Chapter 10
Frank and I stood along the side of the church, the bushes surrounding us granting a little privacy. The video on my phone played the report on the Austen Heights local news.
Tonight, the fae of Austen Heights are outraged to learn that it was indeed a werewolf that attacked fae woman Isabella Ravenswood…
“I took my potion. I swear I took it, I…” Frank paced in front of me, his hands in his hair. Duchess padded behind him, tail whipping around whenever she changed directions, like a concerned mother.
I shut off the video and shoved my phone into my pocket. “I talked to Lydia, and she insisted the potion had no problems. It wasn’t the potion. It wasn’t you.”
He spun toward me. “How do you know? I can’t remember anything. And my clothes…” Desperation shone in his eyes.
My teeth sank into my bottom lip. “Are you sure you didn’t get super tired and forget about changing your clothes before you fell asleep?”
“I… I keep telling myself that is the only plausible explanation.” But the look he gave me told me even he didn’t believe it.
An icy breeze blew past, and I pulled my coat tighter. “Are you familiar with other werewolves in town?”
He let out a soft laugh. “Our kind are illegal. We would never reveal ourselves to anyone unless we absolutely had to. Not even each other. Isabella only learned about me because she made my potion.”
“And she only told Lydia that night because she needed her to deliver it and was unable to do so herself.”
His eyes lighted. “Isabella was acquainted with other werewolves, though. She had to be. She often had me collect extra wolfsbane for the potion, more than for just me.”
I gazed over at the old graveyard, the arching gate beckoning to me. “Okay, I have a few things to look into.”
“Like what? Do you have an idea who it could be? Did you discover something in that journal?”
I didn’t want to bring Frank with me into the cemetery. If he did harbor feelings for Isabella, taking him to see her ghost might only cause him more pain. “I need to look into it, but it’s a task I must do alone, for now. Trust me, I’ll text you and inform you about what I’ve found.”
His shoulders slumped. “It’ll be the only thing on my mind until then.”
“Think about this instead.” I rose onto my toes and pressed a kiss to his lips. A nervous energy surged through me. Since when had I gotten so bold? When I tried to step back, his hand came around my waist and he held me against him.
He kissed my jaw, then grazed my throat with his mouth. Pleasure tingled across my skin in waves. “I find it difficult to focus on anything else when you’re near.”
“Trust me, Frank.”
He pressed one more kiss to my lips. “I’ll await your message like a man starved of sunlight. And not only because my life is in your hands.”
He slowly released me and backed away. He gave a final wave before heading to his black Mercedes parked along the road. I waved in return, waiting for him to leave before turning and marching toward the cemetery.
What if Frank and Isabella harbored emotions for each other, and I was moving in on everything? Should I feel bad about dating him? My stomach twisted with guilt. Just because Isabella was gone didn’t mean that his feelings were.
I definitely found myself in uncharted territory with all of this.
I walked into the cemetery, and calling the mist to me, I summoned Isabella.
She appeared out of the gray and curling haze, lounging on the bench next to her intended grave. “I presume you have news for me?”
“Magical DNA tests confirmed your killer was a werewolf.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“So besides Frank, who I’m familiar with, are there any other werewolves in Austen Heights?”
“Of course there are other werewolves. I supplied wolfsbane potion to five others.”
My mouth fell open. Five? I pulled a pen from behind my ear. My papers were left in the church, so I lifted my palm, prepared to write them down. “Tell me their names.”
“Sure. Woofy McGrowlface, Barkley Moonshadow, Snarls McWoof, Pawton Timberwolf, and Luna Howlson.”
I dropped my hand and stared at her in exasperation. She had to be making those up on the spot. Those couldn’t be real names.
“What?” Isabella said. “The wolfsbane potion is illegal, as well as werewolves. Most of my clients wanted to protect their identity.”
“Are you aware of their actual names? What they looked like?”
“No. Most of the time, they’d arrange for me to leave the potion in various locations. Usually we didn’t meet at all. I only knew Frank because he offered to help supply me with the wolfsbane plant I needed.”
I sighed, running my hand over my face. “How did you communicate with them?”
“I had a PO Box that they could mail their requests to. I… I had a false name and ID. Nixie Twinklewing.” She shrugged.
“You didn’t deal with everyone in code,” I said. Frank and Collins and Wickham and a few others were identified.
“Only some asked to work in code. I wrote the names I remembered in the journal to make sure each person received what they needed.”
“So there’s no way to contact these other werewolves?”
She shook her head. “There used to be six of them, but one disappeared a few weeks ago. Never contacted me again. I thought he or she must have moved away. Oh, and three of the clients were a family of werewolves.”
“A family of werewolves?”
“Mm-hmm, two adults and a kid. It's important to know that because you have to brew children’s potions slightly differently.”
I didn’t move. Pastor Collins had mentioned a wild nephew, and how he’d nearly taken off his arm.
I rose. “Okay, think hard. If there’s any other identifying information, any way I can track down the rest of the werewolves, please let me know.”
“Mary, wait. I need to tell you something. I want to find my killer, I do. But if that means exposing those who may not have been involved and are trying to live normal lives… that’s not worth it to me. We need to be… you need to be careful.”
“I understand.”
I repeated Isabella’s words in my head the entire walk home, attempting to figure out a way to locate those werewolves. Isabella wished to safeguard their identities, yet the probability remained that a killer was among them, and I couldn’t back down now.
I also didn’t remove George Wickham and Pastor Collins from my list of suspects, since their appointments were recent and Isabella knew little about them. They may be werewolves that didn’t follow the same anonymous procedures the other werewolves had set in place. Like Frank.
When I arrived home, I was surprised to find Lizzy sitting on my bed and staring at her phone. Her gaze lifted when I entered. “Hi, Mary.”
“Hi?” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d come home to discover my sister waiting for me. Duchess hopped onto the bed, sniffed at Lizzy’s phone, and proceeded to look at me with a meaningful stare.
What was that supposed to mean?
“You’re trying to find Isabella’s killer, right?” Lizzy asked.
“Oh, well—” There was no reason to hide it. Her expectant gaze indicated she knew the answer. “What have you found?”
“Nothing of note. But it wasn’t George. I’m certain of it.”
“How could you know that?”
“I wasn’t sure either at first, which is why it took me a few days. I mean, I understood it wasn’t him, but I wanted to verify it wasn’t someone close to him. But he’s not a werewolf, and I was with him that night.”
My head reared back in surprise. “You were?”
“It was the night we met. We went to Club Meryton. Halfway through the evening he checked the time, seemed startled, and made an excuse to leave. I followed him and he met up with Isabella briefly and then”—a small smile curled her lips—“called me out on following him.”
“Wickham said he never met Isabella in person.”
“He said he hadn’t met her in person. He never mentioned when that changed, which I’m assuming was that night.”
Even though they could lie, some fae liked to play such word games. The one thing they couldn’t do was get out of their word if they made a promise.
I hated when I missed such subtleties. People should simply say what they mean. “What happened after he called you out?”
“He claimed to be collecting something for a friend, but didn’t mention what. Following that, we strolled along the beach and got ice cream, continuing our conversation until almost 10:00 p.m.”
“The news said the murder occurred between 7:30 and 9:00.”
“That’s right. So you see? It wasn’t George.”
Lizzy had been with George during the attack. A better excuse than that was hard to imagine. Besides, I’d suspected him of being a vampire, anyway. That maybe he’d hid the attack behind the full moon to avoid suspicion. With the new DNA results, that couldn’t be the case.
“And what about your concern about it being a close associate?”
“I interviewed him under the pretense of learning more about the leader of The Grey Doors, George’s band,” she said. “After spending some more time with him, I discovered… well, let's just say he doesn’t run with that kind of pack.”
Her words, though vague, almost confirmed my suspicions. George was most likely a vampire and Lizzy was covering for him.
She cast me a curious glance. “How did you know George encountered Isabella that night, anyway?”
I recalled the journal safely within my bag. “It doesn’t matter. You’re right, it wasn’t him.”
Her lips pressed, but then she glanced down. “I… also wanted to apologize for getting upset with you.” She looked up. “Our family is complicated, as you know, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to hang out with you. I want you to understand that you can drop by anytime.”
A smile spread across my face. “I can be rather difficult to get along with at times.”
Lizzy’s lips twitched. “So can I, it seems.”
I sat on the bed next to Lizzy and sighed. George Wickham wasn’t the culprit. That left Pastor Collins, a wild nephew, and a bunch of unnamed werewolves I couldn’t locate.
I looked at her phone that Duchess had been pawing at for the last minute, remembering that Mom had given Collins my sister’s number. He must have contacted her by now. “If you want to make it up to me, perhaps you can help me with one more tiny project.”
Relief flashed across Lizzy’s face. “Of course. What is it?”
“It has to do with Pastor Collins.”
She frowned. “What is it?”
“We need a reason to pay him a brief visit at his home.”