Chapter 5
The cozy energy in the air, which mingled with the scents of lavender and sweet lemon, tempered my frustration in wondering who the killer could be.
The storefront enhancement held steady, as usual, beckoning guests and enticing them with baked goods.
We set up the Grey Doors album to play as background music until the open mic officially began.
More people trickled in. My sisters showed up, some with boyfriends, to be supportive, and the performance-list signup eventually filled.
A few people performed their take on the Grey Doors songs, a lot attempted Beatles songs, and an elderly woman recited a poem about fae. She spoke for only five minutes, but it felt like thirty.
Bradley eventually took the stage and played a melancholy ballad. Zoe and Harley followed suit with their own flash-poetry pieces.
Harley mentioned something about how seeking the spotlight is a dangerous game, and Zoe said that art mirrors love and life.
To my surprise, Wickham took the mic. I knew he played bass, but I hadn’t realized he dabbled in vocals.
He sang my favorite of the Grey Doors love song.
His aura turned a romantic deep navy and purple with a pinch of crimson.
Dreams in life only come true
When they are shaped by you.
There’s nothing so tragic
As what might have been,
All the things I wish I knew.
Every moment we’re together
Our souls and hearts renew.
Butterflies fluttered in my stomach. Though we’d had a few dates, he still seemed like an illusion or an out-of-reach dream.
A group of teenagers behind me whispered to each other.
The words “maybe he did it . . .” reached my ears.
Then, a touch of something new flashed through me. Sadness? No. Anger.
How dare anyone make Wickham and his friends look guilty. I’d find them.
I studied the auras in the room. The audience members' auras were easily flavored by the performances, as if music and poetry were a tangible force tinkering with emotions. When the performer's aura shifted to a specific color, the same color tainted the audience members’ auras.
In the corner, Mathis’s amber aura still shone brightly, but black flecks filtered through like snowflakes.
Grief? Bradley’s was a stormy blue with occasional sprays of deep red.
Harley's was violet as before, but now waves of gray and gold crashed to the surface. Zoe’s copper and magenta still swirled around her, but the copper had grown.
Stress was affecting all of them, I suspected.
Reading auras was so subjective. A gift, yes, but it wasn’t like I could use aura colors to know for sure who the killer was.
There was no magical guide to determine which color meant a specific thing, though I usually had a general idea of what someone was feeling.
But feelings didn't always guide behavior.
For example, a guilty gray aura could mean anything.
It could mean that the person forgot to unplug their curling iron, all the while the killer may not feel guilt at all.
Among the crowd, I ruled out anyone with delicate pastel auras. These were rare, and usually connected to children and the elderly. A sweet teen girl, who had obvious autism, glowed white with occasional tints of soft greens, aqua, daffodil, and powdery pink.
I edged my way along the wall toward Harley and Zoe, first reaching Harley at the drink table. "How do you think it's going?" I asked her.
Confusion colored her expression, but she shrugged her shoulders. "It seems good, I suppose. I'm not really sure what our main goal is though."
I smiled with my lips still pressed together. "We're trying to be supportive, mostly. What did you think of Alex?"
"He knew what he was doing. I know he butted heads with Wickham, but I'm going to miss him." Her silvery-purple aura dipped toward navy blue, and she turned away from me.
Zoe, who stood in my periphery, approached me. "Lydia, thanks again for hosting this. Wickham's lucky to have you."
"It's the least I could do. Can I ask if you where close to Alex?" I asked, realizing how similar she and Harley looked other than their hairstyles.
"Close?" Zoe tightened her mouth and shrugged. "We drafted some lyrics together, and he told me I had a lot of potential. He was flattering, I suppose."
"Not so much toward Wickham though."
She shook her head, reaching for a glass of blackberry lemonade. "No. I felt bad for Wickham. Alex's hostility made little sense to me."
Across the room, someone dropped their drink. "Oh, I'd better get a mop for that. Excuse me."
As I finished cleaning up the mess, a sound echoed from the back of the bakery, and the lights flickered, then went out.
An overly dramatic woman screamed as if she were in a murder mystery and the stage lights went dark.
Since we still had candles on the tables, my eyes quickly adjusted.
The teenage boy currently on stage tapped the mic repeatedly, like that would fix the problem, and a bunch of people turned on their phone lights.
The power outage likely resulted from a blown fuse, but the timing was terrible.
“I’ve got this. Don’t worry.” I called over the crowd, then dashed out to the fuse box in the alleyway.
I used my phone’s flashlight to see the unlit side of the building.
Sure enough, the breaker was flipped. Before I fixed it, someone shuffling toward the end of the alley made me freeze in place. “Who’s there?”
I flashed my phone’s light in their direction, but whoever was down there took off running, then crashed into and overturned an aluminum trash can.
The clattering metal echoed off the sides of the building.
No one should have been at the end of the alley.
It didn’t connect to the main streets or anything, and I’d relocked the gate after the band members arrived.
So, whoever this was had to have come from the bakery.
By the light of a lamppost, a flash of deep red hair appeared for a split second.
I flipped the breaker back on and booked it back into the bakery.
The lights were on, and the crowd had calmed down, but no one was at the mic.
I looked around to see who might be missing, since the only way the person with the red hair could have gotten in or out of the alley was through the bakery.
I found Wickham. Mathis was in a corner, adjusting wires, but with all the corners and dim lighting, I wasn’t sure whether the other band members were still around.
“We’re good!” I called out to everyone, feigning confidence, and sped over to Wickham.
“We’re not good, are we?” he muttered as I reached for him.
I whispered in his ear. “No, we need to verify everyone’s location. Someone from the bakery was in the alley, and they had to be the one who turned off the power. I’ll check the back. Will you look around the rest of the storefront? We’re watching for bright red hair . . . I think.”
“Of course.” Wickham turned to begin his search.
I found Zoe and Harley in the kitchen, collecting baked goods to restock the tables. “Did either of you see someone with red hair come through here?”
“How red?” Harley pondered my question.
I blinked. “Uh, just really bright red.”
“Nope. I’m sure we would have noticed someone with any shade of red hair.” Zoe responded. So, I hurried back to the restaurant floor, nearly crashing into Wickham.
“I found both girls. Any luck?” I asked.
Wickham acted calm but had perspiration on his brow, and his aura rippled with a bit of nervous gray. “Mathis is in the corner, talking to a girl, and we think Tim’s in the back, texting somebody. I found Bradley coming out of the restroom, and Ernesto’s been monitoring the sound equipment.”
“Okay. We should probably verify that Tim’s still around.
” I breathed. “As I was turning the breaker back on, I saw someone with fire-engine-red hair rounding the back corner of the alley. There is absolutely no reason for anyone to be out there except to tamper with the breakers. It goes around the bakery and to our dumpster. I’m glad all of the band members are safe. ”
“I haven’t seen anyone with fiery-red hair tonight. But you’re saying whoever it was must be somewhere in the bakery? Any other identifiers?” Wickham asked.
“They were mostly in shadow, so other than the red hair, I couldn’t tell. Whoever it was wasn’t very tall. With how bright the hair was, it reminded me of a Halloween costume wig. If we can find it . . .”
“We should probably be discreet while we search. I don’t want to put anyone on edge.” Wickham narrowed his eyes, glancing around the room.
Between the middle-aged couples, the clusters of teenagers, the college students, and the Grey Doors members, I couldn’t imagine any of them as killers. Whoever it was must’ve been pretty desperate.
“I trust my sisters to help us look, and I’d like to say I trust your band, but, just to be certain, we shouldn’t reveal too much,” I said. It was a little unfair to keep them in the dark, but we didn’t know anything for sure.
“Agreed.” Wickham scanned the room, taking a moment to pause and glance at each member of the Grey Doors.
We weren’t much closer to solving this case than we’d been a day ago, but in the back of my mind, I sensed clues lingering beneath the surface.
Only I wasn’t clever enough to figure out what they were.
There had to be more than a red wig to identify the mysterious figure. They’d worn a thick, dark overcoat. At first, I’d assumed the figure was female, perhaps because of the long hair, or it could have been a shorter male. But really, there was no other way of knowing.
After gathering my sisters, we doled out assignments. Wickham, Mary, and I made up one group of the covert search party, checking outside. Lizzy and Kitty checked the perimeter and upstairs to make sure our parents were alright, and Jane stayed with the guests to watch for anything suspicious.
Before heading outside, I grabbed some disposable gloves and plastic zipper bags from the kitchen.
“We’re searching for a bright red wig? That shouldn’t be too hard to find.” Mary asked, her usual emerald-green and indigo aura flickered with what I suspected was fatigue. It was getting late, and she was usually up very early. “How hard can that be to find?”
“We should check the alley,” I said. No part of me wanted to go back out there, but it was necessary.
“We’ll stay together.” Wickham squeezed my hand, and I nodded. “Safety in numbers and all that.”
The side alley was narrow and fenced at either end. A small dumpster and recycling bin sat at the far end where I’d seen the person in the red wig.
Of course, no one was in the alley by the time we made it back out, and it wasn’t nearly so frightening with a group of three.
The search lasted less than a minute.
“I found your wig,” Mary said, using two gloved fingers to pull it from the spilled trash next to the metal can, then keeping it at arm’s length from her body. “Do you have a plastic bag? I don’t want to get it on my clothes.”
“Yes. I do,” Wickham said, quickly opening the gallon-sized zipper bag we’d brought from the kitchen for her to drop the thing into. He zipped it shut as soon as the wig was contained.
Mary removed her plastic gloves and threw them in the trash. “Shouldn’t we give that to the police?”
“I suppose.” I inspected it through the clear plastic as Wickham held it up for us to see.
He narrowed his eyes. “It’s a cheap stage wig. There might be forensic evidence on it, maybe some hair? But we still don't have any actual proof linking the wig to the killer."
“Well, whoever did this was at the bakery, and they turned off the power, so they certainly appear guilty. There has to be some kind of spell to see whose energy is left on it. I’m feeling stuck.” I huffed, wanting to be done worrying about all of this and focus on my relationship with Wickham.
“Does that kind of spell exist?” Wickham gazed between me and Mary.
“Probably, but I have no idea how to do it.” I rolled my eyes—not at him, but at the situation.
My head ached from thinking about how much effort it would take to figure everything out.
“I want to go on a loudspeaker and say, ‘Will the owner of a cheap red wig found near the dumpster please come claim their property.’”
Wickham smirked, but Mary furrowed her brow. “Lydia, you know that would be a bad idea.”
“Or would it?” I asked. “Why not carry this thing in there and walk around with it in the bag like this? Watch what kind of reaction we get from everyone. There are cameras in the main dining area. We can check out the footage later to see if we missed anything. Too bad we don’t have them at every entrance. ”
“It might put us all in the line of fire, but I doubt the killer would try anything in a crowded building. They obviously tried to disguise themselves outside, so they want to remain hidden.” Wickham rubbed his chin. “I’ll carry it around. I don’t want to put you or your family in danger.”
It didn’t really matter who carried around the clear bag containing the wig.
It would probably set the killer off. Whoever ditched the wig wasn’t the brightest criminal, considering how easy it was to find.
“Sure, if that’s okay. And I’ll ask my sisters if they know of any spells or potions that can show us who has had contact with the wig. ”
A tiny zip of hopeful energy spread through me. If this worked, we might find out who the killer was, and then it would just be me and Wickham.
The three of us headed back to the bakery, entering through the kitchen in the back. As I swung the door open, a scrap of paper fell to the ground. Apparently, we weren’t going to walk around with the bag on display. We had bigger problems.
A simple note read: Playing with fire will get you burned. Stay out of this, or watch those you love suffer.