offered you accusations instead of compassion—or even the benefit of the doubt. My gut told me something was different about you and I jumped to nothing but terrible conclusions.”

Amber was shocked into silence.

A faint tinge of pink colored his cheeks. “You’re a good person and I should have seen that first, not that you’re … odd. And don’t get me wrong, you’re still very odd. But it’s endearing now. Mostly.”

“Thanks?” she managed, laughing. “If it makes you feel better, you’ve made up for it tenfold. I mean, we’re basically best friends now.”

He rolled his eyes. “Way to kill the mood, Blackwood.”

“That’s what all the boys tell me.”

He barked out a laugh.

Smiling, she climbed out of the car. “Talk to you later, chief.”

She was just about to shut the door when he said, “Oh, and Amber?”

She peeked her head back into the car.

“I hope you choose Jack Terrence, too,” he said. Amber’s face flushed furiously as she remembered that the chief had heard Larry Terrence tear her a new one over her on-and-off-again flirtation with his brother. “You two would be good together.”

“Noted. I’m leaving now. I am mortified beyond words.”

Laughing, he said, “My work here is done. Besides, isn’t this what best friends do?”

She grinned. “I suppose it is.”

Amber worked the afternoon shift in The Quirky Whisker training her new seasonal employee, Ben Lydon—the young man who, at last month’s Hair Ball, had won the Best of Edgehill award for design. He would be creating this year’s logo and commemorative pin for the Here and Meow Festival. Ben’s parents owned Mews and Brews, a restaurant which boasted artwork that fused cats with famous movie scenes. Ben had drawn all of it.

The interview process had been quick. Ben called The Quirky Whisker a few days ago asking if she was hiring, she’d said yes, and then asked him when he’d wanted to start. Finding Chloe Deidrick last month after she’d been kidnapped had, in large part, been a group effort. Ben had played a role by helping law enforcement narrow down the list of potential usernames that might have been associated with the mystery boy Chloe had been talking to on an anonymous chat app.

A benefit of living in a close-knit town like Edgehill—at least in Ben’s case—was that Amber knew the twenty-two-year-old well enough that she didn’t hesitate for a second to hire him. Plus, if they worked together, it would give her enough time to really suss him out to decide if she liked him for Chloe. If so, she would sing his praises to the girl at every opportunity.

Ben was a quick study, and by the last hour of the shift, he was ringing customers up with minimal help from Amber. And, despite being lanky, semi-awkward, and a bit tongue-tied with women, he was unendingly charming.

At the end of his shift, she sent him on his way, leaving her to close up shop on her own. He would be working with Daisy in the morning—Lily had a dentist appointment. Amber and Lily would be working afternoon until closing.

She straightened up, locked the shop, and made her way upstairs, where the cats eagerly awaited dinner. It wasn’t until she’d fed them, showered, and eaten a sandwich that she searched for Alan Peterson’s card. She found it buried under a pile of plastic elephant trunks.

It was after eight, but Amber already knew Alan kept strange hours. She supposed most private investigators did. She dialed his number.

“Alan Peterson,” he said in greeting.

“Hey, Alan,” Amber said. “This is—”

“Amber Blackwood,” he said. “How’s it going? Chloe okay?”

“Oh, yeah, she’s fine,” she said quickly, detecting the faint sign of worry in his tone. “Well, as well as she can be, I guess. She’s been seeing a therapist.”

“Good to hear,” he said. “What can I help you with? Need me to tail that Connor Declan guy?”

Amber froze. “No, why?”

“During my stakeouts all over Edgehill, I saw that guy watching you on more than one occasion.”

Shaking her head to will her mind off the topic of Connor Declan, she said, “No, this is about something else. Did you hear about the murder of Chief Jameson in Marbleglen?”

“Can’t say that I did.”

Amber told him about the growing movement against the chief and his officers by the community-run safety group which was headed by Simon Ricinus, the closed-door dinner party, and the death of Chief Jameson. “My friend, Bianca Pace, is Simon’s daughter. She’s convinced he’s being framed but isn’t sure why. The only lead we have at the moment is that before he died, Chief Jameson was caught up in something with a guy name Joe Cooper. I was wondering if you could help me find out who this Cooper guy is.”

“I could do that,” Alan said. “I’m in between cases at the moment, so I can get started soon. I’m not cheap, though.”

Amber had been expecting this. She supposed she and Bianca could split the cost of Alan’s fees for at least a week. “How much?”

“Can you put in a good word for me with Ann Marie?”

Amber almost fell off her couch. “Your payment is a date?”

“Don’t sound so shocked,” he said. “I’m … not always that great with women.”

Alan did have a tendency to be brutally honest. One day last month, Amber had tried to tail Alan, unsure of the PI’s motives. The chief had been leery of any PIs called in to work the Chloe case, which had made Amber even warier. In short order, Alan had caught on to her following him and had let himself into her car while she’d been staking him out. Amber remembered the conversation well.

“I can’t stress this enough,” he said, “you are terrible about being inconspicuous.”

“Terrible seems a little harsh,” she said.

“Terrible is being generous.”

She also remembered the first time she’d spoken to Alan during the Job and Career Fair at Edgehill High, when she’d been working alongside Ann Marie as she and Amber tried to get as many student volunteer sign-ups as possible for the upcoming Hair Ball, and the Here and Meow. Alan had instantly turned into a charismatic, self-deprecating flirt in Ann Marie’s presence—though Amber had thought then that it had all been an act on Alan’s part as a means to gain information—and Ann Marie had turned into a puddle of goo at the man’s feet.

“Private eyes need love too, Amber,” he said now.

She snorted. “Do you even know anything about Ann Marie? Wait, that’s probably not a good question to ask a PI.”

“I haven’t gone snooping in her trash, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said. “From being in town during the month I was around for Chloe’s case, I gleaned that she’s not seeing anyone right now. That’s all I know. I promise I’m not a creep. But she’s gorgeous and I’d like to take her out sometime if the idea of grabbing dinner with someone like me doesn’t completely freak her out.”

“Have you freaked out many women?”

“I’ve freaked out enough,” he said. “I hear ‘intimidating’ and ‘borderline rude’ a lot.”

“Is ‘borderline’ their word or yours?” she asked.

She could hear the smile in his voice. “That’s not nice, Amber. I’ll call you if I come up with anything.”

Amber woke with a start. Her skin was clammy and her hair was matted to her forehead. Sighing, she checked her phone. It was just after five in the morning. As Amber groaned and lay back on her pillow, Alley—who had been asleep on the other pillow—reached out a paw and gently tapped Amber’s cheek. It was Alley’s way of asking if Amber was okay. Unfortunately, Alley had to “ask” this a lot lately.

After assuring Alley she was fine, Amber eased out of bed, lightly draping the blanket over Tom so he wouldn’t protest about being too cold in her absence. Then Amber padded over to her dining room table. The only good thing about the nightmares was that once Amber was up, she was up. And once she was up she needed a distraction—namely the growing pile of toy orders she had to fill, both for the upcoming Edgehill High graduation, and, more urgently, the Here and Meow.

Amber had been fast at work for a solid two hours when her phone lit up from her nightstand. She wasn’t surprised to see Edgar’s face scowling up at her.

“Hey,” she said.

“Should I be concerned that you don’t sound the least bit groggy this early in the morning? Part of the fun of calling you at this hour is how mad you are.”

“You’re awful,” she said. “I could ask you the same thing, though. Are you not sleeping either?”

“Not much, no,” he said. “Anyway. I know you’ve got a lot going on right now, but I think it’s time to try phase two of Magic Cache. We need to get the grimoire out of your apartment and somewhere safer.”

He sounded a little … wired. Was he hopped up on caffeine?

“What brought this on?” she asked. “Are you just worried?”

He didn’t answer.

“Edgar?” she asked, moving toward the couch. “What’s going on?”

“Don’t panic, but … the last couple weeks—since we started playing Magic Cache, really—Neil’s gotten … louder. And tonight … uhh, this morning … he’s been especially chatty.”

Now it was Amber’s turn to sigh. “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

“Because you’ve got enough things to worry about. I’ve dealt with Neil for years. This is nothing new.”

But it was new. Because Edgar had finally started to get some relief from the Penhallow trapped in his head. Edgar had started to venture out into Edgehill more. Heck, the guy had gotten a haircut! At an actual barber shop!

Amber crossed her legs on the couch cushion, settling against the back. “What’s he been saying?”

“Once I started thinking about my Magic Cache idea and how we can use it to hide the grimoires, he’s gotten really persistent,” Edgar said. “I think he wants me to help you hide them so then he’ll know the location. I still haven’t worked out if the guy can actually see through my eyes, or if he’s good enough at reading my thoughts now that he can make very informed guesses.”

“How are we going to avoid him knowing where we stash the books when I need your help?” she asked.

“Once you’re skilled enough, I’ll send you off on your own to hide them,” he said, voice strained. “If I don’t know where they are, then Neil won’t either.”

Amber frowned. “We need to get that guy out of your head.”

“Task for another day,” he said. “So you ready for phase two?”

She had absolutely no clue what phase two entailed. “Yeah, I don’t have to start working on floats until tomorrow. I’ve got the afternoon shift here though, so I have to be back here at one.”

“Okay, I’ll come pick you up,” he said. “Bring your personal grimoire, some paper, and any maps you have of the surrounding towns. Oh, and a pen.”

Chapter 11

By the time Amber got downstairs, Edgar’s truck was already at the curb. After stepping out into the chilly April morning and locking up, she hopped in her cousin’s shiny new white pickup. The inside was mostly clean, but she crunched a few desiccated french fries underfoot within moments of getting inside. She opted to keep her purse in her lap.

“Good morning,” she said.

“There’s very little that’s good about it. I’m on hour 29 of no sleep,” he said, then pulled out onto Russian Blue.

Amber swallowed, staring at the scruffy, worn-out profile of her cousin. “Because of Neil?”

“Yeah,” he said tightly. “He used to do this … before. Hound me for days on end to find the book, Henbane. Find it, find it, find it. I’d ignore him until I couldn’t anymore. Then I found ways to cope.”

Getting personal information out of Edgar Henbane was like pulling teeth sometimes, but in this wired, insomniac state he was in, he seemed oddly chatty.

“Like what?” she asked.

“Music. It usually drowns him out pretty good. I’ll blast something heavy metal and full of guitar and then I sit on the internet to help keep busy. It’s hard to sleep when you’ve got the volume cranked up to twenty. But without the music, I have a relentless Penhallow screaming at me. So I choose insomnia over total madness.”

Amber had known he had a tech job which allowed him to work from home, but she didn’t know exactly what it was he did, or how he’d gotten into it in the first place. He hadn’t been a very tech-savvy kid when they were growing up. “Has it always been music?” she asked. “I mean, when this first started happening, was that how you coped then, too?”

“Some. I gamed for a while—those MMORPG fantasy games, then the military shooting simulation ones. Then I started teaching myself how to code and spent a lot of time on tech-nerd forums and whatnot. It started off as a way to help keep busy, and it seemed like a logical choice since I was online all the time anyway.

“That’s how I got my job a few years back, actually. I got to chatting with a guy about a particular coding problem he was having, and eventually he was like, ‘What if I just pay you to do this for me?’” Edgar shrugged, keeping his attention focused forward. “I’m kind of the whole tech department at this small company now. Pay’s good and I never have to leave the house.”

Amber was still frowning slightly at his profile. Partly because she only understood half of what he said—what on earth was an MMORPG?—and partly because with as much as she complained about the loneliness of her own life, Edgar’s had been even more so. And it had all been caused by the actions of her family. No wonder he’d wanted nothing to do with her for so long. But Amber was amazed that Edgar was so casual about being self-taught at something that he’d eventually gotten so good at, jobs had come to him.

“If you say anything remotely pitying or apologetic, I’m turning this car around,” he said, but there was no bite to his words.

She smiled to herself. “Wouldn’t dream of it. So where are we going?”

“Down Korat Road, but in the opposite direction of the Sippin’ Siamese,” Edgar said. “To the abandoned neighborhood on the edge of Belhaven.”

Amber’s brow furrowed. Not so much because it was an odd choice of location, but because the “neighborhood” was more like a handful of abandoned houses in an area that had become more forest than anything else. It was the kind of place high school kids threw parties, but even that hardly happened anymore—there were plenty of remote spots along Chartreux Creek that held more appeal.

Korat Road eventually turned into a two-lane highway that led to Belhaven in the south. Most of the businesses on Korat, aside from the bar, had shut down years ago.

Belhaven had once been a mining town, people traveling up into Oregon from California during the gold rush. The town, like so many others, sprung up when money flooded in, but once the gold had been mined out, the people went with it.

Between Belhaven and Edgehill and in the northern edges of Belhaven, one could find abandoned houses and businesses, overgrown with vegetation. Ghost town tours had become a robust income source for Belhaven, so Amber supposed things always had a way of working out.

But that didn’t mean she looked forward to heading into a possibly haunted abandoned neighborhood at seven thirty in the morning on very little sleep along with her cousin who was operating on even less.

“Remember what Simon told you about Edgehill and the supposed magic veins and all that?” Edgar asked, speaking for the first time in several minutes. “Well, I was doing some research about that the last couple nights since the roommate in my brain won’t stop talking.”

“You can just … look that stuff up online?”

“Eh, sorta,” Edgar said. “There’s a corner of the web that’s frequented by witches. It’s like the dark web, but only witches know how to access it—you need a VPN, a Tor browser, and a spell to grant you access.”

Amber still was only following half of what he said. She hadn’t known her cousin’s nerdy tech side was this extensive.

Edgar came to a stop at the end of Toyger Road. Instead of making a left on Korat Road toward the Sippin’ Siamese, he made a right. This part of Edgehill was even more untamed than the area Edgar lived in. Grasses grew so tall here that they were almost the same height as some of the trees’ lowest branches. Thorny-looking shrubs grew everywhere, tiny spots of yellow, white, and pink flowers lining the stalks of the thickly growing weeds. Small birds flitted about the branches, and the occasional tiny moth or bee winged among the small offerings of pollen.

“Anyway, I was doing some research on this magic vein thing. Apparently, something happened in this area roughly fifty years ago. This part of Edgehill doesn’t have the same connection to old mining towns like north Belhaven does,” Edgar said. “I hit a jackpot of conspiracy theories about it. There’s no real consensus on the time it happened, but fifty years comes up as an estimate most often. There are tons of posts claiming that when a witch gets to Edgehill, her powers are dampened because the ground the town sits on is tainted. There are stories of backfiring spells and glitchy magic. One witch claimed that his girlfriend tried to do a spell to open up a magical vein in the abandoned neighborhood on the Edgehill side—since apparently that was ground zero for The Event—and this vein-opening spell apparently caused the magic to ricochet off the ground. It hit her full in the chest and killed her instantly.”

Amber didn’t like the sound of any of that. “And you actually want to go to this place why?”

Edgar was clearly not at all fazed by her tone. “Because mixed into all of this conspiracy stuff? Several people said this abandoned neighborhood has at least one dead zone—though no one has been able to find the thing. I guess people have gotten close, or have seen the signs that one is there, but no one has actually found it in decades.”

Amber stared at his profile again. Perhaps her cousin had recently been body snatched by aliens and that was why she didn’t understand a stinkin’ word coming out of his unshaven face.

“Oh boy …” he said, clearly sensing her confusion. “Okay, so, like with everything, Magic Cache has its fringe users. You know how you can be majorly into a show’s fandom—like, say, Vamp World—and think you’re the biggest superfan who has ever lived because you’ve written fifteen fanfics, and then you meet someone who has, like, a full back tattoo of John Huntley’s fanged face or whatever?”

“How are you this nerdy?” Amber asked. “I wasn’t sure what you did in your spare time, but I didn’t think it was this.”

Edgar ignored her. “Magic Cache is no exception. Hardcore cachers are always looking for the holy grail of caches: dead zones. Caching is about finding that slight increase in the baseline of ambient magic, right? Well, there are weird pockets all over the globe where magic registers at zero. The amount of ambient magic around it doesn’t matter; magic just doesn’t exist there on its own. So when a cacher finds one of these places, he puts an item and guestbook there like usual, but then often layers something on top of it. Some complicated spell you have to work through or dismantle or whatnot. So not only do you have to find this anomaly to find the dead zone, if a witch has discovered it before you, it could be even harder to find the cache because of whatever complicated barrier the cacher added to the location.”

Amber had mostly followed that. “Okay … and this helps me with the grimoires how?”

“A dead zone would be a perfect hiding place for the books. A cloaked item in a dead spot isn’t traceable. The only way to find it would be knowing it was there or if you stumbled on it by accident. And then we could layer it with so many additional spells, no one would ever know where that thing was but you.

“The other bonus would be making the Henbane book both the cache item and the guestbook. If someone tried to tamper with it—and in this case it would just be opening it, since it’s charmed at the moment to only open for you or Willow—it would immediately be returned to you.”

Amber reveled in the brilliance of this suggestion for only a moment. “But if all that happens, it means the cloak on the book will have dropped and then the book would be a beacon for Penhallows again.”

“Well, yes,” Edgar said, wrinkling his nose. “That’s the downside of the plan: if the book is returned to you, that’s your cue to drop everything you’re doing, grab the book, and get the heck out of Dodge because the Penhallows will be hot on your tail.”

Amber gulped.

“Just think about it. If you decide it’s too risky, we can think of something else,” he said. “I’m not even suggesting that we use the dead spot in Edgehill. Mostly because it’s too obvious of a hiding place—even if no one has found it in ages. We need a spot in the middle of Death Valley or something. But, until we find a good dead zone, we might as well have you practice finding one.”

“Practice trying to find something that’s stumped even the most hardcore Magic Cachers? I thought my magical skills were tragic.”

“Oh, they are,” he said, aiming a grin at her when she offered him her best glare. “But I believe in you, cousin.”

“Thanks,” she said, suddenly feeling shy. It was so strange to see the glimpses of what Edgar had been when they were growing up—the big sensitive kid who had, over the years, turned into a grumpy recluse. Somehow he was less grumpy when he was sleep deprived. Amber supposed prolonged insomnia could wear down the rough edges of just about anyone.

They drove for another fifteen minutes before the first of the abandoned houses appeared on the left side of the road. It was a two-story farmhouse with a sagging reddish roof, and windows that were more frame than glass. Weeds grew tall around the house on all sides; vines wrapped around the porch and up the walls, as if they were trying to drag the whole structure back into the earth with them.

Just after passing the house, Edgar turned left onto an unmarked road. After a minute or two, they passed the remnants of a few more abandoned houses set back from the street. The thin whitish-trunked red alder trees that were so plentiful in the area where Chloe Deidrick had first gone missing were here, but there were taller, fuller trees too—mostly Douglas fir and bigleaf maple.

The farther in they got, the more this place started doing something to Amber’s magic, but she couldn’t say what. She supposed it could be that this place, as overtaken by nature as it was, had an abundance of ambient magic—ambient magic she’d only recently become more aware of thanks to her Magic Cache sessions. Maybe it was like the time Aunt G had tried to get Amber and Willow into birdwatching. In the months after Amber’s parents’ deaths, Aunt G had clearly been desperate to get Amber and Willow out of the house. For weeks on end, the grieving teenagers had been hauled out of bed in the wee hours to tramp around in the woods, listening for bird calls. It hadn’t stuck as a hobby for either girl, but even now, Amber constantly noticed birds and their individual calls. Most people, Amber figured, didn’t pay much attention to the creatures, but once her aunt opened her eyes and ears to them, Amber heard them everywhere. Was the awareness of ambient magic being all around her like that, too? Was this wild place—one that had potentially been a home to witches—teeming with magic?

Even after another ten minutes down the dirt road, this “neighborhood” remained more forest than ghost town. And then …

“Stop,” Amber said suddenly.

Edgar did so without question, though he pulled over to the shoulder, as if there were any possibility of cars approaching from either direction.

She got out and walked toward the house she’d seen on the right side of the road. It was the most intact structure she’d seen—even more so than the one they’d passed on the way in. Now outside the car, her magic felt even stranger. Sluggish, almost.

The house was as sagging and overgrown as the two-story one on the corner, but there was something about this one that spoke to her. She just couldn’t decipher what it was telling her yet.

Only faint remnants of a driveway to the small cottage remained, weeds having overtaken the laid concrete. Though the small house looked like it was only one-story—and so small it might only have two or three rooms total—the front of the house has been fashioned to resemble the tower of a castle. The cylindrical structure had a round base and a peaked roof, the bottom section had a window in each of its three sides, and the top section had a set of square windows that looked out on the cracked driveway Amber stood on now. A small porch was set back from this structure; a dilapidated, three-legged chair sat on the porch, leaning against the dirt-streaked wall behind it.

What did this place look like when witches lived here?

The mere act of asking stirred her magic a bit—a gentle nudge to something that had been dozing. She couldn’t know for sure that this had been a magic-friendly neighborhood, but something about that felt right, deep in her bones.

Maybe Amber could ask the house itself what it had looked like. Memory and time were gifts from her mother, she reminded herself again. Perhaps this was another place where she could use those gifts.

Amber heard a crunch behind her and knew Edgar had gotten out of the car now. She felt him watching her.

Approaching the house, she walked past the tower-like front room and stopped at the porch, reaching out a hand to wrap it around one of the support poles, which was doing its level best to keep the listing porch roof from tumbling to the ground. The pole was cracked in the middle; it was a small wonder that it was still standing.

Her magic thrashed from the contact, but not the way it usually did when it was primed for use. This wasn’t thrashing in the crowd at a concert, excited and full of frenetic energy; this was thrashing beneath sheets in the throes of a nightmare.

Edgar had said “something” happened here fifty years ago. He’d also said that the use of magic here by a witch had caused it to bounce back and kill her.

Only a little concerned, Amber focused her sluggish magic as best she could, closed her eyes, and asked, What did you look like fifty years ago?

Her magic gave a shudder. It vibrated down her arm, into her hand, and then pulsed out of her palm. Her skin grew warm where it touched the wood of the old porch. She yelped, too nervous to open her eyes. If her magic was flying back at her to offer a killing blow, she didn’t want to watch it happen.

Edgar let out a long, slow curse.

Amber’s eyes popped open at the sound, and then her mouth did too. The wood beneath her palm was no longer a dirt-streaked white, but a clean, pale baby blue. It stood straight and proud with nary a crack or splinter in it. Her gaze tracked up, and she found the porch had been reborn, too. The wooden chair on the porch not only had all four legs now, but it had a table before it topped with a potted plant with big pink flowers.

Amber gasped and backed away, then hurried to Edgar’s side as he stood open-mouthed before the house, his boots in the middle of a wide, smooth cement driveway.

The majority of the house was a navy blue, the accents a softer pastel shade of the same color. The windows ringing the wide base of the tower-like structure were shiny, the curtains inside drawn open to reveal a living room with furniture and a black cat perched on the windowsill, staring out at the street beyond. The cat didn’t seem to notice them. A lemon tree ripe with fruit stood beside the leftmost window.

Amber turned to say something to Edgar, only to gasp at the sight past her cousin: the whole street had been transformed. Up and down this unnamed road, houses had sprung up. Cars lined the street and were parked in driveways.

Four laughing children on bikes rode down the road, the sun kept at bay by the towering bigleaf maples creating a canopy above them. A pair of cats trotted along behind the set of four boys. A woman across the street relaxed in the shade of her porch while her hands guided her magic in the task of hanging damp laundry on a clothesline. She was dressed like she’d just stepped off the set of a 70s TV show.

“Dang, cousin,” Edgar said, whistling as he looked around, too. “I had no idea your memory skills had gotten this strong.”

The thing was, Amber didn’t think they had gotten this strong. She wondered idly if this use of magic was leaving behind a magic signature. Magical signatures left behind by an abundance of magic use had been how Neil Penhallow had traced Amber’s parents back to Edgehill, after all.

“And no offense, but how did a spell like this not knock you on your butt?” he asked, interrupting her thoughts. “Have you been practicing in secret?”

He was joking, she knew, but he sounded as baffled as she felt. How could a simple time spell have caused … all this? Not to mention, there was still something “wrong” with her magic.

“Do you feel strange here?” she asked him, gawking at the transformed neighborhood they stood in.

“I guess I feel a little more … drained?” he said, though he didn’t sound terribly concerned. “I haven’t slept in thirty hours, though, so I just figured the caffeine was starting to wear off. But … it’s almost like my magic feels tired, too?”

“Didn’t you say there are claims that something in Edgehill dampens magic? We’re technically still in Edgehill even if we’re on the outer fringes of it. Feels dampened, doesn’t it?”

“Huh,” he said. “That’s a good word for it. But if magic is dampened, how did you do this?”

She didn’t have an answer for that.

After a few more awestruck moments, she remembered why they’d come here in the first place. “Do you know where this supposed dead zone is?”

“Man! That’s a Volkswagen Beetle. But, you know, from the actual 1970s. Because we’re in the 70s, right?” he asked, tracking a shiny blue car going by that was both there and not there. Then he shook his head slightly, as if he needed to remind himself of their original task, too. He turned to her. “So in order to find the dead zone, we need a locator spell to find a spot where there’s no magic.”

“We need magic to find the lack of magic?” she asked, feeling less hopeful about this idea by the second. “How do we do that?”

Edgar winced. “That’s the thing … I’m not totally sure. If someone found the cache already, there could be any number of spells layered on top of the location. And I’m guessing that’s the case since there are endless rumors that it’s here, yet no one has found it. So we have to dismantle the layered spells and then find the dead zone. Kind of like an invisible riddle. It’s what makes caching dead zones so fun.”

“We have very different definitions of fun.”

He chuckled. “There’s a lot of debate on which spells work best for something like this. There’s even a lot of debate on what these spots are. Some claim they’re little windows into other dimensions—people have accidentally walked into one and vanished forever. Some think it’s a location where a spell was used that was too powerful and sucked the ambient magic out of the area, creating a void. That would explain the varying sizes of the zones—the bigger the anomaly, the more powerful the spell had been.”

Amber was still uneasy about all of this, but she was determined to see it through. “Well, we’ve got about five hours before you have to take me back to the shop,” she said. “Let’s see what we can come up with.”

The spell on the neighborhood faded after twenty minutes or so. She’d known something was happening by the way her magic reacted—she felt the same thing when she’d put her hand on the porch’s pole, but in reverse. Her palms warmed and magic seemed to flow back into her. Amber had never experienced anything like it, but then again, this place was very strange.

When her magic started to recede back into her like a tide away from the shore, she’d been sitting in the passenger seat of Edgar’s truck, the door open, and had watched as the life slowly drained out of the place. Like Amber was a straw sucking all the color back out.

“Well, that was weird,” Edgar commented from beside her, his attention focused out the other open door.

Then they’d gotten back to work.

For the next several hours, Amber and Edgar scribbled down spells. Balled-up scraps of paper from Edgar’s notepad littered the floor and dashboard. Amber wrote and rewrote spells in her personal grimoire. When a spell didn’t work, she magically erased it and tried again.

Her maps of both Edgehill and Marbleglen were spread out in the bed of his truck, the corners of the maps held down by rocks and broken chunks of concrete. When one of them had a spell they thought might work, they’d stand at the tailgate while one of them uttered the spell, then waited. There had been a lot of waiting. Amber felt no closer to finding this supposed dead zone now than she had when they started.

Currently, the right-hand corner of the Edgehill map and part of a rock paperweight were scorched from a particularly angrily worded spell Edgar had just tried, fueled more by frustration than anything else. Three hours was a long time to be unsuccessful at something, especially on no sleep and a nearly empty stomach.

Amber had put out the small flame in record time, then made Edgar walk it off. He was still gone, though she could see him off in the distance, hands in his pockets as he listlessly kicked at a rock.

Her grump of a cousin was doing this for her, despite the rough go of it he’d been having lately. Edgar pulled a hand from his pocket then and waved it around in the air. It looked like he was in a heated argument with a shrub, but she guessed he was shouting at Neil.

Amber really needed to help Edgar evict the “roommate” in his head.

But first, she needed to figure out a safe place to hide the grimoires so Neil—or any of his equally unhinged relatives—couldn’t steal them. She shifted her attention from her irate cousin to the open spell book in her lap and the scribbled half-formed spells written there.

She couldn’t help but think that their “try every spell you can think of and hope something sticks” approach had a lot to do with their current rate of failure. To be fair, though, there was no way to know what the nature of this particular dead zone was—assuming it existed at all. It could be naturally occurring or created by a witch’s hand, maybe both. It also, as Edgar theorized, could have been altered by the last witch who’d found it.

Amber leaned into the passenger seat, resting her temple on the headrest, and stared at the sagging house with the tower-like front room. Her mind kept drifting back to the memory spell revealing the decades-old neighborhood. Everything about that experience had been odd. Not only had magic never flowed back into her like that before, but the amount of magic needed to conduct a spell of that magnitude should have drained her. Every “advanced” spell she’d done with Edgar recently had zapped her of so much energy it left her woozy. Yet here she’d transformed the entire neighborhood so successfully even Edgar had seen it. How? Why didn’t she feel even the slightest bit winded?

She suddenly sat up straight.

It hadn’t been her magic that had woken up the memory of the neighborhood. It had been the house’s magic. It had … what? … borrowed Amber’s magic to strengthen its own?

But even that didn’t totally make sense.

She cycled through the things Edgar and Simon had told her. What had Simon said? I was scared to hit one of those supposed magic veins and blow myself to smithereens.

“Magic veins,” she muttered to herself.

The image of the color draining out of the neighborhood and receding back to her replayed in her head.

She had been wrong again. It hadn’t been the house’s magic. It had been the land it sat on.

Dropping her grimoire on her seat, she hurriedly climbed out of the car. She approached the house in front of her, but instead of touching any part of the structure, she knelt on the cracked cement of the driveway and placed her hands flat on the surface.

She listed to the side, as if suddenly exhausted, her head cloudy. Her magic felt even more sluggish now. A dammed-up river.

Pulling her hands away from the ground, the feeling vanished. What in the world happened to this place? Blowing out a breath, she placed her hands on the ground again, fighting the nausea that churned in her stomach. Her magic resisted even as she tried to focus on it. If she hadn’t known better, she would have said that her magic was telling her not to do this. That whatever was wrong with the land here was so wrong, she shouldn’t mess with it—shouldn’t kick the hornet’s nest.

But Amber was both too stubborn and too determined not to kick it just a little.

Show me what was here fifty years ago.

Unlike the time she’d done this with the porch railing, the magic surged directly out of the ground and into her hands with a force that lifted her off her feet and sent her backwards. She yelped as her hip landed on a large piece of broken concrete, her head narrowly missing the open truck door.

She hardly felt the pain of the impact because the neighborhood from then was back. A night and day difference rather than the slow bleed it had been before. In the distance, she heard Edgar cry out followed by the pounding of footfalls.

“Amber!” His face appeared in her vision what seemed like a moment later, his hands on her shoulders. “Are you okay? What the heck just happened?”

“There’s a magic vein here,” she said, her mind racing. “That part of the rumors is true. There’s so much magic under the ground here. What happened? Why is it here?”

“I don’t know,” he said, holding out a hand to help her up.

Amber winced as she put weight on her right side. The pain might have been from the throbbing in her hip or from her twisted ankle. “Something happened here fifty years ago, right? That’s what your forums said?”

“Amber, we should go,” he said. “I’m sorry I even suggested this. You’re all banged up now. Your pants are ripped, you’re covered in dirt, and there’s a cut on your forehead.”

She ignored all that, waving him away with a hand—the heel of which ached—and then hobbled toward the tailgate. Crossing her arms, she stared at the maps laid out. “I keep thinking that myths have to start somewhere. Simon mentioned something happening in Edgehill several decades ago that turned this place from a witch town to a town filled with just their cat familiars. There are reports about magic veins and ricocheting magic and dead zones. It’s based in reality. So this hard-to-find dead zone is here, too. I’m sure of it.”

Edgar had his forearms rested on the lip of the truck bed and was eying her warily.

“Hear me out,” she said, “but what if we’re looking for it in the wrong time?”

“Did you bump your head?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Let’s just assume there’s a cache in the dead zone, which could be another reason why the spot has been so hard to find. But even more than that … what if the cache is hidden in the same time it was hidden? It’s possible that was the intention of the witch who hid it. Maybe the layer of spells he or she put on the cache are time spells the next cacher had to dismantle. But, depending on what happened here, maybe The Event messed up the cache’s magic and now no one can find it because it’s stuck in a memory.

“Each time I tell the neighborhood to show me what it used to look like fifty years ago, it could choose any memory during that time, but it seems to go back to the same day. That woman is still hanging up her laundry. Those four kids are down at the end of the street now.”

Edgar gazed down the road at the kids, then frowned at the maps. “So we need to do a locator spell while the neighborhood is like this?” He gestured to the colorful, full-of-life memory around them.

“Maybe?” Amber blew out a breath and looked over at the house with the tower-like front room. “This is going to sound bonkers, but I feel like that house is trying to help. Something about it called to me when we got here, and it gave me my magic back after the first spell faded.”

Edgar looked beyond worried now.

“We have about fifteen minutes before it fades,” she said before he could protest. “Get all those spells you already tried and let’s try them again.”

Edgar groaned.

“I’ll buy you Catty Cakes every day for a week.”

“Fine.”

They each took a stack of Edgar’s previously balled-up spells and took turns reading them. Luckily, Edgar was far better at locator spells than she was, so all his attempts were likely far better options than hers.

They had just reached the eighth one—with ten more to go—when the color suddenly leeched out of the neighborhood with no warning other than her magic stilling in her veins a mere moment before the magic slammed back into her like a released rubber band. She hit the ground, her legs taken out from underneath her.

Edgar yelped and hurried to her side.

Amber lay flat on her back, her body aching, and a rock digging into her shoulder blade. When the air had returned to her lungs and the sharp pain had dulled, a laugh bubbled out of her. And then she couldn’t stop.

“Oh boy,” Edgar said, grabbing her by the elbow to help her back on her feet. Once she’d calmed down, he asked, “Did you hit your head that time?”

“I was just thinking that I have to do the reveal spell again,” she said, still laughing softly. “I imagined you standing in the middle of the street and catching me like a fly ball when the magic vein tosses me in the air.”

“You’re freaking me out.”

She pushed away from him, her ankle throbbing something terrible now, and scanned the area around her until she found a thick tree root that had partially pushed through the ground, leaving a small gap between it and the earth below, like a handle. Kneeling before it, she grabbed hold of the root as best she could, placed her free hand on the earth, and before Edgar could ask her if this was a good decision, she urged her magic to the surface again.

This time when she was blown backward, it was with slightly less intensity than the first time, though her arm was nearly ripped from the socket. She tumbled backward, crashing into an awaiting Edgar.

With a silent thanks, she hobbled back toward the tailgate where they worked through the rest of Edgar’s attempted spells. While Edgar was reciting one of his, and Amber was silently reading the topmost one on her stack to herself, something about his spell clicked. It was on the right track, but the wording was off. She hop-walked to the truck and grabbed a pen out of her purse, scratching out and rewriting Edgar’s spell.

Within a minute, the words on the page glowed a faint gold before settling back to black. It was the first time that had happened with any of the spells so far.

“Aha! I got it!” Amber said, moving toward the tailgate with as much speed as her wonky ankle would allow. “You had this spell revealing what’s been hidden,” she said, eyes focused on the spell, “but I think we need—”

“Just recite it; I don’t need an analysis,” he said quickly. “We don’t know when the spell is going to shut off again. One more zap from the magic vein and I’m going to have to drive you to the hospital.”

Nodding, she willed her magic to hang on for just a little longer—it was as wrung out as she was—and she recited the spell. She was nearly done with it when her magic stilled. She read faster, the final word leaving her lips just as she was knocked off her feet again by the magic colliding back into her body.

Things went fuzzy. Then black. Then fuzzy again.

Edgar’s bunched-up bushy eyebrows swam into her vision, then the rest of his face solidified. It took her a moment to register that he didn’t look nearly as worried this time.

Grinning, he said, “It worked.”

Chapter 12

When Amber’s ears finally stopped ringing, and she could stand without Edgar propping her up, she walked to the tailgate of his truck with him and peered at the maps laid out there. There, on the south end of Edgehill, was a black dot.

“It worked,” she said softly, unable to keep the disbelief out of her voice. She turned toward him as best she could. “Whose magic skills are tragic now?”

Edgar laughed. “Are you sure you’re up for this? You’re a mess! How are you going to work the shop after this?”

“Are you volunteering to help me so I can put my feet up?”

“You couldn’t pay me enough to agree to dealing with people all day,” he said. “Not even in Catty Cakes.”

Smiling, she said, “I’m absolutely sure I’m up for this. Those Magic Cachers are going to poop their pants when they find out a novice found it before they did.”

“The word is noob, noob.”

“Be nice,” she said, but she was already pulling the Edgehill map toward her.

Edgar looked at it over her shoulder. “All right, so it looks like we need to go up to the end of the street, make a right, and then … straight into all the overgrown brush I saw earlier.”

“Great,” Amber muttered.

They collected the maps, climbed back into the truck, and continued down the road. There still weren’t many structures left, even this far into the neighborhood. Yet, in Amber’s mind’s eye, she could still see what this place had been once. She wondered if she’d ever learn what had actually happened here.

Amber had stuffed Edgar’s Belhaven map back in his glovebox and had her Edgehill map spread out on her lap. She kept an eye on the black dot as they drove, worried the thing would disappear, but it remained in place.

When Edgar reached the dead end marked on the map, he parked and turned to Amber. “We’ll need one more thing,” he said, muttering a spell before waving a hand over the map. Two more dots appeared then. “Witchy GPS. My dot is the handsome one,” he said before climbing out.

Amber rolled her eyes as she reluctantly followed, leaving her purse behind. On the short drive to the other end of the neighborhood, her body and sore muscles had had a chance to relax and now movement hurt. Even carrying the weight of her purse seemed like too much work at this point. If only she could go home, take a nice long bath, and then sleep the rest of the day away.

Folding the map so just the rectangle she needed was facing up, she walked around the truck to stand beside Edgar, who was glaring at what was essentially a wall of brambles. The two dots representing her and Edgar were, according to the map’s legend, roughly a mile from where they needed to go. Her ankle throbbed, as if asking, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Edgar uttered a spell, then lifted his hands in the air. Holding them there for a second, doing a rather impressive imitation of a church steeple, he abruptly pulled his hands apart. It was as if he had pulled aside a curtain. What lay past the bramble wall wasn’t any less daunting, but Amber could at least see patches of the ground now. “You first,” he said, his voice strained; he had to keep pouring his magic into this spell to keep the curtain open.

Amber hobbled forward, slipping past the bramble curtain, and waited for Edgar to join her. Once he did, he used air spell after air spell to flatten the thorny bushes that blocked their path. She stepped carefully, mindful of her ankle. They hiked over difficult terrain for a good fifteen minutes before they were anywhere close to the dot. Another fifteen put them on top of the thing.

All Amber saw was brush, trees, and hanging vines. She was fairly certain her hair was full of plant bits and that she was covered in mosquito bites.

As they both turned in a circle, searching for any sign of where the cache might be, Amber groaned. “I need to do the memory reveal again, don’t I?”

“I was hoping we’d find it before you had to, but I think so, yeah,” he said. “Let’s see if I can do it this time.”

But after three attempts, with Amber coaching him through it, nothing had happened.

“My memory magic isn’t strong enough,” he said, shaking his head. “Just another reason why people haven’t been able to find this thing.”

As Amber gazed around her, she wondered how much more damage she would do to her body if she was thrown into one of these thorny bushes. “Lucky me,” she deadpanned.

“I’ll be right behind you.”

Squaring her shoulders, Amber found a spot not too overgrown with foliage and knelt, working her fingers past the layers of plant debris until she touched the soil below. By the time she’d touched her other hand down, her magic had grown sluggish again. Yet, it was worse than that. It felt drunk—drugged. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to get it to cooperate at all. But they’d come too far to give up now.

“Here goes nothing,” she said, then closed her eyes. Something sharp poked her knee. A creature of some kind skittered in the bushes. A distant bird screeched.

Show me what was here fifty years ago.

The magic here was so strong, it didn’t so much as blast her off the ground, as hit her with a force so hard, she instantly blacked out.

The first thing she registered when she woke up was that she was leaning against something warm and solid. As she stirred, she realized Edgar was half cradling her. “Hey, cousin,” she croaked.

He flinched. “My God, Amber!” he said, clearly furious. His face, angled toward her at an awkward angle, had gone so red, it was almost purple. “You scared the crap out of me! I was half convinced you were dead.”

“Sorry,” she said, struggling to sit up. “Not dead, just—”

Her mouth fell open as she realized the overgrown brush was gone. They were in what looked like a courtyard. The ground beneath them was no longer hard-packed dirt covered in wild plants, but a giant tiled circle, the material inlaid with a swirling pattern of red triangles that looked like cut brick. The edge of the circle was ringed with reddish-brown latticework covered in bright green ivy. In the middle of the courtyard was an enormous concrete fountain, its wide base ringed with regal-looking cats who balanced the bowl on their heads. Two tiers of bowls rose above the main pool, with water gushing in a steady flow out of the topmost, smaller bowl. The thing was nearly big enough to swim in. Idly, she wondered if a witch designer had crafted this fountain, as it was so huge, it seemed to defy normal laws of physics. It boggled her mind.

“According to the map,” Edgar said, getting Amber to her feet, “the cache is in that fountain. Or under it.”

“Of course it is,” she muttered, making her way toward it.

As they stood at the fountain, the lip of the widest bowl coming to Amber’s chest, Edgar said, “I’ll see if I can find it. I know this lesson was about you finding it, but you look terrible.”

She didn’t fight him on it. Instead, she rested against the bowl and watched him. He placed his hands on the lip of the bowl and closed his eyes. She watched as a sense of calm washed over him once the spell had been cast and he waited for his magic to guide him where to go. She might have been better at memory magic, but he was far more skilled at Magic Cache.

After a minute, he cursed. “It’s in the fountain.” Grumbling, he started to untie his shoes. “There was one really terrible cache once that was in a fountain. The item was a penny. The bottom of the fountain was covered in pennies. Took me nearly an hour to find the dang thing.” He chuckled. “That was a good one.”

Her cousin was a flat-out weirdo.

Since the fountain was so massive—the water nearly three feet deep—Edgar would have to go swimming after all. He stripped down to boxers and an undershirt, cursed some more, and then hoisted himself onto the lip of the fountain. Swinging his legs around, he cursed again, complained very loudly that the water was unnecessarily cold, and then slipped into the water.

Amber grew increasingly anxious the longer it went without him finding it. In the present, this fountain no longer existed. If the magic snapped back into her, would Edgar be trapped in that courtyard until she got back to him? Or would something horrible happen to him since he wasn’t from this time period? Would the magic here expel him from the memory? Would he survive it?

Edgar’s head popped out of the water and he grinned at her. “Catch!”

She snatched a metal box out of the air. It was a vintage metal lunch box, probably only big enough to hold a sandwich, and featured a variety of Coca-Cola logos. Edgar swung himself onto the lip of the fountain.

Amber’s magic stilled. “Jump!” she screamed.

Edgar did so without question, hitting the ground just as the magic surged back out of the scene around Amber and slammed into her, knocking her out cold.

This time when she came to, she had been propped up against a tree stump. The metal lunchbox sat in her lap. Something sharp poked the side of her thigh. Her head was heavy, her chin pressed to her chest, and it took considerable effort to raise it so she could seek out Edgar.

Her rumpled, damp mess of a cousin paced in a tight line a foot away from her. His jeans, T-shirt, shoes, and jacket were back on. There were faint water marks on his knees, but other than that, he looked mostly dry.

“So there is a magic dryer spell?” she croaked out.

He whirled to face her, relief clear on his face. Then he masked it with a smile. “Yep. It’s not the most effective, but it’s better than nothing.”

She chuckled. “I’ll have to let the chief know.”

“You all right?” he asked.

She managed her best approximation of a shrug, then refocused on the lunchbox. Somehow the thing was in pristine condition, as if it has just been placed in the fountain—which Amber could no longer see—yesterday, and bone dry. As far as this box and the confused magic trapped in this place, though, maybe it had only been yesterday. “Can I open it?”

“Go for it,” he said, then took a step back. “Given what we had to go through to find the thing, I’m a little worried it’s full of demonic beetles or something.”

Amber frowned down at the box. She gave it a shake. Edgar flinched. Amber didn’t hear the hiss or scuttle of demonic beetles, just the rattle of the handle. She tipped the box up so the base rested on her legs and the single clasp resting underneath the black handle faced her. Using her thumb to press up on the clasp, it snapped open easily.

Slowly, she opened the box to reveal a doll inside. It was about four inches tall, had a cap of brown plastic hair, and wore a yellow and pink dress, and yellow shoes. Though the body of the doll was plastic, the face had been painted on paper. The painted eyes were a bright green and were ringed in long drawn-on lashes. The doll had two circles marking her rosy cheeks, and she smiled up at Amber from inside the tin.

“Oh! I’ve seen one of those before. It’s a Talk-Up Doll,” Edgar said. “It’s a toy from the 70s. You pull her body away from her head and she talks.” When Amber cocked her brow at him, he shrugged and said, “I was really into vintage toys for a while.”

“Of course you were,” she said, laughing.

She grabbed the doll out of the tin and flinched when a small red spiral notebook popped into existence and landed in Amber’s lap. “Memos” was written across the front in a curling font, and a large black circle with “25c” was stamped in the bottom center.

The doll’s face was cute enough, but pulling her body away from her head just seemed creepy. She did so anyway.

“Oops! I lost my head for a moment!” the doll yelped, its body pulled back toward the head by way of a string.

“Nope! Not a fan of that!” Amber said, shoving the doll at her delighted cousin.

As he amused himself with that—“Here comes my body!”—Amber flipped open the slightly worn cover of the spiral notebook. There was only one line on the first page.

Z. Rockrose. Cache creator. June 7.

The date was from forty-nine years ago.

“My feet are getting closer!”

“Edgar, focus,” Amber said.

He grinned at her. “Sorry. These things are hard to find. Anyway, what’s the book say?”

“Z. Rockrose,” she said. “He or she is the only person in the guestbook. Do you know anything about the Rockrose family?”

He shook his head. After a moment, he said, “Aunt G might know about them. You still not talking to her?”

Amber pursed her lips.

“What did she do?” he asked.

Just as insomnia made Edgar chattier, all-over body pain made Amber offer up more information than she would have otherwise. “That night she wiped Jack’s memory? She only used a temporary spell, and his memory came back. Aunt G didn’t tell me she did that. I would have liked a warning.”

“Ouch,” Edgar said. “How’s Jack taking it?”

Amber released a soft sigh. “He apologized. He wants to try … this again. Whatever this is.”

“Seems like maybe you should be thanking Aunt G then, no?” he asked.

She glared at him in a way that she hoped clearly said, “How dare you take sides!”

Edgar checked his phone, not fazed in the slightest. “We should get heading back. It’s only ten thirty, but maybe if we get back soon, you’ll have enough time to take a nap or something. You need a shower more than a nap, though.”

Nodding, Amber pushed herself to standing. “Guess we have to keep the cache, huh? Unless you want to go back in time so you can hide it in the fountain again?”

“No way,” he said. “Sorry, Mr. or Ms. Rockrose. This is ours now.”

Because of her limited experience with cache guest books, she didn’t know how far a cache item had to get from its location before the spell on it was broken and the guestbook was returned to the cache creator. What happened to a guestbook if it was sent back to the owner, but the owner had since passed? Amber hoped that once the thing disappeared, it didn’t cause problems when it reappeared somewhere else.

Edgar pulled the doll’s body away from her head. “I’m falling apart!”

Amber hobbled after him. You and me both, girl.

The trip back to the truck felt as if it had taken three years, rather than half an hour. She groaned very loudly once she let herself inside and sagged in the passenger seat. His truck with its mummified french fries felt like an oasis.

Glancing out the back window, she saw Edgar standing by one of the back tires, phone pressed to his ear. She wondered who he was talking to. She felt like she’d only just scratched the surface of who her cousin was. Did he have a bunch of nerd friends she didn’t know about?

While she waited, she pulled the small spiral notebook out of her pocket and stared at the first and only entry again. Z. Rockrose. Since there was a possibility that this thing might disappear at any moment and return to the owner, Amber grabbed a pen out of her purse and added her own line.

A. Blackwood. April 22nd.

Then, just in case the owner was still alive, Amber added her phone number, too. She dropped the notebook into her bag.

When Edgar finally got in, he deposited the Talk-Up Doll in the cupholder on the dash, and placed the Coca-Cola lunch box in the back seat. Then he let out a long sigh. “That was the roughest caching experience I’ve ever had.” He glanced over at her. “Well, I guess it was worse for you.”

“Was it better or worse than the fountain of a million pennies?” she asked as he started up the truck.

“So much worse! The penny was fun-bad. That was just bad-bad. What we just went through was ridiculous!” he said, laughing. “And this was just the practice round. Good grief. Belle and Theo found tons of hiding places for the grimoires over the years and rotated them around. I was thinking one spot—a dead spot—would be best, since they’re hard to find. I just didn’t think it would be that hard.”

“Most of them probably aren’t stuck in time,” Amber said.

As Edgar drove them back to The Quirky Whisker, he did his best to explain MMORPGs to Amber. She found herself mildly intrigued by the time they returned, and feeling warm and fuzzy inside again that she had Edgar back in her life.

And then she saw Jack Terrence standing outside her shop.

Suspicion flared hot in her belly and burned away those fuzzy feelings. As they pulled up to the curb, Edgar rolled down Amber’s window and Jack approached.

“Hey, guys,” Jack said, then recoiled slightly when he took in the state of them, especially Amber. “Yikes, you weren’t kidding when you said she looks like she lost a fight with a rose bush.”

Suspicions confirmed, her head whipped in Edgar’s direction. “That’s who you called earlier?” she hissed at him.

“You’re welcome,” he hissed back. Then, louder, Edgar said, “I was thinking you could just keep an eye on her? I don’t think she’s got a concussion or anything, but she probably needs company for at least a few hours and I need a nap.”

Amber would have strangled Edgar had she the energy to do so. Instead, she grumbled, “Thanks for the help today.” Then she snatched the Talk-Up Doll out of the cupholder on his dash and said, “You can have this back after you’ve thought about what you’ve done.”

“Hey!”

Once out of the car with all her belongings, she closed the door. She turned back almost immediately and peered in through the opened window. “Try and get some sleep, okay? Please?”

Edgar nodded. “I’ll guzzle a gallon of sleepy tea. I’ll have to get up to pee within an hour, but an hour is better than nothing.”

Amber stepped away from the curb.

As he pulled away, he called out, “Call Aunt G, you stubborn Blackwood!”

Face flushed, she turned to Jack, who looked even more worried about her than Edgar had when he was convinced, however briefly, that one of the magic veins had killed her.

“There’s about half an hour of your lunch break left before the shop needs to open up again, right?” Jack asked before she could get a word out. “I got here just before Daisy and Ben left—is he a new hire?—and they said you and Lily are covering the rest of the day. I assume you set that up before the rose bush incident. I was thinking you could go upstairs and get cleaned up, and then I can help you and Lily man the shop.”

Amber cocked her head at him, trying to process everything he’d just said. Her very tired mind could only focus on one thing. “Help me?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Edgar said you were too stubborn to close for the day or have Daisy or Ben work an extra shift to help Lily, so we thought it made more sense for me to help. I have no clue how to run a store like this, but I figure it can’t be much different than running Purrcolate. Except I don’t know what the price of anything is, what the inventory is, or where to find anything.”

Amber laughed. “You don’t have to do this, Jack. Lily and I can manage.” She took a step toward the door, experienced mild vertigo, and listed to the side. Jack caught her by the elbow. Her face flushed again. “Okay, maybe not. But I can’t ask you to—”

“You’re not asking me to do anything,” he said. “I’m volunteering. Larry can manage the café for an afternoon—plus we hired some new people recently. I want to be here, okay?”

She took in his stubbled chin, his small smile, and the hopeful glint in his green eyes—and caved. “Fine.”

He grinned.

It took her the full half hour to get herself showered and patched up, but she felt like a new person. Her ankle, however, had ballooned. Definitely sprained. After Jack had fed the cats lunch—Tom was now in love—Jack helped Amber back down the stairs into the shop. He’d tried to get her to stay upstairs, but she had refused. She hobbled behind the counter and flopped onto a stool.

Just then, Lily—who was sporting fire-engine-red hair today—walked in and came up short at the sight of a banged-up Amber behind the counter and an eager-looking Jack in front of it.

“Hey, Lily,” Amber said. “So I had a bit of an accident—I’m fine!—but I didn’t want to stick you with the afternoon shift all alone, so Jack has volunteered to help.”

Lily nodded. “Cool. Want me to show you the ropes?”

“Yes,” Jack said. “I need to see all of the ropes.”

As she watched Lily go over the basics, Amber was glad to see how competent Lily truly was. The store was in good hands with the Bowen sisters. After the mini-lesson, Lily went searching for something in storage, and Jack came back to check on Amber.

He stood in front of the counter and checked his watch. “Okay, five minutes until go time. Here’s the plan: you do not move from behind that counter unless you need to use the restroom. Ah! No arguments. You operate the cash register and tell me where to find stuff if Lily is busy. That’s it! And you need to keep your ankle elevated. Did you see the smaller stool with a pillow on it I put under the counter? Keep your foot on that. Let me know if you need something taller. Or ice. Got it?”

She wanted to hug him. “Got it.”

In a whisper, he added, “And you can use your magic at any point if it’ll help. Just … magically nudge my arm in the right direction of stuff customers are asking for if I can’t find it.”

“You’re really sure you want to do all this?” she asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Thanks.”

“No sweat.”

Poor Jack was then run ragged for the next three hours, doing his best to keep up with Lily. When there was finally a slight lull in the stream of customers, Jack staggered over and rested his folded arms on the counter. “I thought the morning rush at Purrcolate was bad,” he muttered.

She laughed. “The handful of weeks before the Here and Meow really turns this place into a madhouse.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Sore,” she said. “I wouldn’t have been much help to Lily today without you here.”

“Happy I could help.” His cheeks flushed. “You know … I would like to hear how all this—” he gestured to her person in general, “happened. I was thinking maybe we could have dinner and you could tell me about it?”

She hesitated, mostly because Lily had heard that last part and was standing a few feet away, mouthing “Ooh la la!” while fanning herself with her hand.

“Sorry,” he said, standing straighter and shaking his head. “That was too much to ask. And you probably would rather decompress with Alley and Tom instead of entertaining someone. I shouldn’t have—”

“Jack!” she said, laughing, refocusing on him. “I was just going to say that I haven’t gone grocery shopping in like two weeks, so dinner sounds great, but maybe we could do takeout?”

He beamed. “Yeah. I … uh … do you like Chinese food?”

“Yes.”

“Okay!” he said. “After we close up, I’ll go get Chinese.”

She bit her bottom lip, doing her best to suppress her goofy grin. “Sounds great.”

The bell above the door jangled then, marking the arrival of another customer, and Jack and Lily were off again.

Call Aunt G, you stubborn Blackwood! replayed in her head on a loop for the rest of the afternoon.

Chapter 13

Immediately after closing, Lily said she “really needed to get home,” fanned herself with her hand again, and left, leaving Amber and Jack alone for the first time all day. Amber helped Jack tidy up a little, but after twenty minutes of her muttering curses under her breath and hobbling rather pathetically, he banished her back behind the counter. Once done with cleaning, he wrote out their Chinese food orders, promised to “be back in a jiff!” and darted out the door.

She supposed now was as good a time as any to call her aunt.

As she listened to the phone ring—her elbows propped on the wooden counter, and her bottom lip caught between her teeth—she wondered why she suddenly felt so nervous. Perhaps because she’d waited so long to call back, or because she worried she’d overreacted, or because she worried her aunt would be mad at her.

“Why, hello, little mouse,” Aunt Gretchen said.

Just the sound of her voice unfurled something tight in her chest. “Hey, Aunt G.”

They were silent a long moment before her aunt spoke. “Did I do something to upset you?”

Sitting up a little straighter, Amber asked, “Why didn’t you tell me the spell on Jack was temporary?”

“Ah,” her aunt said. “Has it already worn off, then? My, that was quick.”

Amber found some of her anger resurfacing. “You didn’t warn me. I felt like I got blindsided twice. Why didn’t you even talk to me about it?”

“Very few men have had the effect on you that Jack has,” Aunt Gretchen said plainly. “I know I don’t see you now as often as I did when you were a teenager, but there’s something special there with you and Jack, whether or not you see it. I couldn’t actually take that from you, little mouse. But emotions were so charged that night, and Jack was so worried for you … I knew he made his choice out of fear rather than any true desire. So I made a split-second decision.”

“And didn’t tell me.”

“In all honesty, I figured a few months were needed for you two to cool down and see how good you are for each other. I planned to tell you soon so you could formulate a way to deal with it,” her aunt said. “I just didn’t expect you two to share physical intimacy this quickly.”

Amber might have been a grown woman over thirty, but she still recoiled violently at her aunt saying “physical intimacy.” “Aunt G! We just touched hands. That’s it!”

“Oh, I figured,” she said, chuckling. “I just like how easy it is to make you squirm.”

Amber laughed, despite her warring emotions. Softly, she said, “He’s out getting us Chinese food.”

“Is he now?” Amber could practically hear her smug smile. “Don’t forget to thank me in your wedding vows.”

“Ha ha,” Amber said, feeling lighter than she had in weeks. “Oh, I wanted to ask you something else … have you heard of the Rockrose family? They’re witches.”

“I’ve heard of them but I don’t know much,” her aunt said. “There’s that myth about the Edgehill witches who up and vanished overnight—have you heard that one? I think the Rockroses were one of those families. Why?”

Amber gave her a condensed account of this afternoon’s events. As she did so, she managed to get her purse off the ground and rooted around for the spiral notebook. The Talk-Up Doll was still there, but the book wasn’t. “I think the guestbook was returned to Z.”

“I wonder if it would appear in the coffin of the owner if they’ve been buried,” Aunt Gretchen asked. “Goodness, what on earth happens if they’ve been cremated?”

“Morbid much?” Amber asked.

“You’re sounding more like your old self,” her aunt said after a moment. “It’s nice to hear.”

They slipped into a casual conversation about Amber’s shop and Aunt Gretchen’s new role in the garden club in her town. Amber wasn’t quite sure what a garden club was, but her aunt sounded excited about it.

When the bell above the door jangled, Aunt Gretchen stopped talking mid-sentence. “Ah, has the baker returned? I should let you go.”

“Thank you,” she said in a rush. “For intervening, I mean. I’m still sort of upset, but also … thank you. I love you, Aunt G.”

There was a hitch in her aunt’s voice as she said, “I love you too, little mouse.”

When she hung up, Jack’s brows were arched toward his hairline. He held a plastic bag stuffed with white Styrofoam containers. “Everything okay?”

“Did you get wonton soup?”

“The extra-large portion, yes.”

“Then everything is great.”

Amber was so full of chicken chow fun and wonton soup that, between the pain in her too-full stomach, the pain in her propped-up swollen ankle, and the soreness in nearly every muscle in her body, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to move again.

Jack sat beside her on the couch, slumped similarly to herself, with his head on the back of the couch and his legs splayed wide before him. He had a hand on his stomach. “Normally I try to eat like a dainty flower when I’m on a date, but I just ate that broccoli beef like I hadn’t eaten in a year. I’m sorry you had to witness that.”

“I practically guzzled down that soup like it was water and I was dying of thirst in the desert,” she said. “I’ll keep your disgusting eating habits a secret if you promise to do the same.”

He laughed, then turned his head so his chin nearly rested against his shoulder. “Feeling any better? Need ice yet? I can get it for you, but it might take a while because I’ll have to roll there.”

She turned her head to look at him, too. “Yes, thanks. I’m a little concerned that I won’t be able to get down the stairs in the morning, but that’s a worry for another day.”

“So … uh … what were you and Edgar doing today?”

She launched into it, doing her best to explain Magic Cache, dead zones, the mysterious neighborhood on the edge of town, and the cache Edgar had found in the fountain.

“Can I see it?” he asked. “The Talk-Up Doll, I mean? My mom had one. I found it in a box of her stuff when Larry and I were kids. I’d make the doll scream stuff at Larry in the middle of the night. He hated that thing so much. Well, he hates dolls in general, but the ones that talk really freak him out.”

“As they should,” Amber said. “It’s in my purse,” she said, gesturing to the bag hanging off the back of one of her dining room chairs.

Jack groaned as he got up, fetched the bag, and then deposited it between them on the couch. He sat facing her now, one leg propped up on the cushions.

Amber fished out the bright-eyed doll and handed it to him.

Jack pulled the body away from the head.

“That’s quite a stretch!”

He cackled in much the same way Edgar had. Then he sobered. “So this thing existed in a memory and you pulled it into a time forty-nine years later? It looks brand-new.”

Amber nodded. “Something happened in that neighborhood that caused the magic to go haywire. Seems like the reason no one could find the cache was because it was stuck in the past. This,” she said, gesturing to herself, “is what happens when you time travel, apparently. It chews you up and spits you back out.”

“Hollywood has lied to me,” Jack said solemnly.

Amber’s story had wrapped up a little after nine in the evening, and she couldn’t stop yawning despite how much she was enjoying her time with Jack. After the tenth yawn in in five minutes, he chuckled.

“All right, time traveler,” he said. “You need to get some sleep and I’ve overstayed my welcome.”

He stood and Amber did the same, mostly to see what state her ankle was in. She’d been using icy air spells to help keep the swelling down, but it still hurt to walk on. Jack watched her, frowning as she hobble-walked to where he stood at the top of the staircase. Then he helped her down the steps, as she needed to lock the door behind him. She could, at least, stand on one end of the shop and lock the door with a flick of her wrist—she just needed the lock in her line of sight in order for it to work.

Once they’d gotten down the stairs, Amber rested against the doorjamb of the now-open “Employees Only” door. Her ankle throbbed in time with her heartbeat.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” he asked, standing in front of her on the small landing. “I could crash on the couch and—”

“I’m sure,” she said, placing a hand on his chest to quiet him. “If I need anything, I promise I’ll call you. Thank you for everything.”

There’s something special there with you and Jack, whether or not you see it, Aunt G had said.

Oh, Amber saw it. It just scared the bejesus out of her.

Pushing away from the wall, Amber leaned forward to plant a platonic kiss on Jack’s cheek.

But he’d clearly sensed what she’d been about to do and made a choice of his own.

He angled his head so her lips met his instead of his cheek, both of his hands cupping her face. With half a step toward her, she was flat against the doorjamb again and she pulled him to her by his waist, kissing him back.

It only lasted a few seconds, but it left her feeling as dizzy has she had when she made contact with the magic coursing under the abandoned neighborhood earlier today. They held onto each other for a long few seconds, their breaths labored, before he took a step back. He kept his hands cupping her face and turned it up a fraction so he could look at her.

She half expected him to apologize for taking things too far again, just as he had when he invited himself to stay for dinner.

“I’m not saying sorry for that one,” he said softly. He leaned forward to place a kiss on her forehead, and Amber’s eyes slipped closed for a moment. Then he let her go. “Call me for anything, okay?”

Amber nodded, watching him go. The intensity of her desire to call out “Stay with me!” scared her more than she wanted to admit.

He flicked open the lock and pulled the door open. He stared at her for a moment, lightly hit his palm against the side of the door, then said, “Try to sleep. If you can’t, I’ll be up for a while if you want to talk or anything.”

“Okay,” she croaked out, then cleared her throat. “Have a good night, Jack.”

“Night, Amber,” he said, then closed the door behind him, hands shoved into his pockets. He looked back at the shop twice as he walked away, before he disappeared beyond the front of The Quirky Whisker.

She waited for a few moments, fingers pressed to her lips, as she waited to see if he’d come back. When he didn’t, she flicked her wrist and heard the lock engage.

It was slow going back up the stairs, yet she couldn’t get the smile off her face.

Today marked the first day both the Here and Meow and the Floral Frenzy Committees were going to join forces to work on the remainder of the floats for the parade. Amber’s ankle was still sore, she felt like she’d been hit by a semi, backed over, and then hit again, but she was going to power through it. If not for the sake of the committee, then for Kim.

Amber thought it was a little strange that she hadn’t gotten at least a few frantic calls or texts from Kim this morning about the floats, but she supposed that with Harlo becoming the new temporary ringleader of the Floral Frenemies, things weren’t as stressful.

It wasn’t until after a shower, feeding the cats, and drinking a full cup of coffee while lounging in the sunshine and warming her window bench seat, that Amber decided to give Kim a call. As it was, Amber didn’t think she could drive with her ankle in this condition.

And that was when she realized her cell phone had died; she’d forgotten—again—to charge it. Once it had a little juice, the thing lit up with missed calls and texts from Jack, Edgar, and Kim.

From Jack, at 11 p.m.: Are you sleeping?

At 11:30 p.m.: Hopefully you’re sleeping and not up thinking about me. I’m certainly not doing that. Thinking about you, I mean. Nope.

At 6:18 a.m.: I know I was all cool, calm, and collected last night, but I really hope I wasn’t too forward and that you’re now full of regret.

At 6:19 a.m.: I’m going to flush my phone down the toilet so I stop texting you like the weirdo I am.

Amber replied with: I slept for a total of ten hours. No regrets. About the sleeping or you. Passed out as soon as you left and forgot to charge my phone.

Then she opened the texts from Edgar.

At 5:12 a.m.: I slept! For twelve hours. I guess I need to go fountain diving in 1971 more often. We good?

Amber replied with: You beat me! I only got ten. And yeah, we’re good. Plus I have to go build floats today and I feel awful, so you get out of Sunday breakfast.

He immediately replied with, Phew! Now I don’t have to put on pants today.

The last set of texts—nine of them—were from Kim. There were quite a few in all caps, and there was an excessive use of exclamation points, so Amber called her instead.

“Oh my God, Amber, hi!” Kim said, answering the phone so quickly Amber hadn’t even heard it ring. “Are you okay? I haven’t heard from you in ages! Are you coming to the float meeting? I’m so nervous. This whole thing is going to be so awkward! It’ll be like a family dinner at Thanksgiving where no one agrees on politics but worse.”

Amber laughed. “I’m going if you can pick me up. I sprained my ankle pretty bad yesterday.”

“Oh goodness! What on earth did you get up to? You shouldn’t have to suffer through this with a wonky ankle, though! You can skip if—”

“Jack kissed me last night.”

“Ohhh, girl! We’re getting breakfast. I’m picking up your wonky butt in twenty!”

The call disconnected.

On their way to the Catty Melt, Amber did her best to explain Magic Cache to Kim. After several minutes, Kim went, “Oh! It’s just a magical version of geocaching. Boring ol’ humans use longitude and latitude to find and hide little trinkets all over the place. There are apps and everything.”

“And you know about geocaching how?” Amber asked.

Kim sagged a little. “I went on a date with this guy who was super into it. He took me caching on our first—and only—date and we, I swear, hunted for like fifteen of the things before I asked him if we could take a break to get dinner. I was so hungry I was contemplating eating the bark straight off the trees. He got very offended and said I would have to love his passions as if they were my own if we had any chance at a relationship. He said my behavior was, and I quote, ‘both shameful and disrespectful.’”

“Oh no!” Amber said, stifling a laugh. “What’d you do?”

“Called a cab and took myself out for tacos.”

“Wise,” Amber said.

On their way from the Catty Melt to Marbleglen, after Kim had grilled Amber for information about what had happened with Jack, Kim cleared her throat in a very unsubtle manner and “casually” said, “It’s cool you and Edgar are able to spend so much time together now. He seems like he has a lot of free time. So he doesn’t, like, have a girlfriend or whatever?”

“I knew it! You have a crush on my cousin!” Amber said in her best approximation of shock. She’d picked up on this fact during the Hair Ball when Amber had spotted Kim and Edgar dancing—though Edgar’s dancing was technically more of an awkward sway. Amber had caught Kim on more than one occasion gazing at Edgar as if he were made of gold.

“He’s … I wouldn’t say … I mean, I hardly know him!” Kim said. “But I would be lying to you if I didn’t say that man is a total beefcake.”

Amber laughed. “He does not currently have a girlfriend, no. He very rarely leaves his house. He’s spends a lot of time coding and playing MMORPGs.”

“That’s literally the hottest description of a man that I’ve ever heard.”

Kim, much like her cousin, was a flat-out weirdo.

The floats were being decorated in a “float barn” that a Marbleglen citizen allowed the committee to use in the weeks before the festival. The place was located in the northwest of the town, in a well-to-do neighborhood near Magnolia Garden. In order to get there, Kim had to drive through the city center, which was bustling with people this Sunday morning. Kim’s brake-happy foot didn’t do well with so much vehicle and pedestrian traffic. She’d hit the brakes suddenly so many times, Amber was convinced that she’d have a new series of bruises to add to her already growing collection.

Amber was relieved when they finally left the center of town and traveled up a pretty, tree-lined stretch of road for a few minutes before a sign directed them to turn left onto Aster Lane. In short order, they reached a gated community. Kim pulled up to the code box.

The Italian blue cypress trees that the town planner clearly had an affinity for lined the edges of this place, just as they ringed the four main spoon-shaped gardens that marked the four corners of the town. Before the towering ring of trees was a five-foot-tall beige stone wall that stretched out in either direction. A large stone sign sat to the right of Kim’s car, announcing that they’d arrived at Magnolia Estates.

“I feel underdressed already,” Amber muttered, peering past the intimidating black gate that blocked their entrance. She could make out portions of some of the giant houses beyond, each with large, green, unfenced yards, and three-car garages. The wide asphalt road eventually curved to the right and out of sight past the small forest that had been planted here.

Kim rolled down her window and punched in the code as if she lived here. The box beeped and the black iron gate slowly started to swing open. “Oh, me too. This place is fancy-schmancy.”

Amber and Kim gawked at the houses as they drove. Each street was named after a type of magnolia tree: Yulan, Liliiflora, Cylindrica, Star. Some houses were three stories and made of glass—usually facing an elaborate garden. Some were one story but so sprawling, Amber guessed they had at least fifteen rooms.

Aside from its famous marbled rhododendrons, Marbleglen’s other claim to fame was how many TV shows and movies had been shot in this picturesque town, making it a perfect backdrop for everything from commercials to blockbuster romance movies. It was also a prime destination for weddings. Amber supposed that part of the reason why the Floral Frenemies hated them so much was that despite Marbleglen’s successes, the Here and Meow consistently left the Floral Frenzy in the dust. And they resented it deeply that their gorgeous, “safest town in Oregon” had been upstaged by cats.

“I heard most of these places aren’t even lived in all year,” Kim said. “The Estates are apparently a big destination spot for rich folks in the spring and summer; the owners are usually off somewhere warmer in winter. I think a lot of celebrities and such stay here too when there’s something in production. Harlo said this place will be swarming with the richy-rich next week for the start of the festival, but it should be pretty quiet today.”

When they turned onto Sweetbay Court, Amber saw only one property out in the distance. To the right of the road stood a two-level house. The bottom floor was red and beige brick, and the top was equal parts glass and blue painted wood. At the end of the road sat a long, squat building that looked like a cross between a barn and an airplane hangar. The barn-like door spanned the entire length of the building’s front, and inside were three very tall unfinished floats. Dozens of cars were parked in the gravel on the right side of the hangar-barn. At least thirty people milled about inside.

Last Amber heard, the rest of their group hadn’t left Edgehill yet. It was twenty minutes until ten, which meant Amber and Kim were due for some awkward conversations until the rest of the Here and Meow Committee arrived.

Kim parked in the first makeshift parking spot available, then shut off her car and just sat there, staring off into the distance which was more open meadow and trees than anything else. Amber could see the peaked roof of some massive house on the other side of a copse of trees. “This is for a good cause, right? The mayor asked us to do this as a personal favor, and also the extra exposure this parade is going to get will help even more cats get adopted. Right?” She turned to Amber, eyes wide. “We’re going to be outnumbered. Harlo is nice enough, but the rest are vicious! Should we wait until Nathan and Ann Marie get here?”

“If any of them do or say anything particularly horrible to you, I’ll put them all to sleep.”

Kim’s shoulders relaxed and she grinned at Amber. “You’re so sweet!”

Laughing, Amber got out of the car, her ankle throbbing a bit as she started the walk toward the float barn. She didn’t think her limp was particularly noticeable, but Kim made her promise to tell her if the pain got too bad, and they’d leave.

As they got closer to the float barn, Amber spotted piles of flowers and plant parts stacked all over the space. They were in piles at people’s feet, heaped along the far wall, and filled gallon buckets. Amber figured the other buckets—there were dozens of them—were filled with things like colorful seeds, bark, and dried fruits. Several of the volunteers were already working—some stuffing flowers through slots in the chicken-wire bodies of the floats, others gluing on seeds or bark, and others still were working on separate pieces that would be attached to the main body of a float later. They all wore ratty tennis shoes; green aprons were tied on over their clothes.

Amber and Kim were about six feet from the hangar door when Amber spotted Molly Hargrove among the group.

“Why is she here?” Kim asked.

But the reason for her visit was soon made evident by the large camera around her neck as she snapped picture after picture.

The crunch of their approach eventually alerted Harlo, who stood with his back facing the entrance, a hand propped up on one of the large, unadorned paws of a float-cat. He turned around with a wide grin, one which dimmed rather significantly when he saw it was Amber and Kim, and not someone from the Marbleglen group.

Harlo did his best to ignore the fact that Amber and Kim both clearly witnessed his disappointment. “Ladies!” he said, full of false cheer, walking toward them with his arms outstretched. “Welcome! We didn’t expect you so early.”

“Clearly,” Kim muttered.

When neither Kim nor Amber made a move to greet him, Harlo dropped his arms to his sides and offered them a tight smile. “Would you like to see the setup, and then you can explain it all to your people when they get here? We’re going to have the whole Edgehill team work on the cat float.”

Amber eyed the other two floats in the barn before giving the Edgehill float another once-over. Aside from what she assumed were black onion seeds marking the round spots where the cats’ eyes were, no work had been done to this float, while the other two were a third done each. “Lead the way.”

Harlo turned on his heel and headed back for the hangar. He clearly made a face at the women he’d been gossiping with, as one of them winced and quickly turned away and the other stifled a laugh.

By the time Kim and Amber had crossed the threshold of the hangar, most of the teenage volunteers had recognized them. The majority of the teens pulled earbuds from their ears, dropped bulky headphones onto their necks, and paused in their work to watch the newcomers. Amber was all too aware that her wonky ankle had been noticed by nearly everyone. Namely Molly.

Kim, being Kim, pulled a notebook out of her purse once Harlo started his instructions, and took furious notes about what plant-related item went where and the best techniques needed to adhere the various materials to the float’s body. Amber hobbled along with Kim, doing her best to take it all in, but all the eyes on them were making her some combination of anxious and furious. Amber supposed the float preparation and the use of the float barn were things sacred to the Floral Frenemies and they didn’t want to have to share it, but it wasn’t as if anyone from Edgehill wanted to be here either.

Within forty-five minutes, the rest of the Here and Meow group had arrived—along with Chloe and her gaggle of teenage volunteers—and both groups were working in tense, awkward silence, punctuated occasionally by shutter clicks from Molly’s camera. A camera that seemed to be pointed in Amber’s direction more often than necessary.

After an hour, Amber’s ankle felt swollen, her aching body desperately wanted her to sit down, and her fingers were sticky and covered in spots of black from handling the onion seeds. She told Chloe, who had been working diligently on Amber’s left side, that she just needed a short break, and then she put away her things and asked Kim if she could have her car keys. Once she had them, Amber hobble-walked out of the hangar, ignoring all the eyes following her out. The promised refreshments hadn’t arrived yet, save for a few snacks and bottled water. Amber grabbed a bottle off the table set up just outside the hangar, and then made her way to Kim’s car.

Amber let herself into the passenger seat and sighed, her ankle throbbing painfully. She propped her elbow on the inside lip of the door, placed her head in her hand, and closed her eyes. The water bottle she held in her free hand was cold, but she wondered if she could conduct an ice spell to freeze it solid and then use it to gain some relief from her ankle pain.

The spell was cut off quicker than it started, as someone rapped hard and fast on the passenger window. Amber was so startled, she yelped and dropped the water bottle onto the floorboard. She looked up at her visitor, expecting to see the wide, worried eyes of Kim, but instead was met with the single eye of a lens.

Molly Hargrove’s dang camera.

Given the quick movement of her finger, Amber knew Molly had just taken several very unflattering pictures.

Ticked off, Amber tossed her door open; Molly jumped back.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Amber asked, quickly getting out of the car and then doing her best to hide her grimace when her heel hit a rock and her already aching ankle rolled. She placed a hand on the roof for balance.

Molly smiled at her. “How do you know Cassie Westbottom?”

Amber was so stunned, she forgot about Molly’s paparazzi-like arrival. “W-what?”

“Cassie Westbottom is, as the rumor goes, a psychic who the Edgehill police department—namely Chief Brown—has started using on cases,” Molly said. “She helped with Chloe Deidrick’s kidnapping. I heard she found some well-hidden documents in Chloe’s room that alluded to the fact that Chloe had been adopted.”

Amber stared at her.

“And now I hear that she’s working with Chief Brown on the Jameson case,” Molly said. “Cassie went with him to talk to Wilma Jameson.”

Doing her best to remain calm, Amber said, “I don’t understand why you’re asking me this.”

“Well, you see, Connor Declan is a close friend of mine,” Molly said. “Very close, if you know what I mean. He said one day he saw you driving into a deserted area of Edgehill, he followed you, and then the next thing he knows, Cassie is driving out of this same area in your car, and you’re nowhere to be found.”

Amber said nothing.

“Are you Cassie Westbottom?” Molly asked. “If I check your trunk, will I find a blonde wig? But what I really want to know is … do you have Chief Brown fooled into thinking you’re two different people, or is he in on whatever this weird psychic scheme is? I guess, of course, you could actually be a psychic. Is that it? Do you have the ability of clairvoyance and you’re going to great lengths to keep it a secret?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Amber said, figuring admitting to anything to someone like Molly Hargrove would backfire quickly. Bianca had called Molly a snake. Amber didn’t like snakes.

Molly shrugged. “No matter. I’m going to figure you out. Just you wait.” Then the short blonde rolled her shoulders, offered Amber a confident grin, and walked away. “I’ll see you back over there?” she called over her shoulder.

Amber’s heart thumped hard.

What had Connor been saying to Molly, and why?

Jack had said that Connor had become increasingly obsessed with Amber and that he’d come up with “wild theories.” But how wild were these theories? Paired with someone as tenacious as Molly, it was only a matter of time before they figured out Amber’s true secret. Assuming they hadn’t already.

The last thing she needed was that picture Molly had taken of her, hand shielding her face, accompanying a tell-all article about Amber’s abilities. If the story gained traction—and it just might if Molly had connections in tabloid and journalism circles—reporters would flock to Edgehill wanting to interview her.

As Jack said: I’m guessing you want to lay as low as possible because of the Penhallows.

If people took an interest in her, she’d have even less time and opportunity to hide the grimoires. She would constantly run the risk that someone was following her. No one could know where the Henbane book ended up—not even Edgar—for the sake of history itself.

She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and sent a text to Connor. We need to talk about Molly Hargrove.

Then she hobbled back toward the hangar, trying to figure out how she was going to use one nosy reporter to stop another.

Chapter 14

By four p.m., Amber was ready to sleep for a week. The next set of volunteers had shown up to relieve them and would work until eight. Once Kim had given the newly arrived Edgehill group the rundown, Amber and Kim had hobbled off to Kim’s car.

“I’m so sticky,” Kim said. “I’m sticky in places that shouldn’t be sticky.”

“Gross, Jones,” a voice said from behind them.

Kim looked over her shoulder to smile at a haggard Nathan. Jolene and Ann Marie were with him.

“Why was that so exhausting?” Jolene asked. “I work in the NICU. Decorating a float should be a cake walk.”

“Mmm. Cake,” Ann Marie said. “Can I eat cake for dinner? I’m too sore to cook.”

It was then that Amber remembered she had some business to take care of with Ann Marie. “Hey, Ann Marie? Do you remember Alan Peterson?”

“The PI?” Ann Marie asked.

“She will not shut her piehole about the PI,” Kim said.

“Hey!” Ann Marie said.

“It’s true,” Nathan said. “I have heard more times than I can count that Alan the PI is intimidatingly hot.”

Jolene laughed and reached up to affectionately pat his cheek. “You’re intimidatingly hot too, hon.”

Nathan snorted. “Babe, we both know that’s not true.”

“You’re right, it’s not,” Jolene said, slinging an arm around his waist. “I think I’ll keep you anyway.”

Amber eyed Kim, searching for any sign that the flirting between Nathan and his wife was bothering her—as Amber now knew Kim had been carrying a torch for him since high school—but Kim was smiling at the pair.

“What about Alan?” Ann Marie asked, her tone a little urgent.

“He wants to ask you out.”

Ann Marie and Kim both gasped. As the pair swarmed Amber, asking her a million questions a second, Nathan and Jolene laughed and kept moving, leaving Amber to deal with the excitable brunettes on her own.

Amber gave Alan’s number to Ann Marie, and then was bombarded with even more questions about him that she simply couldn’t answer. Amber knew very little about Alan Peterson. She didn’t even know his real name.

Miraculously, Amber was saved from this barrage by the arrival of none other than Bianca Pace. The woman had parked her white BMW a few cars down from Kim’s, where Amber was still being interrogated.

“You made it!” Amber called out, startling Bianca who had been busily checking something on her phone as she walked. Amber hurried over to her.

It was the first time Amber had seen the woman in jeans. There was a hole one knee and her white T-shirt had a logo of a plumbing company on the right breast pocket. Her jet-black hair was pulled into a messy ponytail. Though still striking, Bianca looked normal today, and somehow a little younger. She didn’t carry a purse.

Bianca came up short. “Oh. Hey. I just texted to ask if you were still here,” she said, shoving her phone in her back pocket. Just then, Amber’s phone buzzed.

“How are things going with your dad? Are you allowed to see him?” Amber asked.

“Yeah, I’m allowed to visit him, but his assigned officers are really limiting how many visits Dad gets and for how long. He’s been back for three days now but I’ve only actually seen him once. He’s got one guy who’s like Dad’s babysitter.” She sighed very dramatically. “Anyway, the longer I was cooped up in my house worrying about all this, the worse I felt. So I figured I should at least put in some work here. Plus, I figured by now, Harlo would be gone.”

Deciding to bypass whatever squabble Bianca had with Harlo, Amber said, “Has any of Simon’s memory come back yet?”

“Yes and no. That’s why I was hoping you were still here,” Bianca said, then motioned for Amber to follow her so they were out of earshot of the people who were coming or going. They walked past the line of cars and stood near the darkening meadow that lined either side of Sweetbay Court. “When Dad called you, his lawyer was at the house too. I got to chat with him. Nice guy, but the case stacked against my dad is … extensive.

“So, like Molly said, by the time Jameson kicked everyone out, Dad said there were six attendees left at the dinner party, including himself and Chief Jameson. The police have collected four signed statements, all of them saying that Dad and Jameson were in a back bedroom talking. Talking turned to shouting. Things were smashed. And then there was a gunshot. They all came running in from the dining room and found Jameson on the floor with a single shot to the chest. Dad was passed out next to him.”

Amber slowly shook her head, dismayed. “That sounds … bad.”

“Worse still,” Bianca said, “a blood test shows Dad had above the legal limit of alcohol in his system.”

“Even though you said he’s not a heavy drinker?”

“Right,” Bianca said. “The lawyer says the prosecution will say Dad’s missing memory is from Dad being blackout drunk. If he really had been roofied, that should have come up either in a blood or urine test since he was arrested so quickly. But all the tests show was that he was wasted. He and his lawyer are trying to get another company to run the blood sample they supposedly took from Dad to see if they can find any traces of other substances in it, but …” Bianca sighed. “It’s not looking good. I don’t know what to do. I feel like everyone is working against him.”

Amber heaved out a breath. She wanted to hold out hope that Simon hadn’t done what he was accused of doing, but the evidence did make him sound horribly guilty. If he was being framed, the person or people behind it were doing a bang-up job. “So if his memory is missing from that night, does he not remember who was there?”

“Nope,” Bianca said. “He remembers four people were there other than him and Jameson. The number of them has stuck with him, but no faces. I have the list at home of the people who signed eyewitness statements. I didn’t recognize two of the names, but Daniels and Mayor Sable were there.”

Amber had known that, yet it still made her uneasy to know that one of them—if not both—had potentially murdered one person and then made an innocent man take the fall for it.

Bianca groaned. “I can’t keep thinking about this. I’m going to go get covered in glue. Hopefully that request for your visit will get approved soon. See you around.”

Amber watched Bianca stride away.

When her phone buzzed in her pocket again, she figured it was a reminder notification that she still hadn’t read Bianca’s latest text. But when she looked at the screen, the most recent message was from Connor.

Hi, Amber. Thank you for your message! I’m out of town for a few weeks, but would be happy to chat when I get back.

It was both oddly dismissive and too formal at the same time, like a text version of an automatically sent “out of office” email.

Which meant that Amber would have to deal with Molly Hargrove on her own.

After getting back to Edgehill, Amber picked up Chinese for herself. Doing so during work hours was always uncomfortable, as she had to walk through The Quirky Whisker with her food, but she was both starving and could no longer stand without her ankle throbbing painfully, so cooking for herself was out of the question.

Upon seeing Amber’s guilt-stricken face when she walked in, Daisy said, “Don’t you dare come back downstairs.”

Lily said, “We have the evening covered. Go lie down!”

She thanked them sheepishly and slowly made her way up to her apartment. As she sat at her dining room table, eating directly out of the extra-large Styrofoam container of wonton soup in a manner that likely would horrify the refined Bianca Pace, she considered calling Jack. She didn’t know what to say to him. Maybe she just wanted him to kiss her again.

But then something dropped into her lap, dispelling all thoughts of Jack Terrence. It was a wonder that she hadn’t spilled her soup all over herself. Confused, she looked down, half expecting to see Tom Cat there, but instead the slight weight in her lap had come from something small and round bulging slightly from the pocket of her hoodie.

Putting down her soup and utensils, she tentatively reached a hand inside her pocket, her hand closing around something disc-shaped and the size of her palm. She pulled out a mustard-yellow stone that had been carved to resemble a rose. It lay flat in Amber’s palm. Where had it come from and how had it gotten here?

A faint trace of magic was coming off the rose. Now that the initial shock of the rose’s arrival had given way to curiosity, Amber’s senses trained by Edgar’s lessons in Magic Cache were kicking in. She was on her feet a second later and crossed the length of her studio apartment so she could peer outside. She scanned the darkening street of Russian Blue Avenue. Shoppers still cruised the street, wandering both into her shop below and Purrfectly Scrumptious across the way. There was actually a line out the door of the bakery—ever since Betty had won the Best of Edgehill designation, business had ticked up significantly. Amber hoped Betty had finally hired help.

Her gaze swept Russian Blue again. People would be milling about for the next few hours, but she saw nothing out of the ordinary. No strange faces peered up at her from the street. No shapes of hunched bodies were behind shrubs or trees. It didn’t mean there wasn’t a witch out there, though.

The rock in her hand grew warm and she quickly shifted her attention from the street outside her window to the mustard-colored stone. The rose looked the same, the whorls of the petals etched with impressive detail. It reminded Amber a bit of Simon’s wooden rabbit she’d found in Sorrel Garden.

Amber turned the stone over and gasped softy. A message was slowly unfurling on the flat base of it.

Hello, A. Blackwood. Would love to chat. Sorrel Lot D tomorrow noon? Z. Rockrose.

“Rockrose,” Amber muttered out loud.

It was a literal rock rose. A rose made of rock. Was it like a witchy calling card?

Z. Rockrose was not only still alive, but wanted to meet. Z’s Talk-Up Doll currently sat on top of a bookshelf, where Amber’s endlessly curious cats couldn’t reach it.

A little voice in the back of her head said, How do you know this is actually Z. Rockrose and not a Penhallow?

The guestbook was supposed to be returned to the last owner. So unless a Penhallow had been there to intercept the guestbook, Amber figured it was probably likely that Z. Rockrose was who he or she claimed to be.

Amber quickly texted Edgar. Z. Rockrose found me! You free tomorrow at noon?

Whoa! Yes! I’ll pick you up.

The next day, Amber stayed in bed until almost ten in the morning, even though she’d been up since five, wasting away the hours with a game on her phone when sleep proved elusive. She’d wanted to keep her foot elevated so she could meet Z. Rockrose that afternoon with less of a limp. Still, she was glad when Edgar arrived at 11:30 to pick her up.

The bags under his eyes were pronounced, but he seemed to be in good spirits. “I’m going to miss that doll. Think Z will let me have it?”

“He or she hasn’t seen it in forty-nine years. I’m guessing Z wants it.”

“Bah.”

They kept the conversation light as they drove to the garden, but once they’d climbed out of Edgar’s truck and had walked under the metal welcome sign, they fell silent. There weren’t many people here, possibly because it was a Monday afternoon.

Not far from the topiary bunnies where Amber had found Simon’s cache, an older woman stood on the path, hands in the pockets of her black pants as she gazed out at the sea of edible plants before her. Amber had no way of knowing what Z. Rockrose looked like, and it wasn’t strange to see an elderly person enjoying the beauty of a garden, but something told Amber they’d found Z. Chalk it up to her newly trained magic senses.

At almost the same time that Amber had noticed her, the woman turned to see who approached. She was at least sixty, if Amber’s math was right, and smiled warmly at them, waving.

The woman wore a wide-brimmed brown hat, a blue and purple floral shirt, black pants, and sensible black shoes. Her skin was a warm brown and her crow’s feet and laugh lines showed signs of her age. She was about five-four. Amber guessed she was Native American.

They closed the distance and then stopped a foot apart.

“You must be A. Blackwood,” the woman said, her voice rich and pleasant, as she held out her hand for Amber to shake. As Amber did so, she said, “Amber, is it?”

Amber blinked, letting the woman’s hand go. “How did you know?”

“Oh, your family is rather famous. Not many Blackwoods rumored to be in this area other than the Blackwoods.” The woman clasped her hands in front of herself and then eyed Edgar. “And who might you be?”

“Edgar Henbane, ma’am,” he said.

The woman beamed. “You must be Annabelle’s nephew, then! How lovely to meet you. I’m Zelda Rockrose.” Then her gaze shifted to the Talk-Up Doll Amber held.

“I suppose this is yours,” Amber said, handing the doll over.

Zelda’s smile was wide and she took the doll from Amber as if it were a precious gem. “Goodness me. It’s in the same shape it was in when I placed it in that box. Incredible.” She pulled the doll’s head from her body.

“Oops! I lost my head for a moment!”

Zelda let out a long, hearty laugh, as did Edgar. “Oh, how I loved this doll. My mother hated it.”

Amber smiled. “I think I’m going to have to agree with your mom on this one.”

Zelda laughed again. Then her smile slowly faded and she looked at Amber and Edgar in turn. “I have to ask … what made you go looking for the impossible-to-find cache? Are you Magic Cache enthusiasts, or …?”

“I’m really into caching, ma’am,” Edgar said. “I’ve been trying to get Amber into it for a while. The hunt for dead zones has always been a fun challenge to me, so I thought she might like it, too. We just didn’t realize how challenging. It really put Amber through the ringer trying to find that thing.”

Though Zelda cocked her head like a curious bird, her floppy hat held firm. “So the rumors must be true then. The late Annabelle Henbane passed her memory and time magic affinity onto her daughter. Did Willow inherit it, too?”

Something like a warning flared in Amber’s gut, igniting her magic, and she hurled a truth spell at Zelda before she’d decided she was going do to it. “Are you a Penhallow in disguise, Zelda Rockrose?”

Zelda’s eyes flared wide in surprise before she said, “No. I’m Zelda Rockrose. I’ve always been fascinated by the story of your parents. The moment that guestbook was returned to me, I hopped on a plane. I came here from Colorado.”

Amber knew the last two statements weren’t triggered by the truth spell; Zelda had offered them as a means to ease Amber’s mind a bit more.

“Why would you think I was a Penhallow?” There was no mistaking Zelda’s defensive tone. “If I were a Penhallow, I would be more fearful of you than you are of me. A wild rumor has been circulating about a Blackwood severing a Penhallow from his magic and effectively making him fully human, breaking his tie to the curse. When your name popped up in my guestbook—a guestbook for a cache literally lost to time—I knew I had to try to meet you.”

Her brows arched. How had anyone heard about Kieran?

“My daughter is in law enforcement,” Zelda said, clearly sensing Amber’s confusion. “Penhallow is a name that’s been set to flag any and all alerts when it comes up. So when Kieran Penhallow was arrested and ended up in the system—the non-witch system—let’s just say the whole witch community lost its collective mind. And, naturally, witch detectives and civilians alike started to hunt down the rumors. Kieran, I hear, is a chatty inmate, so your name joined the rumor mill fairly quickly. You just might become as infamous as your mother.”

It wasn’t something Amber wanted, that was all she knew. And from what little she’d learned of her mother, Annabelle Blackwood hadn’t wanted infamy either. Mother and daughter both wanted quiet, content lives where their loved ones were safe.

“Can I ask you something?” Amber asked.

“Of course.” Zelda’s smile was wide, as if Amber and just offered her the moon. Oh gosh, was Zelda … starstruck? This was all too weird.

“What happened in that neighborhood?” Amber asked. “Why is there so much magic under the ground?”

A little of the color drained from Zelda’s face. “You … felt the magic there?”

“Yeah,” Amber said. “The veins are what gave me the juice to reveal the neighborhood from the 70s—and I needed to do that to locate the fountain where the cache was hidden.”

“It gave her so much juice that even I saw the memory she revealed,” Edgar said.

“Remarkable,” Zelda breathed. “And you both feel okay now? You don’t feel … sick or anything?”

Amber’s forehead scrunched up. “No. I mean, that magic tossed me around like a ragdoll, so I’m sore, but not sick.”

“Totally fine,” Edgar said.

“Remarkable,” she said again, then looked around them. “Let’s go take a seat over there. My knee’s been acting up lately.”

Shrugging, Amber and Edgar followed Zelda a few feet down the path, and then they walked along a narrow cobblestone walkway that veered off the main path and toward a pair of benches flanked by apple trees that wouldn’t start bearing fruit until the fall. The trees were currently covered in pretty white blooms and gave off a sweet, light aroma.

Zelda sighed when she sat down. “Much better.”

Amber sat beside her; Edgar stood next to Amber, his arms crossed.

Turning slightly, Zelda smiled at Amber. And then a quick spell left her lips.

Amber’s whole body tensed up, waiting for a blow. Edgar raised both hands as if ready to throw up a shield to deflect any blast of magic Zelda might throw at them. But one didn’t come. Instead, the sound around Amber—the slight breeze, the buzz of bees in the apple blossoms above, the general sound of the world around her that she took for granted—dampened. “What the …” Her voice sounded tinny. Though nothing around her looked any different, she couldn’t shake the feeling that now she sat in a snow globe.

“Noise-canceling spell,” Edgar said, gazing around above them as if he could see the dome of magic encasing them now.

“No one will be able to hear us,” Zelda said.

A bright, vivid image flashed through Amber’s mind—Zelda’s kind face sloughing off to reveal a Penhallow beneath, a knife materializing out of nowhere and sliding between Amber’s ribs, a cry of pain that only Edgar would be able to hear.

But nothing of the sort happened. Amber really and truly needed to get more sleep.

“So,” Zelda said, even more at ease now. “The neighborhood. Where do I begin …” She tapped her chin. “Since you brought up the Penhallows, let’s start there. Do you know the story of how they were cursed?”

Amber felt like a child in grade school, repeating some oft-told piece of history—in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. “A Penhallow who had already been stripped of his power killed a councilmember,” Amber said. “When that councilmember died, his magic was pulled into the Penhallow’s body, which created a warped version of magic. Over time, their magic got more and more twisted until the whole clan was cursed.”

Zelda clucked her tongue in a way that reminded Amber of Betty Harris. “The council did an excellent job of spreading the story they wanted everyone to believe. History favors those who are left to tell the story, no?”

Shrugging, Amber said, “That was the story I always heard.”

“Me too,” Edgar said.

“Did anything strange ever stand out to you about that story?” Zelda asked.

“I’ve wondered how the council managed to strip the Penhallows of their powers in the first place,” Amber said. “That seems like a massive undertaking for a dozen witches. The Penhallows had already gone off the rails by then, so I can’t imagine they all just showed up at the council’s doorstep and volunteered to be stripped of their powers.”

“Bingo. No one asks how it happened anymore. They just accept that it did and move on,” Zelda said. “The story that was spread for years was that the transfer of power from councilmember to Penhallow had been an odd, unexpected consequence—that the attack on the councilmember had been random and had set off the curse in a way that no one saw coming, right?” Zelda said, and Amber nodded. “It’s a lie. The stripping of power and the curse happened at the same time, and it affected the entire clan in one fell swoop, not a curse that slowly spread over time.”

“What happened?” Amber asked.

“Do you know what a ley line is?”

“Lines of energy that run across the globe,” Edgar said.

“Yes. There are several theories about what they are, but for people like you and me, they’re lines of energy that crisscross the world. It’s said that where ley lines cross, there’s even more energy,” Zelda said. “When the council decided that it was high time to stop the Penhallows, they didn’t systematically track down the Penhallows one by one. Councilmembers didn’t fan out across the globe to smoke the Penhallows out of their hiding places like rats. No, it was the council who grabbed an unsuspecting Penhallow and took him as hostage. The whole council then converged on Sedona, Arizona. The council joined hands on a ley line—with one councilmember keeping physical contact with the Penhallow so the council could better target the whole clan at once—and channeled all their magic into the power-stripping spell, blasting all that concentrated energy, including the vortex energy that’s ever-present in Sedona, into one of the most powerful ley line intersections on the planet.”

Amber’s eyes widened. “Were the Penhallows that bad? I know they’d been siphoning powers for a long time … my parents didn’t talk much about our powers—just that we needed to hide them—but they made sure we knew about Penhallows.”

“From what I’ve gleaned over the years,” Zelda said, “the Penhallow problem had gotten out of hand. Since the clan was spread across the globe, it was even harder to control them. The more power they siphoned, the hungrier they became. The council, it seems, was at its wit’s end and needed to find a solution—I suspect they also worried the clan would eventually come after the council and stage a coup. Back then, witches accepted the rule of the council just as non-witches accept the rule of presidents and royal families. But this choice to strip an entire clan of their powers destroyed whatever faith witches had in the council. The result of their actions was so devastating the council disbanded shortly after. Witches haven’t had a ruling body since the curse began.”

“So when they converged on the ley line intersection, what happened, exactly?” Amber asked.

“They more or less short-circuited the entire magical grid of the planet. It was like tripping a breaker,” Zelda said. “My mother lived through it. She said magic was just … gone for almost a full minute. No one knew what had happened—communication options were limited for witches back then too—and my mother said everyone around her was sure the world had just ended. It took years for witches to understand what truly had happened.

“There are two schools of thought on what occurred when the power came back on, so to speak. A lot of witches believe that magic itself was angry with the council for choosing to do this. It’s a cardinal sin to take powers from a witch—it was why the council was cracking down on the Penhallows in the first place—but the council’s solution had been an eye for an eye, and they used all of magic to do it. So when the power returned, there were flare-ups in the system. Whether that was a natural reaction because the magic needed somewhere to go and the ley lines couldn’t hold it all, or if it was magic’s anger manifesting, no one can be sure. Either way, it created splinters in the ley lines. Imagine tributaries branching off a river, or arteries off a—”

“Vein,” Edgar said. “Dang.”

“Yep,” said Zelda, nodding. “The blast of power into the ley line system caused veins of energy to break off from the main system in six places in the world. Edgehill is one of them.”

“So that neighborhood—the place where you grew up—exists on top of … what … like an oil spill of energy from the ley lines?” Amber asked.

“Yes,” Zelda said. “Edgehill proper—where you live now—was a witch town in 1910. The curse event happened twenty-five years later. When the power snapped back on, an additional side effect was that energy burst out of the ground like an invisible, noxious gas. In those days, nearly all witch towns were positioned on or near ley lines. So when this blast came through, it affected every witch on the planet—it being worst in those six places. Even though the original spell stripped the powers from all the Penhallows, it caused problems for everyone. Magical energy erupted out of the earth with all the force of a volcano. Witches got sick left and right. Some dropped dead. Others went mad. Too much magic can override a witch’s system—it’s like a blood disease. Eats you from the inside out.”

Amber stared at Zelda a moment, unsure of what to say. Had Amber’s mother known all this? Had she, as Simon suggested, chosen Edgehill because of this history? Had the council done such a good job of hiding what actually happened, that even Annabelle Blackwood hadn’t known?

Edgar asked, “How long did it take before witches were no longer getting sick?”

“It took years for the energy to settle back into the earth. Those witches who survived the blast moved to cities and towns that were farther from ley lines, worried about something like this happening again,” Zelda said. “Witches eventually returned to their old neighborhoods, cities, and towns. They tried to rebuild what their ancestors had started: little pockets of safe witch communities.

“But by the time witches returned to Edgehill, non-witches had taken over the main part of town, so we settled in the outskirts. Little did we know then that the area had a concentration of veins below the surface. So in 1971, the year I hid that cache, we met a rude awakening when the earth rumbled below us. There were enough witches who had lived through the first event—like my mother—that when it started, they knew it was happening again. So we fled. The whole population just up and left, as did the populations in those five other towns. The flare-ups only happened in those six places on the planet where the ley lines splintered.”

“How old were you?” Amber asked.

“Fourteen. Today is the closest I’ve been to Edgehill since that day,” Zelda said, shivering a little. “That day is my most vivid memory.”

“It must have been terrifying for your mother to live through it twice,” Amber said.

“Oh yes,” Zelda said. “After the first occurrence—when the curse started—there had been some comfort in switching her fear from the Penhallow Problem to the possibility of a natural disaster. The Penhallows had stopped terrorizing witches, you see. There were little power flare-ups, like aftershocks of an earthquake, but the Penhallows had been neutralized overnight. That didn’t last long, of course, because when the magic fog on the world settled after a few years, the Penhallows had been stripped of power, at least for the moment, but their desire for it—their souls’ connection to a need for magic—was not only still there, but had heightened in the absence of their own magic. So, eventually, when they went out siphoning magic from others to replenish what had been taken from them, their thirst for it was unquenchable.”

Amber knew that part too well, as she’d had to travel into Kieran Penhallow’s mind to sever that blind hunger for more power—removing that was how to stop the curse. The only problem was that severing that connection also severed the witch’s ability to use magic at all.

She wondered if the convoluted way Penhallows were “supposed” to rid themselves of the curse had been fabricated by the council, too. Edgar had told her that the only way to break the curse was for two Penhallows to meet and fall in love, and as a couple they had to denounce their insatiable urges for magic, and then create offspring who were “pure of character.” Those Penhallows were said to be the beginning of a reborn clan.

Amber had believed Edgar’s explanation then, but she wondered if the damage done by the council was even worse than anyone thought. Because the only way to cure the Penhallows of the curse was to essentially make them fully human—to strip away the entire clan’s ability to ever use magic again.

No wonder they wanted a spell to rewrite time.

“Would it be possible to reverse the curse the same way it started?” Amber suddenly asked. “Do a reversal spell to the one the council did, converge on a ley line intersection, and give the Penhallows their magic back?”

Zelda’s brows shot up so high, they temporarily vanished into her hat. “Why … you wouldn’t … they’re so …”

Amber put her hands up in innocence. “I’m not planning anything, I promise. I’m just wondering if my mom’s time-travel spell is really their only option.”

Edgar cursed under his breath.

Zelda cocked her head like a curious bird again and Amber realized too late that she more or less just admitted to this virtual stranger that Amber had found the infamous Henbane grimoire with the even more infamous spell tucked away in its pages.

Amber and Edgar needed to hide that thing, stat.

Zelda still looked concerned. “Could I show you? I know you somehow touched the ley lines and were largely no worse for wear, but …” She lightly shook her head. “This isn’t the type of magic to play around with. Another blast to the system could … I … I can’t imagine.” The woman held out a hand, palm up. “When I say it’s remarkable that you touched the magic there and didn’t short-circuit yourself, I mean it.”

Amber wanted to assure her that it had been an idle thought, nothing more—a thought borne more out of desperately seeking ways to make her mother’s grimoire sound less appealing to the Penhallows. If Amber could give them a safer choice—a choice that could help the clan but also not threaten the entire population, witch and non-witch alike—it would be a win for everyone.

She eyed Edgar, for reassurance maybe, or a sign that she shouldn’t do this. But the expression on his face said he was jealous of her memory magic in that moment, because he wanted to see what Zelda had to show her. Curiosity overrode Amber’s mind screaming at her to keep her hands to herself. She clasped her palm over Zelda’s.

Amber’s magic zinged under her skin at the contact, hungry for the crisp images Zelda was clearly pulling to the forefront of her mind.

“Ready when you are,” Zelda said.

Closing her eyes, Amber instructed her magic to show her Zelda’s memory from 1971, when the ley lines erupted.

A bright burst of white tore through Amber’s vision.

Chapter 15

When the light faded, Amber found herself standing on a stretch of sidewalk that ringed a play area full of kids. Happy laughter and squeals surrounded her as children swung on swings, hung from jungle gyms, and slid down slides. A gaggle of ten-year-old girls played hopscotch, a pair of boys went past on their bikes, and a few adults sat on benches closer to the younger kids, though they were paying more attention to each other than their children.

Perhaps that was because amongst the children were dozens of cats. They sat perched on fence railings, scampered after kids running around the park, and lounged in patches of warm sunlight. Amber had the odd sense, though, that the cats were alert and keeping an eye on things.

The cars parked behind her just beyond the park and the outfits worn by adults and kids alike were enough to tell Amber that she was no longer in her time. Once the shock of being some-when else had faded, Amber scanned the faces of the children around her, searching for Zelda.

Amber soon found her and a few friends playing on the swings. Zelda and another girl were in a race to see who could swing the highest. They pumped their legs harder and harder, sailing so high in the air that sometimes their butts left the black rubber swings for a moment before gravity pulled them back down.

A second pair of girls stood behind the swing set, cheering Zelda and her friend on.

Zelda went too high on one of the swings and the metal ropes gave a jolt. Zelda shrieked as she lost control and pitched backward. A nearby parent heard the commotion and was on his feet in an instant and sent a gust of air toward Zelda, catching her before she hit the ground below. He righted her, placing her on her feet.

Letting out a bewildered laugh, Zelda dramatically collapsed to the ground. “Thanks, Mr. Comfrey!”

The man smiled and shook his head, returning to the bench where he’d been sitting with another father.

A squawk above Amber’s head drew her attention up. A flock of black birds flew overhead. Then the small, happily chirping songbirds in a nearby tree took off at once, heading in the same direction as the black birds. Dogs howled.

Zelda’s friends didn’t seem to notice any of this and were now crowded around her. They chatted and laughed and mocked Zelda’s screams from when she’d careened toward the ground.

Then the cats perched on fences and lying in the grass started to move. Some yowled, some pinned their ears to the sides of their heads. And then they bolted, hissing and spitting as they went. They, too, traveled in the same direction as had the retreating birds.

The adults were on their feet at this, most calling their cats back. The cats didn’t listen.

Zelda and her friend had been busy threatening a rematch, but a deep, thunderous rumble frightened the girls into immediate silence.

The cacophony of the busy playground quieted in an instant. Eyes went wide, bike wheels rolled to a stop, and children froze at the base of slides instead of running around to climb the ladder to take another trip.

And then the rumble happened again. It stretched on for five long seconds. It sounded like the guttural growl of a monster. Zelda and one of her friends clapped their hands over their ears.

The adults were agitated now, muttering to one another.

“You don’t think …”

“It couldn’t be …”

A great hiss sounded ahead of Amber and her attention snapped toward the jungle gym just as something shot out of the ground. Amber couldn’t see what it was, but it had caused a manhole-sized circle of bark in the play area to shoot into the air and then rain down on the heads of several confused children. Some screamed, some shrunk into their shoulders, while others took off running.

The rumble came again and a girl nearby collapsed to her hands and knees, coughing. Her hand shot up to clasp her throat.

“Run!” one of the adults called out. “Run home now!”

Zelda, who had still been on the ground, hurriedly got to her feet, wringing her hands.

Bark erupted out of the play area again, but this time, Amber could see what had caused it: a gray mist. It wasn’t the dark, swirling black magic that the Penhallows now had—the magic Kieran had used to nearly choke Amber to death—but it looked tainted, nonetheless. The magic erupting from the ground here was sick and was poisoning the witches around it. Another pair of children fell to their knees, coughing and wiping at their eyes.

Doors to houses across the street from the park were thrown wide. Windows were pushed open. The message from every adult was the same: Run. Get home. Don’t look back.

Zelda, crying now, pulled her friends into a tight group hug, and then they all scattered in different directions. Zelda ran for a purple bike leaned against a tree, threw a leg over, and took off, pedaling so hard she wasn’t sitting on the seat. Somehow Amber kept up with her as if she were on a bike herself.

All around her, people were shouting for their children and calling for their cats. People cried out. Bodies collapsed to the ground. Zelda screamed when another rumble came from below her bike’s tires. It rattled Amber’s brain; she felt it in her teeth. Barreling down the sidewalk now, Amber looked behind her, as if she were sitting behind Zelda on her bike seat. Several feet away, in the spaces between sidewalk squares, bursts of sickly gray magic shot out at intervals. Blast, blast, blast. They were getting closer to Zelda. Amber couldn’t be sure that Zelda knew that these little explosions were happening behind her, but she grew more frantic in her pedaling with each one. Blast, blast, blast.

Another rumble and then—blast. A burst of magic knocked Zelda clean off her bike. She yelled and managed to tuck herself into a ball to prevent herself from hitting her head on the sidewalk, but she still slammed into the ground hard, rolling several times before coming to an abrupt halt when she crashed into a shrub.

Get up! Amber wanted to scream at her. You have to keep moving!

But another teeth-rattling rumble got the job done for Amber and Zelda scrambled to her feet. Amber knew from personal experience what it felt like to be hit by a surge from one of the veins. One look at her bike clearly told Zelda that the thing was ruined, so with a whimper and a sniffle, she took off running as best she could.

She went through the courtyard with the massive fountain, down a long hiking trail, and into the neighborhood Amber had seen days ago. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that the house Zelda ran to was the blue one with the tower-like front room, but Amber still gasped when Zelda ran up the porch steps where the intact chair and the table adorned with a plant covered in pink flowers stood. Zelda got the front door open, frantically calling for her mom, but stumbled back out in the wake of a woman rushing out of the house. The woman was no doubt Zelda’s mother.

“Get into the car, Zelda,” the woman said, dragging several pieces of luggage behind her.

“Mama!” Zelda said, jumping out of the woman’s way. “What’s happening?”

“The ley lines are erupting again,” her mother said, opening the trunk of the silver Volvo in the driveway and tossing the bags inside. “We have to go—now. Help me with Grams. She’s got magic sickness. Your brother is already in the car.”

Zelda’s face paled at that and the two ran inside, only to come out what seemed like moments later, helping a much older woman out of the house, down the two porch steps, and into the front seat. Zelda’s mother ran for the front door again, but a blast of magic shook the earth below them and she came up short. One of the beams of the porch cracked, the roof sagging forward a few inches.

Zelda’s mother made an about-face and bolted toward the car. Zelda stood beside the closed front passenger door, wringing her hands as she looked at her grandma in the front seat, her little brother strapped into a car seat in the back, and then at the house she’d likely been in all her life.

“Into the car, Z!” her mother called over the roof of the car.

Zelda snapped back into herself then and said, “What about Muffin!”

“We have to leave him behind, baby,” her mother said. “All the animals took off a few minutes before this started. We can’t stick around to wait for him. Grams won’t survive it.”

On cue, Grams let out a hacking cough from the passenger seat. Zelda choked out a sob and got into the backseat. The second everyone was closed inside, Zelda’s mother floored the gas and zipped down the driveway. Car after car barreled down the road. Amber wondered how many turned right toward what would eventually become the Sippin’ Siamese, or left, toward Belhaven.

Amber stood on the corner of the street that Zelda and so many other witches had called home, until every last car had left. The ground still rumbled and sickly magic still blasted from the earth, but all the witches had gotten out. They’d just had to leave everything behind.

A white light tore through Amber’s vision again and she was back in Sorrel Garden beside a much older Zelda Rockrose. Amber pulled her hand from Zelda’s and scrambled to her feet. Her heart raced.

Edgar was in front of Amber a moment later, scowling at her in concern. “You all right? Feeling dizzy?”

“I’m okay,” she said, a little shakily.

Somehow, the memory Amber had seen wasn’t just Zelda’s. It had also been the memory of the house Zelda had grown up in—the house that had spoken to Amber forty-nine years later. Perhaps that magic lived on—the confused magic from that neighborhood—in the Talk-Up Doll Zelda held, and had mingled with Zelda’s energy when Amber had touched her.

“Do you see now that anything more done to the ley lines could cause untold effects?” Zelda asked. Amber and Edgar both turned toward the woman. “What if another blast to the ley lines causes them to splinter even more? Six corrupted spots is six too many, if you ask me. It’s too risky. They don’t erupt on a schedule. Anyone living near one of the splintered locations is at risk of the next ‘big one’ that unleashes a lethal dose of corrupted magic.”

Amber held up her hands in innocence again. “I have no plans to disrupt the ley lines any further.”

“And I’m not strong enough to, apparently,” Edgar said. “I tried to tap into the ley lines to save Amber from getting tossed around again, but I couldn’t do it.”

They were all silent for a moment.

“There just has to be a better option than rewriting history,” Amber said, more to herself than Edgar and Zelda. “Because even if the curse happened differently than how most witches think, the reality is, Penhallows were a threat back then. The council went to extreme measures to stop them, but only because the Penhallows needed to be stopped. Even if the Penhallows offer a compelling argument about how they’d been mistreated on a massive scale by the council—and even how magic itself had been mistreated—the fact remains that the Penhallows are still a very dangerous family.”

Zelda stood now. “I agree that they can’t get their hands on the Henbane book. Is it safe?”

At the same time that Edgar sharply said, “Yes,” Amber said, “For now. We’re looking for suitable alternatives.”

“If I can be of any help—any help at all—just let me know,” Zelda said. “It would be an honor to assist you.”

“Thank you,” Amber said.

The noise-cancelling spell broke and the invisible walls of the snow globe disappeared. The sounds of the garden rushed back in.

The trio made their way across the cobblestone pathway and stopped on the garden’s main path.

“Until we meet again,” Zelda said, hand out to Edgar.

He shook it, though he still had a protective air about him, as if over the course of this conversation, he’d never come to fully trust Zelda.

Then the woman turned to Amber. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Amber.” When Zelda shook Amber’s hand, she held it for a few long seconds, then patted the back of it affectionately.

“Thank you for making the trip out to see me.”

“Of course, dear,” Zelda said. “And thank you for the doll. I never thought I’d see her again.”

“I’ll miss that thing,” Edgar said sadly.

With a small wave, Zelda headed down the path.

After a moment, Amber and Edgar wordlessly headed back the way they’d come, in the opposite direction of where Zelda walked.

They’d just climbed into Edgar’s truck when Amber’s phone rang. Alan Peterson’s name popped up on the screen.

“That the PI?”

“Yeah,” Amber said. “I’m putting it on speaker, okay? Don’t say anything mean!”

Edgar mumbled something that sounded like, “I’m not mean. I just hate 90% of the population.”

Amber accepted the call. “Hey, Alan.”

“Ann Marie called me,” he said. “She … she’s actually interested.”

“Glad to hear it!”

He cleared his throat. “I uh … thanks for that.”

“No problem,” she said. “Up to you not to scare her off, though.”

He chuckled, but it sounded strained. “So, anyway, Joseph Cooper is a Marbleglen farmer. He owns a two-hundred-acre peppermint farm in the northeast part of town, near Lake Myrtle. My preliminary search turned up multiple complaints filed by Mr. Cooper against the Marbleglen police force at large, citing harassment claims. Nothing has come out of the complaints as far as I can tell.”

“What kind of harassment?” Amber asked.

“Haven’t gotten that far yet,” Alan said. “I just wanted to let you know that I’d gotten started. And … uh …”

He went silent for so long Amber double-checked her screen to make sure the call hadn’t dropped. “Hello?” she asked.

“Yeah. Um. Do you know if Ann Marie likes flowers? Women like flowers, don’t they?”

Amber was deeply enjoying that Alan Peterson wasn’t nearly as unshakable as he always seemed. “Depends on the woman. But Kim and Ann Marie are very similar, and I know Kim loves flowers, so I’m going to go with yes?”

“Kim likes flowers?” Edgar asked. When Amber looked over at him, she found his eyes were quite wide, as if he couldn’t believe he’d said such a thing out loud.

“Okay. Flowers,” Alan said. “I can do flowers. And she said she likes Italian food, so I’ll have to find an Italian restaurant.”

Yes, Captain Obvious, she wanted to say, but kept her mouth shut.

“Okay. Flowers. Pasta. I got this,” Alan said, more to himself, it seemed, than to Amber. “I’ll let you know when I’ve found out more.”

The call cut off and Amber dropped the phone into her purse. “So, my dear cousin, why did you seem so interested in the fact that Kim likes flowers?”

Edgar’s face reddened. “Why do you need information on a peppermint farmer?”

Amber decided to let him off the hook. “I’m not sure yet, but the peppermint farmer is tied to Chief Jameson’s murder somehow.”

“How’s Simon doing, by the way?” Edgar asked. “Isn’t he who got you pulled into this thing in the first place?”

Amber ran through the details, from the arraignment to Simon asking Amber to unearth his hidden memories.

Edgar whistled. “It was really risky of him to spell a judge in front of all those people.”

“Chief Daniels was so ticked off,” Amber said, remembering how the man had slammed his way out of the arraignment viewing room. “I just wish I knew what the connection was between Daniels, Jameson, and Cooper.”

“Why don’t we go find out?” he asked.

She cocked her head at him. “How?”

“Do you have your Marbleglen map on you?”

“Yes,” she said slowly. It had been in her purse ever since Kim and Amber had to track down a drunken Bianca Pace.

“What do you think about giving it another spin? We’re already in Marbleglen; let’s pay this Joseph Cooper guy a visit.”

“That would mean you’d have to interact with yet another person today,” Amber said.

“True. But, I don’t know, a peppermint farmer sounds kind of interesting,” Edgar said, shrugging.

“The chief would lose his mind if I started snooping around without him,” Amber said.

“Eh. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Edgar said.

Amber wasn’t sure she agreed with that logic, but her curiosity had already been piqued and she fished out the map.

Mint To Be Peppermint Farm, according to the signs, was a mere ten miles from Lake Myrtle, the landmark location for flower enthusiasts who wanted to visit the spot where the famed “marbled” rhododendrons grew in the wild. Amber had yet to see it for herself, but thought it would be a nice place to take Aunt G next month.

After driving down Basil Road for a few minutes, Edgar reached the wrought iron gate for the farm, which stood open. Edgar drove through. There was a stretch of empty fields for a short while that sat on either side of the dirt road. And then suddenly there were rows and rows of green, leafy foot-high plants. They drove for several minutes before an old farmhouse and nearby barn appeared in the distance.

According to the map, Joseph Cooper was on the property, though not currently in the house. There didn’t appear to be a small shop or guest services anywhere on the farm, so Amber guessed it wasn’t the type of place where random locals stopped by very often.

Edgar pulled up in front of the white farmhouse’s wraparound porch. A snoozing brown dog lay on the top step of the porch. Its tail thumped against the wood in greeting when Amber and Edgar got out of the car, but the dog made no move to get up.

The black dot marking Joseph Cooper’s location was somewhere in between the house and the barn. Amber and Edgar headed that way.

The sound of clucking reached Amber before the sight of an elaborate chicken coop area did. The fenced-off area featured four large herb boxes in the front space, which was currently also occupied by a dozen chickens clucking, pecking, and scratching at the ground. A gate toward the back space stood ajar, where there were half a dozen chicken coops. Joseph Cooper was back there; Amber periodically saw his salt-and-pepper head as he busied himself with cleaning out the coop.

The chicken resort, as Amber liked to think of it, had a closed screen door. At the risk of the chickens running free, Amber and Edgar stayed outside of it, and Amber called out, “Excuse me? Mr. Cooper?”

A middle-aged man in a button-up flannel shirt and worn, dirty jeans walked to the ajar gate of the chickens’ area, then slowly made his way across the main part of the resort. The chickens shuffled out of his way. He pulled off his gloves and shoved them in the back pocket of his jeans. “Can I help you?”

“Hi,” Amber said, and let loose the elaborate lie she’d been working on during the drive over. “I’m on the Here and Meow Committee from Edgehill, and we’re currently putting together thank-you baskets for our top donors. I was thinking some peppermints from a local farm would be a wonderful addition, and as a bonus to you—”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” he said.

Amber assumed he’d say something along the lines of “there might be a truce between our towns for the time being because of the overlapping festivals, but I’m not interested in working with the likes of you,” but instead he said, “I’m out of product.”

“Business must be really booming,” Edgar said, plastering on a bright smile.

“Actually over half of my supply of peppermint oil was destroyed a couple weeks ago,” Joe said. “Someone opened the bungs on my 55-gallon tanks, poured in rust oxide—rust is the worst thing that can happen to peppermint—gave it a good stir, then left them open to the elements. Half a year’s worth of income gone—” he snapped his fingers, “just like that.”

Amber flinched. “I heard about that. It happened during the crime spree, right?”

“Spree seemed like a media overreaction, but yes.” Joe gave Amber and Edgar an up and down scan, assessing them, then focused his attention on Edgar. “I figured all this was old news by now. You with the Here and Meow too? Or are you with the Herald? I ran that Molly lady out of here; I’m not interested in an article that’s going to bring any more attention to my farm. It’ll be a miracle if we survive this year financially. I just wanna keep my head down. I don’t want any more trouble. So if you’re looking for a story, go somewhere else.”

Amber held up a hand. “We’re not reporters. We’re here on behalf of our friend Bianca Pace, though she doesn’t know that yet.”

Joe wrinkled his nose as if he smelled something rancid. “I didn’t think Bianca had many friends. Dang shame what’s happening to her father, though.”

“Dang shame” was far different than “It’s the quiet ones you have to be leery of, right?”

Edgar spoke up. “You don’t think Simon’s guilty?”

“Given who all was rumored to be at that dinner? Chief Jameson was a piece of work, but …” Joe shook his head. “That whole group is rotten. Any one of them could have done it.”

“Can I ask you something a little more personal?” Amber asked. Joe looked dubious but nodded anyway. “I heard you’ve made quite a few complaints about the department harassing you. Can I ask what about?”

Joe ran his teeth back and forth across his bottom lip as he stared at her. “I don’t want trouble.”

“We don’t either,” Amber said. “But the evidence stacking against Simon keeps growing. Any little bit of information you could pass on might help him get the charges dropped.”

Joe sighed. “I can’t talk about this too much because it’s an ongoing case, and I don’t want to say or do something that screws that up, but the best I can do is to tell you to look into Stone Gate Farms. My problems started there.”

“Got it,” Amber said. “Thank you for talking to us.”

“Terrible that someone did that to your peppermint oil supply,” Edgar said, frowning.

Joe sighed. “Thanks. It was devastating, but all you can do is keep trucking. This farm has been in my family for decades. I’m going to do all I can to keep it, no matter the setbacks.”

Amber and Edgar said their goodbyes and headed back to the car. Amber heard Joe chatting amiably with his chickens.

It wasn’t until Edgar was heading back down the dirt road toward the exit that Amber spoke. “There were four places that were hit the same night Joe’s oil was ruined. Some cars were vandalized, a mural was spray-painted, and some chickens were set loose. Seems like that’s spread out all over the town, doesn’t it? And it’s kind of a trek just to get out here. If it was just kids causing trouble, wouldn’t they go after places all relatively close to each other?”

“Maybe,” Edgar said. “But if it was a big group of them all working together, they could hit multiple places at once.”

“True,” Amber said. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to just let Joe’s chickens out too? Or torch his field? Would kids know enough about peppermint oil to know to pour rust oxide in to destroy it?”

“All right. I’ll bite,” Edgar said. “What’s your theory?”

“I don’t think kids did this. I think someone specifically targeted Joe. They wanted his product ruined. Maybe it was a personal vendetta, maybe it was to cripple him financially.”

“Something tied to Stone Gate Farms?” Edgar asked. “He said his problems started there.”

Nodding to herself, Amber pulled out her cell and called Bianca.

“Hi, Amber.” Bianca sounded exhausted. “Sorry I haven’t called you with the list of people from the party who signed statements yet. I was planning to today. My brain’s been a little fuzzy lately.”

“That’s okay,” Amber said. “Have you heard of Stone Gate Farms?”

“No? Why?”

Amber realized she hadn’t told Bianca about Joe Cooper, or the meeting she and Chief Brown had with Wilma Jameson. “Want to meet me and my cousin at Purrcolate this evening around six? Maybe we can swap information.”

Bianca was silent for a long beat. “Okay. See you then.”

When Amber hung up, Edgar’s jaw was tense. “You didn’t even ask me!”

“Sorry! But you’re really good at research. And you have all afternoon to rest up until you have to be there. Please? I could use your help. Plus, don’t you want to know who threw Simon under the bus?” Amber asked. When he didn’t reply, she added, “I’ll buy you two dozen scones.”

“Three.”

“Three!” Amber said, incredulous.

“I’ve had to people so much today,” he said. “Just be happy you can still pay me in food. This won’t last forever.”

“Fine,” Amber said.

“Did you choose Purrcolate because of Jack?” Edgar asked. “Have you and Lover Boy made up then?”

Amber flushed. “Sort of.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, smiling smugly to himself.

Then Amber got an idea that would get both Kim and Edgar back for meddling, however lovingly, in her messy love life.

She texted Kim with: Found more info. Meet me at Purrcolate tonight at 6?

Ooh! Can’t wait!

Bianca will be there, too.

Ew.

Grinning to herself, she dropped her phone in her purse.

“What’s so funny?” Edgar asked.

“Oh, nothing …”

Chapter 16

It was just before six when Amber arrived at Purrcolate. Kim pulled into the spot next to her a few seconds later and they walked in together. Amber hoped Edgar wouldn’t “forget” to show up.

There were quite a few cars in the lot, but when she stepped inside, the main dining area of the café was largely deserted. A petite young woman with curly black hair and black-rimmed glasses perched on her freckled nose was manning the counter. She smiled wide when Amber and Kim walked in.

“Hi there. Welcome to Purrrrrrcolate,” she said. “Are you here for the Dungeons & Dragons group?”

Which explained the full parking lot. A chorus of cheers and roars sounded from behind the closed conference room door.

“Dungeon raid,” the woman said.

Amber wondered idly if Edgar was into Dungeons & Dragons. She guessed he would like the game more than the in-person interaction part.

Just then, Jack pushed though the swinging door in the back. He was wiping his hands on a dish towel. “Sabrina, do you know if—Amber! Hey.”

The young woman, Sabrina, said, “Ohh, this is Amber.”

“Sabrina,” Jack grumbled.

Amber flushed. Kim hummed happily.

“Oh, is your massive crush on Amber somehow a secret?” Sabrina asked, elbow propped up on the counter. She grinned at Jack.

“Please go bake five thousand scones,” Jack said.

Sabrina laughed, then turned her attention to Amber. “I’m a horrible baker. Jack knows this. He just wants me to get lost because I’m very good at embarrassing him.”

“I like her!” Kim chirped.

Sabrina winked at her. “I’ll go scrub stuff down or something. Nice to finally meet you, Amber. You’re right, Jack: she is very pretty.”

“Sabrina!” Jack said, the tips of his ears pink now.

Chuckling, Sabrina pushed her way through the black door that led to the kitchen.

“Sorry,” Jack said, wincing. “Uhh … you ladies just dropping in for coffee or …?”

Bianca Pace sauntered into the café then. “Well, isn’t this place quaint?” she said, giving the place the once-over. Bianca made “quaint” sound like “infested with disease-carrying cockroaches.” She wore sleek black slacks, a silk blouse, and her jet-black hair was down and shiny. She carried a thin black leather case that Amber assumed held the woman’s laptop.

“Why don’t we get set up over in the corner,” Kim said in her best Festival Director Voice to Bianca. “Amber can take care of the drink orders.”

Bianca sniffed. “Fine. I’ll take a venti soy mocha with double foam and one pump of sugar-free vanilla. Extra hot. And a sprinkle of cardamom if you have it.” Then she followed after a bewildered Kim.

“She grows on you,” Amber said to Jack, though Amber wasn’t sure how true that was.

“I have no idea how to make that drink,” he whispered.

She laughed.

His gaze shifted to her lips for a moment, then quickly back up to her eyes. “So what’s this little meeting about?”

“There might be a plot by the Marbleglen police department to frame Bianca’s father for the murder of Chief Jameson,” she said in whispered rush. “Somehow, I think, this is all tied to a peppermint farmer.”

Jack blinked at her. “I don’t even know how to respond to that.”

“I know. We just got a lead from the peppermint farmer, so we’re running with it,” she said. “We figured we could work here for a little bit?”

“Of course,” he said. “Do you … want help?”

Her brows arched. “Really?”

He shrugged. “Sure. Sabrina can run things, and I’ll just jump in to help her if we get another rush.”

“That would be great.”

“Cool, I’ll go grab my laptop and join you guys in a few.”

It took fifteen minutes for them to get settled. Jack took orders, they pushed a few tables together, booted up their laptops, and Sabrina brought over a plate of scones. Amber was just about to ask Bianca if she had the list of party attendees when Kim, who was sitting to her right, gasped and clamped down on Amber’s forearm in vice grip.

“Holy guacamole,” she whispered. “What is your cousin doing here?”

Amber looked up and waved at Edgar, who stood awkwardly just inside the door. The strap of a messenger bag lay across his chest. He rubbed the back of his neck as he approached, taking in the scene. She knew he was warring with his fight-or-flight response, but when she patted the seat on her other side, he visibly swallowed, nodded in greeting to the group, and then slunk into the chair next to her. He didn’t remove his bag so much as clutch it to his chest like a life preserver.

Two people sat a few tables away, but they were both working on their respective laptops with headphones on. Still, Amber kept her voice at a low volume as she got everyone up to speed, and then explained the task at hand.

“There were six people in attendance at the dinner including Simon and Jameson. All four of the remaining attendees have signed written statements saying that they heard an argument between Simon and Jameson that got out of hand and resulted in Simon shooting him.”

Bianca pulled a sheet of paper out of her bag. “These are the names of the remaining people at the party, based on the four signed eyewitness statements my father’s lawyer got copies of.” She laid the handwritten list in the middle of the table.

Yvette Sable

Nicolas Daniels

Randy Tillman

Victoria Sullivan

“Bianca, do you know who Randy Tillman and Victoria Sullivan are?” Amber asked.

“No clue.”

“When Chief Brown and I talked to Wilma Jameson, she told us about Daniels coming to her apartment to grill her about any cases her father might’ve mentioned. The only one Jameson ever told her about was one connected to Joseph Cooper.”

“The peppermint farmer?” Jack guessed.

“Yeah,” Edgar said, relaxing a little. “On the night that four places in Marbleglen were hit with some kind of vandalism, Joe’s supply of peppermint oil—his livelihood—was destroyed in a way that implies the person knew exactly how to destroy it.”

“A targeted attack,” Kim said.

Edgar leaned forward slightly to look at Kim as he said, “That was Amber’s theory, yeah.”

Kim went bright red.

“What we don’t know,” Amber said, ignoring the very goofy smile Edgar had aimed Kim’s way for half a second before he caught himself and abruptly looked away, “is if the other three attacks in town were a distraction from what happened to Joe, or if they’re connected. We also don’t know, if Simon is innocent, to what extent the people in attendance at the party are involved in the cover-up.”

“You really think Mayor Sable could be in on it?” Bianca asked, that rare glimpse of vulnerability returning to her voice.

Remembering what Wilma had told her, Amber said, “The mayor was at that party, too. We can’t rule her out.”

Bianca pursed her lips.

“So the assignments are figuring out who Randy Tillman and Victoria Sullivan are, what Stone Gate Farms is, and who exactly was targeted in that string of crimes the night Cooper’s oil was ruined,” Amber said.

Edgar took on the task of finding details on the crime spree, Jack took Randy Tillman, Bianca took Victoria Sullivan, and Amber and Kim would work on Stone Gate Farms. Amber booted up her laptop.

A search for Stone Gate Farms brought Amber to a website for a Marbleglen-based flower farm that specialized, unsurprisingly, in rhododendrons. The site claimed that they had over one thousand varieties of rhododendrons for sale, including the famed marbled rhododendron endemic to the area. Orders for the marbled flowers, due to being in high demand, were only taken in April and May.

The farm spanned ten acres, three of which were landscaped as demonstration gardens. There was a gift shop and a picnic area, and it was hiking distance from Lake Myrtle. Because of flower enthusiasts’ attempts to pick the sought-after marbled flowers, access to them had been significantly reduced over the years. The best place to view the flowers, the site claimed, was from across the shore of the lake, where at certain angles, the blue of the flowers was reflected in the water, giving sections of the lake itself a marbled appearance.

Amber scanned the drop-down menu list, selected “news and events,” and found a blog post from the month before.

Good news, Rhodies!

We have just gotten word that we’re one step closer to starting construction on our two-acre greenhouse which will be exclusively devoted to growing marbled rhododendrons—making these uniquely beautiful flowers more available to more flower enthusiasts.

In addition to the greenhouse, we’re so much closer to finally expanding the farm. There will be more rhododendrons for you all to love, a pumpkin patch, corn maze, and a whimsical fairy playground for the little ones. We can’t wait to share all these new attractions with you.

Check back here soon for updates.

- Your Stone Gate Farm Family

“Click there,” Kim said, pointing to a link that said, “proposed layout for expansion.”

Amber clicked it and a map filled the screen. “This is going to be massive.”

“Not going to lie,” Kim said, “I sort of want to check this place out when it’s done. I might be a grown woman, but the fairy playground sounds fun.”

Amber clicked away from the map. Below the link was another one labeled “job opportunities.” There were dozens of jobs already listed, and she could only imagine how many more would be added once the farm was given the okay to expand. “Seems like it would be a really good opportunity for Marbleglen.”

“But, wait,” Kim said. “Joe said his problems started with Stone Gate Farms, didn’t he?”

And then a horrible thought hit her.

Amber hurried to click on the map again. She searched for Joe’s street, and there, in the middle of the proposed expansion, was Basil Road. “Stone Gate Farms wants his land.”

“Would someone from the farm destroy his crop so he can’t afford to stay?” Kim asked. “He claims the police have been harassing him, right? Are they trying to swindle Joe out of his farm so Stone Gate can expand? Ugh. I take back what I said about the fairy playground.”

Amber frowned at the screen for a while, then glanced up to see everyone else was still working. Edgar had huge headphones covering his ears and was bopping along to something Amber assumed was very loud and metallic. Bianca had dainty earbuds in, the white cords snaking in front of her silk forest green top.

Jack looked up then and smiled at her. “Any luck?”

“I think so,” she said. “You?”

“Nope. Randy Tillman is a really common name,” Jack said.

Amber waved a hand in front of Bianca until the woman pulled put an earbud. When she had both their attention, she said, “Add farming, flowers, construction, land development, real estate—any of that to your searches.”

They both nodded and got back to work.

Amber sat back in her seat, arms crossed, and stared at the colorful rotating pictures of flowers and happy families on the Stone Gate Farms website. “Why do you think any of this would get Jameson killed?” she asked Kim.

Kim mirrored her posture. “Wait … do you remember at that first joint meeting where Bianca was being horrible?”

They both realized at the same time that Horrible Bianca was across from them, but when their attention snapped toward her, Bianca was focused on her screen, head bopping softly to her music.

“Hoo boy!” Kim said, hand to her forehead. “Anyway, do you remember when Chief Jameson gave that really lame ‘pep talk’ and Mayor Sable kinda sarcastically called him out for being a ‘team player’?”

“Oh yeah,” Amber said. “So maybe Jameson didn’t like what the others were doing to Joe? Maybe he refused to harass him?”

Kim gave a full body shrug.

The sound of Amber’s phone interrupted her thoughts, and she grabbed it out of her purse. The chief. Amber leaned toward her cousin and pried one of his headphones off his ears. He jumped.

“I have to take this,” she said, jiggling her phone, “but maybe Kim can help you with your search since we’re done.”

He gulped. “Okay.”

Amber hit “Accept” on the call, said, “Hey, chief, one sec,” and got up to round their pushed-together tables. She gave Jack’s shoulder a squeeze as she did. As she reached the door to the café, she peered over to see Kim and Edgar now sitting next to each other. Edgar was explaining something to her, gesturing to his screen often, while Kim gazed at him, her chin propped up on her fist.

The Dungeons & Dragons crew were still deep into their game. “Of course it exploded, you oaf!” someone shouted in an affected Irish lilt.

Smiling to herself, she stepped outside. “Okay, hi. What’s up?”

“I thought I was pretty clear about you not investigating on your own,” he said, instantly ruining her few moments of good cheer.

Amber quickly scanned the parking lot, looking for his cruiser or personal car, wondering if he was here now. “Um …”

“I got a call from a rather gruff Daniels asking me why Amber Blackwood and Edgar Henbane were seen leaving Joseph Cooper’s farm off Basil Road earlier today.”

“Why was he out there?” Amber asked. “What was he doing, hiding in the bushes?”

“Daniels claims that Cooper is growing increasingly upset about the level of harassment he’s been facing lately, not to mention the destruction of his crop a couple weeks ago, and would like to be left alone,” the chief said. “Daniels says he’s taking a personal interest in Cooper’s case, and has asked me, as a fellow chief, to assist him in making sure the residents of my town don’t meddle in the business of his.”

Amber was momentarily speechless.

“Still there?” he asked, and Amber honestly couldn’t tell if he was angry or not. “Care to explain what’s going on here when I thought you and I had an understanding about this?”

Without preamble, Amber launched into it, starting with Alan Peterson’s earlier phone call and ending with what Amber had just learned about Stone Gate Farms. “Something really weird is going on here, chief.”

She waited for him to scold her.

“So there’s a possibility Mayor Sable is tied up in … whatever this is too. I was really hoping that wasn’t the case; I genuinely like Yvette,” he finally said. “Look, Amber, I’m not your keeper. I just want you all to be safe—and this Daniels guy is … something doesn’t smell right. Can I request that you don’t go out of your way to tick this guy off? At least without warning me first.”

“I can do that,” Amber said.

After a beat, he said, “Do you still feel like you need access to Jameson’s house?”

Amber blinked so rapidly in shock that she nearly made herself dizzy. “It would help, yeah.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Really?”

“I didn’t hear much from Jameson or vice versa because it wasn’t really necessary, but I have a feeling Daniels is going to be a different story,” he said. “If he truly is caught up in unsavory business and he thinks he can pull me in too, we’re going to have a problem. And if Mayor Sable—who is effectively his boss—is also involved in this?” She could picture him shaking his head. “If cleaning house in Marbleglen helps Edgehill in the long run, then I’ll happily pick up a mop and bucket.”

“That was both very inspiring and incredibly cheesy.”

“I like to think that’s my sweet spot.”

Amber laughed.

“Getting you into Jameson’s house will be tricky, so it may take some time. It’s not my town, Sable is compromised if not complicit, and breaking and entering on your part is still off the table,” he said. “I’ll put in a call to Juan Reyes and get a read on how he feels about what’s going on. If the rest of the corrupt cops haven’t turned him, he might be a good resource for us. I think he still has ties to friends in the FBI, too. If the corruption in Marbleglen runs as deep as I think it does, we may need all the help we can get.”

Well, that was a sobering thought.

“Stay safe for my sake, okay?” he said after she’d been quiet for several beats. “I don’t really have the time to find a new best friend.”

When Amber stepped back inside Purrcolate, Jack was helping Sabrina behind the counter, and Bianca, Kim, and Edgar were in the midst of a heated discussion. Amber waited for the customers waiting in line to be taken care of before she approached Jack. Sabrina made herself scarce, but not before wagging her eyebrows very suggestively at Jack. The tips of his ears went pink again.

Once Sabrina had disappeared into the kitchen, he said, “She’s my best worker, but I obviously have to fire her.”

“Obviously,” Amber said, then motioned to the rest of the group. “Any idea what’s going on over there? Should I be worried?”

“Oh, everyone gave up on research about ten minutes ago,” he said. “Edgar and Kim got into it about Vamp World, then Bianca chimed in. I’m a season behind so I fled the scene.”

Amber gasped. “So you haven’t seen John Huntley’s season?”

“I have not,” he said. “I fall asleep in front of the TV like an old man, remember?”

“This cannot stand,” Amber said. “John—I call him John because we’re like this—” she held up her crossed pointer and middle fingers, despite the fact that she and John Huntley most assuredly had never even been in the same room together, let alone the same city, “might be here in a month, Mr. Terrence. What if one of the most famous heartthrobs in the country walks into this very coffee shop and asks what your favorite scene from last season is and you can’t tell him?”

“I see your point,” Jack said. “It would be a national scandal.”

“At the very least.”

He rested his forearms on the counter. “What do you suggest I do?”

She rested hers on the counter too. “I may have a way you can watch it.”

His gaze roamed her face for a moment, and he did his best to hide his smile. “I’m listening.”

“Well,” she said in her most serious tone, “it’ll cost you.”

“Another extra-large order of wonton soup?”

Amber grinned at him and may have involuntarily fluttered her lashes like a southern belle. “You might have to add in a couple orders of spring rolls, too.”

Jack flicked his tongue across his bottom lip, his voice lowering a fraction as if he was imparting a great secret. “I think that can be arranged.”

A hand landed on the counter and Amber and Jack both flinched and stood straight. Larry Terrence stood to Jack’s left, one hand propped on the counter, and the other on his hip.

“I see you two are back to being completely disgusting,” Larry said, smiling. “I, for one, am delighted to see it. The line of customers behind you, though? Not so much.”

Amber whirled around to find no fewer than five people waiting behind her. Most looked amused, at least. “Oh gosh! So sorry. I uhh …” Amber turned back to Jack. “I’ll be … over there.”

Thankfully, Kim, Edgar, and Bianca had been so wrapped up in their conversation that they didn’t even notice Amber had returned to the café until she plopped down beside Kim.

“What’s wrong with you?” Edgar asked, eying Amber from around Kim.

Bypassing the Jack situation entirely, Amber said, “Chief Daniels called our chief to more or less demand that Edgar and I never return to Cooper’s farm.”

All three stared at her in silence.

“This doesn’t bode well at all,” Bianca said. “Randy Tillman and Victoria Sullivan aren’t coming up in any of our searches. Edgar said the other crimes that happened around town were pretty random, right?”

“Yeah,” Edgar said. “I mean I’ll keep looking, but at least on the surface, nothing connects any of the people targeted. That line of cars that was vandalized at the apartment complex seemed like they were chosen solely because of where they were parked, not who owned them.”

Amber nodded absently.

In another of her rare vulnerable moments, Bianca said, “We have a little over two weeks to get something my dad’s lawyer can use against these guys. My dad won’t last long in prison …”

Amber hoped they could find that something before it was too late for Simon.

Chapter 17

The following day at The Quirky Whisker, Amber put in a morning shift that had been so busy that Lily, Ben, and she had hardly had a chance to sit down. So when Lily and Ben left for lunch and Amber flipped the sign to “closed” and locked the door after them, she considered foregoing lunch entirely in favor of a nap behind the counter. Though her ankle felt better, it was still a bit swollen, and when she was overly active, as she had been today, it grew increasingly unpleasant to put weight on it.

She plopped onto a stool behind the counter instead of going upstairs right away. Tom would be furious with her for being late with his lunch, but Amber wasn’t sure she could weather stairs right now. Oh, if only she really could fly.

Grabbing her phone out of her purse for the first time all day, she saw she had two missed calls and three texts from Bianca.

You’ve been approved to visit Dad.

I left you two voicemails.

Hello?

Amber called her back without listening to the messages.

Bianca picked up right away. “Where have you been?” she whispered.

“Working,” Amber said. “Here and Meow season is in full swing.”

Bianca grumbled something under her breath that sounded disparaging to cats, and Amber almost hung up on her. “Anyway. When can you come by?”

“In about an hour? I need to eat lunch,” Amber said, and her stomach rumbled its agreement.

“Lunch is on me,” she said. “Text me what you want, and I’ll have it waiting for you.”

“Why are you whispering?” Amber asked, whispering now too for some inexplicable reason. Whispering made this discussion of lunch sound like a covert spy operation.

“I’m hiding in the back room at Dad’s,” Bianca whispered. “His officer is a nightmare. He hardly lets Dad pee. I thought parole officers were supposed to just check in periodically. I swear this guy is here more than I am!”

“How am I supposed to do a memory spell then if this guy is breathing down my neck?” Amber asked.

“I don’t know. Dad says you’re the daughter of some famous witch,” Bianca said, sounding mildly annoyed that she had to explain this to Amber. “You’ll figure it out. Text me your order. See you soon.”

The call disconnected and Amber sighed loudly. “Sorry, ankle,” she said. “We’re on the move again.”

She got up the stairs well enough and fed the cats—only receiving minimal grief from Tom. Getting back down resulted in a lot of wincing and even more cursing. By the time she got to Simon’s house, her ankle was throbbing, her stomach was growling, and she was in a grumpy mood. Hobbling up to Simon’s front door, she vowed that if Bianca gave her an attitude for any reason, Amber had every right to clock her in the face. She also better have heeded Amber’s instruction to not put mustard on her sandwich or Amber very well might suffer a mental break.

But Simon answered the door and his smile made some of the irritation warring with hunger in her stomach lessen a bit.

“Thank you so much for coming by,” he said. “I know it’s a lot to ask you to come over here in the middle of the day when you have your own problems to deal with.” Then he lowered his voice a fraction. “I’m at my wit’s end already, Amber. I … I can’t go back there.”

A little more of her irritation ebbed away. “We’ll figure this out.”

He nodded once and then stepped back to let her in. “Bianca is out getting everyone sandwiches. I made some lemonade and cookies for us.”

As Amber walked in, she glanced down and spotted the thick black band around Simon’s left ankle above one of his house slippers. The chunky black box on the side had a periodically flashing blue light.

“Officer Wilson?” Simon called out as he closed the door and then made his way past Amber, heading into the kitchen. “My guest is here.”

Amber stepped over the threshold into the now-familiar kitchen and found an expressionless man sitting at the far end of the table with a sweating glass of untouched lemonade in front of him. The table, unlike the last time Amber was here, had been cleared of Simon’s wreath-making supplies.

“Hi,” she said to the man. “I’m Amber Blackwood.”

He was round-faced, and had his gray hair cut into a military buzz cut with a tidy mustache. He stared at her with dead black eyes. If it weren’t for the occasional blink, she would have thought him a disgruntled statue. He wore a white button-up shirt lined with thin blue pinstripes. A small black notebook poked out from his breast pocket. He pulled the notebook out now and flipped it open, consulted it, and then looked up at her. “Amber Blackwood. Aged thirty-two. Owner of The Quirky Whisker in Edgehill, Oregon. Parents deceased. Younger sister Willow and guardian Gretchen Blackwood, both of whom live in Portland, Oregon.” He glanced down at his notebook again for a moment. “You’re a … toy maker. What connection do you have to Simon here?”

Amber blinked rapidly at him. “I uhh … we both enjoy geocaching and met during a meetup group.”

“Ah,” he said, with no inflection to indicate whether that was a “how interesting,” “that checks out,” or “I see you are a filthy liar and I will have to throw you out of here on your butt now” kind of “ah.” It was merely an acknowledgement of new information. “Please proceed as if I’m not here,” he said, returning the notebook to his pocket. “You cannot leave the house to hunt for caches, of course. Ha.”

Amber smiled awkwardly, her cheeks twitching with the effort, assuming that last part had been the man’s attempt at making a joke, but it had been delivered with all the joy of a scoop of ice cream tumbling off its cone and splatting on the ground.

Just then, Bianca arrived and announced that she had sandwiches, salads, and chips. Amber had never been so happy to hear the woman’s voice.

The four of them sat around the table and ate mostly in silence. It was hard to make small talk on the best of occasions, but it was even harder with people who you hardly knew while also being watched by the human equivalent of a vulture who was just waiting for you to make a fatal mistake so he could rend the flesh from your bones.

“So, uh … Dad …” Bianca said, finally breaking the silence. “A few days ago, Amber and I ran into Molly Hargrove.”

Simon stilled, a chip halfway to his mouth. After a moment, he popped it in his mouth, wiped his hands on a napkin, and said, “Is that so?”

“Were you two really working on an article together?” Bianca asked.

Simon sighed. “Yes. She seemed to think I had information on the police department. She’d more or less asked me if I was her anonymous source, and because I wanted as much information about Jameson as possible, I let her believe it. Well, I … how do you say … convinced her I was her source.”

He cut a look to Amber and she knew that meant he’d cast a spell on Molly to get her to believe she had the right person.

“Did you find out anything?” Bianca asked, arms folded on the table as she leaned toward her father a fraction, seemingly forgetting that the vulture-statue was taking in their every word.

“Have you heard of Stone Gate Farms?” Simon asked.

Amber and Bianca shared a wide-eyed look.

“They want to buy up a bunch of land in Marbleglen,” Amber said.

“Yeah. And the guy who is trying to broker the deal is a guy named Randy Tillman. He’s shrewd and relentless—a lot like Molly, actually,” Simon said. “When Tillman was first getting started as a land developer, he wanted to distinguish himself from his successful father. About thirty years ago—when Tillman was in his twenties—there was a property in Arizona that land developers were salivating over. It was a twenty-six-acre amusement park with a Wild West theme. It had been going steady for a good eighteen years, but the owner, Hugh Woodbury, was older, in failing health, and didn’t have anyone to pass the property onto. Hugh was willing to sell the property for five million so he could retire in peace and easily afford his medical bills, but his catch was that the new owner had to agree to keep the amusement park running as is.

“The location also had a restaurant with a liquor license, so developers thought this would be a perfect spot for a concert space, especially since it was right off the highway. The old guy turned everyone down.”

“Until Tillman?” Amber guessed.

“Until Tillman,” Simon said. “Somehow Tillman convinced Hugh not only to sell the property for four million, but Hugh signed a contract that Tillman could turn the property into anything he wanted. A week later, Hugh died.”

Amber and Bianca both gasped.

“There are still people to this day who are convinced Tillman did something to Hugh. Hugh was older, had no living relatives, and was starting to go downhill health-wise. Maybe Tillman was just incredibly persuasive and Hugh’s death was a coincidence.”

“Sorry,” Amber said, trying to get back to where this all started. “What does this have to do with what happened to Jameson?”

“Jameson was the anonymous source to Molly,” Simon said. “Not me. I asked him as much at that dinner party and he confirmed it. That’s one of the few things I remember before the black hole starts.

“Anyway, Jameson found out about this shady deal of Tillman’s—a long string of shady deals—and saw what was unfolding with Joe Cooper and started to worry Tillman was going to go after Cooper the same way he’s been rumored to have gone after Hugh.”

“Oh,” Amber said.

“Yep,” said Simon. “My bets are on Tillman being the shooter.”

“Do you know who Victoria Sullivan is?” Bianca asked. “She’s one of the people who signed an eyewitness statement saying you were the shooter.”

Simon’s jaw tensed for a second and his nostrils flared. “That’s the weird thing—I don’t think I even know who she is. The name isn’t really familiar, but my memory isn’t the most reliable right now. All I know is that she’s got to be connected to Cooper and/or Stone Gate Farms. What we need to do now is to figure out who wanted this deal so badly that they’d be willing to kill Jameson and frame me for it.”

The vulture-statue grunted in disapproval. If Amber had to guess, she’d say Wilson thought Simon was as guilty as they came. His flat dark eyes were focused squarely on Simon. A rush of words suddenly poured out of Simon’s mouth.

Amber recognized the spell a second later.

Another grunt sounded from Wilson. Amber saw one of his eyes twitch slightly and then he pulled his small notebook out of his pocket and consulted it for a moment.

“Please proceed as if I’m not here,” Wilson said, immediately returning the notebook to the front pocket of his shirt. “You cannot leave the house to hunt for caches, of course. Ha.”

Simon had just erased Wilson’s memory of that conversation.

Amber was still reeling from that when Simon casually asked her if she liked her sandwich and if she’d like anything else.

“N-no, thank you,” she managed. “That was really good. Thank—”

“Officer Wilson?” Simon asked, cutting Amber off.

The man cocked his head slightly. “Yes, Mr. Ricinus?”

“Sleep.”

Wilson’s eyes rolled back in his head and he tipped backward, his chair—with his considerable weight still in it—crashing to the floor.

Amber and Bianca both yelped and jumped to their feet.

“Quick!” Simon said. “Help get him back up. We’ll have at least half an hour to do this before he comes to.”

They all hurried over to the man who was snoring like a drunk elephant. Bianca and Amber took either side of him, and Simon stood behind. On the count of three, they got the chair back on its four legs—how the thing didn’t shatter under the guy was a miracle, as far as Amber was concerned. Simon gently eased the man forward so his temple rested on the table’s surface, his arms hanging limply on either side of him.

“Bianca,” he said, “you stay here and watch him. Holler if he wakes up prematurely. Amber and I will be in the back office. We’ll soundproof it.”

Bianca crossed her arms and glared down at the snoring man. Amber couldn’t be sure if the scowl was due to disdain for Wilson’s existence, the fact that he might wake up at any minute, or that she was being left out of Amber’s attempt to unlock Simon’s memories.

“This way,” Simon said, and quickly walked out of the kitchen.

Amber shrugged helplessly at Bianca, then followed him.

They headed back toward the front door, then made a sharp left into a narrow hallway. There was a bedroom on the right, followed by the bathroom, a second bedroom, and then an office at the end of the hall—which shared a wall with the kitchen. A doorway directly across from the one they’d just walked into led outside, the blinds on the one window drawn closed. A futon draped in a brown tartan blanket rested against the leftmost wall, and a long desk rested against the right. The dark screens of two computer monitors sat on top of the desk, the keyboard hidden beneath on a rolling tray.

Simon closed the door, uttered a spell, and the sounds of the outside world were shut out, just as they had been when Zelda Rockrose had conducted a similar spell in Sorrel Garden. “Okay, have a seat,” he said, motioning to the futon. “Just, uh … give me a second. This is the most magic I’ve used in a while and it’s giving me a bit of a headache.” He wheeled over his black desk chair, stopped a foot away from her, flopped into it, and rested his elbows on his knees. His eyes closed and his chin hit his chest. He clasped his head in his hands.

Amber sat on the futon, her hands pressed together and squeezed between her knees. Simon looked so … defeated already. Defeated and exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with his magic use. She’d already prepared herself for how to break the news to him if her memory retrieval spells revealed nothing. Perhaps he was preparing himself for this possibility, too.

Though time was of the essence—because goodness knew how Wilson would react when he suddenly woke up face down on the table—Simon still had his attention focused on the ground.

“Why do you think they would choose to frame you?” Amber asked.

Simon looked up at her then, his forehead pinched. “That’s what’s keeping me up at night even more than the fact that I might rot in prison for something I didn’t do. I was causing a stink in town, sure, and Jameson and I clearly didn’t get along, but why him and not me? Did they find out that he was the whistleblower? Why am I still here and he’s gone?”

Amber frowned. “Does Molly have any idea who her real source is?”

“I don’t think so, no.” Simon’s eyes were suddenly red-rimmed. “What if I really did this and I don’t remember? I know Bianca believes I’m innocent, but even I’m starting to doubt myself. I can’t trust my own mind anymore.”

Without Edgar here to guide her, Amber’s faith in her abilities was wavering even more than Simon’s faith in his innocence. What if she tried this and got sucked into the black hole in Simon’s mind? What if her magic got fused with Simon’s the way Neil Penhallow’s had with Edgar’s, and then she became trapped in Simon’s head?

He held out a hand. “I fully understand that this might not work. But I have to try.”

Amber nodded, then fished a folded-up piece of paper out of her pocket. She’d copied it out of her grimoire; it was the same memory spell she used on Alan Peterson’s business card. All she needed to do was slot in the time, date, and location of the memory she wanted to see. “Once I start, I need you to think about Chief Jameson’s house. Every detail you can think of, okay? Your focusing on the location will help guide me to the right place.”

Simon’s skin had gone a little sallow, but he nodded.

Lying the spell flat on her knee, Amber held out her hands for Simon to hold. Once she’d uttered the spell and added in the necessary parameters, he closed his eyes as he conjured up images of Jameson’s house.

The shape of a house—maybe a light beige, maybe a dark tan—formed in her head. A stretch of sidewalk leading up to a black front door. A well-kept lawn.

And then it felt as if Amber had been kicked squarely in the gut.

She and Simon gasped as magic vaulted out of their hands, pushing Amber back so forcefully that the back of her head collided with the metal frame of the futon, and Simon was hurled back, the desk chair’s wheels sliding across the wooden floor and slamming him into his desk. He swiveled just in time to catch one of his monitors before it pitched off the desk and tumbled to the ground.

Amber’s heart thundered as she idly rubbed the tender spot on the back of her head. “Well, I guess that’s out.”

Simon righted the screen and then slouched in his chair now. He faced her, his feet splayed wide, but he wasn’t looking at her. “This is proof I was roofied, though. This is unfortunately what happens a lot in assault cases in hybrid communities. The best way to tell if a woman has been roofied is to get a witch to perform a memory spell on the witch victim. If the magic kicks them—almost literally—out, then she was drugged. It’s a more effective test than blood or urine, but of course we can’t use this as proof in a non-witch court.” He released a gusty sigh. “I don’t know what to do now.”

“Do you have anything from that night?” Amber asked. “Even the clothes you were wearing might work.”

Simon sat up a little straighter, thinking. “The clothes I wore that night got confiscated, because apparently there was blood and possible gunpowder residue on them. But—ah! My cell phone. It was in my pocket the whole time.” He got up, broke the soundproofing spell, and darted out.

Though the house was quiet, the everyday noises—did the air itself have a sound?—crashed back in.

Simon was back in under twenty seconds. He handed her his phone.

Just as she’d done with Simon’s hands earlier, Amber repeated the same spell. She braced herself to be violently kicked off the doorstep of the memory again, but her mind filled with hazy images instead. Amber was learning that when she did spells like this, she often ended up reliving the memory of the object itself. So she only saw what it had seen. Even if the “it” in question didn’t have eyes.

It made Amber’s head hurt if she thought about it too hard.

She stood on a sidewalk—a sidewalk that looked similar to the one she’d seen a few minutes before when Simon tried to guide her to Jameson’s house. She couldn’t see the black door at the end of the walk this time; now she saw the street Jameson had lived on. Several cars lined the street and the sound of laughter and music filled the air.

A man climbed out of a sleek black car at the curb and then made his way toward the front walk of the house. He was a handsome man in his mid-fifties with short light brown hair, blue eyes, and a cleft chin. He had one hand in the pocket of his charcoal gray slacks as he walked. More like swaggered. He waved at someone coming up the street from the other direction. One hand in the air like a celebrity acknowledging the masses. His black button-up shirt fit snuggly against his fit form.

“Is that you, Ricinus?” the man called out.

Amber’s view suddenly shifted, toward the standing-open black door that led into the Jameson house. Simon clearly had put his phone in his pocket. Amber imagined the eye of the phone’s camera lens peeking over the top of his pocket, silently watching.

“Hey, Tillman,” she heard Simon say, and could detect a hint of unease in his voice. “Wasn’t sure you’d make it.”

“Ah, you know me,” Tillman said. “I never miss a party. Plus, I hear Jameson’s got an open bar this evening. The wife is home with the kid and Daddy is ready to mingle.”

Amber was forcibly knocked from the memory then. Not from the magic kicking her out, but from Simon taking her by the shoulders and giving her a hard shake.

“Hurry!” came Bianca’s shout from the kitchen.

Still groggy from the abrupt shift from memory to present, Amber hurried after Simon out of the office, down the hallway, and into the kitchen. They collapsed into their respective chairs just as Officer Wilson gave a great groan and pushed himself to sitting.

“I think the weather should hold for the festivals, don’t you think?” Simon asked casually, as if they hadn’t just sprinted across his house a second before. He took a slow sip of lemonade. “Oh, nice of you to join us, Wilson! Are you feeling okay? Have you been sleeping well lately?”

The man’s calculating gaze went from vulture to hawk-like as he eyed the three of them. “What happened?”

“You fell asleep right after you finished eating,” Simon said. “Was it the tryptophan in your turkey sandwich?”

Wilson’s eyes narrowed further. With his attention focused on Simon, Wilson said, “I think our little prisoner has had enough visitors today.”

Amber didn’t need to be told twice.

As she drove home, a small smile graced her face, though. Now she knew what Randy Tillman looked like. Which meant she had enough to find him.

That evening, after Amber had closed up shop for the night and gotten both herself and the cats situated, she plopped herself in front of her computer and pulled up a map of the United States. Amber had no way of knowing where Randy Tillman was now and hoped her magic would throw a dot up on her screen if one didn’t appear on either her Edgehill or Marbleglen maps. With both paper maps laid out on her dining room table, and the open laptop placed above them, Amber closed her eyes and pulled up the image in her mind of Randy Tillman. All swaggering gait, blue eyes, and cleft chin.

With her amethyst crystal clutched in her hand, she recited the increasingly easier locator spell.

When she opened her eyes again, she was relieved to see a dot in Marbleglen. And, even better, he was in Magnolia Estates—the gated community where the float barn was located. Amber wondered if Randy Tillman owned a house in the area or if he was renting one while he was negotiating the land deal.

In the morning, she planned to find out.

Chapter 18

After a night of terrible sleep, Amber was awake well before six, which gave her ample time to work on her new disguise. Once she was set up in the bathroom, she sent Willow a video chat request. Her smiling face answered right away.

“Well, good morning, dear sister,” Willow said.

As usual, Willow looked immaculate, even this early in the morning. Amber’s hair resembled something Alley had coughed up that morning.

“Hey. Are you alone?” Amber asked.

“Yes?” Willow said.

“Do you think you could walk me through a few glamour spells?” Amber then gave Willow a very condensed version of what had been happening lately. “Molly Hargrove already has her suspicions about Cassie Westbottom, so I figured it’s time to try another face. But, as you know, I’m not always the best at getting glamours to stick and I don’t know how long I’m going to have to tail the guy today.”

“Remember that time you tried a glamour when you thought our babysitter was asleep and then she busted in on us and found your face sliding off like melted wax?” Willow laughed. “It’s really a wonder that when she fainted, she only gave herself a mild concussion.”

Amber winced at the memory. “See! I need help. Faces sliding off during stakeouts is not recommended. That’s not on Alan’s official list of Things Not To Do During a Stakeout, but it totally would be if he knew it was an option.”

“Ugh. I need to get my butt back to Edgehill soon,” Willow said.

“Is work still really busy?”

Willow hesitated for a millisecond. Anyone else likely would have missed it, but Amber didn’t. “Yeah. Work has been a nightmare for almost a solid month. I would much rather be on a stakeout with you.”

Amber eyed her sister, getting the distinct impression Willow was lying to her, but couldn’t imagine why. “We’re down to less than a month before the Here and Meow. You have to get your butt back here soon.”

“I will! I promise! Just a few more things to wrap up here,” Willow said. “I think I’ll be able to take off two full weeks.”

“Oh, good!”

“Now, go ahead and choose a few features to change, and then I’ll walk you through the no-smudge spell. It’ll keep your glamour in place for a good six hours if you do it right. You’ll just need a bigger shock to the system than usual if you need to knock it loose before then.”

This time, Amber kept her hair the same mid-back length, but instead of brown, she turned it copper. Her eyes went from brown to green, and she added a dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks.

“Cute!” Willow said. “You’ve gotten much better!”

While Willow explained the no-smudge spell, Amber worked her hair into two braids, one flopped over either shoulder. She had just tied the elastic around the end of the second braid when Willow finished her lesson.

Amber then did her best to replicate it.

Willow wrinkled her nose. “All of your freckles just migrated to your forehead. Try again.”

After the third try, Amber’s skin began to warm. It was a bit like pressing a hot towel to her face. Well, more like a scalding towel, and Amber winced. The sensation faded instantly. Willow had used the same spell on Amber a couple of months ago before they headed out for a night of dancing at the Sippin’ Siamese, but it hadn’t hurt then.

“Perfect!” Willow said. “You got the full dose of the spell this time; I know that wince well. That should last a good chunk of the day. When it fades, though, the features will immediately switch back to your own, rather than the gradual fading that usually happens. Your skin will warm again just before it dissolves, so if you’re quick enough, you can reapply the spell and get it to last another six or so hours. Otherwise, you have to start over.”

“Thanks, Will.”

“Of course,” she said. After a pause, she said, “Oh, uh … have you heard from Connor lately, by any chance?”

“Last I heard, he was out of town,” Amber said. “Not sure where he went.”

Willow nodded, frowning a little. “Oh.” Something beeped in the background. “Ugh. Coffee is done. Which means I need to get out of here. Oof, do I ever need a vacation. Let me know how it goes, okay? I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” Amber said.

“Sienna,” Willow said suddenly, and Amber cocked her head. “That should be your name today. Sienna Tate.”

“Sienna Tate it is.”

With a sad little smile, Willow said goodbye and disconnected the call. Did Willow just need a vacation or was something more going on? Despite always looking like she had everything under control, Amber knew from experience—and even more recently with Bianca Pace—that how someone looked on the outside didn’t always reflect what was happening on the inside. Amber had to remind herself that even the “okay” people in her life still needed a check-in sometimes, too.

With Sienna Tate firmly in place, Amber packed up her things, including her Marbleglen map, and hurried out of her apartment and then the shop, hoping no one would see her at this early hour, wondering who this redheaded woman was sneaking out of The Quirky Whisker and into Amber’s car.

Amber didn’t pull out her Marbleglen map again until she made it to Sorrel Garden. She pulled into lot D and took the map out, reinforced the locator spell, and confirmed that Randy Tillman was still in Magnolia Estates.

Giving her new face a quick scan, she found Sienna’s green-eyed gaze staring back. It was always jarring to look in a mirror and see a face that wasn’t hers staring back, but she had at least grown used to the sight of Cassie Westbottom. Sienna Tate was still new.

Amber backed out of the lot and followed the same path she had taken this past weekend when Kim had driven them to the float barn. She had texted Kim last night asking for the gate code so she could program it into her phone for future reference, and Kim had given it to her without asking any questions other than, Have you heard from Edgar lately?

Times certainly had changed; it had been a long time since anyone had asked Amber the Recluse of others’ whereabouts.

Randy Tillman was a few streets down from the float barn on Sweetbay Court. His dot was smack-dab in the middle of a sprawling one-story house with a four-car garage and an elaborate garden out front. Amber was still on the main road—inching toward 86 Cylindrica Lane—when one of the garage doors on the Tillman house opened. Eyes wide, Amber kept moving, but made a quick U-turn and parked a couple of streets past Cylindrica, on the opposite side of the road. She took out her map and opened it wide across her steering wheel, so that should anyone drive past her, they’d think she was lost … and had time-warped from the past, because who used paper maps anymore other than the elderly and creepers on stakeouts?

In her rearview mirror, she saw a large black SUV approaching. A woman was in the driver’s seat and what looked to be a teenage boy was beside her. Amber could just make out a closing garage door in the distance. Checking her map, Amber found the Randy Tillman dot still in place. The woman and the teen drove past Amber, neither so much as glancing over as they went by.

Amber knew she had to make a decision now: either wait to see if Randy would be leaving soon, too, or approach the house now since he was presumably alone inside. As Amber stared at the house in her rearview, anxiously worrying at her bottom lip with her teeth, she wondered how Alan Peterson did this as a chosen career. It was either incredibly boring or incredibly stressful, with little in between. How was she supposed to know which course of action to take? Approaching Randy now could be extremely dangerous, even with magic on her side.

She stared at Tillman’s dot for a little longer, then fished her phone out of her purse.

He picked up right away. “Peterson.”

“Hi, Alan,” Amber said. “I need some advice.”

“All right …”

“There’s another person on the suspect list of who actually killed Eric Jameson. His name is Randy Tillman. He’s a land developer, and he’s currently in Marbleglen—but I think he might just be renting.”

Alan was silent for a beat. “Are you outside his house right now?”

Her brow furrowed. “What?”

Chuckling softly, he said, “So that’s a yes. You’re trying a little too hard to sound casual. Did you at least remember to lock your doors this time?”

She hit the power lock button. “Yes, Alan. I’m not an amateur.”

“Uh huh,” he said. “Tell me about Tillman.”

“Aside from Daniels, Tillman has something to gain from Jameson being out of the picture,” Amber said, then explained what she’d learned from Simon yesterday. “But I still don’t know who pulled the trigger.”

“And how do you plan to find out if it was Tillman?” Alan asked. “Can’t just waltz in there and ask him to tell you the truth.”

Technically, Amber could, but she didn’t say as much. “What Simon’s lawyer needs is a case of reasonable doubt, right? Maybe we don’t have to prove that Simon didn’t do it so much as we need to prove that it’s likely someone else had reason to.”

“Good,” he said. “So you need proof that something shady happened during that deal with Hugh Woodbury—which will be hard to prove since it happened decades ago and Hugh is dead—or that Tillman’s involved with the supposed plot to take down Joe Cooper.”

“Right,” Amber said, nodding.

“I’m guessing you looked him up as best you could or asked around about him enough to find his address. That’s a good start. You’ll need to get a feel for the guy and his habits. Watch him for a few days. Once you get an idea of his routine, you’ll be able to approach him. Tell him you’re new to the area and you wanted to know if he likes the neighborhood,” Alan said. “If he’s got a dog, find a way to chat him up about the breed. Feign car trouble. Wait until you see him in a coffee shop and accidentally knock over his drink and offer to buy him a new one. You’ll think of something.”

A few days? Amber would lose her marbles if she had to follow the guy around for hours, let alone days. “Got it. Thanks. Hey, when’s your date with Ann Marie?”

“Saturday,” he said, clearly smiling. “Try not to get into any trouble, okay? I may need advice later, too. I heard you were dating two guys at once.”

Ugh.

“I’m as bad at dating as you are at being a PI, so this could be a mutually beneficial arrangement,” Alan said. “We’ll be in touch soon. And keep your doors locked!”

Amber rolled her eyes and hung up on him. Ann Marie could have the sourpuss.

Randy Tillman left his house around noon to go on an hour jog with his golden retriever. He left again around three. Amber had watched his dot, trying to decide if she should follow him, but instead decided to move her car so that he wouldn’t see her still parked near his house when he returned. He was gone for twenty-five minutes; he’d only left to pick up lunch from a café in town. His wife returned after five. Randy didn’t leave the house again.

Amber had left the gated community three times during the day—twice to use a restroom, and once to pick up two sandwiches to help her survive the wait. She’d eaten them both within an hour.

After that, she’d downloaded a new game on her phone. By the time she finally decided to go back home, she was on level 56 and her thumb hurt. Thank goodness for good data plans.

On the drive back, she honestly had to fight off tears at the thought of doing this all again the next day. It was all so boring.

Amber absolutely was not meant to be a PI. She would never admit this to Alan, though.

After scheduling Daisy, Lily, and Ben in rotating shifts for the following two days, Amber—disguised once again as Sienna Tate—returned to Magnolia Estates early the next morning. She’d stayed out of sight for the most part, but worried a neighbor was eventually going to call security on her for hanging out in her car in various parts of the gated community. So, on Friday, partly for the sake of her own sanity, she parked outside of Magnolia Estates near a park for a change of scenery.

One positive to all this loitering was that the hours in the car allowed Amber to perfect a noise-enhancing spell. After seeing both Simon and Zelda perform noise-canceling spells, Amber took that concept and reversed it. After two days of practice, she had perfected it to latch onto a person in question, as if attaching an electronic bug to the person’s clothing, their conversation ringing in her head with a clarity that made her feel as if the person was in the car with her. She felt terrible eavesdropping on total strangers, so she only kept the spell active long enough to prove it worked.

It wasn’t until the late morning on Friday that Tillman finally broke his rather dull routine.

Amber now recognized the black Mercedes he drove, so when she saw it ease out of the gate, she knew it was him even before she checked her map to confirm that the Tillman dot was on the move. Hoping this change meant he was up to something interesting and not that he was out on another food run, Amber followed him this time.

Magnolia Estates was in the northwest corner of the flower-shaped town, and Randy headed back through the city center, and then headed southeast, toward Lilac Garden. Amber wondered if Randy was meeting a friend in one of the many tucked-away neighborhoods, but instead he pulled into Parking Lot C of the garden, and then casually strolled for the entrance.

Amber drove past the lot so Randy was less likely to make note of her car if she pulled in shortly after he had, but he had his attention focused on his phone screen anyway, his thumbs frantically tapping away. Once Amber had made a U-turn just past the lot and made her way back, Randy had already disappeared inside the garden.

Amber parked, checked her map to confirm that Randy was inside, and then climbed out. There were only four other cars parked here, all of them pickup trucks loaded down with gardening supplies.

Just as Amber was locking her door, another car swung into the lot. Moments later, Mayor Sable stepped out. The five-foot-four woman was dressed in black slacks, a silk maroon blouse with a smart black blazer buttoned over it, and a pair of low-heeled shoes that clicked with authority as she walked toward the garden’s entrance. Her short curly brown hair flapped a bit in the breeze as the woman marched along. Amber still stood by the closed driver’s side door of her car, watching the mayor over the roof, when Yvette Sable glanced over her shoulder at Amber. Amber swallowed a gasp before she remembered that she was Sienna Tate right now, not Amber Blackwood. Yvette’s brown eyes narrowed slightly behind her glasses.

“Good morning, Mayor Sable!” Amber said cheerily, but for reasons unknown, the greeting was tinged with an Irish accent. She blamed those Dungeons and Dragons players for putting the idea in her head! Why did she have to act even stranger than usual when she was nervous?

“Good morning!” Yvette said, waving a hand once. “Are you from out of town, miss? You may have a better time if you try lot B or A. There’s some work being done on this section of the garden today, so it may be a bit noisy. I’m here to oversee the work.”

“Ah, good ta know!” Amber said, her Irish accent growing heavier—perhaps it was even Scottish now. “Thank ye so much!”

Ugh. Why?

“Enjoy this beautiful day!” Yvette said, then continued on her way inside.

What sounded like a leaf blower roared to life beyond the wall of blue cypresses that lined the garden.

Was Randy here to oversee the work being done today, too? He was a land developer, after all.

Finally deciding to risk it, Amber did her best to look casual—Alan Peterson’s admonishments loud in her head—as she finally strolled under the metal archway reading, “Welcome to Lilac Garden!” The large sign outside had said that this garden was home to many “woody perennial” plants, such as lilacs.

Unlike Sorrel Garden, where the majority of the featured plants were leafy and green and low to the ground, this garden was full of flowering trees and shrubs. Most of the garden to the right of the path was untouched, but the left side had several men and women in matching khaki uniforms weeding, pruning, and planting. A man on a riding lawn mower tamed a large swath of wild vegetation.

Several hundred feet up the path, a trio of people stood talking. Randy Tillman, Mayor Sable, and Chief Daniels. Tillman was facing her direction, so she decided to attach her magical listening bug to him. Plus she’d been tailing him for three days, so now she felt like he owed her a reward for her creepy efforts.

While doing her best to look like an admirer of woody perennials, Amber conducted her listening spell. All that practice paid off, because almost instantly, she could hear their conversation.

And, thanks to the memory spell she’d used on Simon, she knew what Tillman sounded like even though she’d never formally met the man.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Tillman asked. “Isn’t it your job to know these things now, chief?”

“Watch your tone,” Daniels snapped. “And I mean exactly what I said. The plan was foolproof. Judge Harper is known for harsh sentences and high bail. The minimum should have been $250K. House arrest shouldn’t have even come up.”

“I talked to Harper this morning,” Yvette said. “He said it was as if he wasn’t in control of his mouth when he issued that sentence. He can’t explain why it happened either. There are four witness statements that all said the same thing. Simon had a well-known rivalry with Jameson. It should have worked.”

“Yeah, well, it didn’t,” Tillman said. “What do we do now?”

Amber sensed movement in the group and, worried one of them would see her trying to casually not watch them, she took out her phone and got up close and personal with a few flowers so the trio would think Amber was a flower enthusiast and nothing more.

Ignoring Tillman’s question, Daniels said, “Last night you said you did something stupid. That’s why we’re here, right? What’d you do?”

Tillman sighed. “I caught that Molly Hargrove woman snooping around my house last night.”

The other two were quiet for a long beat.

“And?” Yvette finally urged. “What was she doing when you caught her?”

“Rummaging around our trash cans like a tiny blonde raccoon,” Tillman said. “The cameras caught her, and I literally had to chase her off. She didn’t find anything, from what I could see, but—”

“The fact that she’s looking at all is cause for alarm,” Yvette said. “How does she even know who you are, though? It’s not like you’re in town that often, and you only moved into your rental, what, two weeks ago?”

“Is this where the stupid part comes in?” Daniels asked. “Women have a tendency to turn you into a complete buffoon, I’ll give you that.”

“I just flirted with her a little at Jameson’s dinner,” Tillman said, defensive.

“Your definition of ‘a little’ and mine are different, I’m guessing,” Yvette said.

“All I know is I was drunk enough to tell her about my sister-in-law’s birthday—she’s local—and that my wife, her sister, and both sets of kids were going to go out to celebrate, and that my wife was going to stay the night there. I hate her sister, so I planned to skip the whole thing. I may have let Molly know that I would be alone if she wanted to come by,” Tillman said. “I didn’t even remember telling her that. I woke up with no memory of it. I certainly wouldn’t have expected her to remember the date, let alone show up dressed to the nines with a bottle of wine in her hand.”

“Oh God,” Daniels said, and Amber could see him tip his head back and stare at the sky for a moment while he composed himself. “So how did it go from her showing up to seduce you and her going through your trash? Is it possible you actually did the right thing and sent her away and she resorted to the trash as a last-ditch effort?”

Amber could almost hear Tillman’s wince.

“I let her in. We had some wine. I think there might have been something in my wine though, because one minute we’re talking and flirting on the couch and the next minute, I’m waking up in a puddle of my own drool,” Tillman said, mild embarrassment giving way to anger. “I’ve got a makeshift office set up in the house and I found her in there going through my files. We had words, I ran her out of there, and I thought that was the end of it. Then half an hour later, I get an alert from the cameras that she’s going through my trash.”

It would figure that after all this time of watching Tillman, she’d missed last night’s excitement. Amber had packed it up after seven in the evening so she had seen Tillman’s wife leave, but not Molly’s arrival. This was partly because Amber needed to feed her cats, and partly because she had a crick in her neck from accidentally dozing off for a solid half hour in a weird position and was generally sick of hanging out in her car.

Amber really, really wasn’t meant to be a PI.

Yvette grunted. “Did she find anything? Is she going to be a problem for us?”

“I don’t know,” Tillman said, defeated now. “She’s got to have a source close to us otherwise she wouldn’t have been after me. I wasn’t dumb enough to mention anything to her about Stone Gate, I know that much.”

“You didn’t remember telling her what date your wife would be out of town,” Daniels said. “Who knows what else you told her. Your brain is rarely in the right place, man.”

“Try saying that directly to my face next time?” Tillman said. “This deal wouldn’t even have a snowball’s chance if it weren’t for me. My patience is running real thin with you. You may be the chief of police in this ridiculous little town now, but it’s not like you earned it. I’m not even sure you can handle it. In fact, I know you can’t.”

Amber glanced over to see tiny Yvette get in between the two men, a hand on either of their chests as she pushed them away from each other.

“We don’t have time for your testosterone-fueled nonsense right now.” When the men took several steps apart, Yvette lowered her arms. “We’re sure now that Jameson was Molly’s source, right?”

“The only proof we have of that is what Victoria apparently overheard,” Daniels said. “But yeah.”

“We need to find out what Molly actually knows,” Yvette said.

“She and Simon were in contact a lot up until the end, but we can’t get to him easily. That Wilson guy isn’t giving me anything,” Daniels said. “There’s some kind of internal investigation going on now since Simon’s sentencing threw everyone for a loop. Apparently there’s speculation that Simon or his lawyer paid the judge off somehow in exchange for a lesser sentence. So Simon is basically being watched round the clock—both for his own protection and for the protection of the town. Some of Simon’s other assigned officers are even more immovable than Wilson.”

“Definitely back off Simon,” Yvette said. “Last thing we need is for the spotlight to shift onto your department if rumor gets around that you’re fishing for information with Simon’s handlers. Bribery won’t work here either.”

It said a lot about Daniels as a person and a cop, and Yvette as a mayor, that he wasn’t even remotely fazed by her bringing up bribery as something in Daniels’s arsenal. Chief Brown would have been deeply offended even if it had been a joke.

“What we really need to know is what Jameson told Molly,” Tillman said. “Jameson wasn’t exactly the brightest crayon in the box—I can’t imagine it was much.”

“Molly was snooping in your house, Tillman,” Daniels said. “That woman is both whip smart and like a dog with a bone—but even someone as good as her can’t get started without being pointed in the right direction. I think Jameson knew more than we gave him credit for.”

Tillman cursed.

“We could have talked Jameson down if we had more time, you know. He was just so angry that night; I really don’t know what got into him,” Yvette said. “If we had offered him something he really wanted, we could have swayed him.”

“Yeah, well, Simon ruined that for us,” Daniels said.

“And now Molly might,” Yvette said.

“The gun is still safe, right?” Tillman asked.

“Yeah. No one would even think to check the storage unit,” said Daniels. “It’s not in any of our names. Ballistics could tie the gun to the bullet. That’s our best backup plan in the wake of this Molly debacle. Maybe you can invite her to lunch one afternoon. Make sure people see you. Maybe you start an argument in the restaurant—accuse her of coming onto you when you thought she wanted to interview you for a story. Storm out. Then we plant the gun in her car and have an anonymous tip called in that Molly came back to Jameson’s after he’d kicked everyone out. We could make something up—maybe Molly was Jameson’s jilted lover. Or she found out the information he’d been feeding her had been fabricated and she was furious that he’d strung her along for a story that she thought could restart her pathetic ‘career.’”

Amber’s stomach was doing a whole gymnastics routine. She did her best to keep her outward demeanor calm while she casually took a few more flower pictures.

“Molly has such a reputation for being a snake, so I don’t think anyone would question any of that,” Daniels said. “Plus, you have record that she was snooping in your trash. That’s more than enough circumstantial evidence to shift some of the heat onto Molly while we figure out what to do about Simon.”

Oh crap. I have to warn Molly.

“It’s not a bad idea,” Yvette said. “But I say we wait things out a little longer. We don’t want to act too quickly and show our hand. If we sit tight for long enough and keep our heads down, Simon will still go down for it, just not in the way we originally planned. His court date is less than two weeks away, and Harper is furious that Simon got such a ludicrously light sentence. There will be no lenience for Simon. This is a setback, yes, but we can improvise. We’re all smart, resourceful people.”

The men seemed to agree with that.

“Do we know if Simon’s remembered anything?” Yvette asked. “That will be the only thing that could truly throw a wrench in all this.”

“No clue, honestly,” Daniels said. “Wilson won’t help and my guys aren’t allowed in on the rotating shifts to keep an eye on the guy. Believe me; I’ve asked.”

“Could you talk to Bianca?” Tillman asked, turning toward Yvette. “You’re in contact because of the flower festival, aren’t you? Maybe butter her up and offer her extra resources for the festival in this turbulent time, yadda yadda yadda, and then ask how Simon is doing. Get two women talking and in five minutes you know each other’s life stories, right?”

“I could try,” Yvette said, though she didn’t sound remotely thrilled with the idea. “Bianca isn’t exactly the most forthcoming with personal information.”

“You’re supposedly charming though,” Tillman said, with no hint of either sarcasm or mirth. “You won your campaign. Charm the information out of her. Simon’s reduced sentence is very bad for us. All of us. We need him to go down for this or all our hard work goes out the window.”

I have to warn Bianca, too.

“Have either of you heard from Victoria?” Yvette asked. “She’s not answering my calls or emails.”

“Nope,” said Tillman. “Maybe she and Sullivan are on a late honeymoon.”

Daniels scoffed. “Like he could afford it. Last I heard, Sullivan is defending a guy with ties to the mafia. Victoria mentioned Sullivan’s been getting paranoid about security. If you ask me, it’s because her husband is a crap lawyer. He’s never won a single case! He’s likely going to lose this case like he’s lost all the others and then his client’s ticked off business associates are gonna come after him. She might just be lying low right now. What does it matter, though? She delivered. Even if her husband is a two-bit moron, she’s not. She’s a dry-labbing artist.”

What in the world is dry-labbing?

Amber’s head was spinning. She needed to sit down and process all of this. Instead, she moved down the path a few inches and took yet another close-up picture of a flower. She was going to run out of room on her phone at this rate.

“I gotta get home,” Tillman said. “I need a drink.”

Amber took that as her cue and headed for the exit. She cut off the listening spell and there were a few blissful seconds of her head being empty of all voices—then her own filled the space with various takes on “Oh crap. Oh crap. Oh crap!”

When she finally got into her car, the first person she called wasn’t Bianca Pace or Molly Hargrove.

As the sound of the phone ringing played through the speakers, Amber did her best to get out of the lot before the trio made it out of the garden. She didn’t want to see any of their faces.

No matter which of them pulled the trigger, Amber knew they were all complicit now.

“Hi, Amber,” Chief Brown said. “What can I do for you?”

“I may have just conducted a spying spell on Mayor Sable, Chief Daniels, and Randy Tillman and Simon was definitely framed,” Amber said in a rush.

He was silent for a beat.

“Come to the station,” he said, his tone weary. “I’ll make more coffee.”

Chapter 19

Amber walked into the police station, waved in greeting to Dolores, aka Sour Face, and moved toward the hallway leading to Chief Brown’s office, only to have Dolores stop her with a “Ma’am! Where do you think you’re going?”

Halting in her tracks, Amber suddenly remembered that she was still the redheaded Sienna Tate, not the brown-haired Amber Blackwood. She reversed course and stopped before Dolores’s desk. The woman scowled at Amber. At least Amber knew now that Dolores had a disdain for people in general, and not just her specifically.

“Och,” Amber said, that infernal now-Scottish accent becoming even more over-the-top. The whole of the United Kingdom was likely offended at this point. “I beg ye pardon, miss. I have an appointment with the chief of police, I do.”

Dolores cocked a single blonde brow, as if she could see right through Amber’s glamour and already had enough of her nonsense. “One moment. I’ll see if he’s available.” She plucked the phone from its cradle on the desk without taking her eyes off Amber. “What did you say your name was again?” she asked as she slowly brought the receiver to her ear.

“I’m called Sienna, ma’am,” Amber said. “Sienna Tate.”

Dolores sniffed once, as if she were a bloodhound trying to scent out the lie. “Hi, chief,” she said into the phone, eyes still fixed on Amber. “I’ve got a Sienna Tate here to see you.” Dolores put a hand over the mouthpiece. “And what is this regarding?”

Crap. Amber had forgotten to tell Chief Brown about her new stakeout persona; he didn’t know the name Sienna Tate. “Ah, tell him I’m here on account of the kerfuffle with the peppermint farmer.”

Dolores stared at her a beat. “The peppermint farmer …”

“Ay,” Amber said. “Ye could also tell ’im tha’ there be a trio of people who are up ta something right shifty.”

Dolores blinked once. “Are you drunk, ma’am? I think I need to ask you to leave.”

“I am not drunk, I assure ye!” Amber said, though she thought she very well could give the rum-loving Jack Sparrow a run for his money right now. “Ah! I’ve just come from Lilac Garden, I have! Tell the good chief that.”

“Why don’t you wait in the lob—”

Just then, Chief Brown poked his head around the corner. “Come on back, Sienna.”

Amber and Dolores both flinched at his sudden arrival. Dolores hung up the phone and crossed her arms, then her gaze flitted back and forth between the chief and this very strange redhead.

“I thank ye kindly for ye hospitality,” Amber said to Dolores and doffed an imaginary hat.

When Amber turned to follow the chief, he stared at her with his lip slightly curled. Then he seemed to remember what was happening here, thanked Dolores, and headed back for his office. Amber followed quickly behind.

Once the door was closed and locked behind them, the chief got right in her face and whisper-hissed, “What on earth is the matter with you? Why are you talking like that?”

“I don’t know!” she said, the accent drawing out her o’s like stretched taffy.

He reared back a little, as if she’d just insulted his mother. “Stop it!”

Amber flinched slightly, then heaved out a breath. She needed to get a grip. Rolling her shoulders back, she very slowly said, “Sorry. Glamour spells make me panic and then I act even weirder than usual.” Her voice was back to normal.

“I honestly didn’t think weirder was possible,” he said, as he moved away from the door and toward his desk. There was the barest hint of a smile on his face.

“Rude,” Amber said, but his gentle teasing made her relax a little more. This was familiar territory.

Taking a seat behind his desk, he gestured for her to sit on the other side. “Start at the beginning, I guess. Like why you’re currently wearing yet another face.”

Instead of sitting, Amber began to pace. She told him about Sienna, Molly Hargrove’s visit to Randy Tillman’s house, and the conversation Amber overheard at Lilac Garden.

The chief didn’t say a word through all of it; the only hint of movement came from his eyes as he tracked her from one side of the room to the other.

When Amber finally paused long enough to catch her breath, the chief said, “Oh boy. Okay, there’s a lot to unpack here. Let’s start with dry-labbing. Do you know what that is?”

“You do?” Amber asked, finally taking a seat.

“Dry-labbing means a lab tech issues a report about a tested sample that never actually got tested,” he said. “There have been handfuls of cases over the years of techs making a practice of falsifying test results. It’s usually because the tech is overworked and under pressure to clear as many test kits off his or her plate, so the tech starts cutting corners.”

“Wouldn’t large-scale dry-labbing screw up all kinds of cases, though?” Amber asked. “I mean, cutting corners is one thing, but to do it at a lab where the results could mean someone is arrested or convicted?”

The chief nodded. “It’s a nightmare. Convictions have to be overturned due to inaccurate evidence. Innocent people get sentenced for things they didn’t do. Even if the tech wasn’t being outwardly malicious, dry-labbing can cause a major ripple effect. And worse still, every once and a while, you get a tech who is bribed into falsifying records—which sounds like what this Victoria woman has been doing.”

“Which likely means Simon’s blood alcohol results aren’t true. Bianca said he doesn’t drink,” Amber said. “If he really was roofied, would that show up in his blood? Is it just a matter of making sure the sample actually gets tested now?”

“Rohypnol breaks down in the bloodstream fairly quickly,” the chief said. “It’s one of the reasons it’s a favorite drug among criminals: hard to trace. If the blood sample hasn’t already been destroyed, it may be possible to get an outside lab to run a second set of tests on the blood. Normally one would go to the head of police or even the mayor to request such a thing, but we don’t have that option right now. This is both out of my immediate jurisdiction, and the two people with the most power in Marbleglen right now are both part of the cover-up. Simon’s lawyer can keep trying to make formal requests for a second test, but I have a sneaking suspicion the sample has already disappeared. That, or his lawyer is currently leaping through an endless amount of bureaucratic hoops.”

“So you’re saying we shouldn’t do anything?” Amber asked.

He cut her a sidelong look. “You know me better than that by now. I say we encourage Simon’s lawyer to keep trying to get another lab to test Simon’s blood, but we should also explore as many other options as we can.”

Satisfied with that, Amber nodded. “I should warn Molly, right? They might try to take her down too.”

“They might, yes, but as Yvette said, it’s currently in all their best interests not to act, so we have some time,” he said. “One problem with warning her about this is the matter of her reputation. She’s been called a ‘relentless snake.’ Tillman, Daniels, and Sable all have a hand in this, and they all seem perfectly content with not only the murder of an officer, but the framing of an innocent man. We don’t know what level of alliance they have for each other, or how far any of them would go in the name of self-preservation. At this point, we have to assume all three are dangerous. Throwing an equally volatile Molly Hargrove into the mix may be a bad move.”

Amber agreed. “Are we basically up a creek unless we find that storage unit, then? If Simon never gets his memories back and no additional evidence is presented, he’ll end up in County again and likely won’t see the outside world unless it’s through the spaces between the bars in his cell.”

Apparently unfazed by her grim outlook on Simon’s future, the chief said, “Can you use one of your locator spells to find the unit?”

“Not without more information. I don’t know whose name the unit is under and I have no idea where it is,” Amber said. “It might be in Marbleglen. It might be in Edgehill. Or it might not be in Oregon at all.”

The chief sighed deeply. After a moment, he grabbed his desk phone out of its cradle, put in a call, and then hit the speaker button.

“Reyes speaking.”

“Hey, Juan,” the chief said. “This is Owen.”

“Hey, man,” Reyes said. “Sorry, been meaning to call you. So … I got in contact with my FBI buddies and it turns out they’ve had their eye on Daniels for a while. He’s been in Marbleglen for going on a decade, but before that, he’d gotten caught up in a case in Florida that involved fraud, stealing from evidence lockers, and even a key witness disappearing the night before he was supposed to testify in court. Daniels was still a relatively new officer then, and it turned out that his supervisor got most of the heat for it anyway. Daniels lawyered up, the charges were eventually dropped, and he skipped town. He’s bounced from job placement to job placement since then, but Marbleglen stuck with him for some reason. Possibly because Jameson was a bit shady himself and turned a blind eye to a lot of the crap that happens in the department here.”

Chief Brown looked ten kinds of disgusted. “They going to help keep an eye on him?”

“Yeah. I told them I’ve got a reliable source telling me Daniels is up to something again, so they’ll be here in the next few days,” Reyes said. “They told me to just keep watching him and if things escalate, they can be here in an hour, max.”

“Thanks,” the chief said. “Knowing there’s one good apple in that bunch makes me feel better.”

Reyes chuckled. “Oh, hey, how’re Jessica and Sammy?”

“Good, good. I tell you we just had our second? Isabelle.”

“Congratulations! Flora is pregnant with our first,” Reyes said. “She’s due in October. That scares me more than anything on this job ever has.”

“As it should!” the chief said. “We’ll talk soon, all right? Give my best to Flora.”

“You got it. Same with Jess.”

The chief hung up, smiling softly to himself. Amber was so grateful in that moment that Edgehill had someone like Chief Brown watching out for them, and not someone like Chief Daniels.

“Would it be helpful if I did a locator spell on Daniels, Tillman, and Sable?” Amber asked now. “I could even add Molly. That way you wouldn’t have to use any of your resources to keep tabs on them.”

“That could work until we come up with a more solid plan, yeah,” he said. “Could you mark all the storage unit facilities on maps in Edgehill, Marbleglen, and Belhaven? If any of the dots travel to one of those locations, we’ll know someone is likely going after the gun.”

“No problem.”

“Good,” he said, nodding. “What do you need in order to add Victoria’s dot to the map?”

“An object that belongs to her would be ideal,” Amber said. “But a picture likely would be enough.”

“All right,” he said. “It should be relatively easy to find her if she works at a local lab. I’ll track her down. I do recommend that you warn Bianca that Mayor Sable is going to try to cozy up to her to get information about the status of Simon’s memory.”

Amber nodded. “Okay.”

“Short of a confession,” the chief said, “locating the murder weapon might be our best chance here to at least take some of the heat off Simon. Perhaps you can have a few people who can help you keep tabs on that map? It’ll be like having a stakeout in your living room.”

“I could totally be a PI if I rarely had to leave my apartment,” Amber said. “All my snacks are there! And yeah, I have three or four people who could help.”

“Great. Get started on that, and I’ll let you know when I find Sullivan,” the chief said.

She felt the urge to yell “Break!” to end their football-like huddle but opted to just say her goodbyes and leave. She felt far steadier about this than she had when she’d left Lilac Garden, the conversation between Tillman, Daniels, and Sable still ringing in her head. Three people who had power and money and had used that power and money to cover up the fact that they’d killed one man and framed another.

Walking past Dolores’s desk, Amber raised a hand in farewell. Then that newly acquired steadiness flew out the window as she said, “Top o’ the evening to ya, lass!”

Face on fire, she fled the building.

Later that evening, Amber’s studio apartment was as packed as it had ever been. Jack, Kim, Bianca, Edgar, and Amber sat around the dining room table, which had hurriedly been cleared of Amber’s animated toys in various stages of completion. If Willow didn’t get to Edgehill soon, Amber wasn’t sure she would be able to get all the orders done in time for the festival.

But that was a worry for another day.

In the middle of the table, Amber had laid out three maps—the Belhaven one had been brought over by Kim an hour before. The maps were laid out top to bottom, starting at the head of the table, with Marbleglen at the top, Edgehill in the middle, and Belhaven at the bottom.

For an hour, Kim had helped Amber find as many storage facilities in the three towns as they could, marking each of them on the maps with a black X. Just before the rest of the group—Edgar, Jack, and Bianca—had arrived, Amber had conducted her four locator spells, resulting in four dots popping up on the map. The only one that had taken a few tries had been Molly.

At the moment, Amber only knew which dot belonged to which person because of their current locations, but since they were all the same color, it would be easy to lose track of which was which if she took her eyes off the map for too long. She wondered if she could glamour the dots to give each one a distinguishing feature.

Amber stood at the end of the table with the Belhaven map closest to her, and began her explanation of the task at hand, filling everyone in on what she’d overheard at Lilac Garden. Kim’s eyes were wide through the whole presentation, though Amber had told her most of it already.

Edgar remained his stoic, expressionless self. Jack alternated between watching Amber and the dots on the map with intense focus.

Bianca had kept her composure until Amber confirmed that Bianca’s father had been drugged and framed for murder. Then she started to pace the small apartment. No one said anything to her, somehow all sensing that the woman was clearly still listening but needed to keep moving.

“Chief Brown thinks finding the gun is our best chance right now. We’ll be doing low-budget surveillance on everyone for him until he and his colleagues come up with a plan,” Amber said. “So I’m wondering if you all will help me watch the map in shifts. During the day, if one of you can be up here watching the map during my shifts, that would help a lot. And on the weekends, when Kim, Bianca, and I are at the float barn, if one of you guys could be here, that would help too. I hardly sleep as it is, so I can take care of the evening watch.”

Jack and Kim frowned at that last part.

Bianca said, “I hardly sleep either. If you need a break one night, call me. I’ll probably be up.”

Edgar nodded. “Same.”

“Kim and I have to be at the float barn from ten until four tomorrow,” Amber said.

“Me too,” said Bianca.

“Ten? That’s so early to be out of the house,” Edgar said, groaning.

Jack laughed. “I can do ten until one or so, if you can do one till four?”

With another nod, Edgar said, “Done.”

After working out a schedule for the rest of the week, the group slowly dispersed. Bianca left first, Edgar second—after a brief conversation with Kim, who fluttered her eyelashes a lot and giggled even more—and then Kim.

When they were alone, Jack sat on the couch and motioned for Amber to join him. Once she did, he turned to face her, an elbow propped up on the back.

“Want to talk about this whole not sleeping thing?” he asked.

Amber sighed. “I just have Kieran nightmares sometimes. A … lot of times.”

“What happens in them?”

“Mostly just reliving what happened,” she said, hand absently rubbing her throat.

“That happened almost two months ago,” he said slowly. “It’s been happening for that long? Does it happen every night?”

Amber chewed her bottom lip and cast her gaze around the room. She startled when his hand pulled hers from her throat. He sandwiched her palm between his.

“Did they get worse when my memory spell broke?” he asked.

Her attention shifted to him, wondering how he’d figured that out.

“That zap was pretty strong,” he said. “It wouldn’t be surprising if it shook memories loose for you, too. I’m …” He sighed. “I’m sorry. I feel like this is my fault, too. If I hadn’t freaked out on you, the memory spell wouldn’t have happened, and the zap wouldn’t have happened, and you wouldn’t be an insomniac now.”

Amber’s chest ached at the crestfallen look on his face—the way his brows were jammed so close together, they almost fused. She reached out a finger and smoothed that giant wrinkle out of his forehead. “The nightmares happened before that. They got a little more intense after the zap—” His brows bunched up again and she reached out again to smooth them back into place. “But you didn’t cause them, okay? Don’t feel guilty.”

He nodded once, but she knew she couldn’t smooth away his guilt the same way she could the worry lines marring his forehead. His gaze was focused on her hand still sandwiched between his.

“Do you have a little time to hang out?” she asked. “Because I was thinking we could remedy that problem of you being a season behind in Vamp World.”

“Sounds perfect.”

Jack was in charge of popcorn while Amber set up her laptop on the coffee table. One day she would get an actual TV.

With the lights off, a bowl of popcorn between them, and a cat curled up on either side of them, Jack draped an arm around Amber’s shoulder as the credits for episode one started. Amber settled against him.

Sunlight cascading over her face woke her, and she stirred, disoriented. The pillow beneath her head wasn’t her usual down-stuffed one. This one was a bit unforgiving—and it breathed. It was Jack’s chest. She’d been sleeping on Jack Terrence’s chest and her legs were tangled with his and how on earth had this happened?

Amber did her best to look over her shoulder without waking him—partly because Alley’s body was curled up close enough to Jack’s face that if Amber startled the cat, Alley might either horribly maim Jack or, at the very least, smother him. Her laptop sat open on her coffee table, the screen dark. The empty popcorn bowl sat beside it. Tom was curled up by their feet.

As she returned her attention to the sleeping man she was practically on top of, said man stirred, then yawned. Alley grumbled, but merely got up, stretched, then silently hopped to the ground, presumably to finish her dozing on the window bench seat now that the sun was up and the fabric was warm.

Amber noticed the moment Jack realized he wasn’t at home asleep on his own couch, because he froze so abruptly mid-yawn, that he almost choked on it.

“Oh!” he said, then relaxed beneath her and offered her a goofy, still-groggy smile. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” she said, face flushed.

Jack reached up to smooth away a few wayward strands of her undoubtedly wild bedhead. The way he looked at her made her feel warm and fuzzy, but also made her want to run screaming from the room. She knew Jack would never make the same choice again—to have her erased from his memory—but the fact that he’d made that choice even once would likely always haunt her. The intense desire she had to trust him scared her more than anything. She knew the risks of dating a non-witch. She had lived through it with her ex, Max, and then again with Jack, and yet she wanted to risk the potential heartbreak all over again. Walking headlong into something with her eyes wide open to what was at stake was somehow even more terrifying than walking in blind.

“Did we even make it through episode one?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Did we eat the popcorn? Did it vanish into thin air? I swear I don’t remember anything that happened after the opening credits,” she said, hoping her morning breath wasn’t as out of control as her hair.

“Me either,” he said. “See, told you I was a party animal. Put this old man in front of a screen after eight in the evening and I’m out like a light.”

She laughed. But then the rest of the evening—what had led to Jack being in her apartment in the first place—caught up with her and she sobered quickly. “Oh no! We left the maps unattended all night.”

Jack winced. “Crap.” He didn’t make any attempts to move, though, and the sudden light pressure of his hand on her back halted her from getting up either. “It took us all of an hour to fall down on the job.”

He had one arm wrapped around her, his hand flat on her back, presumably to keep her from pitching off the side of the rather small couch and onto the floor. All she wanted to do was to lie back down, rest her head on his warm chest, and sleep for another ten or twenty hours. The look on his face now told her he wasn’t remotely concerned about what was happening on the maps.

“Did you sleep okay?” he asked.

Amber hadn’t had a single nightmare. She’d slept through the night. She’d slept better than she had in a long while, honestly.

When she smiled, he did too.

“As a matter of fact,” she said, “I did.”

Chapter 20

Jack fed the cats, then made breakfast while Amber took a shower. Since he was taking the ten-to-one shift to keep an eye on the maps while she was at the float barn today, once they’d eaten and he placed a kiss on her forehead, he’d taken off to go home, shower, and grab a few things. She forbade him from watching Vamp World without her, both because she wanted to watch it with him and because she didn’t trust him not to pass out again.

While Amber was tidying up—suddenly very self-conscious about Jack being left alone in her apartment for several hours—Kim called her. “Hey, Kim.”

“Oh my God, Amber, hi!” The loud whine of an electric power tool came through the phone. “My car is at the shop. Dang thing wouldn’t start this morning.”

“Need me to pick you up?” Amber asked. “Jack should be back by 9:30.” Then she froze when she realized what she’d said.

A bell chimed on the other end of the phone, followed by a door clanking shut, and the hurried breaths of her friend. Amber pictured Kim slamming her way out of the mechanic shop and speed walking outside to the curb so she was out of earshot. “What do you mean ‘be back’?” Then she gasped. “Did Jack Terrence spend the night?”

Amber felt herself flush from head to toe. “Kind of?”

“Kind of?” Kim nearly shrieked. “I need all the details. Immediately.”

“We fell asleep on the couch together. That’s it! But I kind of woke up on top of him and I still can’t figure out how that happened,” Amber said.

“Oh my God,” Kim said. “Guess the cure for insomnia is some cuddle action. Do you think Edgar needs that?”

“Please never say ‘cuddle action’ ever again,” Amber said, laughing. “And I don’t know what Edgar needs. It’s very hard to think of him cuddling anything but a video game controller.”

“I could get into that,” Kim said. “Wait, so does that mean no one watched the maps all night?”

Amber wrinkled her nose. “Right. Hopefully they didn’t stage a raid on a storage unit in the middle of the night. But the last I checked, each dot was where it was supposed to be. Well, all except Molly who seems to be darting all over the place like a hummingbird. The cats had to be shooed off the table about ten times this morning to keep them from pouncing on the dot as if it were a bug,” she said.

“Ha!” Kim said. “Okay then. I’m at Kat’s Car Shop whenever you’re ready. Assuming you don’t lose track of the time when Jack shows up for cuddle action round two.” Then she cackled like she was the world’s funniest comedian.

Amber hung up on her.

She checked on the maps every twenty minutes or so. The Daniels dot eventually moved to the police station, and the mayor dot went from her house to the city center and stayed there. Tillman seemed to be a homebody most of the time and hadn’t left Magnolia Estates all morning. Molly was still moving all over town—what was curious was she seemed to be in Edgehill as much as she was in Marbleglen.

When Jack arrived a little before 9:30, Amber made sure he had everything he needed, planted a kiss on his cheek, flushed from head to foot again, and then hurried downstairs.

Ben and Lily were manning the store for the morning shift. With Ben busy behind the counter, Amber pulled Lily aside.

“Jack Terrence is up in the studio now,” Amber said. “My cousin Edgar will be by around one to relieve him.”

Lily cocked a brow.

Right. Amber forgot to include details—details she couldn’t actually give Lily. So she made them up. “Tom Cat is a little under the weather. The vet says he’ll be okay, but someone should be around to supervise him for the next couple days to make sure he doesn’t have any adverse effects to the medicine.”

“Oh no!” Lily said. “Well, if you ever need some extra help, just let me know. It wouldn’t be a problem, since we’re already here.”

“That’s very sweet of you to offer,” Amber said. “I think we’re covered for now—plus Tom is so shy with people he doesn’t know that well.”

Lily nodded. “My Butterscotch is the exact same way. Well, I’m glad you and Tom have help, and I’m here in a pinch if you need me.”

“You’re the best,” Amber said, feeling terrible about the lie, and then scurried for the door, waving goodbye to Ben as she went.

Kim was sitting in one of the white plastic chairs in front of the mechanic shop’s front window, eyes focused on her phone and large purse clutched in her lap, when Amber arrived. Kim looked up, beamed, and hurried to climb into the car. “Oh my God, thank you! They said it would take all day to figure out what’s wrong with it. My guess is it’s because it’s twenty years old.”

“Well, if it ends up being too expensive to fix, we should go car shopping together,” Amber said as she pulled out of the lot and headed for Marbleglen. “I can’t drive this rental forever.”

“Oh my God, we totally should,” said Kim. “You can use your magic to make sure all the salesmen are honest with us and aren’t trying to weasel us into getting extras we don’t need just because we’re women.”

Amber didn’t hate the idea.

For most of the drive, Kim had been talking about the trials and tribulations of the seemingly never-ending list of things she still had to do for the Here and Meow, but as Amber pulled up to the box outside Magnolia Estates, Kim grew quiet.

“That’s Tillman’s house,” Amber said as they cruised past 86 Cylindrica Lane. The garage doors were closed, and no cars sat in the driveway. Amber wondered if the Tillman dot was still fixed at the house.

“It’s so weird to be in on the details of an active murder investigation and I can’t tell anyone!” Kim said. “I don’t know how you do this.”

Amber laughed nervously. “I never meant for this to become a hobby of mine, honest.”

They arrived at the float barn a little after ten, and there were already dozens of cars lined up outside. Amber hadn’t seen the floats since last Sunday, when she’d left at four p.m. just before the second wave of volunteers had arrived. In Amber’s memory, the floats were merely massive structures made of twisted-wire bodies and plastic, only decorated in patches with flowers, seeds, and bark. The bodies of the floats themselves made it clear what they’d eventually be, at least: there was a park with a weeping willow in the center, which was populated by insects, a couple bunnies, a handful of birds, and, of course flowers; a meadow of the town’s famous marbled rhododendrons; and the Edgehill float featuring three giant cats.

Amber could only recall rows and rows and rows of black onion seeds. So many onion seeds. So many, in fact, that it felt impossible to see the forest for the trees. Or the float for the seeds, she supposed.

What made it even harder to imagine was the fact that they only had this weekend and the next to finish the floats in time for the opening ceremonies for both festivals. Only three weeks until the Here and Meow. Amber could hardly believe it. Every year it felt as if it took ages for the festival to take place again, and then once it did, it felt as if it had snuck up on her.

After a short trek from the car to the float barn, Amber and Kim came up short at the same time. Even from here, Amber could see how much work the second wave of volunteers had done to the floats. One of the cats was nearly done, its large, sweet face smiling at them from inside the barn. Mostly black “fur” was striped through with a few lines of white. A white triangle-shaped patch covered the cat’s nose and half its cheeks, the rest of its face black. From a distance, the black onion seeds were a solid wall of color—similar to a pointillist painting.

The massive trunk of the willow on the leftmost float was completely covered in pieces of brown bark. The top of the tree would need to be added once the float was wheeled out of the barn, she thought, as it might be too tall to clear the roof. At the front of the float, like the figurehead on a ship, sat a giant white mushroom with large red circles decorating its cap. An all-black beetle about the size of a small dog was perched on top, a pair of curved horns sprouting from its head. As Amber got closer, she could see that green, blue, and purple were mixed in with the black—both on its back and the underside of the beetle’s belly—to mimic iridescence.

The middle float had several completed marbled rhododendrons on it and Amber could see now that the back half of the float was being covered in blue flower pieces of varying shades to represent the water of Lake Myrtle.

“Okay, this is all super cool,” Kim admitted under her breath.

Amber couldn’t argue.

Chloe Deidrick, several of her friends, and Ann Marie were already decked out in aprons, fast at work on the cat float. Amber and Kim quickly donned aprons of their own and joined them. Bianca, Nathan, and Jolene all arrived in the next ten minutes.

Harlo brought a small stereo with him this time and had music blasting through the barn for most of the morning, everyone in good spirits as they worked diligently while bouncing along to the steady stream of pop music echoing around them.

When noon rolled around and lunch was delivered, Amber was surprised that two hours had already gone by. She was, however, practically covered in glue, and her fingers were dotted with black again thanks to the onion seeds that were going to haunt her nightmares alongside Kieran. Maybe he’d just be covered in them now while he screamed at her about the Henbane grimoire.

While Amber and the Here and Meow group stood in line for sandwiches—mostly discussing Ann Marie’s upcoming date that night with Alan Peterson—someone in a group of chatting teenagers said, “What’s Chief Daniels doing here?”

Amber and Kim shared a wide-eyed look, then turned toward the makeshift parking lot. Sure enough, walking up the road were both Chief Daniels and Randy Tillman.

“Uh oh …” Amber muttered. Then she nudged Kim and said, “The other one is Tillman.”

“Shut the front door!” Kim hissed, then quickly looked away.

Amber decided the best thing to do would be to do nothing at all. Their presence very well could have nothing to do with her. Maybe they were both parade float nerds and had just come to check out the progress the group had been making.

The line inched forward. Amber was only two people away from the start of the buffet of sandwich fixings. Her stomach rumbled.

They aren’t here because of you. You have a turkey sandwich with your name on it. Just two more people. They aren’t here because of you.

“Hello, everyone,” Chief Daniels said, stopping a few feet away from the line. He held a black leather portfolio binder, about the size of a clipboard. He held it to his chest with one arm. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’m looking for the owner of a four-door silver Nissan Sentra.”

Which was the make and model of Amber’s car. But there very well could be other Sentras in the parking lot.

“It appears to be a rental,” Daniels added.

Crap.

“And there’s what looks like box of plastic cats in the back seat.”

Double crap.

Sighing, Amber shrugged at a very concerned-looking Kim, and then stepped out of line. “I think that’s mine,” she said to Daniels.

Both men gave Amber an assessing head-to-toe scan.

“Can you come with me, Miss …” Daniels said.

“Blackwood,” Amber said, then headed for the pair. She could feel everyone’s eyes on her back as she walked away. “What’s this about, officer?” she asked once they had moved away from the float barn and were likely out of earshot of the others.

Daniels didn’t reply. Tillman had yet to say a word.

Daniels came to a stop behind Amber’s car before he said anything. “Can you read me your license plate number, Miss Blackwood?” He held his portfolio in one hand and unzipped it.

After a beat, Amber unnecessarily read off the plate number to him.

“How long have you been renting this vehicle?” he asked, peering into his portfolio and making a show of flipping through the papers inside.

Lie to me, the action said. I dare you.

“About a month,” she said.

“Has anyone other than yourself had access to your vehicle?” he asked, his attention still focused on whatever was in the portfolio. Tillman stood nearby, hands behind his back as he watched this exchange without expression on his handsome face.

“Not that I know of,” Amber said with a sigh, knowing her tone was growing more annoyed by the second with whatever this charade was, but unable to stop it.

Daniels looked up then, clutching the portfolio in front of his lap. “I’m sorry, Miss Blackwood, is this an inconvenient time for you?”

Amber blew a slow breath out of her nose. “Not at all. What would you like to know about the car?”

He stared at her, then started to rifle through his portfolio again. Amber resisted the urge to use a wind spell to knock his feet out from underneath him. He took out a stack of what Amber immediately knew were photographs. Handing them over, he said, “Do you know the woman in this photo?”

There were five of them—all of them Sienna Tate in Amber’s car. Her first thought was that the no-smudge spell was powerful indeed if even a camera captured her altered features. The quality of the pictures wasn’t crisp in many of them; Amber guessed several had been taken by cell phone cameras. While the license plate wasn’t always clear in the semi-grainy black-and-white photos, Sienna behind the wheel was. Cute button nose; freckles across her nose, cheeks, and forehead; and two long braids that hung over either shoulder. There was one of Sienna sleeping, her head back and mouth open. Two of her being occupied by something on her phone. One of her talking into the phone. And the fifth was of Sienna halfway to taking a very large bite of a sandwich.

Her face was practically on fire. While Amber had been keeping tabs on Tillman, someone had been keeping tabs on her. She supposed at least a few of these had been taken by Tillman himself, but who had taken the others?

Alan Peterson would be so disappointed.

“Can you read me the license plate clearly visible in the third photograph, Miss Blackwood?”

Doing her best to keep her annoyance in check, she said, “It’s the same as mine.”

“Indeed. So … who is she?”

“Sorry,” Amber said, handing the pictures back. “I don’t know.”

Daniels took them back and slipped them into his portfolio, which he zipped up, each tooth slotting into place at an infuriatingly slow pace. Then he held the closed case in front of him again. “How do you explain someone you don’t know being in the car you’ve been renting for a month? Has some mystery woman been stealing your car at all hours without you noticing?”

Amber didn’t know how to respond.

“I saw her outside my house one day,” Tillman finally said. “She was loitering in the neighborhood for hours. Then a few days later, I went to Lilac Garden to go on a run with my dog, and she followed me there.”

Amber hoped her expression didn’t betray her rapidly thumping heart and clammy hands.

“I’m here on very important business and it wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to interfere with my work,” Tillman said with the air of someone who kept state secrets.

“If you’re covering for someone who might want to do harm to Mr. Tillman, it’s best you speak up now, Miss Blackwood,” Daniels said. “If it turns out later that this woman is a relative or a friend and something happens to Mr. Tillman, you’ll be considered an accessory to the crime.”

Amber knew he was just trying to scare her. Perhaps if she hadn’t known what the man—what both men—were capable of, it would have worked. She turned her focus on Tillman. “You make it sound like she’s an assassin or something. What do you do, Mr. Tillman, that your life seems to be in such danger?”

Daniels spoke up before Tillman could. “You’re not really in a position to ask questions, Miss Blackwood.” He unzipped his portfolio again and took out a business card. “If this mystery woman materializes, give me a call, okay?”

Amber took the card. “Will do.”

Daniels nodded at her, motioned at Tillman with an incline of his head, and then walked away. But Tillman didn’t immediately follow him. Instead, Tillman took another step toward Amber, taking his time letting his gaze rove her face. The fact that he looked like just he’d stepped off a Hollywood set made him even more unnerving.

“I don’t know what your tie is to this person,” he said in a low tone that sounded oddly sensual, given both the location and the circumstances, “but just know that I’m a very, very wealthy man. You tell me who she is and your bank account will suddenly have enough money in it that you can return that hunk of junk of a rental, buy your pretty little self something flashy, and have enough left over to keep you comfortable for a nice long while.” He took a step back, and Amber could almost feel his energy leave her orbit. He grinned a leading-man smile at her. “Think about it, okay?”

He walked away without waiting for a response.

Amber shuddered out a breath. Neither man had threatened her, not really. Yet their presence here alone completely freaked her out. They’d be watching her now. Or her car, at least.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been standing there when Kim rushed up to her.

“Oh my God, Amber!” Kim said, startling Amber out of her thoughts. “What happened?”

“Alan Peterson was apparently very accurate when he said I was terrible at being inconspicuous,” Amber said.

Kim’s gaze shifted toward the retreating vehicle for a moment, and then something seemed to click for her, because her brows hiked toward her hairline and she said, “Time to buy a new car?”

Amber nodded. “Time to buy a new car.”

Chapter 21

At four, Amber and Kim wished Ann Marie good luck on her date, said goodbye to everyone, and then hightailed it to Salem. Amber called Edgar on the way.

“Nothing exciting has happened all day—Jack said the same thing. Molly is in Edgehill a lot though,” Edgar said in lieu of a greeting, his voice ringing out through the car’s speakers. “A couple hours ago, the Daniels dot was in Magnolia Estates with Tillman, but he was only there for forty-five minutes and then Daniels left again.”

“I know,” Amber said. “They both came to see me.”

Edgar was silent, but she could almost hear his expression: those thick black brows of his jammed together on his forehead in consternation. So she quickly explained the encounter.

“You need a new car,” he said.

“We’re actually on our way to Salem now to do that,” Amber said. “Can you watch the maps and the cats for a while longer?”

“Sure,” he said. “I’m in the process of getting you better Wi-Fi anyway and could use a little more time. Yours operates at the speed of a dead snail. It’s very sad. And how do you not have a screen in this entire shoebox that’s bigger than thirteen inches? Playing Sniper Patrol on a screen this small hurts my heart on a level I can’t properly describe.”

“You’re very dramatic,” she said.

“Wait … you said we. Who is we?” Edgar asked.

“Hey, Edgar,” Kim said in a voice much softer and more subdued than usual.

“Oh. Oh, hey, Kim.”

The silence that settled over the car made Amber’s skin itch.

“Okay, bye!” Edgar said quickly and the call went dead.

“Ugh!” Kim groaned, throwing her head back against the headrest. “He gets me so flustered!”

“You fluster him too, clearly,” Amber said.

Kim turned in her seat as much as her seatbelt would allow. “Do you mean it?”

Laughing, Amber said, “The thing you have to know about Edgar is that he’s made up of absolutes. He’s absolutely loyal, he’s absolutely honest, and he’s absolutely terrible with people. So that means if he didn’t like you, he would just very bluntly tell you that he wasn’t interested. He wouldn’t do it to hurt you; he just wouldn’t want to waste your time. So the fact that he’s acting like a total weirdo means he’s interested.”

Even without looking at her, Amber could tell Kim was grinning.

“But he’s been through a lot—is still going through a lot—so my guess is, he’s terrified that he’s interested. Whether it’s because you’re a non-witch—I know you don’t care about that,” Amber was quick to add when she sensed the protest rising up in her friend. “Or because he feels like he’s such a mess that he doesn’t want to force someone else to weather the storm with him, I don’t know. All I can say is if you’re really interested, just be patient with him. It took years to get him to let me in, and we’ve been in each other’s lives in some capacity since I was twelve.”

Amber quickly glanced over to try to get a read on Kim’s expression, but her face didn’t reveal much.

“He’s a great guy, and would be worth the fight,” Amber said. “But it’ll be a rollercoaster and a half getting there.”

Kim nodded at that. “Good to know.”

By the time they arrived at a Toyota dealership, Amber and Kim had switched to the topic at hand: how to not get taken to the cleaners by a salesman. The last time Amber had purchased a car had been five years ago, and she’d had Aunt Gretchen with her. Amber had nervously wrung her hands while her spitfire of an aunt did all the hard work. Amber’s contribution had been making a decision between black and slate gray.

Kim’s experience had been limited to buying a car for five thousand in cash from her elderly neighbor a decade before.

This would be a bit like the blind leading the blind, but they were grown women, dang it, and they could do this.

Shortly after they’d started wandering behind a row of cars whose hoods and roofs gleamed in the late evening sun, Amber spotted a gaggle of salesmen inside the showroom. They had seen Amber and Kim already, and were gathered together like a school of sharks who had just sensed chum in the water and were taking bets on who could get the first bite.

Amber cast her sound-enhancing spell and soon the conversation of the four men filled her head. In short order, she sussed out which of the four wasn’t a total sleaze—determined by which one didn’t feel it necessary to mention her and Kim’s anatomy as if it pertained to financial stability—and then confidently strode inside, leaving Kim to hurry after her.

Though she was so nervous her knees were practically knocking together, she marched forward as if she owned the place. She channeled Bianca Pace and Melanie Cole as she called out, “Excuse me?” as if it were a statement rather than a question.

One of the sleazier of the collection turned at the sound of her voice, his smile lecherous. “Hello, ladies. Would—”

Amber came to a stop before the group, which had parted a bit. She held up a hand in the man’s face, halting his words. She hadn’t so much as looked at him. Her attention was focused on the man in front of her—a thirty-something African-American man with warm brown skin, kind brown eyes, and an easy air about him, whose name tag read Eugene. “Hi, Eugene. I would like you to sell me a car.”

The man beside her tried to speak again. “Ma’am, if—”

Amber put her hand in his face again. Attention still squarely on Eugene, she said, “What do you say?”

Eugene nodded. “Right this way.”

Amber and a snickering Kim followed after Eugene, leaving the three other men watching after them.

Once they were outside, Amber cast a quick truth spell on Eugene, but at no point over the next two hours did surprise ever light up his features as it so often did with liars—that shock of your brain telling your mouth to say one thing, but something else coming out instead. Lying never seemed to be something Eugene considered.

Around seven thirty that evening, Amber was the proud owner of a brand-new slate gray Camry that she both loved and had gotten a good deal on. She drove it off the lot, inhaling that crisp new car smell—as Kim followed behind her to drop off the rental. Amber’s current contract extended two more days, but if Tillman and Daniels were onto her now, Amber would rather eat the cost than have to worry that she was being tailed. Edgar hadn’t texted her that any of the dots had followed her to Salem, so she hoped she was in the clear for now.

Once the rental was fully out of her possession, Amber and Kim headed back to Edgehill. The mechanic at Kat’s Car Shop had done a patch job that would keep Kim’s ancient car running for a little while longer, but Kim vowed that she would go back to Eugene herself in a few weeks, after the Here and Meow, to purchase a new vehicle.

By the time Amber returned home, it was almost nine. The Quirky Whisker was closed, the only light in the building coming from upstairs. Because she knew her cousin well enough by now, she came armed with an order of Thai food that was so large, she had been given a cardboard box to carry it all in.

As Amber walked up the steps to her apartment, she was met with the sounds of gunfire, explosions, and some of the vilest strings of curse words and name calling she’d ever heard come out of a person. Edgar sat at the dining room table in the chair closest to the stairs. The three maps had been taped together and attached to the wall opposite the table, presumably so Edgar could shoot virtual strangers with wild abandon while also keeping watch over the four dots on the map—which were all in their respective homes at the moment.

A massive black laptop that looked more like a heavy-duty metal briefcase than a computer was propped up on a stand of some kind on the table. A second much larger keyboard and a mouse were directly in front of him. Both keyboards and the mouse were lit a bright neon red. Amber wondered what her customers must have thought to see grumpy Edgar walk across the shop while either carrying a bunch of loose electronics, or rolling in a massive suitcase. Amber didn’t see a suitcase anywhere …

A pair of enormous black headphones covered Edgar’s ears, and a stick microphone was positioned before his mouth. He looked like a very irate air traffic controller. His fingers flew over keys, he frantically jiggled and clicked his mouse, and truly foul curses and insults were hurled into the microphone.

Amber was transfixed and horrified at once. She didn’t know how to alert him to her presence without scaring him half out of his mind, so she took the food into the kitchen and did her best to plate it while waiting for a break in the one-sided pandemonium she could hear. The cats were undoubtedly under the bed. When Edgar screamed “No!” and something slammed onto the table, she couldn’t say she didn’t blame them for hiding.

Peeking out into the living room, she saw he was on his feet now, headphones off as he paced back and forth over a short distance. His hands clutched at his hair as he muttered about the injustices of war.

“Edgar?” she ventured.

He whirled around and let out a scream that was so high-pitched, one of the cats hissed in response from under the bed. “Holy crap!” He grabbed a fistful of his own shirt, above his heart, his eyes wild. “Don’t do that! When did you get here?”

“Ten minutes ago,” she said, fighting off the urge to laugh at him. “I have food.”

Edgar shook himself, as if warding off full body chills brought on by a run-in with a ghost. “Cool. I haven’t eaten since yesterday afternoon.”

She cocked a brow at him, mostly amazed that someone with an appetite like his could go that long without eating.

He shrugged. “What? I forgot.”

Sighing, she plated some more food and the two sat at the dining room table, where they both could periodically check the maps on the wall to make sure none of their charges were up to anything strange. Amber noticed then that Edgar had altered the dots. They were all black still, but each had a white letter in the center now. D for Daniels, T for Tillman, S for Sable, and M for Molly.

“So I have an idea of where we might be able to hide the grimoires,” Edgar said after his second plate of food. “There are something like 200 ghost towns in Oregon—not unlike the one where we found Zelda’s doll.” He chewed his bottom lip for a moment. “There’s a dead zone in one of them up by Hood River. It’s a good three-hour drive from here, but it’s obscure, the location will be hard to trace magically, and then you can layer a ton of spells on top of it.”

“I thought you weren’t supposed to let Neil know where we were going to hide them,” Amber said.

“Where you’re going to hide them.” Edgar sighed. “When you’re an insomniac, sometimes all you can do is fall into internet wormholes. But if I don’t go with you, he won’t know a) what you did to hide the books, and b) where the exact hiding place is.”

Amber mulled that over. “Should we talk to Zelda again? Get some advice on how best to hide a location in a dead zone?”

“That could work, yeah. I don’t think we should tell her the location—I think the fewer people who know, the better—but maybe she can walk us through some of the steps.”

Though it was late, Amber called both Willow and Aunt Gretchen and got them in on a video chat, and then she propped up the phone against the large Styrofoam cup her coconut chicken soup had come in. Edgar sat beside her. After a few minutes of playing catch-up, Amber told them about their plan to hide the books in a dead zone.

Aunt Gretchen’s eyes widened. “Edgar, what a beautiful suggestion.”

Edgar ducked his head. “Thanks.”

“So now what we need,” Amber said, “is as many spells as you can think of to layer on top of the cloaking spells. Shields, deflection spells, confusion, blowback—anything you’ve got.”

For the next couple hours, the four of them offered up suggestions and wrote out possible spells. Amber knew a wealth of useful spells would be in the very grimoires they needed to hide, but even opening one of the books for a moment would break the cloaking spells on them and that beacon would shoot into the sky like a searchlight—and then the Penhallows would come running.

Around midnight, when both Willow and Aunt Gretchen were fighting off yawns every ten seconds, Amber suggested they call it a night.

“When were you planning to do this, little mouse?” her aunt asked.

Amber arched a brow at Edgar.

“As soon as possible,” Edgar said. “I wanted to find out if one or both of you could come here to help Amber with this. I can’t go. Neil Penhallow is back in full force and I can’t risk him seeing the location through me somehow.”

“Oh, Edgar …” Aunt Gretchen said, frowning. “I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged.

“I’m really sorry things have been so hard for you lately, Edgar,” Willow said. “You’ve done so much for us; I wish we could pay you back somehow.”

Growing increasingly uncomfortable, he waved this away.

“Anyway,” Willow said. “I can be there by tomorrow night. I was actually planning to tell you as much tomorrow, Amber. I’ve been working all day to finish up the rest of this job, then you’ve got me for at least two weeks—pretty sure I can stretch it to three.”

“That works for me, too,” Aunt Gretchen said.

“I’ll come pick you up around six p.m., Aunt G,” Willow said.

“Perfect.” Aunt Gretchen staved off another yawn.

They all said goodnight and Amber disconnected the call. A sense of comfort she hadn’t known was missing suddenly washed over her at the idea of her family being with her again.

Edgar was slumped a little, his elbows on the table and a thumbnail idly scratching at one of the grain lines of the wood.

She squeezed his shoulder. “We will get that guy out of your head, you know that, right?”

Edgar nodded. “Yeah, I know.” Sighing, he said, “Since I’m the first morning shift, can I just camp out here?”

“Of course,” Amber said, getting the feeling that Edgar wanted the company even more than he wanted the convenience of staying here. Plus it would be a pain to haul all his stuff home and back again.

“I’ll take the first shift,” he said.

Amber didn’t sleep much in that first handful of hours. Every time she fell asleep, she heard Neil’s voice in her head—what she imagined he’d sound like, anyway. I’ll find those books, Blackwood, he’d whisper-hiss in her ear. You can try to hide them from Edgar, but I’ll find them. I’ll drive him mad until he tells me where they are. I’ll break him, I’ll take the books, and then I’ll come for you. All of you.

She’d wake with a start, finding her cats curled beside her, and Edgar at his computer, his face awash in blue light as he fought virtual foes on his screen, unable to fight the ones running around in his head.

When she forced Edgar to go to bed later, even after he downed a couple of sleeping pills he was up again shortly after—whether it was a nightmare violently pulling him from sleep, or Neil’s actual voice in his head getting the job done, Edgar didn’t say. She imagined Neil sensing Edgar had fallen asleep, his mind’s voice quiet, and Neil poking Edgar in the figurative shoulder until he woke up again, like an early-rising kid trying to wake up an exhausted parent.

At 9:30 that morning, as Amber headed for the door, Edgar was back in his place at the table with the maps on the wall opposite him, his headphones on, and his finger furiously clicking his mouse while he hurled insults at someone through his microphone. He’d promised to keep the vitriol quieter during working hours so he wouldn’t upset the customers.

She stared at him a moment, at how tense his body was—shoulders up by his ears, jaw clenched, and forehead creased. She didn’t think any of that was because of the game. After calling a goodbye to him that he didn’t hear, she let out a sad sigh and left.

From the hours of 4:30 to 8:30 p.m., Amber was alone in her apartment. Bianca had watched the maps from two to four p.m. and had fled the moment Amber had returned. Amber scrubbed, swept, and mopped every inch of her tiny space, checking on the maps as often as possible, but there still hadn’t been any noteworthy behavior.

By 8:45, Willow and Aunt Gretchen were safely not only back in Edgehill, but in Amber’s tiny apartment. Aunt G was harping on Amber for how small the place was, and Willow was harping about the state of Amber’s hair—even though Amber had washed it last night and had even brushed it!—and Amber couldn’t have been happier to have them both here and driving her nuts in person.

Once they’d all showered and changed into pajamas, they sat around the dining room table with mugs of Amber’s hot chocolate. Amber had tried to get them on the topic of how best to hide the extremely sought-after grimoires, but they both were far more interested in getting updates about how things were going with Jack.

Amber deflected and changed the subject and deflected again until she finally gave in. “Ugh. They’re good, okay? I mean, I think they are,” she said. “He kissed me.”

Willow squealed in delight. Aunt G plastered on a smug grin.

“Can we talk about the grimoires now?” she asked, face hot, as she did another quick scan of the maps.

“All right, all right,” Aunt G finally said from across the table. “We’ve embarrassed your sister enough for tonight.” Then she reached across the table and took one of Amber’s hands in hers and squeezed. “I’m truly glad to see you this giddy.”

Amber ducked her head much like Edgar had earlier. “Thanks.”

By the time they finally went to bed, they had a list of six spells they would layer on top of the cloaking spells they’d already put on the books themselves, and would put on the location once they found it. Amber was nervous about attempting Magic Cache without Edgar, but she was comforted by the fact that there were no magic veins under this abandoned town that could toss Amber around. Her ankle still gave a faint twinge any time she took even the slightest of missteps.

Amber got a couple hours of sleep before the taunting voice of Neil Penhallow wormed its way into her dreams. She wondered if her subconscious was punishing her now with what she pictured Edgar going through on a daily basis. The witch being trapped in Edgar’s mind was no more her fault than Amber’s nightmares being Jack’s, but guilt rarely listened to reason.

Around six, Amber quietly got ready and crept down the stairs into her shop. She sent Zelda a text, hoping she didn’t wake the woman, and asked her to call when she had a chance. In the meantime, Amber could work on some of the toy orders.

But no sooner had she laid out her materials on the counter, her phone rang.

“Hi, Zelda,” Amber answered. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“I’m usually up around five to take my dog on a hike,” Zelda said. “Well, he hikes and I try to keep up.”

Amber laughed.

“What can I do for you this morning?”

“So … I was wondering if you could give me some advice on hiding a cache in a dead zone.” It was not a sentence Amber would have understood a few months ago.

“Aha!” said Zelda with a chuckle. “You’ve been bitten by the caching bug, I see. The main thing I recommend is to check the size of the zone. Some are huge, covering several square feet. Others are teeny tiny. The object you hide must fit within the parameters of the zone, otherwise the negating magic there won’t work and the site will be as easily traceable as any other cache location.”

Amber hoped this spot Edgar had found was big enough. “Good to know.”

“Are you … looking for a place to store your mother’s book?” Zelda asked.

“Eventually,” Amber said, wanting to tell Zelda the truth but knowing Edgar was right, in that the fewer people who knew about the book, the better. “For now I just want to test my skills. I’m practicing the boomerang spell, too.”

“I’ll send you mine,” Zelda said. “I used it all the time on my toys when I was a kid to prove to my mother that my little brother was stealing and destroying them. Broken plastic pieces rained down on me at all hours! As soon as that little brat sacrificed one of my toys to another of his experiments, the evidence would often quite literally fall in my lap!”

Amber laughed. “I could have used that one growing up. Willow stole my clothes on a regular basis.”

“Younger siblings are awful,” Zelda said, chuckling to herself. “If you need anything, just let me know, okay, dear?”

“I will,” Amber said. “Thank you.”

“Any time.”

Amber placed her phone on the counter and stared out at Russian Blue Avenue beyond the windows of her shop. The soft gray light of morning was starting to fade. She could just make out the shapes of Betty and Bobby Harris bustling about their bakery across the street. It was only a matter of time before they’d surely have another line out the door.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

Startled, Amber found her sister standing in the open “Employee Only” doorway. Willow’s hair was in a wild bun on top of her head, the white shirt she slept in had a loose collar, and there was a tear in the knee of her sweatpants. The only word that came to Amber’s mind was “disheveled.” Amber cocked a brow at her. “You okay?”

Willow blew out a breath that sent an errant hair flapping. Then she shrugged and wandered over to Amber, stopping on the opposite side of the counter. She dropped her elbows onto the worn wood and propped her head in her hands.

Frowning, Amber said, “Talk to me, Will.”

“I haven’t just been working a lot,” she said, then lowered her forearms to the countertop and slowly rose her gaze to meet Amber’s. “I’ve been looking for Uncle Raphael.”

Edgar’s father. The pained look on Willow’s face told Amber that Willow hadn’t only been looking for him—she’d found him. There was a pit in Amber’s stomach as she asked, “And?”

“And he’s in a psychiatric hospital in upstate Washington,” Willow said. “I had to cast a bunch of spells over the phone to finally get someone to allow me to visit him.” It took her a moment to say, “He didn’t remember me. I mean … no memory of me, you … mom. Nothing.”

Amber gaped at her. “Memory wipe? Is his lack of memory why he’s in a psychiatric hospital? How long has he been there?”

That haunted look came over her sister again. Frowning, Willow said, “Fourteen years.”

“So … the entire time he’s been gone? Since Mom and Dad died?” Amber asked. “I guess this explains why he’s never tried to contact Edgar. But … what happened to him?”

Willow shrugged again. “He apparently hears a woman’s voice who talks to him at all hours of the day, begging him to find his sister’s grimoire. Except he doesn’t have a sister, as far as he can remember. He says he’s an orphan. This voice tells him he’s a witch from a powerful clan; he claims he doesn’t have magic, because that would be, and I quote, ‘crazy.’”

Amber fell silent again, wondering if it was worth telling Edgar any of this. With Neil Penhallow harassing him constantly, could he handle the news that his father had a very similar affliction? Would he be furious with Amber if he found out later that she’d known where his father was and hadn’t told him?

“I was really hoping that when I came here for the Here and Meow, I could do so with Uncle Raph with me as a surprise for Edgar,” Willow said. “He’s been through so much and really helped us with Kieran. I mean, he saved your life, Amber. I wanted to do something for him. I thought we could tell Uncle Raph about what happened to mom—what really happened—and … I don’t know. I guess it was silly of me to think it would be that easy; how could there have been a good reason why he had stayed gone for so long?”

Amber reached a hand across the counter and grabbed one of Willow’s. “It was very sweet of you to try. There’s no way you could have known what you’d find when you went looking.”

Willow nodded absently.

“Is that all that’s bothering you?” Amber asked.

“I just keep thinking that the Penhallows are picking off our family. First Mom and Dad. Then they went after Edgar. One of them threatened to go after Aunt G. One tried to kill you. And now it sounds like they got to Uncle Raph, too. What if, even though they’re cursed, they’re too powerful for us to outrun forever? We’ll hide the book, sure, then what? What if they find it? Then it won’t just be our family that’s in danger, it’s … everyone.”

Amber let Willow’s hand go so she could walk around the counter to the side her sister was slouched on. She held her arms out to Willow, who hurried into them like she always did when they were younger. Willow was taller than Amber now, which made the hug feel different, but with Willow’s head on her shoulder and her arms tucked up against her chest, it was like Willow was her scrawny fourteen-year-old self again.

“I thought I was the worrier,” Amber said, and Willow laughed softly. “I can’t pretend to know what will happen, Will. But we’ll figure it out together. And next time you’re this worked up about something, just call me, okay?”

“You were already dealing with so much …”

“Doesn’t matter,” Amber said. “If you need me, you call me. You know that’s the rule.”

Willow nodded while still tucked against Amber. “Nervous about today?”

“Totally,” Amber said. “We’re going to have to put so many cloaking spells on those things. Just the idea of moving the books terrifies me, but we’ve got to get them out of here. Once the Penhallows regroup, this has got to be the first place they’ll try.” Then she laughed, remembering something Zelda had told her when they met. “Though, I heard, severing Kieran from his magic has made me a bit of a legend in magic circles. Penhallows are apparently a little scared of yours truly.”

Willow pulled away at that. “You?”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence!” Amber said, mock offended.

From behind them, Amber heard, “Did Amber tell you about the time she tried to make a premonition tincture and nearly passed out from inhaling toxic fumes? Legendary, indeed.”

Willow’s tinkling laugh made Amber smile.

“Though I do remember the time that you, little bird,” Aunt Gretchen said, “tried to cast a flight spell on your shoes, jumped off the roof, and broke your leg. So I wouldn’t be so hard on our little mouse.” Then she snickered. “Plus, we have to keep her in good spirits so she tells us what kind of kisser the baker is.”

“Ooh, yes!” Willow said and Amber tipped her head back, groaning.

“Do you think their children will be gifted with magic or with baking?” Aunt G asked, turning to head back upstairs, Willow hurrying after her.

“With any luck, it’ll be both!” Willow said. “Oh, I do hope for a summer wedding!”

Amber blew out a long, gusty sigh, and muttered, “This is going to be the longest car ride of my life.”

Chapter 22

A little after seven, they set out for the abandoned town of Quill near Hood River. The dead zone was in Quill’s old lumber mill. That was all the information Edgar was willing to give, for fear that Neil would be able to relay something pertinent to a more able-bodied Penhallow waiting for the best path to the book.

They took Willow’s car, leaving Amber’s new one in the lot beside the shop, and brought the maps with them as well; Amber, riding shotgun, periodically checked the locations of the four dots over the course of the three-hour drive. Molly’s dot still traveled around town the most frequently.

And the reason for this trip—the Henbane grimoire—sat in the compact chest along with the Blackwood book, and was strapped in beside Aunt G in the back seat, who reinforced the cloaking spell on them roughly every half hour. Aunt G said even she, just sitting beside the chest, could occasionally feel the magic radiating off the books like a slow-crawling fog. When she felt it, up went another cloaking spell.

It was almost 10:30 in the morning when they reached Quill. It was a desolate place. Dirt roads; worn, weather-beaten wooden houses and buildings; overgrown brush; and off in the distance on a hillside, a metallic water tower peeked over the top of a copse of pine trees like a curious woodland creature. Amber’s preliminary internet search told her that Oregon was in the process of revitalizing Quill, as the town’s location had a lot going for it, but Amber saw little evidence of any development taking place. She hadn’t seen another living soul other than a rail-thin orange cat prowling down a sidewalk, only to disappear into tall brush when it heard them approach.

A worn sign ahead said the Quill Lumber Mill was to the right, and Secret Lake was straight ahead. Willow turned right.

A few minutes later, after Willow’s car slowly rumbled over a set of old railroad tracks, Amber said, “Now that we’re closer, I’m going to try to find the dead zone as if we were playing Magic Cache.”

Amber handed the maps back to Aunt Gretchen, clicked off the radio, then rolled down the window. Letting in a deep lungful of fresh air, Amber closed her eyes and asked her magic to seek out that anomaly where magic didn’t exist. Even though Quill was dead in terms of being a town, nature had taken it over. They were in the heart of spring now, today being the first of May. There was energy in the tall weeds swaying in the light breeze, the decaying wood being broken down by borers and beetles, and the flitting birds, butterflies, and scurrying lizards. The ambient magic wasn’t overpowering here, but it was consistent.

She did her best to let herself relax, letting her body sway with every bump in the road. She listened to the wind gently flapping the corners of the maps Aunt Gretchen held. She listened for birdsong and the distant sound of water running over rocks.

Tug.

“Turn right as soon as you can,” Amber said, her eyes still closed.

The turn came within seconds, and Amber swayed freely as she was jostled in her seat as the car maneuvered over potholes and ruts.

Tug.

“Keep going forward,” she said.

On and on this went, with Amber guiding them blindly as her magic directed her where to go.

Eventually Willow said, “We can’t go any farther on wheels.” The car came to a stop soon after.

Amber opened her eyes. Straight ahead was a meadow of mostly dried-out grass and weeds that soon gave way to a wall of pine trees beyond it. The only man-made structure was a square cement building to the right of the car. Thick streaks of black ran down the sides of the building—runoff after rains, Amber guessed, but they reminded her of tear streaks. It somehow made the building seem even lonelier out here by itself. As she looked at it, her magic tugged at her again.

She unhooked her seat belt and gestured at the building. “That way.”

Before getting out of the car, Amber pulled two things from her purse: a small notebook and a large pouch of flour. The second had been Aunt Gretchen’s suggestion.

“At least we aren’t here at night,” Willow said, sighing. “This place is giving me the willies.”

Aunt G and Willow got the chest of books out of the back seat. They would carry it as they followed behind Amber; the contact with the box would allow them to conduct the cloaking spells even faster. All three Blackwood women had brought a small notebook of spells with them; Amber tucked hers into her back pocket.

Once Amber was sure her aunt and sister had a good hold on the handles on either side of the box, she, with the pouch of flour held by its strings, started for the weeping building. There were a few long-necked lamps attached to the roof of the structure, which appeared to be two stories. There was one door on this face of it. It was dark gray metal, had a massive dent in the center, and rust ate away at the bottom edges, the metal bubbling and peeling away. She glanced up at the overhanging lamps and saw the bulbs were shattered.

Her magic tugged. She stepped to the left and peered around the corner of the building. When her magic tugged her again, she was glad they had to move beyond the sad building, and didn’t need to find a way to break in.

Ahead was a cracked and uneven cement path that led toward the pine forest. Amber rounded the building and walked slowly along the path to ensure Willow and Aunt Gretchen could keep up.

After a few feet, they crossed the tree line. The uneven path led them down a small incline and then a meadow opened up. In the center was a cylindrical structure that Amber would have thought had previously been used for some kind of ritual, had she not known that this area of Quill had once accommodated a lumber mill.

The entire structure was made of cement, its round, cracked base ringed by eight upright cement slabs that were each a good ten feet tall. A large cement ring connected the tops of the slabs, and from that ring a few more upright slabs stretched into the air, though most had snapped off after a couple feet. Trees growing along the sides of the cylindrical structure were trying to take over, their wide leafy branches sticking out between the gaps made by the upright slabs. Tufts of weeds poked through the spaces in the uneven cement base.

Her magic guided her forward.

Once inside the structure, no ceiling to obstruct the view of the cloudless blue sky above, Willow and Aunt G put the chest down.

Without a word, Willow and Aunt G began to conduct various reveal spells. While they did that, Amber kept her locator spell active, her magic’s tug more like a gentle nudge now. Her magic would nudge her an inch to the right, and she’d toss a handful of flour in that direction. For the briefest of moments, the flour would reveal an edge or a corner. Amber hadn’t been sure Aunt Gretchen’s idea was a good one until now.

Fifteen painstaking minutes of this revealed the exact location of this dead spot. It was roughly the size of a normal-sized door on a house: seven feet tall and three feet wide. The chest would “fit” just fine, but it took some work to get it positioned so it was in the middle of the dead zone, which was a few feet away from the leftmost edge of the circular base.

Once it was in place, Willow conducted three boomerang spells—one on each book, and on the box itself. Both grimoires already had active spells that would only allow Amber or Willow to open them, so even the act of trying to pry one open would trigger the boomerang spell. Then they layered ten cloaking spells on the box—ones both for avoiding detection, and hiding them from sight—starting with the strongest one any of them could find, and which had three levels. Spells that cloaked something from sight, Aunt Gretchen explained, allowed the object to only be visible to certain people. The three Blackwood women made up the entirety of that short list. It would be hiding in plain sight unless someone literally tripped over it.

After that came an additional camouflage spell from Willow, which made the chest look as if it had become one with the dirt, cracked cement, and dried weeds. Next came a blowback spell from Amber—one that would be similar to what had happened to her when the magic from the veins below Zelda’s old neighborhood had slammed into her with such force that she’d been lifted off her feet—that was then reinforced by Willow and Aunt G in turn. Then a memory erase spell from Aunt G. Sight-deprivation from Willow, loss of consciousness from Aunt G, and finally a confusion spell from Amber.

When the last words had been uttered, Amber stepped back to join her aunt and sister. She couldn’t feel or see the chest of grimoires anymore. It was a relief, in a way. But it also felt as if she was abandoning her parents in the middle of nowhere, left in the elements to weep alone just like that building standing vigil by the road.

Aunt Gretchen stood between Amber and Willow, holding each of their hands. She gave Amber’s hand a squeeze now and said, “As sad as this feels, this is a good place for them for now. If anyone tries to do them any harm at all, they’ll come back to you. We have to hope that this is enough.”

Aunt Gretchen let them go and headed back up the path to the car. Willow said a few words of goodbye, then gave Amber’s forearm a squeeze before she, too, headed back the way they’d come.

Amber stared at the empty space where she knew the books were for a while longer, offering up a silent apology to her parents for this. She knew they would understand—after all, they’d gone through even greater lengths over the years to keep these books safe, but Amber felt as if she’d only just gotten this big part of her parents back.

Her fists were clenched, her shoulders tight, and stomach in knots. Her mind knew this was the safest place for the books even if her heart ached at the reality of it.

With a sigh, she finally turned away and followed her aunt and sister, leaving her parents behind.

Chapter 23

A full week went by without incident. The boomerang spells hadn’t been triggered on the grimoires from a Penhallow finding their new hiding place in Quill; none of the dots on the map showed any signs of strange behavior other than how much Molly Hargrove flitted about both Marbleglen and Edgehill; and Amber felt no closer to figuring out how to help Simon. Jack provided a distraction, at least, and they’d gone out a couple of times for long dinners where they tried to talk about anything other than Simon’s quickly approaching court date.

There were only three days left now and Bianca had grown increasingly awful, buried as she was under the fear that her father was destined for prison, and therefore she took it out on anyone else on the planet who so much as looked at her wrong. Sometimes she called Amber just to complain about things, no matter how mundane. It was exhausting.

So, as Amber was in the process of closing up shop for lunch, and the bell above the door chimed, she hadn’t expected anyone other than a late-arriving customer trying to squeeze in some quick shopping when Amber was desperate for something to eat. Amber thought she’d locked the door after the Bowen sisters had left. Willow was out to lunch with an old high school friend and Aunt G was upstairs watching the maps. Turning toward the door, a “Sorry, we’re closed!” poised to come out of her mouth, she came up short when Bianca Pace strolled in. With Amber’s aunt and sister in town, the need for mapsitters had decreased; Amber had no idea what Bianca could be doing here. Amber hoped she hadn’t shown up just to complain about something in person.

“Hi,” Bianca said. She wore a black pencil skirt, a teal-colored blouse, and shiny black pumps. A very large, likely designer, handbag hung off her bent arm. Her raven-black hair was stick straight today. “Do you have lunch plans?”

“I guess I do now?” Amber said, forcing a smile.

Bianca nodded once. “I can explain on the way.”

Without another word, Bianca strode back outside. At a loss, Amber hurried behind the counter to grab her own purse, then locked up and followed Bianca, whose white BMW was parked in the lot beside Amber’s new car.

“That yours?” Bianca asked, angling her head toward it. “It’s cute. That’s the starter car I had in high school.” Then she unlocked the BMW with a press of a button on her key fob and slid in.

A month ago, Amber would have been offended by that, but Amber had gotten used to her. Perhaps dealing with Edgar’s brash and honest personality had worn down Amber’s sensitivity.

As Bianca pulled out onto Russian Blue Avenue, Amber asked, “How’s Simon doing?”

Bianca shrugged one shoulder. “He’s doing okay. I mean I’m more stressed out about how close his court date is getting than he is. He seems to have great faith you’ll figure this all out.” She shot Amber a quick look that expressed how much Bianca didn’t agree with her father’s assessment of Amber’s skills. “He’s finished, like, a million wreaths at this point. I’ve been allowed in a couple times since you were last there; the house is starting to look like a forest or something—branches and dried leaves and pine cones are everywhere. He hasn’t shaved in weeks. He’s allowed out of the house as long as it’s to the store or something, otherwise he’s constantly being watched. He spends a lot of time in the garden, I think mostly in a passive aggressive move to give Wilson a sunburn. They might be bonding though. Yesterday they built a planter box and Dad said he even made Wilson laugh once.”

“That’s definitely a small miracle,” Amber said, remembering the stone-faced officer quite well. “So … uhh … you said you’d explain something on the way?”

Bianca nodded. “Right. So, about three weeks ago, I started a ‘Justice for Simon Ricinus’ social media page. I wasn’t sure it would do much good since most of the people in Marbleglen seem to have written both me and my dad off, but I thought some of our old contacts from Wendel might see it and help. I trust witch law enforcement a heck of a lot more than non-witch right now.” A muscle in her jaw twitched. “Anyway, yesterday, I got a message from a woman who claims she works for Victoria Sullivan.”

“No way,” Amber said. “Where does she work?”

“Get this: the Belhaven Crime Lab,” Bianca said. “Misty is an intern in a forensic science program and Victoria has been training her. Victoria Sullivan is the lab’s lead analyst.”

“Whoa,” Amber said.

“Yeah. She said she didn’t want to tell me anything else over the phone, but was happy to talk in person,” Bianca said. “She’s apparently obsessed with something called Coffee Cat, so that’s where we’re going.”

Amber let out an involuntary grunt. “They have a gingerbread latte that will change your life.”

“I’m not really into artisanal coffees,” Bianca said, sniffing once. “I like my coffee a certain way. No frills.”

If Amber remembered correctly, the last time Bianca Pace ordered a coffee, it had been at Purrcolate, and the request had been so elaborate, not even Jack knew how to make it.

Coffee Cat was currently busier than Amber had ever seen it—even the minimal outdoor seating was taken. It was a popular place, especially with tourists, and this was the time of year for it, but Coffee Cat, much like Purrfectly Scrumptious, had won a “Best of Edgehill” designation at last month’s Hair Ball. It was nice to see that the award, even though the commemorative stickers weren’t gracing shop front windows yet, was already increasing business for people across the town.

By the time they’d placed their orders, a table had miraculously opened up near the detailed chalk cat mural. Amber and Bianca sat in awkward silence for a couple minutes, partly because it was noisy in the café, and partly because Amber didn’t have a clue what to talk to Bianca about most of the time.

“Oh, I think that’s her,” Bianca said. “She said she was in a pink shirt.”

Amber turned in her seat. A woman stood near the door who looked like it was taking everything in her power to not just about-face and walk right back again. A look Amber knew all too well thanks to all her time spent with Edgar lately. She was about five-foot-five, had shoulder-length wavy black hair, a thin, angular face, and she was tightly clutching the straps of her purse with both hands as she scanned the crowd. She didn’t look like she could be a day over twenty-two.

Bianca stood and raised a hand as if she were hailing a cab on a street corner in New York, but it got the woman’s attention, and she let out a little “oh,” before nodding and weaving her way around the haphazardly scattered furniture and the line of people placing their orders.

When she reached them, the woman said, “Hi. Uhh … Bianca?”

Bianca held out a hand. “Yes. Pleased to meet you, Misty. This is my … uh … friend, Amber.”

“Hi, Misty,” Amber said, wondering if the word “friend” is what had tripped Bianca up, or if it was Amber herself. “Did you want anything to drink?”

“Oh, I’ll get something on my way out.” Misty visibly swallowed, then slunk into the remaining chair before the round table. She still held fast to her purse.

“Thank you for meeting with us,” Bianca said as she sat, hands folded primly on the table, the picture of professionalism. It was her festival director pose. Her “I’m here to get things done” pose.

Misty seemed to shrink under the intensity of it. She was a petite female version of Edgar.

“So, Misty,” Amber said, turning toward her and trying for a friendly, light tone to counterbalance Bianca’s overall vibe. “What was it about Bianca’s post that made you want to reach out to her?”

“Oh,” she said, focusing more on Amber now than Bianca, “well, umm … I work at the Belhaven Crime Lab. Well, I don’t work, work there. I’m an intern. I’ve only been there for about six months. People think it’s weird, but I’ve always wanted a job in forensics,” Misty said.

Amber, though she wasn’t looking at Bianca, sensed the woman’s growing impatience already. As discreetly as possible, she held up a hand to shush her. Misty was clearly shy and needed a little time to warm up to get comfortable. “I don’t think that’s weird at all. I think it’s really cool you’re pursuing something you want despite what others might think about it. That takes guts.”

Misty flushed and ducked her head. “Thanks.” Yep, she was just like her cousin. Misty cleared her throat. “Anyway, I’m being trained by Victoria Sullivan. It’s weird though, ’cause her name on all the plaques and whatnot at the lab are Jane Lyles, because that’s her ‘real’ name. She’s Jane Victoria Lyles, but she just got married recently and is just now starting to go by her preferred name. Anyway, Victoria is the lead analyst there. I work as her assistant, mostly. I clean up stations and prep samples and things like that, but Victoria does the actual testing.”

Amber and Bianca’s drinks arrived and Misty instantly felt silent, flushing again. They’d both gotten the gingerbread latte. Bianca eyed hers dubiously. Misty, however, looked like she wanted to dive headfirst into Amber’s glass.

Amber pushed it toward her. “Take mine. I’ll grab another when this place calms down a bit—if it calms down.”

“Are you sure?” Misty asked, but she was already reaching for it. She then downed half the glass.

Bianca had been about to take a prim sip of her own drink but halted to offer a semi-disgusted look over the rim of her glass at Misty’s apparently abhorrent table manners. Then Bianca took a sip, looked into the glass briefly, her eyes wide, and then downed half of the contents.

“Okay, fine, you were right. My life has been changed.”

Satisfied, Amber turned back to Misty. “You were saying you’re Victoria’s assistant?”

“Oh right,” Misty said, a little more relaxed now. “I get kind of overlooked because I’m small and quiet and do my best to stay out of people’s way. And I haven’t really made any friends there yet. Anyway, three weeks ago, the day after the shooting, I was eating lunch behind the building. There’s this really friendly squirrel back there and I’ve almost got him to where he’ll take a peanut right out of my hand. So I was out there doing that when I heard Victoria talking to a man out back. They didn’t see me. I was a little too far to hear what they were saying, but I saw the guy, the cop—a big bald guy, but he still had a ring of red hair around his head—hand something to Victoria and then he handed her an envelope that was really thick. I heard him say, ‘Same rate as usual, right? I threw in a little extra so we can get the results faster.’ Then Victoria put the envelope in her pocket and the guy left. It just seemed really weird, you know? But I’m new to all this, so I thought maybe cops sometimes pay labs a little extra to expedite samples if it’s a really high-profile case or something.”

Misty blew out a little breath and polished off the rest of her drink. She swiped at her mouth with the back of her hand.

“When I got back into the lab after lunch, a couple of the lady techs were talking about how much they don’t like Daniels. I don’t think he and Victoria dated or anything—they just work together a lot. They all say he creeps them out,” Misty said. “Victoria came in a few minutes later and told me that we had a rush order on a sample, so we had to add it to the batch that she already had scheduled. A whole bunch are tested at once—like up to fifty. By then, I knew enough about the protocols of how much of each blood from the original sample is taken out and put into a smaller vial, and how the gas chromatograph works and all that.”

“Gas chromatograph?” Bianca asked.

“Oh, sorry, that’s the machine that heats up the blood and separates compounds like alcohol,” Misty said. “So, every once in a while, something gets messed up in the process. Like, one time the machine ran out of helium and that ruined the whole batch of samples and we had to start over. One time one of the techs didn’t put the smaller vials in the chromatograph tray in the right order and all twenty-nine samples got paired with the wrong results. We caught it in time, but you know, when you’re working with that many samples at once, sometimes mistakes happen. It’s almost good when they do, for me anyway, because I’ll be more prepared later.

“I really, really want a job in forensics, though. Like this has been my dream since I was five. So I was really excited when I got this internship and I’ve been super careful every day and taking notes on everything. In the six months I’ve been there, samples have just … vanished three times. One time, I could have sworn that Victoria took twice the amount of blood from a vial but the results were given to two defendants—meaning one sample got tested, but someone got the results from someone else’s blood. When I pointed that out to her, she screamed at me for like ten solid minutes. I cried through half of it. She said if I ever questioned her ability to do her job again, she’d terminate my internship. When I went back to check later, the levels in the main vials had evened out again. I thought maybe I’d just imagined it.”

“And something like this happened with Simon’s sample?” Amber asked.

“Yeah.”

Bianca sat up a little straighter at that.

“I don’t usually pay much attention to specific names, since we process so many at once, but when she didn’t think I was paying attention, I saw her pull a vial from her pocket and place it with the others that were getting tested that day,” Misty said. “When she left the room to make a call, I checked the main vials and figured out which new vial was Simon’s. Again, I didn’t know if what I saw behind the building was normal somehow. I already knew that Simon had already been arrested, of course. I didn’t really have any feelings about that either way, but when I found out that Daniels had become the new chief of police, alarm bells went off in my head. But, I mean, who was I supposed to talk to about any of it?

“Plus … on the day of Simon’s arraignment, which I’m pretty sure was a Thursday, Victoria called me into her office and said she’d seen me earlier behind the building eating lunch and asked why I was out there. We got to talking about how shy I am and all that, but she asked me a couple different times if I’d been out there when Chief Daniels came by to talk to her on Tuesday. More alarm bells went off.

“Then she told me she thinks I’ve got real promise in the field, she’s impressed with how strong my attention to detail is, and if I keep working as hard as I have been, she’d be happy to give me a glowing recommendation when the internship is over. She even said that she’s got a contact at the Oregon State Police Forensic Lab, which is the biggest crime lab on the west coast, the literal dream. But …” Misty sighed.

“All these great things would only happen if you kept your head down and your mouth shut?” Amber asked.

“Yeah, exactly,” Misty said. “And she never point-blank threatened me or anything, but I knew what she was saying without her saying it directly. Just like all the ladies at the lab know Daniels is gross even if he hasn’t done anything. Sometimes you just know.”

Amber and Bianca both nodded.

“I knew, deep in my gut, that something bad had happened with Simon, but I didn’t know what to do about it. I’m just an intern with no evidence,” Misty said. “And then I saw Bianca’s post about her dad and how he’d stopped drinking when he was twenty-five, so it was probably very likely Victoria dry-labbed his sample and reported that he’d had over the legal limit of alcohol in his system.” She shook her head lightly. “That’s when I knew how bad this thing really was and I knew I had to try to talk to you.” She offered Bianca a sad little smile.

Bianca had softened considerably over the course of Misty’s account and she tentatively reached out a hand across the table to the younger woman, palm up. Just as tentatively, Misty placed her hand in Bianca’s. With a light squeeze, Bianca smiled sadly at Misty, too. “Thank you for this, truly. I kept wondering if I was just in denial—that maybe I was just so … scared and sad that maybe he really had done what people are saying about him. And then I felt terrible for thinking it. So … as odd as it may sound, you gave me back my faith in my own father.”

Misty’s eyes welled up. With a pat to the back of Misty’s hand, Bianca let her go.

“Are you not worried that talking to Bianca might jeopardize your internship?” Amber asked, hoping it came across without an ounce of judgement.

Misty sniffed. “I quit yesterday. Sorry. I guess I should have said that sooner. It’s hard to think of not going there every day. Anyway, a second intern started a couple days ago and another sample mysteriously vanished. She laid into that guy so hard, he almost started crying. I know firsthand how rough it is to get torn a new one by that lady. All I could think was that someone else had paid her off to dry-lab another sample and she was throwing blame on the new guy to keep the heat off herself and I got so angry that I quit on the spot. Then I sent out a bunch of new applications and that email to Bianca.”

“I was right,” Amber said. “You’ve got guts. People are making a mistake when they overlook you.”

Misty ducked her head. “I want to be in forensics to help people, not hurt them. Dry-labbing is as bad as it gets. So, Bianca, if you need me to talk to your dad’s lawyer, or law enforcement in Marbleglen—whatever you want. Just tell me. If I can help shut Victoria down too, that’s even better.”

Bianca grinned at her. “Well, in that case, I’m going to go buy you another gingerbread latte.”

Chapter 24

After another round of lattes, the women exchanged numbers and hugs, then they parted ways. Amber and Bianca stood at the curb, watching Misty walk away.

“The lunch hour is almost over,” Bianca said. “Did you want to eat actual food, or …?”

Amber’s stomach rumbled at the prospect of lunch, but both Bianca’s expression and tone made it quite clear that dining somewhere with Amber wasn’t on her list of things she wanted to do today.

Amber’s phone buzzing in her purse saved her from having to answer that. She pulled it out to see the chief was calling her. “Hang on one sec, Bianca?”

Bianca shrugged, and focused her attention down the street.

“Hey, chief. What’s up?”

“Hi. I need Cassie’s help. Do you have some time today?”

“Yeah, I’ve got the rest of the afternoon off. I can be there in a few; I’m across the street,” she said. “You want anything from Coffee Cat?”

“No, thanks. I’ve already had three caramelized honey lattes today. That place should be illegal. Which is saying a lot, coming from me.”

Amber laughed. “Okay, I’ll see you soon.”

She hung up and slipped her phone into her back pocket. She could only imagine what he needed a psychic’s help with now, but it gave her a way out of lunch with Bianca. Amber wondered if she should grab something quick to go, before she met with the chief. “Sorry about that. Thanks for the invite, but the chief wants to meet with me; he can drop me off later. Thanks for the ride.”

“Is that who just called you? Seems like an awfully casual chat between a resident and the chief of police.” Bianca wrinkled her perfect little nose at Amber. “You and the chief really are … pals, huh? That rumor has even reached Marbleglen.”

She said the word “pals” like it was the dirtiest word in the English language.

All desire for lunch forgotten, Amber glared at Bianca. “He knows my secret. When he runs into problems he can’t solve in ordinary ways, he calls me. More than likely,” Amber added, a bite to her tone, “whatever he wants to talk to me about has to do with helping your father.” She might have gotten more used to Bianca, but it didn’t mean she always liked her. She hiked her purse a little higher onto her shoulder. “Have a good day.”

Then she stalked away from Bianca.

“Amber!” she called after her.

Amber kept moving. She heard Bianca curse under her breath, admonishing herself—most likely for forgetting—again—that Amber didn’t have to help her. This wasn’t Amber’s fight.

And anyway, Amber’s efforts were for Simon and the late Eric Jameson, not her. As much as Amber didn’t owe either man anything, she owed even less to Bianca.

Bianca felt terrible right now for being her usual monstrous self? Good.

Within a couple minutes, Amber strolled into the Edgehill police station.

“Go on back,” Dolores said, typing away. “He’s expecting you.”

The chief was behind his desk on his phone when Amber walked in. He held up a finger to indicate he’d be with her in a second. Amber closed the door and perused his shelves until the call ended.

“That’s great, Wilma. Yeah, I just talked to her and she’s game,” the chief finally said. “No, no, thank you. This will help us both. I really appreciate it. About twenty minutes? Got it. See you soon.”

Amber turned to face him when he hung up the phone. “Wilma as in Wilma Jameson?”

“One and the same,” the chief said. “I got in contact with her again back when you said you needed access to the house. Apparently Daniels kept telling Wilma that she couldn’t go into the house just yet because it was an active crime scene. She said she didn’t want to fight him on that, as he scares the bejesus out of her, but he granted her access yesterday.” He stood. “Which means you and I—well, Cassie—now have access. Jameson left her the house in his will and she wants the place … cleansed? … before she moves in. She was hoping you could help clear the place of any bad mojo. She’s meeting us there.”

Amber didn’t have the first clue how to cleanse a place of bad mojo, but she supposed Cassie Westbottom would, so Amber would have to improvise. She hoped she didn’t disappoint Wilma.

“You up for this? I thought you’d be excited and bouncing around. You look a little queasy,” he said. “Did I mess up when I volunteered your services?”

“It’s not that,” Amber said quickly. “A memory retrieval spell conducted in that house is likely going to show me who pulled that trigger. I can tell Wilma exactly who killed her father. Plus, I mean, what if Simon really did do it? What if his magic and the Rohyphnol clashed so badly that he did something terrible and doesn’t remember? His court date is only three days away now. I guess that just feels like a lot of pressure all of a sudden.”

“Dang it,” the chief said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, Amber. I should have asked first. I didn’t mean—”

Amber held up her hand. “It’s okay. Honestly.” She headed for the door. “Let’s go. We have to go back to my apartment for a minute so I can get a time retrieval spell out of my grimoire, and then I need to put on my face.”

The chief grumbled under his breath. “First time in my life I’ve heard a woman say that and mean it literally.”

On the drive over, Amber relayed to the chief what she’d just learned from Misty. Thankfully, the chief hadn’t had any recent dealings with Jane Victoria Lyles-Sullivan.

Like before, she changed her appearance in waves. A new nose here, an eye color change there, and then the biggest change—her long brown hair becoming a short A-line blonde bob. The last one always seemed to affect the chief the most, and when Amber altered her hair just as they turned down a heavily tree-lined street, he let out a muted gasp of surprise. She ignored him.

Though Amber had never physically been to Eric Jameson’s house, she recognized it instantly when the chief pulled up outside. She’d seen it in her mind during the memory retrieval spell she’d done on Simon.

It was a single-story beige house with black trim around the windows, a black front door, and a tidy, if browning, front lawn. Though it was a house in Marbleglen, there weren’t any flowers outside—not even a festive wreath decorated the door. The only color came from the tree in the corner of the yard that was covered in little yellow flowers that Amber suspected were well on their way to becoming oranges.

Wilma had yet to arrive, so Amber and the chief waited in the car.

“Do you need materials of some kind to do a cleansing?” he asked.

“I really don’t know,” Amber said. “But I figure I can tell her I can’t know what type of cleansing the place might need until I see what the energy is like in there. Then I can figure out what to do after that.”

Wilma pulled up in a beat-up Honda a minute later. She walked down the sidewalk with her gaze focused on the house. If the eighteen-year-old had looked rail thin the last time Amber had seen her, she looked nearly skeletal now. She stood at the end of the walkway that led to the front door.

When Amber and the chief got out of the car just behind Wilma, she whirled around, clearly on edge. But when she saw who it was, she offered them a small smile and nervously tucked her long, stringy brown hair behind her ears. She wore a plain black T-shirt, worn jeans, chunky black boots, and didn’t carry a purse of any kind. She had her car keys clipped to a loop of her jeans with a carabiner, and her cell phone was in her back pocket.

The time retrieval spell Amber would need soon was tucked in her own back pocket.

“Thanks so much for doing this,” Wilma said, attention focused solely on Amber. “I really didn’t expect to get a house out of all this. It’s already paid off.”

She looked overwhelmed. She’d lost both of her parents in a short period of time—one quick and one slow. And now she was the owner of a house in a neighborhood that was far more middle-class than the one her little apartment was in. Unfortunately for Amber, she knew all too well what it felt like to be an orphan at a young age, not knowing what on earth to do next.

“Happy to help,” Amber said in her high-and-light Cassie voice, then told Wilma the same thing she’d told the chief: she would need to assess the house’s energy before she could make recommendations on cleansings.

Wilma nodded vigorously. “Should we go in?” She turned and headed for the front door before either of them could reply.

“Is this the house you grew up in?” the chief asked as he and Amber followed Wilma up the path.

“Oh gosh no,” Wilma said. “This place is way fancier than anything we lived in growing up. After my parents got divorced, Dad moved in with his parents. This was their house. Papa—he was a DA—died a while back, and Nana is in an old folks’ home in Belhaven now.” After unhooking the keys from her belt loop and getting the door open, Wilma took a deep breath. “I actually haven’t been here since I was six or seven.”

They followed her in.

The inside of the house was a Frankenstein’s monster of old furniture and new renovations. Jameson clearly had started the slow process of updating the house. The front door opened immediately into a giant living room with a fireplace opposite the door, and a long dining table that could easily sit twenty people was to the left of the space. There was an open doorway to the right of the living room, and a set of ajar French doors that led into a kitchen on the left. Amber saw part of a large center island and sliding glass doors that led to a backyard, the view of which was obscured by peach-colored gauzy curtains.

Amber wished she could feel the energy of a room like a true psychic. At least then she would have a place to start. The place was a bit in disarray—cluttered, rather than messy—but Amber wasn’t sure if that was due to the aftermath of a dinner party that had ended in murder, or the aftermath of the police searching the place. Though ransacking might have been more accurate as far as the Marbleglen police department was concerned.

“I can take you into the back room where …” Wilma said, then trailed off.

“Lead the way,” Amber said.

They headed for the open doorway to the right of the living room and made an immediate left into the hallway. They passed a small bedroom on the right, its ajar door revealing that it was used more for storage than anything else, then entered an office at the end of the hall. Glass-fronted dark cherrywood bookshelves lined the walls to the left. Straight ahead was an expensive-looking desk that was littered with folders, papers, and books. Even more papers and folders littered the ground around it. To the right, a wall of windows that looked out on the neighbor’s house next door.

And in the center of the room, a large bloodstain discolored the floor.

Without saying anything, Amber walked further into the room, skirted the stain, and headed for the desk. Beyond it, a long rectangular window revealed a corner of the backyard, where a pair of chairs sat on one side of a small pond, two white-and-orange koi swimming idly. Amber supposed those were Wilma’s responsibility now. Thick curtains were pulled open on the window, their hems pooled on the floor.

Turning, Amber found that every desk drawer had been pulled open. Even more papers and folders had been rifled through here. Pens from a mesh cup were spilled on the ground. An elephant paperweight lay on its side just under the desk’s chair.

Back in March, Amber had conducted a time spell to see what had happened to Chloe Deidrick’s mother the night her car had plunged into the icy waters of Lake Lirkaldy. As Amber had conducted that spell, she’d looked at a picture of the lake and held onto a rock from its shore, then did her best to tap into the energy of the place so she could ask it to show her its secrets.

This time, she believed the energy she needed to tap into was in this very room, where the crime had taken place. There was energy in the elephant paperweight underneath Eric Jameson’s desk, the chair he’d sat in countless times, the bookshelves that had watched him work, and the floor that had soaked up his blood. If anyone or anything knew what had happened to Jameson, it was his own house.

Amber pulled her spell from her pocket—Wilma’s wide gaze had been focused on the bloodstain on the floor—and then turned to face the window. “Please give me a moment to read the energy of the room. You may see me collapse, but do not be alarmed. This is part of my process.”

The chief let out a choked sound behind her but tried to turn it into a cough.

Amber recited the spell then, keeping her voice both soft and controlled, despite the fact that she was wildly nervous to be doing such a spell in front of the chief and a virtual stranger, even if she was doing it with her back to them. Part of her worried she wouldn’t tumble into this memory so much as slam into it—a belly flop into a pool of magic that was sure to sting.

As the last words of the spell left her lips, she stuffed the spell back into her pocket, then turned and beelined for the blood stain. Her magic had been ignited; she was amazed she’d been able to walk at all, her head was so fuzzy with it. She knelt and placed both hands on the stain on the floor. The energy here from the trauma of the attack—and even a hint of Simon’s energy, too—was so strong, Amber’s magic gave a jolt when her hands made contact with the bloodstained wood. She flinched slightly—or maybe a lot, given Wilma’s worried, though growing distant, “Is she okay?”

But Amber wasn’t able to answer on her own behalf. Her magic had taken over, washing up over her like a wave. She imagined Jameson, then—the way he’d stood listlessly on the stage in the Marbleglen Community Center during the first joint-festival meeting with the Floral Frenemies. It had been the first and only time she’d been around him in person. She recalled Mayor Sable sarcastically commending Jameson on his ability to be a team player, and the venomous look he’d shot her afterwards. Amber tried to imagine the way he must have looked sitting at the desk behind her. She thought of April 17th.

Show me what happened here, she told her magic.

The rattling clang of a drawer closing made her jerk her head to the right. Eric Jameson sat at his desk, searching for something. The world outside the window behind him was growing dark.

The distant chime of a doorbell made him abandon his search, and he stood, giving the knot of his tie a straightening tug. He was dressed in some combination of casual and formal—a black silken tie, a crisp dark shirt tucked into dark wash jeans, and boat shoes. He grabbed his blazer from where it hung on the back of his office chair and slipped it on as he walked for the door. The bell chimed again.

“I’m coming!” he called out, pulling open the office door. He muttered something under his breath about hating parties, all the while adjusting the collar of his jacket.

Amber followed after him down the wood-paneled hallway, around a corner, and into the living room. The massive oak dining table was currently being set by two women in white shirts and black slacks. They didn’t look up as Jameson strode in; he didn’t acknowledge them.

On the other side of the door stood a very pretty, petite brunette woman. She wore a black-and-white patterned wrap dress and her hair was pinned up in an elegant updo. A shiny black clutch was held in front of her lap, and her lean frame was elongated even further by her equally shiny red heels, which matched her lipstick. The bright light from the porch glittered off the large diamond ring decorating her finger.

“You’re early, Jane,” Jameson said in greeting.

“Don’t start,” the woman said, making her way inside without waiting to be invited.

“Fine,” he said closing the door behind her. “You’re early, Victoria.”

“You’re in a fine mood this evening,” she said, as she watched the pair of women laying out silverware and glasses for a moment, before turning back to face Jameson. “I know you hate parties, but wasn’t this little soirée your idea?”

“No,” he grumbled. “Yvette thought it would be good for the optics. This whole thing feels like a PR stunt to give Ricinus and his band of misfits a win so they feel like all their little protests were worth it. But it’s just to keep them distracted from the farm deal. By the time they figure out what’s going on, Cooper will have gone the same way as Woodbury, and it’ll be too late to do anything.”

Amber was struck by his tone more than his words. Eric Jameson was bitter. It practically poured off him like a cologne.

Victoria pursed her lips and took a quick couple of steps forward—click-clicking on the hardwood floor—and poked a manicured finger, hard, against his chest. “You want to keep it down? I don’t know what all is going on here in Marbleglen, but I’m guessing ninety percent of what you just said needs to be kept to yourself.” She discreetly angled her head toward the two food servers. “I honestly can’t tell if you need to drink more or less right now.”

Jameson swayed on his feet a little. His expression was an uncomfortable mixture of anger and longing. “What do you see in Sullivan, anyhow, Tory? Hm? Were you looking for danger? You needed a lawyer who represents criminals rather than someone who writes parking tickets?”

Victoria merely stared at him.

“He’s not even a good lawyer,” Jameson said. “He hasn’t won a case yet, has he? Keeps representing scum and keeps losing. His daddy’s money is gonna run out eventually, then what? Did you just need commitment? I could have married you if that’s what you wanted. You never said you wanted that.”

She scoffed and took a step back. “I wanted someone with greater goals than being able to drink more whiskey than anyone else before passing out.”

His nostrils flared. “Oh, I’ve got goals and ambitions now. You just wouldn’t like what I’m doing.”

“And what does that mean?”

“It means I’m going to get another drink,” he said, and stalked past her.

Amber followed after Jameson; the spell had brought her here to see his story, not Victoria’s. She glanced over her shoulder as she walked, though, and noted that Victoria’s expression was furious. She held her clutch tight in both hands, glaring after the man she’d once dated—possibly loved.

Then someone knocked on the door and startled Victoria out of her staring contest with Jameson’s back. “I guess I’m your bloody butler now!” she called out, plastered on a smile, and pulled open the door. “Hi. You can take those into the kitchen.”

A man carrying two white cardboard boxes shuffled inside, the contents clicking together as he moved. Bottles of alcohol, Amber guessed.

Jameson spent a good deal of time in the kitchen even as more guests started to arrive. He was cordial when someone new found him sipping moodily in the corner, where he had a clear view through the double doors that opened into the living-dining room area, where the festivities were largely going on without him.

Amber stood beside him, watching the evening unfold as Jameson had. They both tensed when Simon walked in with Tillman’s arm thrown over his shoulders. Simon looked as pained as Jameson did.

When the guests started filing into the dining room for dinner, Amber clocked the time glowing a bright green on Jameson’s built-in microwave. Just after 6:30.

While the diners worked their way through four courses—the wait staff tripling over the course of the hour—Amber kept a close eye on Simon. He sat between Tillman and Jameson, but neither one discreetly dumped anything suspicious into his food or drink.

Though this was Jameson’s house, the soirée, as Victoria had called it, was being run by the charismatic Mayor Sable, who sat at the head of the table. Molly Hargrove sat to Yvette’s left. Well, her place setting was beside the mayor, but Molly was on her feet snapping photos most of the time—so much so that she missed the first two courses. Every time she took a seat, the mayor seemed to urge her to snap a few more.

Jameson made conversation with anyone who spoke to him first, but he otherwise remained quiet, glaring down at his plate or into his glass. Nicolas Daniels, however, was loud and boisterous. He clapped people on the shoulder, told off-color jokes, and ribbed Jameson often. The other diners were either laughing and drinking with the same enthusiasm as Mayor Sable and Daniels, or quietly eating their food and gazing up and down the length of the table in unease, like Simon. Tillman was having a grand time, more or less flirting with any woman who so much as looked at him.

Amber knew some of the people here were from Simon’s safety committee, as well as staff members of the Marbleglen Herald, but the others, she guessed, were investors. People with money to spend on the land development deal that might push Joe Cooper off his generations-owned peppermint farm, but would bring an influx of jobs and cash to the town.

She was starting to feel as uncomfortable with this whole thing as Jameson.

Once dinner had ended, drinking began in earnest. Groups spilled out onto the front lawn to smoke, and others wandered into the backyard, whose awnings and trees were hung with lanterns that glowed like massive fireflies. A DJ booth had been set up in the corner, and a makeshift dance floor had been erected before it. There were people on the dance floor, sitting in the scattered lounge chairs, and clustered together in small groups, enjoying the crisp spring evening. Amber could have sworn that in the hour after dinner had ended, the attendees had doubled in number. She couldn’t figure out where they were all coming from.

She tried to take in the party from all angles, and to commit as many faces to memory as she could, knowing Simon hadn’t been drugged until close to nine p.m., around the time he’d called Bianca, his words slurred as he spoke of his dying magic.

Amber was only allowed a couple minutes to look around, however, before her magic tugged her back inside, back to Jameson who was once again sulking in the kitchen. When she stepped in from the backyard, she was surprised to see that standing beside Jameson, and looking just as sulky, was Simon. The two had been rivals, from everything Amber had heard, but the way they stood side by side now, staring into the living room through the open double doors of the kitchen, they looked like they were each other’s only friend in this place.

And, despite being at odds for months, maybe that was true.

As they stood there, a waiter with a silver platter topped by only two drinks strolled into the room and made a beeline for the pair of men. “Mr. Jameson, I have been told by the mayor to bring you and your companion a drink. She told me to tell you, ‘Stop pouting. This is a celebration. Drink and try to have some fun.’” The man handed Jameson a flute, bubbles dancing in the pale amber liquid inside. “And you, I hear, do not drink alcohol, so here is a ginger ale. The mayor said if you’re not mingling within the next ten minutes, Chief Jameson, sir, she’s going to drag you out by your ear.”

Jameson’s nostrils flared. His expression said he very much wanted to kill the messenger. The waiter visibly swallowed.

When Jameson made no move to grab the drinks, Simon grabbed them both off the tray. The waiter smiled at him in thanks, bowed slightly, then scurried out the open patio that led to the backyard just behind them.

“I hate champagne,” Jameson said, glaring at the two glasses in Simon’s hands. “Why don’t you drink? It’s the only way for me to get through the day.”

Amber knew the man had to be drunk by now, but there was something very lucid about him. Unflinchingly honest, too. Perhaps being this detached from his inhibitions brought him closer to his true self. Maybe it was why he always had to be drunk in order to call his daughter.

“My father was an alcoholic,” Simon said. “Champagne though … I haven’t had champagne since before my wife died. She loved the stuff. For a while I would drink it just as a way to remember her.” Then he lowered his head, his brow creased, like he couldn’t figure out why he’d just shared that with this man.

Jameson sighed heavily. “My condolences. My wife—ex-wife—passed, too.” He jutted his chin at the glasses. “I wouldn’t mind some ginger ale if you want the bubbly.”

“Ah, what the heck,” Simon said, handing over the soda. “Maybe it’ll help this night be less awkward.”

Jameson chuckled darkly at that, then took a swig of the ginger ale. “I hate parties even more than I hate champagne.”

Simon chuckled, too. After taking a sip of his drink, he said, “Then why throw one?”

“Oh, I had very little to do with it,” Jameson said. “I might be the chief, but none of these people care about that.”

Simon turned so his shoulder rested against the wall and faced Jameson. He took another sip of champagne. Jameson continued to brood. Simon polished off the glass. Holding the empty flute, Simon studied him for a moment, then placed his free hand over Jameson’s, the one holding the soda glass. The contact startled Jameson enough that he tore his gaze from the living room. “Are you Molly Hargrove’s true anonymous source?”

A truth spell!

“Yes,” Jameson said without hesitation, then his bloodshot eyes widened and he stumbled away from Simon. “What the hell was that?”

“What was what?” Simon asked.

Jameson stood nose-to-nose with Simon now, his jaw tight. Amber wasn’t sure if Jameson was planning to deck Simon or not. Then Jameson looked back toward the living room full of people and he said, “You can’t talk about stuff like that here. That kind of thing will get you killed.”

Abruptly, Jameson headed for the living room. Simon stared after him, his brows furrowed. Jameson stopped at the open doors of the kitchen and looked back, then jerked his head at Simon. Follow me, it said.

So he did, setting his empty glass on the counter as he went.

An unsettling sensation passed down Amber’s spine and she glanced toward the sliding glass door the waiter had hurried out of earlier. Victoria Sullivan stood there, the expression on her face curious now, rather than furious as she watched Jameson walk away this time. According to Daniels, Victoria had been the one who overhead Simon and Jameson talking, revealing that Molly’s source who was helping her with a story about the corruption of the Marbleglen police department hadn’t been Simon after all. When the two men were halfway across the living room, Victoria walked quickly into the living room, scanning the guests.

She seemed to spot Tillman first. Amber hurried after her.

Though she halted when Victoria did, Amber’s magic tugged her forward. It felt a bit like hitting the brakes on a speeding vehicle. Get to Jameson, her magic insisted. You’re here for him, no one else.

Amber resisted for as long as she could, desperate to hear what Victoria was going to tell the smarmy, Hollywood-handsome man. But all she heard when she eventually lost the battle with her magic and was yanked forward was, “I think you have a problem.”

Jameson had just reached the mouth of the hallway he’d been intending to disappear down when he came to an abrupt stop. Simon nearly slammed into his back. Daniels had just rounded the corner and nearly collided with Jameson.

“Sorry, old man!” Daniels said with a jovial chuckle. “I got lost looking for the can.”

“Wrong hallway,” Jameson said, tone clipped.

“Right!” Daniels said, clapping Jameson on the shoulder. “Sorry about that.”

But before Daniels took another step, an amused shriek went up from somewhere in the living room where drunken partiers were talking and laughing too loudly. Jameson, Daniels, and Simon all turned toward the sound. Amber heard the whomp of the giant vase’s base circling on its edge before she saw it; seconds later, the thing toppled over and crashed into a dozen large shards.

Jameson twitched a couple times, as if he were being pummeled, like the destruction of the vase had physically hurt him. Amber wondered if it had been an expensive heirloom, or merely a sentimental one.

Though she knew she was a specter here, a silent observer, even she shied away when Eric Jameson aimed his wide, red-splotched face toward the people filling his house.

“That’s it,” he said. “Get out.”

Not everyone heard him, but those who did shot confused glances around the room.

“I said,” Jameson said louder this time, taking a step forward. Simon grabbed the man by the forearm but he wrenched away from him. Jameson whirled on Simon then. “Don’t touch me!” He stalked toward Simon until Simon’s back hit one of the windows lining the front of the room. The blinds had been drawn to half-mast and thudded now against the pane. Simon turned his head away, Jameson’s an inch from his. “You’re a worthless little man who just wanted to stir up trouble to make your pathetic life feel more interesting. Is this interesting enough for you? Huh? Huh!”

Jameson was suddenly yanked back. Daniels had pulled him off Simon—who looked pale and sickly now, watching Jameson with some mixture of horror and rage.

“Calm down,” Daniels said in tight voice.

“Or what?” Jameson snapped.

Tillman, who had been standing nearby with Molly Hargrove, an arm around her waist, unhanded the petite blonde and took a few steps forward. “Hey, Jameson, bud, we—”

“I’m not your bud, bud,” Jameson said, and shoved Tillman and Daniels out of the way. Jameson addressed everyone in the room now, fists clenched by his sides. “Get. Out. Get out of my house, you sycophants! You’re all greedy monsters.” A hand shot forward and people flinched, as if his pointed finger was a loaded gun spraying bullets. “All of you! Get out!”

There was a shift in the wall of bodies, and then Mayor Sable appeared, pushing her way through the crowd who looked more like statues now than drunken revelers. Music and laughter still trickled in from the backyard, making the tension in the room feel even thicker.

“It seems our chief of police may have had a bit too much to drink!” Mayor Sable said good-naturedly to the room at large, drawing a few awkward chuckles from the onlookers. “I hope none of you will hold it against him.” Then she closed the distance between herself and Jameson—Daniels and Tillman on either side of her like bodyguards; Simon still cowered against the window, a hand to his forehead. The mayor lowered her voice. “Go drink some coffee, or splash some water on your face, or take a long walk, but you will not kick these people out. Too much is riding on this.”

In a tone just as low, but ten times as venomous, he said, “I. Don’t. Care. Get them out or I’ll drag them all out by their ears.”

The mayor’s lips pursed. It was the same turn of phrase Sable had told the waiter to use when he’d delivered the celebratory champagne Jameson hadn’t wanted to drink.

He gave her a once-over. “I’m done being jerked around by you. This is my house. I want them—I want you—out.”

No one moved.

“Now!” he roared in the mayor’s face.

She flinched as if he’d just slapped her. Then she plastered on a smile and whirled around. “I do believe we’ve overstayed our welcome. If I could please have everyone file out so our chief can get some rest, it would be most appreciated. A line of cabs is already waiting out front, but I’ll be happy to call more for anyone who needs one.”

Jameson stayed rooted to the spot, a muscle feathering in his jaw and his fists clenching in some kind of rhythm—maybe mirroring his racing heartbeat. People collected bags and coats and shuffled toward the door, where the mayor now stood. She was cordial and apologetic, saying her goodbyes, shaking hands, and offering her thanks for their attendance as if this were her home. Tillman and Daniels stepped to the side to have a quiet conversation, shot a glance toward Jameson, and then headed for the kitchen, presumably to tell the folks outside that the party was over.

It wasn’t until the last of the guests had left, leaving behind the core group of six, that Jameson spoke. “I’m done.” His piercing gaze was angled at the floor.

He’d said it so softly that only Tillman seemed to have heard him.

“Done?” Tillman repeated. “Done with what?”

“All of it!” Jameson said, arms out wide. “You throwing parties in my house, schmoozing with investors, harassing innocent people to get what you want.”

“Oh, don’t come off as all high-and-mighty now,” Daniels said. “If we skim a little off the top here and there or use a little pressure to get a perp to be more cooperative, it’s because you taught us how to do it.”

“Yeah, well, it’s gone too far now,” Jameson said. “I’m out. Do whatever you’re going to do with Stone Gate and to Cooper, but I want no part of it.”

“Then resign,” the mayor said.

Jameson rounded on her. “Excuse me?”

She merely crossed her arms. “You’ve been thinking about it, haven’t you? Can you really stand this job for another four or five years? Resign now and wipe your hands clean of all of it.”

Jameson stared her down, then his serious expression morphed into a smile, and he took several steps back, laughing. “Oh, this was your whole plan, wasn’t it?” he asked, waving a hand to encompass the three of them—Sable, Daniels, and Tillman. “Wear me down until I resign so you can run the whole town yourselves. No checks and balances.” He laughed again, then gestured at Simon. “And what about him and his safety committee? Was that all part of the plan, too? Did they recruit you, Simon, to make my life a living hell?”

“I don’t feel so good.” Simon was still slumped against the windowpane, a hand to his head. “I shouldn’t have had that champagne. Who knew I was such a lightweight now?”

Amber wasn’t sure how much of the conversation Simon had even heard.

The other three exchanged quick glances, brows raised.

“You drank the champagne, Simon?” the mayor asked. “I thought you didn’t drink.”

“He was feeling sentimental,” Jameson said with a sneer. “I hate the stuff.”

Simon pushed himself to standing, then blinked in an exaggerated fashion, as if he was trying to stay awake. He fixed Jameson with a very serious look. “You’re not so bad, you know? You’ve done some bad things, sure. But what you’re doing for Molly, for this town, that’s going to make up for a lot.”

Jameson’s face went a bright red, and it wasn’t from the alcohol. He wrapped an arm around a droopy Simon, and angled him toward Jameson’s office. “I want you all gone. I mean it. I’m going to sober him up and then he’s out too.”

He guided Simon into his office and Amber slipped in just as Jameson kicked the door shut. He locked the door, then got Simon into the chair behind his desk. Simon slumped over a little and Jameson kicked the chair in order to jostle Simon awake again. Jameson turned the chair to face him, placed a hand on either armrest, and leveled his face in front of Simon’s. “What are you feeling right now?”

“Uhh … sleepy,” Simon said. “Kind of dizzy. It feels like my magic is dying.”

“Guess we can add confusion to that list,” Jameson said, strangely lucid again. He spoke very slowly as he said, “I think what was in that glass was meant for me. I think you’ve been drugged, Simon. Do you have someone you can call to come get you? You can’t drive like this, I’m too drunk, and those three out there can’t be trusted either.”

“My daughter,” Simon said after a moment. “I can call my daughter.”

“Good,” Jameson said. “Call Bianca.”

Simon nodded very solemnly, as if this was the greatest task he’d ever been given in his life, and fumbled to get his phone out of his pocket.

Jameson made his way to the locked office door and pressed his ear against it.

Simon managed to get the screen unlocked and called Bianca. “Hi, my baby. How are you? I’m at this dinner party and it’s very … it’s very strange. No one really wants to be here and there was almost a fist fight. A vase smashed and the chief is really angry and he’s not very nice, you know? But I think he’s trying. I think my drink was drugged, baby. I think they drugged me. My magic is dying. It’s like the dried twigs I use to make wreaths. Brittle and fragile and dead. Dying. It’s dying.”

There was a distant slam and Jameson turned away from the door he’d had his ear pressed to, nodding once to Simon. “I think they left. Is your daughter coming to get you?”

“My magic is dying,” Simon said sadly. “Yes. Bianca is coming. I think. Will my magic come back?”

Jameson groaned, unlocked the door, and peered into the hallway like a little kid searching for monsters lurking in the closet.

Simon leaned forward then and picked up a piece of paper in the middle of Jameson’s desk, an official letterhead at the top. “Oh, is this why you had champagne, chief?” Waving the paper overhead now. “I’m sorry I took your celebration champagne. What are you planning to do in retirement?”

Jameson closed the door without locking it again and cocked his head at Simon. “What on earth are you talking about?” He joined Simon, who was standing now, at the desk. In Simon’s hand was a resignation letter, stating Jameson would like to end his position, effective immediately. The only thing missing was his signature. Jameson stalked to the middle of the room, eyes focused on the paper. Then he turned and shook it in Simon’s general direction. “I didn’t write this.”

“So … you’re not resigning?” Simon asked, rounding the desk. He looked a bit pained, like he was worried he’d misspoken and offended Jameson.

“He’ll do it if he knows what’s good for him,” said Daniels, standing in the open doorway. He stepped in, Tillman and Sable behind him. Simon and Jameson both whirled to face them, the crafted resignation letter still in Jameson’s hand.

“You know this deal is the best thing for the town,” Tillman said. “Cooper won’t be able to resist the payment offer for too much longer. His product was destroyed. He’s drowning in fines and tickets your department is responsible for giving him. He’ll cave. Trust me.”

“But if he doesn’t cave, you’ll kill him just like you killed Woodbury,” Simon said, his words a little slurred. The drug in his system clearly was interfering with Simon’s knowledge—knowledge Jameson had tried to impart to him earlier—that these three people before him weren’t the type to divulge secrets to. Was this all the drug’s doing, or was it reacting even more strongly because of Simon’s magic? “I figured out that part. Molly is looking for proof. You won’t get your deal if everyone knows you killed that old man. Cooper will testify to the harassment, too. You won’t be able to work in this town soon, Mr. Tillman. You may not be able to work anywhere.”

Jameson looked at each person in turn. “The attacks in town the night Cooper’s oil was destroyed … who orchestrated that? Was it you, Daniels?”

Daniels shrugged. “We needed a distraction. I learned that one from you, too.”

“Don’t put any of this on me!” Jameson snapped, the resignation letter crumpling a bit in his fist. “I’ve screwed up in the past. I’ll be the first to admit that. But this? You two are willing to work with Tillman when he’s murdered someone before? Where do you draw the line after this?”

“Here,” Sable said. “This deal will change all our lives. Tillman gets a lucrative deal to help further his career; this deal will be part of my legacy when I leave office and seek political power on a grander scale; and Daniels—once you leave this job you clearly no longer want, Eric—gets the promotion he wants.” She took a small step forward. “Do you have any idea how many jobs are going to be created? Your daughter’s name is Wilma, isn’t it? She can have any position she wants at the farm. She’ll make a better salary than whatever she’s making at that dreadful convenience store, move out of those horrible little apartments, and get a better start. Don’t you want that for her?”

Even Amber could tell that last one had gotten to Jameson.

“Any position?” Jameson asked, his eyes so red-rimmed, they made Amber’s eyes itch just looking at them. “Management?”

“Anything,” Sable said. “Resign. Walk away. Let us take care of the rest.”

“What about him, though?” Tillman asked, jutting a chin toward Simon, who still stood beside Jameson, though it looked like he’d checked back out of the conversation again. He swayed a little.

“Like he’s going to remember any of this in the morning,” Daniels said.

“Rohypnol usually causes amnesia for a four to six-hour window,” someone said. “But it’s not always permanent. Only one thing is permanent.”

Several things happened at once, as if in slow motion.

Victoria Sullivan stepped into the room with a gun drawn. Sable and Daniels both stumbled back, inadvertently giving Victoria a clearer shot. Which she took. Tillman lunged for Victoria, knocking her gun hand up toward the ceiling. Simon uttered the beginnings of a spell. Jameson darted just to the left, hands out.

And then time sped up.

Jameson slumped to the floor. Simon, before he even got halfway through whatever spell he was trying to attempt, collapsed a moment later.

Then the room erupted in shouts.

Mayor Sable had her hands pressed to the sides of her head, pacing back and forth as Jameson lay on the ground, a single bullet to the chest. Blood welled up on his shirt, making the black material look shiny, wet. Slowly, blood pooled beneath him. Sable muttered prayers to herself, asking for guidance, but never once suggesting they call the police. The police were already there.

Daniels rounded on Victoria. “What did you do!”

“I just saved you all!” Victoria said. Her skin had paled and her eyes were wild. She visibly swallowed. She looked nearly as shocked about this turn of events as the rest of the group was. But the gears in her brain were obviously working overtime and she sobered quickly. “Jameson and Simon have been at each other’s throats for months, right? Enough people saw them bickering tonight, and Simon was still here while the majority of the guests left. It’ll be easy enough to spin a story that the two of them got into a fight, Simon got drunk, and shot him. Neither one of them can speak out against any one of you—one is dead and the other has amnesia.”

“You just said it wasn’t permanent!” Tillman said, throwing up his hands.

Victoria shrugged, composed now. “It’s permanent ninety percent of the time. The secrets will stay in this room. We come up with the same story, we all sign our eyewitness statements, and Simon goes down for it. We’ll say he got blackout drunk.”

“Why did you even have a gun with you in the first place?” Daniels asked softly, dismayed.

Addressing Tillman and Sable, she said, “You know my husband is a lawyer, yes?” She wiggled her finger to showcase the rock on her finger.

“Did Sullivan’s daddy buy that for you?” Daniels snapped.

Victoria flushed a little at that, but clearly chose to ignore it. “Anyway, my husband is working a high-profile case right now and he’s been getting death threats. He wants me to keep a gun on me at all times for protection.” She shrugged one of her petite shoulders. “Guess it came in handy.”

“My God,” Sable said, hands in her hair again as she turned to look at Jameson, his eyes open and staring blankly at the ceiling. “Oh God …”

Daniels grabbed her by the arms and lowered his face to be level with hers. “This is more or less what we wanted. Simon’s been a wild card for months. Now that’s taken care of, too. Two birds, one stone. This deal is too big to let go. You said so yourself.”

Sable considered that.

“What do you want?” Tillman asked, rounding on Victoria. “No one does something like this without a darn good reason.”

“I want a cut of the deal,” she said. “Two hundred and fifty thousand and I’ll never speak a word of this to anyone.” She hesitated a moment, as if debating whether or not she should share this next part. “We’re a little hard up for cash until my husband wins his case. He will win it, though. He just needs his big break. This will give us a little cushion until then.”

Daniels, Sable, and Tillman all stared at her open-mouthed. Sable seemed to gather her wits about her first and pulled the two men into a huddle. Amber could tell that Sable was the person in the trio who was leaning toward the “We don’t comply with terrorists’ demands” side of things.

While they were discussing things, Amber noticed Victoria fiddling with the gun and her clutch, as if she was trying to decide if she should tuck the weapon back into her shiny little bag again. After a minute, the gun was still in hand and her clutch was tucked under her arm. She dramatically cleared her throat, and when she had the attention of the three of them on her, she produced a cell phone from the pocket of her wrap dress. She tapped the screen a few times, then turned the screen toward them. Five people were captured there. Then Simon’s recorded voice rang out in the room. “You’ll kill him just like you killed Woodbury.”

Tillman growled under his breath and started for Victoria, but Daniels held him back with his arm.

Victoria stopped the video. “Oh, and don’t think you can just take my phone. I already uploaded the video to one of my private servers. Another perk of marrying a powerful lawyer is that he’s got all kinds of security measures in place.”

“Recordings obtained without the person’s consent can’t be used in a court of law,” Daniels said. “You should know that better than anyone since you’re married to a lawyer, as you keep reminding us.”

Mayor Sable replied before Victoria could. “Oh, she knows. She’s not thinking of legal matters right now. The media would gladly take it. Which would be worse for us. All of us.”

Both men cursed.

“We accept your conditions,” Mayor Sable said, even as Daniels and Tillman blanched. “On one condition. I’m guessing the gun is registered to you or your husband? We keep it. Once Simon is in jail for this, you get the gun back and your quarter million. Then the secrets stay in this room, like you said.”

Victoria mulled that over. “Deal.” She handed the gun to the mayor, who sneered down at the weapon. Then Victoria headed for the door.

Sable aimed the gun and fired.

Click.

Victoria glanced over her shoulder. “You really think I’m stupid enough to hand you a loaded gun. Tsk, tsk, mayor.” Amber realized then that when Victoria had been fiddling with the weapon earlier, she’d been removing the remaining bullets, which likely were rattling around in the clutch still tucked under her arm. Victoria finger-waved at the trio. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

Then she strutted out of the room.

Amber gasped and opened her eyes. She lay on her side, Jameson’s bloodstain only a few inches from her face. She sat up quickly. Swallowing, she found wide-eyed Wilma and Chief Brown staring at her from the doorway. “How …” She cleared her throat. “How long was I out?”

“About five minutes,” the chief said.

“Why … why do you … who are you?” Wilma stammered.

As Amber swallowed again and got shakily to her feet, she saw her long brown hair swing into her vision. Crap. The trauma of the memory spell had knocked Amber’s glamour loose.

“Sorry about this, chief,” she said. “But can you catch her?”

“Catch her? What are you—”

Amber locked eyes with the bewildered Wilma, who had herself smashed against the wall and was staring at Amber as if she were a slimy monster that had just crawled out of a lagoon. “Wilma Jameson—sleep.”

Wilma’s eyes rolled back in her head and the chief caught her just before she hit the ground.

“Amber,” he hissed as he softly laid her on the ground. “What on earth are you doing? What happened?”

Her head was fuzzy, both from the use of magic and from the memories still swirling in her mind. She stood in the spot where Jameson and Simon had been when Victoria had come bursting into the room. The sound of the gunshot replayed in Amber’s head.

Bang!

“I know who killed Jameson.”

Chapter 25

Amber quickly explained to the chief. “Daniels, Tillman, and the mayor wanted Jameson to drink the drugged champagne. Then, when he wasn’t of sound mind, they were going to convince Jameson to sign the resignation letter Daniels wrote up. They hadn’t planned on Simon figuring out what they’d been up to. Victoria had clearly been listening at the door, and I guess she decided that all of this—swindling Cooper out of his farm and making sure Marbleglen got the Stone Gate Farms land deal—was worth killing over because she needed the money. Simon was a problem because he figured out Tillman’s past, as well as the whole group’s willingness to overlook the alleged murder of Hugh Woodbury, who had also likely been swindled out of his property. Victoria saw Simon as an obstacle in the way of her quarter million. She attempted to shoot him, but Jameson instinctively jumped in the way. They all agreed then to make up a story to frame Simon.”

“Good Lord,” the chief muttered, still squatted beside the unconscious Wilma. “What do we do about her? She saw you change forms.”

Amber scoffed. “I’m not a shapeshifter!”

“Now is not the time for semantics, Amber!”

“Fine,” she said, joining the chief beside Wilma. “Did I shift forms while I was passed out or after?”

“After.”

“Okay, I can wipe the last five minutes from her memory, change back into Cassie, and then I can wake her up.”

The chief visibly swallowed, but didn’t say anything, just nodded.

Amber video-called her aunt and then handed it to the chief. “Can you hold it up so she can see me? I’m going to need both hands.”

The chief took the phone gingerly, between forefinger and thumb, as if the device were soiled. Though he held it facing Amber, he flinched and leaned back when Aunt Gretchen answered, as if Aunt G were Medusa and if he made even the barest of eye contact, he’d turn to stone. Amber rolled her eyes.

“Hi, little mouse,” Aunt Gretchen said. “Do you have more cat treats? Tom Cat is yowling his head off as if he’s being starved to death.” She paused and cocked her head. “Where are you, dear? Good heavens! Is that a body? What did you do?”

“Why did she ask that so casually?” the chief whispered. “Does this happen often?”

“Who was that?” her aunt asked.

Then Willow’s face squeezed in next to their aunt’s. “Are you with Jack? Oh gosh! Who’s on the floor, Amber? What did you do?”

“Oh my God,” Amber grumbled. “Aunt G, I need your help with a memory erase spell. I’ll explain later. I need to lift five—probably ten, now—minutes out of her head. Can you walk me through how to do it?”

Her aunt pressed her lips together, then nodded.

Amber was too focused on the task at hand to check in with the chief, but she assumed he wore an expression of complete horror.

Once the task was done, Amber thanked her aunt and sister and Amber told the chief he could hang up.

He turned the phone around and yelped.

“Hi, chief!” Willow said.

“Hello, Chief Brown,” Aunt G said.

“Uhh … hello.”

Rolling her eyes, Amber took the phone from him. “You make him nervous because you’re both witches,” she told her aunt and sister. “I once threatened that I’d turn him into a hamster and feed him to Alley, and now he’s scared every witch he meets might turn him into something small and fuzzy.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Aunt Gretchen said. “Alley would never eat a hamster.” She winked and hung up.

“Your family seems … nice,” he said after a beat.

Amber stuffed her phone into her pocket. “Give me a second and I’ll turn back into Cassie.” Transformation complete, she placed a hand on Wilma’s arm. “She’ll flail awake like she’s coming out of a bad dream. Just stay calm.”

The chief didn’t say anything, which Amber figured was as good as she was going to get from him right now, then she sent a jolt of magic into Wilma, waking her up.

“Ahh!” Wilma yelped, waving her arms around wildly. Amber just narrowly missed getting an elbow to the face. “What the … why am I … how did you …”

“You fainted, Wilma,” the chief said from beside Amber. “Cassie told you she found out what happened to your father, and I think the news shocked you so much, you lost consciousness.”

Wilma pushed herself up so her back was against the wall. She rubbed her head. After a moment, she looked up at Cassie, searching her expression. “It wasn’t Simon, was it?”

“Nope,” Amber said. “They intended to kill Simon, actually, and your father jumped in the way. Your father saved Simon’s life.”

Wilma’s eyes welled with tears. “What can I do to save it again?”

Amber gave her hand a squeeze. “I think I have an idea.”

Once Amber had assured Wilma that she would be back soon to do a cleansing—which, in reality, would entail Amber calling every psychic she could find and conducting a truth spell on every one until she found someone reputable—and that they’d call her if they needed any help, Amber and the chief quickly got into his cruiser.

“All right. What is this idea of yours and how much will I hate it?” the chief asked once he pulled away from the curb.

“We need the gun—that will tie the murder back to Victoria. The storage unit, based on what I heard Daniels say, isn’t under any of their names. It more than likely belongs to Daniels, though,” Amber said. “If we can spook Daniels enough, he might go to the storage unit to get rid of it—either to chuck it in a river or plant it on Molly. He might even try to find a way to implicate Victoria.”

“Right, but their plan is to lay as low as possible. They haven’t so much as sneezed in the wrong direction in over a week,” the chief said. “What’s going to spook him now when they’re so close to getting what they want?”

“Victoria. Or at least, her voice,” Amber said.

The chief grunted. “I have a feeling that the less I know, the better.” He was quiet for a moment. “Reyes said his FBI pals have the location narrowed down to a few places, but they can’t pinpoint it for sure. Even if we get his boys out there to stake the places out and wait for Daniels to show up, there’s a possibility they’ll choose the wrong location.”

“I have witch GPS, remember?” Amber asked. “Between Willow and Aunt G, they can figure out how to alter my voice so I sound like Victoria. I will call Daniels and say enough to spook him so he goes after the gun. We’ll watch the maps and I’ll relay his location info to you, and you relay it to Reyes so they end up at the right facility. Low-budget surveillance and not super dangerous for us civilians. Win-win.”

The chief fell silent for a while. “While I hate that plan less than I thought I would, there’s still a lot that could go wrong.”

“I know,” she said. “But Simon’s going to end up on trial for a murder we know for sure now he didn’t commit, and Marbleglen is going to be run by Daniels and Sable, who have friends like Tillman and Victoria. The FBI was already looking into Daniels. Victoria killed Jameson and has falsified who-knows-how-many test results—both solely for money. Tillman may or may not have killed an old man all for the sake of a land development deal. And Mayor Sable knows all of this and doesn’t care—all she’s worried about is her political career.”

Another long pause.

“Dang it,” he said, then hit a button on his steering wheel. “Call Juan Reyes.”

His car’s phone system obliged.

“Hey, Owen,” Reyes said. “What’s up?”

“How soon could you get your guys to Belhaven?” the chief asked. “I’ve got sources telling me Daniels is likely to make a move soon.”

Reyes’s tone became more serious. “An hour? How reliable are these sources?”

The chief gave Amber a quick scan, then focused his gaze forward again. “Very.”

“I’ll make the call then,” Reyes said. “You coming too? They might need backup.”

“Just say the word.”

“I hope we get this guy,” Reyes said. “Doesn’t deserve to wear a badge.”

“Sure doesn’t. See you, Reyes.” The chief disconnected the call. “Now what?”

“Drop me off at home,” Amber said. “I’ve got maybe half an hour to convince Daniels this whole plan of theirs is about to fall apart.”

The chief drove faster.

Amber, Willow, and Aunt G sat next to each other at the dining room table. A few minutes ago, Misty Farnsworth had replied to a text with a phone number for the crime lab. It was a little after two in the afternoon.

A young woman answered the phone. “Thank you for calling the Lyles Crime Lab. How may I direct your call?”

“May I speak to Victoria Sullivan, please? I’m a friend of Nicolas Daniels,” Amber said.

The young woman sounded unsure when she said, “One moment, please.”

Amber put the phone on speaker just as Victoria answered. Willow hit record on her own phone lying beside it. “Hi, Victoria. This is a friend of Chief Daniels of Marbleglen. He said if I had a sample that needed … how did he put it … ‘special care,’ that I should give you a call.”

“Of course!” Victoria said. “Did he discuss the rate for expedited processing with you?”

“He did. It’s more than reasonable,” Amber said.

“Perfect,” Victoria said. “Whenever you’re ready, just drop it by the office and we’ll get you taken care of right away.”

“Thank you so much,” Amber said. “Say, have you spoken to him lately?”

This gave Victoria pause. “No. Not in a couple weeks. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, I haven’t either,” Amber said quickly. “I just heard he started as chief of police recently after fighting for a promotion for so long. I just wanted to know how he’s faring.”

“I’m sure he’s doing fine,” Victoria said. “He’s very … adaptable.”

Clearly. “Thank you for your time. I’ll be in touch.”

After disconnecting the call, Willow and Aunt Gretchen spent the next twenty or so minutes listening to Willow’s recording. Amber had a hard enough time altering appearances that she wasn’t even going to attempt to tackle one as complicated as voice. They worked through a series of spells until Amber’s voice became unnervingly similar to Victoria’s.

Checking the maps again to confirm Daniels was in his office, Amber called the Marbleglen police department. Her altered voice got her connected to Daniels in a matter of seconds.

“Jane,” Daniels said in greeting.

Amber appropriately bristled at that. “Oh, don’t start that now. I thought we were friends.”

Goose bumps broke out on her arms at hearing a voice other than her own coming out of her mouth. She wasn’t sure which unsettled her more: a different voice or a different face.

Then she remembered that Neil Penhallow had committed to a glamour on a level that exceeded even deep method actors, had taken over not just the face and voice of someone else, but his entire life. Neil had slipped into someone else’s skin as a way to weasel his way into Amber’s mother’s life.

Daniels scoffed, pulling Amber back to the present. “What can I do for you today, friend?”

“So a little birdy just told me that not only is Simon Ricinus not in jail, but nice and cozy at home, and only had to pay twenty thousand dollars to get released,” Amber said. “I have to say, this makes me very worried about the stability of our deal.”

Amber could almost hear the way Daniels’s posture stiffened.

“Nothing has changed, Victoria, I promise you that,” he said. “Simon getting house arrest was a hiccup, yes, but we covered our tracks. We just need to sit tight until his court date. He’ll plead not guilty, it’ll likely go to trial, and it’ll be a year minimum before he ever sees the inside of another court room. In the meantime, Marbleglen will have its deal, and you’ll have your money. We just need to be patient.”

“I can be patient,” Amber said, “but I’m also doubling my fee.”

“Half a million?” Daniels whisper-shouted into the phone. “Are you insane? We don’t have that kind of money.”

“I suggest you find it,” Amber said. “I wonder if it’s more lucrative for me to sell the video to several news stations, or to offer it to the highest bidder for the chance at exclusive rights …”

“You can’t,” he said. “We had an agreement.”

“And part of that agreement was Simon going to prison. You’ve already failed,” she said.

“We still have the gun,” he said quickly. “That’ll tie all this back to you, you know.”

“Not if I get to it first,” she said. “Lawyer husband with connections in high places, remember? Well, and friends in low places. The gun is in Belhaven, right? Oh, you know what? Don’t tell me. I’ll find it. I’ve got it narrowed down to three places anyway. It was lovely doing business with you. Sorry it couldn’t work out.” Amber didn’t end the call just yet.

“Tory, we can talk about this,” he said. “Tory? Victoria!” He cursed, then hung up.

Amber stood and walked to the maps, dialing the chief as she went. Aunt Gretchen stood with her, arms crossed. Willow remained at the table, chewing on a thumbnail.

“I’m watching the maps now,” Amber said when the chief answered. “I can’t say for sure that it worked, but Daniels sounded really anxious.”

The Daniels dot was still in his office. Amber wondered if he was calling one of the others. Her gaze danced between the Sable and Tillman dots, wondering which one—if any—would make a move. She wedged a thumbnail between her teeth.

A full minute went by with no movement from any of them. The chief was still on the line with her. She could picture him sitting in his office or in his car, fingertips strumming a desk or steering wheel.

Had Amber been wrong to think Daniels could get spooked by one phone call? Had he called Mayor Sable and she, clearly being the most levelheaded of the three, talked him off the proverbial ledge? All it would take was one call back to the real Victoria Sullivan and Amber’s plan would implode.

Like the chief said, there were so many things in this plan that could go wrong.

Amber cast a worried look at her aunt.

Willow stood so quickly behind them, her chair nearly toppled over. She quickly walked to the map, a finger outstretched. “There!”

Amber whirled toward the map to see the Daniels dot was on the move, and quickly. “Chief, Daniels just left.”

“On it,” he said. “I’ll call Reyes and then call you back. I’ll keep you on speaker while I drive.”

Amber paced in the small space between her dining room table and the wall, waiting for the chief to call her back. She was a little worried that Daniels’s dot, instead of heading straight south through to Belhaven, wouldn’t leave the town at all, but head east in the direction of Molly’s house. But he kept a steady pace straight into Edgehill.

Ten agonizing minutes later, the chief called her back.

Amber was too anxious to give him updates on the dots’ whereabouts, worried something was going to go horribly wrong and it would all be her fault, so she continued to pace while Aunt Gretchen and Willow played navigator, the phone left on the dining room table on speaker.

After twenty-five minutes, Aunt G said, “Daniels just arrived at Beary Important Storage. Major cross streets are Plummer and Fairway.”

“Got it,” the chief said. “Thanks, ladies.”

He hung up.

And now Amber had to wait—again. Her low-budget, low-danger plan was the most sensible one, and she knew that, but being a civilian was decidedly less exciting.

A few minutes later, Willow said, “Uhhh …”

Amber hurried back over, worried the map would reveal something awful had happened to the chief, even though she knew that made no sense.

As she watched the maps, the dots begin to disappear. First Sable, then Tillman, Molly, and finally Daniels. All three Blackwood women cast simultaneous locator spells, but none of the dots reappeared.

It wasn’t until their flurry of spell attempts stopped that Molly’s dot popped back up on the map. Amber held her breath, waiting for the others, but still, only Molly’s remained. She was once again in Edgehill.

Stranger still, she was in the abandoned neighborhood on the edge of town.

When Amber’s phone rang a moment later, all three of them jumped. Amber snatched it up, hoping to see the chief’s name on screen, but an unfamiliar number displayed instead.

“Hello?” she said.

“Amber?” came the shaky male voice. “Amber, is that you? Can you hear me?”

“Connor?” Amber asked, and Willow froze in Amber’s peripheral vision. “Are you okay?”

“No,” he whispered. “I messed up, Amber. I messed up royally. When I said I went out of town to work on a story? That was true. I just didn’t tell you that you and your family are the story.”

“What?”

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “Molly and I have been working on it together—she had to put the Simon story on hold since he got arrested and she can’t get in to see him,” Connor said, sounding no less harried than when this conversation started. “We’ve researched your parents and the fire that killed them, and even tried to find Delin Springs but couldn’t find it because, well, you know …”

Amber’s heart was racing so hard, she couldn’t formulate words.

“All that research eventually led to this abandoned neighborhood on the border between Edgehill and Belhaven,” he said. “Do you know anything about it?”

“Yes,” she managed to croak out.

“Okay, good,” he said, then gasped. “That’s where we are right now. Me and Molly, I mean. Some guy, he said his name is Penhallow? He found us here and was asking all these questions about you and then he … God, Amber. He took Molly. I’m hiding behind one of the few houses here, but he’s going to find me eventually. I can hear Molly….”

A high-pitched scream sounded in the background. Amber’s blood went cold.

“Oh God,” Connor groaned. “I don’t know what to do.”

But Amber was already on the move, her aunt and sister behind her. “We’re on our way.”

Chapter 26

Willow drove while Amber kept an eye on the map she’d hastily removed from the wall. Occasionally the Molly dot would move an inch or two, but otherwise it hadn’t left the abandoned neighborhood.

They were silent, dread likely coating Willow and Aunt G’s throats as much as it was coating Amber’s. Why was a Penhallow here? Amber’s only consolation was that the books had been moved, buried in spells, and no one could even open them aside from Amber and Willow. The books were safe.

Connor and Molly, however, were another matter.

Willow got to the end of Toyger, stopped at the sign for a mere moment, and then made a right onto Korat. When the two-story farmhouse with the sagging reddish roof appeared on the corner, Amber said, “Turn left here!”

Willow hardly slowed for the turn and Amber grabbed hold of the “Oh crap!” handle to keep herself in her seat. Aunt G let out a little “oof” in the back. Amber didn’t see a car anywhere. No people. No movement.

Amber sent a text to Connor, hoping he had his phone on silent, thinking it would be best not to talk here if a Penhallow could be nearby listening in. We’re here. Where are you? Where’s Molly?

In less than a minute—given how fast Willow was driving down the road, the car’s tires kicking up a thick cloud of dust behind them—they reached Zelda’s old house. Molly’s dot, apparently, was here.

“Stop!” The moment the car did, Amber shot out and ran around the back of the house, hoping she’d find Connor crouched behind it. There were nothing but weeds and debris behind the house. A few feet away, a dilapidated swing set had been overtaken by brambles.

Someone screamed nearby, the sound coming from the left.

Amber took off running.

Once she’d cleared the house, she glanced over to see Willow and Aunt G were on the move, too. Amber cut across the sea of cracked cement, overgrown weeds, and large fallen tree branches. She joined them on the street. They ran, scanning the street, the few remaining houses, and the forest that had sprung up behind the old structures.

A scream sounded again, but this time from behind them.

Amber skidded to a stop and whirled back toward the direction of Zelda’s house and Willow’s car. Three of the vehicle’s doors still stood open. There was no one else on the street. Aunt G and Willow had stopped running too. The Blackwoods formed a triangle, backs facing each other to keep an eye out for threats from all sides.

The scream sounded again and again and again until it felt as if it were coming from all around them. Then, just as quickly, it stopped. Amber’s ears rang in the silence.

“Amber!” someone called out, followed by the sound of pounding footsteps.

From around the corner, the same corner Amber and Edgar had turned down on the day they’d found Zelda’s doll, Connor and Molly ran toward them at breakneck speeds. Connor had hold of Molly’s hand and was pulling her along; she kept looking over her shoulder as she ran. They were filthy and had a wild look in their eyes.

Looking at Aunt G, Amber said, “Stay here!” then took off running again, Willow sprinting to keep up with her.

“Amber, no!” Connor yelled, waving his free arm. “Go back! Go back!”

She didn’t heed his warning. If a Penhallow was after them, running back wasn’t an option. Amber needed to get herself and Willow between the non-witches and the Penhallow. Amber and Willow reached them at the same time.

“Are you okay?” Amber asked, breath ragged.

Molly’s white-blonde hair had been in a ponytail, but was askew now and her face was smudged with dirt. Connor looked no better, with a cut above his right eye. Blood was trickling down the side of his face, which was also smeared with dirt, and there was a tear in the right pant leg of his khakis.

“Amber! Willow!” Aunt G called out from behind them, and Amber looked up to see a figure at the end of the street. It looked like a man, given the height and build, but Amber couldn’t be sure. The person was several hundred feet away and progressing at a casual pace.

Amber froze.

Molly looked behind her and let out an all-too-familiar scream.

Grabbing Molly by the shoulders, Amber gave her small frame a hard shake to get her to snap out of it. “Go to my aunt, okay?” She switched her focus. “You too, Connor.”

“But—” he started to say.

Willow forcefully pushed him behind her. “Go!”

Finally, Molly and Connor complied and ran off again. Amber glanced back and saw Aunt G motioning for them to hurry, then they bolted toward the car together.

When Amber faced the figure, it wasn’t moving any faster than it had been before, but Amber could see now that it was a man who approached. “Who are you?” she called out.

A voice carried over the distance with ease. “Damien Penhallow.”

“What do you want, Damien?”

“I want what we all want,” he said, sounding mildly annoyed. “I want the Henbane book.”

In two blinks, he was a mere foot away from them, and Amber stifled a gasp. Aunt G cried out from behind them and Amber whirled to find Molly missing and Connor with Aunt G in a choke hold.

Amber’s magic surged in her veins, but before she could react, Connor’s face sloughed off and revealed a woman who looked surprisingly similar to Damien. It had all been a trick to lure them out here. How many more were there?

“Meet my sister Devra,” Damien said.

Fists clenched, Amber glared at Damien. “Let her go.”

“We will, but she has to give Devra the location of the book,” Damien said. “Or you could tell me. And then we’ll be on our way.”

“Was that call Amber got actually from Connor Declan?” Willow asked, her voice low and shaky.

“I messed up, Amber. I messed up royally,” Damien said in a voice identical to Connor’s. “You and your aunt gave us the idea, actually,” he said, smiling at Willow. “You see, whatever you were doing here a few weeks ago, Amber, you left your signature all over this place.”

Amber winced. She’d worried about this very thing but hadn’t taken any precautions.

“Devra and I finally found it a few days ago,” Damien said, “and it led us back to that kitschy little shop of yours. We’ve been listening outside ever since.”

Which meant that they’d just missed the day that Amber, Willow, and Aunt G went to Quill to hide the books. They hadn’t soundproofed Amber’s apartment as diligently as they had when Kieran had been prowling the streets. Heck, she’d gotten spooked weeks ago when it felt as if someone had been watching her, she’d set alarms that night, and then had never set them again—lured into the false sense of security that if a Penhallow was nearby, she would know. Kieran had left his molasses-like magical signature everywhere he went. But Amber was realizing now that she’d known Kieran had been in Edgehill, because Kieran had wanted her to.

Who knew how many conversations Damien and Devra had overheard simply because Amber had thought she was safe?

Penhallows could hide in plain sight, and if they didn’t let you in on their secret, you were left none the wiser until it was too late.

Like now.

Amber’s stomach churned.

“I’ll tell you!” Aunt G cried out. “Just don’t hurt my girls!”

Amber and Willow whirled to face their aunt, Amber almost positive Willow’s expression would match her own: shocked disbelief. Then, even more shocking, Aunt Gretchen began to weep and carry on. She let loose low keening wails like she was being torn in two. Her knees nearly gave way and Devra instinctively grabbed Aunt G under the arms to keep her upright.

“I worship the ground my girls walk on!” Aunt G wailed. “They’re all I have!”

One moment Amber was so bewildered by the dramatic show of emotion she had never seen from her aunt in all her years, and then she registered what her aunt had said. “The ground my girls walk on.”

Literally.

Amber dropped to her hands and knees, placed her hands on the ground, and felt the magic veins beneath her pulse like a heartbeat. Ba-boom.

Damien had just uttered a, “What are you do—”

Amber felt the magic from the ground flow into her with all the force of a tide. Willow cast an air spell that knocked Damien off his feet as if she’d just yanked a rug out from under him. He hit the ground hard, and, clearly disoriented, struggled to get back up. With one hand on the ground, Amber reached forward and clamped a hand around Damien’s forearm. With the aid of the magic veins below her, Amber cast the same blowback spell she’d used as one of the layers on the grimoires’ hiding places.

The spell hurled Damien so far down the street that the impact knocked him out cold. He rolled down the dirt road several feet before coming to a stop in a heap, his limbs splayed.

Devra’s cry of alarm was cut off abruptly and then something thudded to the ground. Amber and Willow turned in unison to find Devra on the ground, also out cold. Aunt G had her hands on her knees and was breathing hard.

A screech sounded from above and Amber looked up to see a flock of small back birds take off at once, heading in the direction of Korat Road.

“Aunt G?” Amber asked cautiously when her aunt hadn’t said a word in nearly a minute.

All three Blackwood women seemed too scared to move from their current locations, as if even a hint of movement would wake the Penhallows. Amber needed to think, but her hands were shaking and her heart was racing, and what was she supposed to do?

“I’m okay,” Aunt G finally said, panting. “That was one doozy of a sleep spell though. She wouldn’t go down; it was like tranquilizing a horse.”

“What do we do now?” Willow asked, echoing the question that bounced endlessly in Amber’s head. “We can’t leave them here but we also can’t exactly let them go either.”

They needed the spell in the Henbane grimoire that Amber had used on Kieran. The spell that had severed him from his desire for magic and had thereby cured his curse. It also meant he was magic-free now, but he’d admitted he’d never felt freer. Yet, in order to rid Damien and Devra of their curses, Amber would need to open that book again. Which was three hours away.

No, they needed to do something with these two now.

The ground beneath them suddenly rumbled. It startled Willow and Aunt G, as it would have startled anyone, but it struck fear in Amber’s heart. It was the same rumble from Zelda’s memory when the magic veins erupted.

“Run!” was on the tip of Amber’s tongue when the ground undulated beneath her and knocked her over. When she hit the ground, the magic in the veins surged up and flooded Amber’s system. There was so much power here, it made Amber dizzy, almost nauseous.

Because of that, she couldn’t have been sure that what she felt next made any sense—perhaps she was delirious now … magic sick—but the magic here wanted her to know it was angry. Furious, even.

She just didn’t know if it was angry with her. And given how much power was in the ground here, she sincerely hoped it wasn’t aimed at her. Amber remembered what Zelda had told her, that there were two main schools of thought on why the ley lines splintered. One was that the surge of magic turning back on after the council had short-circuited the magic-grid had caused pockets of magic to erupt, the ley lines unable to contain the energy. The other was that magic itself was livid with the council, and the splintering had been caused by something akin to a magical temper tantrum. Based on what Amber felt now, she believed the latter theory. If it was true, Amber wondered if magic was also angry with the Penhallows for forcing the council to take such drastic measures to begin with. The ground thrummed beneath her. It was like Kim when she desperately wanted to say something to a person of authority but held her tongue. Kim practically vibrated with the desire to voice her opinion until she spoke her piece.

The magic here wanted to speak. Maybe it just wanted the Penhallows out of this neighborhood. Or maybe the cursed magic in their veins was slowly leaking out of their bodies and into the ground, trying to poison the ley lines, too.

Amber wanted this magic to know that she’d heard it. That she knew it was angry, but that she didn’t know how to help it. She didn’t know how to help anyone.

I don’t know what to do, she thought, pushing her magic into the words as if this plea was a spell. I think we’re close to solving the Penhallow problem again, but we’re not ready yet. I … I can’t kill Damien and Devra. Willow and Aunt Gretchen can’t either. But we can’t let them go. They know where I live. They’ll tell others. We need more time. Amber’s desperation to keep her family, her town, and, somehow, history safe was so overwhelming, she thought she would drown under the weight of it. Can you help me? Can you show me what to do?

Both her own magic and the energy below her thrummed again.

And suddenly the neighborhood around her changed. She was back in the 1970s, she guessed, but it was just as desolately quiet as it was in the present. The neighborhood was deserted. Slowly, she got to her feet and turned in a circle. There wasn’t a soul in sight, including Willow and Aunt G. Doors to houses stood open. A forgotten suitcase lay overturned on someone’s lawn. The woman’s laundry across the street still hung from the line, flapping slightly in the light breeze.

A moment later, twin thuds sounded behind her and she whirled to see the unconscious bodies of Damien and Devra lying side by side. Amber froze, waiting for them to wake, but they didn’t stir.

The ground rumbled and undulated again, and Amber fell to her knees. The magic hummed, then violently slammed back into her and everything went black.

When she came to, she was flat on her back, and she was staring up at a canopy of trees. The sky beyond them was a bright blue. A cloud lazily scudded by. Willow’s concerned face swam into view on the right, and then Aunt G’s on the left.

“Amber!” Willow yelped, then collapsed on Amber in her best attempt at a hug while Amber was currently too numb and woozy to move.

It took a minute for Amber to feel like she could get up without collapsing, and when she started to shift, her aunt and sister helped her to her feet.

“Where did the creepy twins go?” Willow asked. “Where did you go?”

Before she could reply, Aunt G reached up to gently pat Amber’s cheek. “What on earth happened, little mouse?” Her skin was sallow and sweat beaded her forehead. “You scared us both half to death. We called Edgar and he said this kind of thing is normal here, though you’d never disappeared before. What a horrible place!”

Amber managed a weak chuckle, rubbing her hip where a rock had been digging into her. “This is going to sound weird, but the magic here took us back in time and then … kept the Penhallows.”

“You’re right,” Willow said, “that is weird.”

“I asked for help, and it … listened,” Amber said, bewildered.

Willow blinked at Amber, opened her mouth, shut it again.

Aunt Gretchen cocked her head and stared at Amber a beat. “I guess you just might be a legendary witch after all, little mouse.”

Chapter 27

Amber’s ankle had been reinjured after her trip through time, but she wasn’t entirely sure how. All she knew was that she needed a hot bath and for her brain to stop repeating what Aunt Gretchen had said: I guess you just might be a legendary witch after all, little mouse.

It was the most ludicrous thing Amber had ever heard.

Yet the hollow feeling in her gut told her it might be true. The idea that so many people, witch and non-witch alike, might rely on her was almost enough for her to flee Edgehill and never look back. She could hardly take care of herself—how was she supposed to take on responsibilities this big?

As she settled into the passenger seat, ankle throbbing, she grabbed her cell phone out of her pocket. Somehow it had survived both the time travel and her fall.

She had a text from Connor. Hey, Amber! Did you text me on accident? I should be back in town by tomorrow. I’ve been in Arizona working on a story. Molly isn’t with me, but the story I’m working on is one she and I are collaborating on. Why did you ask if she was with me? Is she okay?

Before she could formulate a reply, the chief called.

“Chief!” Amber answered. “Are you okay? Did you—”

“We’ve got Daniels,” he said. “The FBI found several things in his storage unit that tie back to other cases they’d been building against him. Once he realized he’d been had, he threw the rest of the group under the bus. Reyes and a few guys are going after Sable, and a few of mine just rounded up Tillman.”

“And Victoria?” Amber asked.

“Belhaven police are on their way to her house now,” the chief said. “According to Daniels, the gun belongs to her. That’s enough to bring her in for questioning. Carl called me and said Tillman won’t shut up about how corrupt Daniels is. I worried we’d have a hard time getting any of them to roll over on each other because they’re all friends but, man, they’re all going to implicate themselves without much questioning from us. Sounds like they all hate each other.”

Amber wasn’t terribly fond of any of them herself.

“What about Simon’s court date?” Amber asked.

“Reyes is doing what he can to get in touch with his lawyer or Judge Harper tonight, if not tomorrow,” he said. “Between what was in the storage unit and all their confessions?” He chuckled. “Simon will be cleared of the charges before we know it.”

“Thanks, chief,” Amber said, her eyes welling a little. “I know this wasn’t something you had—”

“None of that. You didn’t have to do any of this either, Blackwood,” he said. “We take care of each other around here. Town lines don’t matter. Now, go call Bianca and give her the good news. Just tell her to act surprised when she gets an official call from Reyes or Simon’s lawyer.”

She hung up and immediately dialed Bianca. When Amber broke the news, Bianca burst into tears.

And then Amber did too.

Connor returned from Arizona the next day. Amber didn’t know how much of what the Penhallow had said in Connor’s voice had been pulled from reality. Was Connor truly working on a story about her family? Based on the movements Amber had watched, Molly had been all over Edgehill for over a week. Why? Most of what Connor and Molly needed to investigate about the Simon case would have been tied to Marbleglen, not Edgehill. So what had Molly been doing here while Connor was out of town?

All this had made Amber a little reluctant to accept his invite to dinner the night he returned, but he’d invited several others, too. While Amber, Connor, Bianca, Molly, and Misty—Wilma had been stuck at work—shared an exceedingly large plate of cheese fries at Feral’s Diner, Connor explained that he’d been in Arizona to talk to locals about Hugh Woodbury, his Wild West theme park, his mysterious death, and how the park had since been turned into a thriving concert location, despite Hugh’s wishes. The general consensus in town was that Tillman had slipped Rohypnol into Hugh’s food or drink and had gotten him to agree to sign over his beloved park when he wasn’t of sound mind, just as Tillman, Sable, and Daniels had planned to force Jameson into signing a resignation letter.

How Hugh ultimately died later still remained a mystery, but hopefully the circumstances were strange enough that the case would be reopened and Hugh Woodbury would one day get justice.

Over dinner, Amber finally broke the news that Molly’s anonymous source hadn’t been Simon after all, but the late Chief Jameson. Molly was floored, but Amber suspected if Simon hadn’t spelled Molly into believing he was her source, Molly would have figured it out a long time ago.

Between Connor’s interviews, Molly’s research, and Misty’s insider information into Victoria Sullivan’s shady business dealings, Amber was sure Molly and Connor had one heck of an article on their hands. Even if Amber wasn’t sure what the two were up to in terms of Amber herself, she was hopeful the story they published about Eric Jameson’s murder, Simon Ricinus’s framing, and the corruption of the leadership in Marbleglen would help put both their careers on the map.

After their talk was winding down, and Molly, Connor, and Misty were working out the best time to sit down for a more formal interview, Amber said her goodbyes and left with Bianca close behind.

“Night, Bianca,” Amber said, sure this was one of the last times she would see Bianca aside from festival obligations. Kim had said she and Bianca had to be in contact with each other on a nearly daily basis lately, and that if Kim got through the next week without strangling Bianca with one of her fancy neckerchiefs, she’d consider it a win.

Amber was halfway to her car when Bianca called her name. The moment Amber turned to face the woman, Amber was enveloped in a hug. It was a stiff, awkward hug, and Amber was so startled by it, she just stood there with her arms glued to her sides. It ended almost as soon as it began.

Bianca, for the first time since Amber had met her, was blushing. “My dad’s getting his life back and it couldn’t have happened without you. I’m just so grateful you kept at it even when I’m sure you didn’t want to,” she said in a rush. “I know I can be … hard to get along with. And I know I didn’t make anything easy, and I’m sorry for that. Truly. I blame a lot of things on growing up magic-less in a hybrid town with a witch cop for a mom. I learned to harden myself to everyone and everything because letting your guard down around the wrong people can get you killed. Guess I haven’t broken myself of the habit.” She sighed, then seemed to have an internal debate with herself before she said, “I’m frankly jealous of your relationship with Kim. You two would do a lot for each other, clearly. And when I needed someone in my own town to do anything for me, I got nothing. Well, not nothing. I got you two. Even now, hardly any of the people on my own committee will talk to me unless it’s about the festival.

“But all that doesn’t matter. I’m working really hard to be better, not bitter.” She groaned as if the words themselves turned her stomach. “Isn’t that the corniest thing you’ve ever heard? But it’s something our marriage counselor said, and I’m trying to embody it or whatever.”

“Marriage counselor?” Amber asked. “So does that mean you and Peter …?”

The smile that came over Bianca’s face was contagious. “I told him. About the possibility that our kids might have … abilities, I mean. He said if he gets a kid who can fly, he’d be, and I quote, stoked.”

Amber grinned. “That’s great. I mean, we can’t fly—honestly, that’s not a thing; I don’t know why I keep needing to remind people of that—but I’m so glad you told him.”

Bianca nodded sheepishly. “And … I mean, I know I’ll probably still be … difficult for a while. Maybe always. But … if you and Kim ever want to, I don’t know, have a spa day or something, I’d really like that. We can celebrate after the festivals next week. My treat!”

“That sounds great.”

Heaving out a breath like she had just run a marathon, Bianca wished Amber a good night, and walked away. Amber felt strangely proud of Bianca. She couldn’t say that she and Bianca would ever grow as close as Amber and Kim, but Amber was proud of Bianca for trying to be better. Sometimes that was the hardest part.

Over the next two days, thanks to reports from Chief Brown, Amber learned that all four people involved in Jameson’s murder had been formally arrested. Their arraignments were scheduled over the next month, and Bianca planned to go to all of them. Amber had a standing invitation to join her, but was fairly certain one arraignment was more than enough for her.

Willow and Aunt Gretchen both helped Amber make a dent in all her pending toy orders. Edgar came by to hang out, too, but spent most of his time playing one of his games, his curses their background noise as they shaped plastic pieces, painted, and cast spells on hundreds of discs. It proved to be a relaxing task after the last few stress-filled weeks. Aunt G had even helped Amber perfect the movement spell needed for the graduation-cap-wearing giraffe, allowing the creature to toss its hat off its head, both without using its hooves and without its neck snapping in half.

The night of the giraffe success, while Aunt G and Willow went out to dinner with a few of Willow’s high school friends—really, Willow forcing Aunt G to tag along so Amber could have some time alone—Jack came over for another attempt at watching Vamp World. Jack brought over Chinese food, and they gorged themselves silly before settling in. The opening credits rolled.

“John Huntley better be worth all this trouble,” Jack said.

Sunlight cascaded over Amber’s face and she woke with a jolt to find herself once again draped nearly on top of Jack. Squinting, she looked over the arm of the couch to find her aunt and sister asleep on her bed, Alley and Tom curled up with them. Amber knew that with the Here and Meow on the horizon, the threat level as far as the Penhallows were concerned would only increase. She knew now that they had to be more careful. The cursed witches could hide in plain sight, could change their appearance at will, and would have the upper hand in the paranoia department once the opening ceremony of the festival began and the town flooded with unfamiliar faces.

But Amber had an inner circle she trusted. She might be a legendary witch in the making, but she wouldn’t have even gotten close to realizing that without her friends and family.

Saving the world was a worry for another day.

For now, she had the Here and Meow to focus on. With it being a little over a week away, she had one more weekend of decorating floats, crafting more toys, and helping coordinate events.

Glancing down now at Jack sleeping beside her, she smiled to herself. Neither Willow nor Aunt G would ever let her live this down now, but at the moment she didn’t care. She snuggled back down on Jack’s chest, closed her eyes, and slept.

Epilogue

Amber had just closed up shop for lunch the following day when her cell rang. Her phone ringing was no longer a strange occurrence, as it had been a few months ago. She hadn’t needed to use a locator spell on the thing in weeks now, since she often had a reason to keep it on her.

She had friends, some with magical powers and some without. She had a probably-boyfriend.

Looking down at her screen, though, the number that popped up wasn’t one she knew. She answered hesitantly. The last time she’d gotten a call from an unfamiliar number it had been a Penhallow trying to lure her out of the safety of her house. Her brow furrowed when she heard an operator asking if she would accept a collect call from an inmate in a Texas prison. She only knew one person in Texas.

“I accept the charges.” It took a moment for the call to connect, and then there was a lot of chatter in the background.

“Hi, Amber?”

“Kieran?” Amber said. “Are you okay?”

“As okay as one can be in prison,” he said, but there was no malice in his tone.

Amber still felt terrible. “Right. Sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay. Honestly,” he said. “I mean, if I had my choice, I would be anywhere else. But it does help, however slightly, that I feel like I deserve to be here.”

Amber frowned.

There was an upswell of voices in the background, but Kieran didn’t react.

“Look, I can’t talk long. And I can’t go into too much detail, as they’re always listening.” He lowered his voice. Amber could picture him cupping a hand around the receiver and hunkering closer to the phone. Instinctively, she hunched closer to her phone too. “But … uh … it’s back.”

Amber cocked her head. “What’s back?”

“The … thing you helped get rid of that made me normal again,” he said.

She stood to full height now. His magic was back? “What?”

“I haven’t tried to use it yet,” he said quickly. “It’s weak. But I feel it all the time.”

Had she been wrong? Were all those people who touted her memory magic as legendary, as something to save the Penhallow clan from their curse, wrong? Maybe when she’d traveled into Kieran’s mind and severed his desire for magic, it hadn’t removed the curse or his magic. Whatever she’d done had been temporary, like Aunt Gretchen’s memory spell on Jack. Had Amber merely placed a bandage on a very deep wound, and now that wound was seeping through, black sludge pooling beneath the gauze? “Do I try to schedule a visit? I don’t know how I can do … it again without someone getting suspicious about what we’re doing. Kieran, I’m sorry it didn’t work. Do you feel—”

“Amber,” he said, stopping her mid-meltdown. “Something is different now. Before, it almost felt like a rash or like an itch I couldn’t scratch, no matter what I did. And even when I did manage to scratch it, it only itched more.”

“And now?”

“What I had before … was a sickness. It was like a poison that slowly kills its host. I think you cut away the parts that were infected,” he said. “What’s in its place now feels … clean. Healed.”

Amber didn’t know what to say. She was too scared to believe it could really be true. Her heart thumped hard.

“You didn’t take it away, Amber,” he said, and she could hear him smiling. “You gave it back.”

Now that Amber has healed Kieran … what does that mean for the rest of the Penhallows?

Find out in Pawsitively Betrayed RIGHT MEOW!

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Pawsitively Betrayed

Chapter 1

Amber reveled in the sound of Jack Terrence’s rhythmic breathing. Her head was propped on the crook of his shoulder, and though her there was a crick in her neck that would bother her all day, she didn’t dare stir. That, and Alley was draped across them both, her head on Amber’s side and her body sprawled across Jack’s stomach.

As comforting as Jack’s presence was, as the last dregs of sleep faded, the events from the day before crept back in. Namely, Kieran Penhallow calling her from his prison cell.

“Something is different now. Before, it almost felt like a rash or like an itch I couldn’t scratch, no matter what I did. And even when I did manage to scratch it, it only itched more,” he had said. “What I had before … was a sickness. It was like a poison that slowly kills its host. I think you cut away the parts that were infected. What’s in its place now feels … clean. Healed.”

Healed! She had no idea what this meant.

“You didn’t take it away, Amber. You gave it back.”

She had worried she wouldn’t be able to sleep last night, but Jack had shown up unannounced with enough Chinese food for an army, not just four people, and they had all sat around Amber’s dining table—her, younger sister Willow, Aunt Gretchen, and Jack—and had talked about perfectly normal things. They talked about Willow’s job as a graphic designer, about Aunt G’s garden club, about Jack’s plans to expand his business, and about the upcoming Here and Meow Festival. They didn’t talk about magic, cursed witches, or Amber’s ever-evolving powers.

Amber and Jack had curled up on the couch to try to stay awake long enough to get through the next episode of Vamp World. As usual, she awoke once her tiny studio apartment had flooded with early morning sunlight. She woke, feeling grounded, next to Jack. Hearing the soft snores of Aunt G and Willow in the bed on the other side of the apartment had rooted her further.

It was when she was alone that the nightmares pulled her from sleep.

Someone behind her cleared their throat. She rolled over just a fraction and found her sister peering down at her, a wide smile on her face. Willow stood so close to the couch, her knees nearly touched Amber’s back. “You two are so cuuute!” she mouthed.

Amber’s cheeks flamed. She delicately swatted Willow away. It was enough to wake Alley, who in turn woke Jack.

He seemed disoriented at first, then smiled sleepily at her. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Amber said.

“Hey,” Willow drawled.

Jack flinched back, realizing then how close Willow hovered over them.

“Are you staying for breakfast, Jack?” Aunt G called out, then padded for the kitchen. “Growing boys need to eat.”

Willow turned toward their aunt. “What a weird thing to say, Aunt G! He’s in his thirties. He’s not a boy.” She peered down at Amber and Jack again. “You are in your thirties, right? You have one of those very appealing faces that makes you look like you could be anywhere from twenty to forty. You haven’t turned my sister into a cougar, have you?”

“Oh my God,” Amber muttered, burying her face in Jack’s shoulder. Her forehead bounced as he laughed.

“I’m thirty-five,” he said to Willow. Then, louder, he said, “No thanks on the breakfast, Gretchen. I have to get to Purrcolate soon to help Larry open.”

Aunt G appeared suddenly at the head of the couch. “Did you want coffee before you go? I suppose you don’t want our boring old coffee when you own a coffee shop. But Willow and I could go downstairs to start a pot on the little hot plate and kill some time if you two need some alone time to … hmm … what do the kids call it these days?” She glanced over at Willow, who still hovered at Amber’s back. “Tonsil hockey?”

Willow snorted. Jack cracked up. Amber wished she had an invisibility spell in her repertoire.

“Oh my God,” Amber muttered again. “Get out of here! Both of you!”

Aunt G and Willow, still laughing, headed for the stairs. Amber sat up once she heard the Employee Only door close, signaling that her horrible aunt and sister had shut themselves in the shop below. Jack sat up, too, using the armrest to prop himself up.

“I’m sorry about them …” she started, but he cut her off by brushing a wayward lock of hair—a matted clump, really—out of her face.

“They give you a hard time because they love you,” he said. “But, for the record, I’m totally okay with some tonsil hockey before I have to get to work.”

She laughed. He cut it off with a kiss.

They broke apart after a minute, but Jack kept a hand pressed to the back of her neck. He rested his forehead against hers. “I really do have to get going, though.”

“Boo,” she grumbled.

He kissed her forehead. “I agree.”

While he used the bathroom and collected his things, Amber fed Tom and Alley. As they munched happily on their breakfast, Amber walked Jack down the steps, across the shop, and to the front door of The Quirky Whisker.

Aunt G and Willow offered wolf whistles when Jack kissed Amber goodbye.

“Have a good day, ladies,” he called, then headed out the door.

Amber whirled on her family, hands on hips. “You’re both awful.”

“I’m glad to see you happy, little mouse,” Aunt G said.

Amber flushed. “Thanks.”

With that, she hurried back upstairs to change and get ready for the day. She couldn’t wipe the smile off her face.

A few hours after opening, Henrietta Bishop walked in. The shop was bustling with customers as usual during the week before the Here and Meow Festival. After helping a little girl decide that she would like the raccoon animated toy instead of the badger, Amber met Henrietta near the counter that ran along the right side of the shop.

Henrietta was a forty-year-old divorcee who had moved to Edgehill, Oregon, several years ago because she wanted to fully embrace the “Crazy Cat Lady” lifestyle. She was a lithe redhead with a mass of curls that hung to her mid-back. The curls never were truly contained, no matter what she did. Amber was always reminded of the young girl from Brave when she saw her.

Over the years, Amber had gotten to know Henrietta a little better. Recently, she’d joined the Here and Meow Committee in Marbleglen as a volunteer with the parade floats, and she had joined Amber and her friends during the recent town hall meetings. But Amber had been seeing the woman weekly for over a year, namely because Henrietta was addicted to Amber’s signature “sleepy tea” blend. It was a creation Amber made in-house, with a bit of sleep tincture mixed in. Though Amber was abysmal with tinctures, her sleepy tincture was the only one that hadn’t ever let her down.

Henrietta swore by it. “I really wish you’d tell me what you put in this stuff,” she often said. “It works like magic!”

Over the last month, Henrietta had been coming in almost basis to purchase more tea, and the quantity had gone up, too. Two boxes here, five there. When the purchases of the sleepy tea increased tenfold over a short window of time, and Henrietta’s bright green eyes were droopy more often than not, Amber found herself wishing she were better at being a nosier person. She loved gossip just as much as the next Edgehill resident, but as the former reclusive weirdo in town, Amber understood keeping secrets close to the vest.

Henrietta hadn’t talked much about her divorce; all Amber knew was that it had been contentious. That had been Henrietta’s word, not Amber’s. Even the gentlest of pressure to ask more probing questions on the topic often made Henrietta close up like a flower deprived of sunlight, so Amber had stopped asking.

Yet, when Amber met Henrietta at the counter that morning, Amber blurted, “Hen, are you okay?”

Even the woman’s signature, vibrant curls looked dejected. The bags under her eyes were more pronounced than they had been a week ago. She wore black leggings, a black tank top, and a slightly ratty oversized green sweater. It reminded Amber of the last day she’d seen Melanie, who had come into her shop looking uncharacteristically like a hot mess.

Henrietta had always given the impression that her divorce settlement had been as good for her financially as it had been bad for her emotionally. She hadn’t been the type to flaunt her wealth, but Amber was fairly certain the woman hadn’t been employed the entire time she’d been in Edgehill, and yet her attire had always been immaculate.

“I’m hanging in there, I guess,” Henrietta said. “Actually, I wanted to ask if you were hiring?”

Amber’s brows shot toward her hairline. “I’m not at the moment. Sorry, Hen. I just hired Ben Lydon. I could possibly offer you a seasonal position, but I can’t guarantee how long it’ll last.”

Henrietta sighed, waving away Amber’s apology. “Oh, that’s okay. What I need to do is dust off my résumé. It’s been a while,” she said. “Anyway, I’d like three boxes of the sleepy tea again. The stress I’m under right now can only be combatted with that tea of yours.”

Amber plastered on a strained smiled. She excused herself to grab Henrietta’s order. She had set it aside for her that morning, anticipating the woman’s arrival. After grabbing the boxes for her from one of the cubbies at the base of the apothecary wall behind the counter where Daisy Bowen was ringing up customers, Amber handed the tea over.

Henrietta clutched the boxes to her chest. “Thanks.” She started to turn away, as if heading for the checkout line, but then turned back. “Say, I purchased some sleepy tea from the drugstore the other day and that one wasn’t nearly as effective as yours. Do you think it’s the valerian root in yours that does the trick?”

No, it’s the sleep tincture, Amber wanted to say. “You know I don’t share my secrets,” she said playfully instead, “but yes, the valerian root is essential.”

Henrietta nodded, but the usual banter they shared was missing today. “I really appreciate you, Amber. You know that, right?”

Head cocked, Amber said, “Sure, Hen, I know that.”

Tapping one of the boxes she held, Henrietta offered a small smile, then walked away to get in line. Amber knew her good friend Kimberly Jones would be able to tease out Henrietta’s secrets in a matter of seconds. Betty Harris across the street in Purrfectly Scrumptious would look at Henrietta with her kind brown eyes, cluck her tongue and say something like, “What’s got you so down, sugar?” and Henrietta would likely blab all her worries.

Amber, however, merely stood by and stared at Henrietta, frowning. Before she could get up the nerve to ask Henrietta if she needed anything else, another customer came through the door.

Lily Bowen was tending to a couple of customers at the back of the shop, and the other patrons currently seemed to have their browsing under control, which left Amber to attend to one of the two newcomers. She had just rounded one of the freestanding pyramid-shaped bookshelves when she came up short.

Just inside the door stood Connor Declan and Molly Hargrove. Connor worked at the Edgehill Gazette, while Molly worked at the Marbleglen Herald. Despite being from rival towns, and the fact that Molly was known far and wide for being a snake, Connor and Molly had been working together on stories a lot lately. It still wasn’t clear if their continued partnership was strictly professional or if it had spilled over into something else.

“What is he doing here?”

Amber flinched. Willow had materialized beside her. Willow and Connor had been close friends in high school, but their friendship had never progressed into anything more. They both clearly still held a torch for each other, but as adults, they still danced around the “what if” of it all.

In another circumstance, Amber might have lovingly shoved Willow in Connor’s direction—especially after the teasing Willow had participated in this morning with Jack—but Molly’s presence added a new wrinkle.

And by wrinkle, Amber meant napalm thrown on an open flame.

Connor and Molly had moved to the animated toy section on the left-hand side of the shop. Connor held a horse in front of his face, scrutinizing it from every angle. He was speaking to Molly, but she only had murderous eyes for Willow.

Molly Hargrove was five foot nothing, had hair so light blonde it was almost white, and could hold a grown man captive with just her intense focus.

Willow crossed her arms. “That’s Molly, right?”

Amber forgot that the two hadn’t formally met in person yet. “Yep.”

“Let’s go say hi,” Willow said, and marched toward the couple, but her tone said, “Let’s kick Molly in her shins.”

Amber scurried after her sister, if only so she could stop a fistfight from breaking out in her shop. “Hi, you two!” she awkwardly called out just before Willow reached them.

Connor glanced up from his examination of the toy horse and visibly swallowed as he realized Willow and Molly were sizing each other up. “Hey, uh … Amber. Hi. Willow. Hello.”

Smooth, Declan.

“Is there something in particular you two were looking for?” Amber asked.

Molly’s piercing blue eyes swiveled to Amber. “I realized today that I hadn’t been in your shop in a while. Con and I were just about to grab lunch down the street and I thought we should pop in to have a look around. The Quirky Whisker is an Edgehill institution, after all.”

Amber’s brow creased.

“Right, uh …” Connor put the horse back on the shelf. “I’m also looking for a gift for my mom. She really likes tea. I was wondering if you had any recommendations?”

Willow piped up. “I’d be happy to help you find something for her. Follow me.”

Connor smiled weakly at Molly and then followed Willow, leaving Amber alone with the snake.

“And what about you?” Amber asked when Molly just stood there glaring after the retreating pair.

Molly snapped out of it and scanned the shelves around her. “Did you inherit this place from your parents?”

“Uh … no,” Amber said. “A woman named Janice Salle owned it before I did and she left the place to me in her will.”

Molly’s nearly white brows arched. “You must have been very persuasive to convince her to leave it to you.”

Amber pursed her lips. She’d only just met Molly recently, when Amber had gotten pulled into a murder investigation in Marbleglen last month. She hadn’t come to like Molly over that time, per se, but she’d respected the woman’s tenacity for finding out the truth. That tenacity was just … a lot when it was aimed directly at you. “I didn’t persuade her to do anything; I was just as shocked as anyone when I found out she’d left me the store.”

“Did you choose to work here because Janice didn’t have any living relatives?” Molly asked, running a finger along one of the pyramid-shaped bookshelves. “Like how young busty women ‘fall in love’ and marry old rich men with one foot in the grave? Grandpa drops dead and then Candy gets a mansion?”

Amber gaped at her.

A man nearby coughed in an effort to cover up a laugh and quickly walked away.

What on earth did Connor see in her? Amber had to assume Molly had a nice side. Amber had yet to see it.

Amber crossed her arms, taking on a stance that she had no doubt mirrored Willow’s from earlier. “Is there a destination for this very rude line of questioning?”

Molly shrugged. “Just making conversation. I’m sure your parents would be proud of all you’ve accomplished over the years.” She picked up the horse Connor had been eyeing earlier. “The way you’ve honed your skills in such a unique way, you know?”

Connor, sans Willow, reappeared then. He held up a bag with The Quirky Whisker logo on the front. The bespectacled top-hat-wearing cat winked at Amber. “Got a really good selection.”

Molly put the toy back. “Nice talking to you, Amber.”

Connor led the way out the door. Willow joined Amber a few seconds later, and they watched as the pair walked past the front windows of the shop. They were headed in the opposite direction of the restaurants on Russian Blue Avenue, as well as the parking lot. Molly was speaking a mile a minute while Connor listened intently. Neither one glanced back.

“What was that about?” Willow asked once they were out of view.

“I have no clue.”

What are Connor Declan and Molly Hargrove up to?

Find out in Pawsitively Betrayed RIGHT MEOW!

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Thank you for reading Pawsitively Swindled! If you enjoyed this story, please consider leaving a review. Reviews mean the world to authors. Reviews often mean more sales, and more sales means more freedom to write more books.

Continue the series with:

Pawsitively Betrayed

Other books by Melissa Erin Jackson:

If you’re looking for a slightly darker tale, consider The Forgotten Child, a haunting paranormal mystery starring a reluctant medium.

The dead can speak. They need her to listen.

Ever since Riley Thomas, reluctant medium extraordinaire, accidentally released a malevolent spirit from a Ouija board when she was thirteen, she’s taken a hard pass on scary movies, haunted houses, and cemeteries. Twelve years later, when her best friend pressures her into spending a paranormal investigation weekend at the infamous Jordanville Ranch—former home of deceased serial killer Orin Jacobs—Riley’s still not ready to accept the fact that she can communicate with ghosts.

Shortly after their arrival at the ranch, the spirit of a little boy contacts Riley; a child who went missing—and was never found—in 1973.

In order to put the young boy’s spirit to rest, she has to come to grips with her ability. But how can she solve a mystery that happened a decade before she was born? Especially when someone who knows Orin’s secrets wants to keep the truth buried—no matter the cost.

About the Author

Melissa has had a love of stories for as long as she can remember, but only started penning her own during her freshman year of college. She majored in Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology at UC Davis. Yet, while she was neck-deep in organic chemistry and physics, she kept finding herself writing stories in the back of the classroom about fairies and trolls and magic. She finished her degree, but it never captured her heart the way writing did.

Now she owns her own dog walking business (that’s sort of wildlife related, right?) by day … and afternoon and night … and writes whenever she gets a spare moment. The Microsoft Word app is a gift from the gods!

She alternates mostly between fantasy and mystery (often with a paranormal twist). All her books have some element of “other” to them … witches, ghosts, UFOs. There’s no better way to escape the real world than getting lost in a fictional one.

She lives in Northern California with her very patient boyfriend and way too many pets.

Her debut novel, The Forgotten Child, released in October of 2018, and the first three books in the Witch of Edgehill series, Pawsitively Poisonous, Pawsitively Cursed, and Pawsitively Secretive are out now. All books are available in audio!

You can find out more about her upcoming books at: https://melissajacksonbooks.com

Acknowledgments

It feels exceedingly silly to apologize for this book releasing “late,” but it turns out that writing during a pandemic is hard. Who knew! So a big thank you to my friends and readers for sticking with me when my panic over, well … everything … derailed my writing plans. Hope you enjoyed your time in Edgehill, even if it was delayed!

Thank you a million times over to my beta readers! I love working with all of you. Thank you, Mom, Krista Hall, Margarita Martinez, Brittany Gray, Christiane Loeffler, Jennifer Laam, Lauren Sprang, Garrett Lemons, Lindsey Duga, Jasmine Warren, Kara Klemcke, Bobby Lewis, Mary Studebaker, Samantha Lierer, Kimberly Ann Shepard, Quinn Nicols, Jesse Olson, and Cynthia Sandusky.

Thank you, Maggie Hall, for the lovely cover, and to Michelle Raymond and Clark Kenyon for all the cats and paw prints.

Thank you to Justin Cohen for being my favorite persnickety proofreader.

Many thanks to the crazy talented Victoria Villarreal. Your reading of Chief Brown is still my favorite thing ever.

Thank you to Sam for not only being the emotional support I need to get through writing, but for helping to keep me sane during quarantine. Well, sane might be a stretch for us both. But I’m glad I have you with me while we ride out all this madness. I still kinda like you a lot.

And, as always, thank you to my readers. Thank you for pre-ordering, reading, reviewing, and telling your friends about my books. I’m so glad I get to share my stories with you. I can’t wait to dive into the final book of the series. Thank you all for being on this journey with me.