5. Roxy’s reveal
ROXY’S REVEAL
what’s that?
gus’s wolf friend is back?
finally!
— gus
By morning, the problem with Olivia’s very obvious murder isn’t finding proof that a wolf killed her.
We know that that’s what happened. There’s no denying that she was mauled, but despite the best efforts of the pack’s strongest noses, the real problem the sheriff has is finding proof that an actual wolf was even there in the first place.
Max enlists the best hunters he has—all not-so-coincidentally members of the Moonburrow Sheriff Department—and the five of them all go back over the scene after sunrise.
Everything about the state of the body points toward one of his kind.
The claw marks and bites on Olivia’s body are the sort of vicious wounds a deadly predator leaves behind when he doesn’t try to pretend he’s human.
What’s missing, however, is the scent of Olivia’s murderer.
According to Max, a wolf can hide a lot of things.
His temper, for one. What he intended to do, whether it was an attack or an accident.
Even the fact that he’s scared or excited, if he’s good enough at controlling himself, but there’s no way a shifter can hide what he is.
Especially when his kind of supe is searching for some trace of him at the crime scene.
There should be something left behind. The attack was violent, and while Olivia insists she tried to fight back, there doesn’t seem to be any clue to the identity of her attacker.
The wolf shifters claim they didn’t find any fur or blood from anyone else, and when it comes to their noses, there’s no wolfy scents.
Not of a stranger, or a local wolf. It’s just Olivia, her blood, and enough disturbed earth to tell us that whatever happened to her definitely happened where her body was.
I don’t even have to be a shifter to explain how that’s possible. As a witch with an affinity for herbs, I know that wolfsbane is the obvious explanation, and one Max reluctantly confirms when I pose the suggestion that the killer must have used it before he hunted down the witch.
Wolfsbane does something to a wolf shifter’s senses: it manages to hide someone’s scent from them, as though they weren’t there. It’s considered illegal in most shifter territories because anyone who dabbles in wolfsbane is usually trying to get away with something they shouldn’t.
It also means that it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment crime.
They didn’t recognize the witch sneaking past the locked-down borders at some point, decide that she was an enemy to the pack, and put her down.
I finally dragged it out of Olivia that she returned to Moonburrow only a day or two before the coven strengthened the wards following Faith’s death.
Whatever happened after Olivia came back to town, if the killer used wolfsbane, there’s a good chance her death had to be premeditated in some way, no matter why.
The way that Max’s face thins out, his wolf peeking out through his eyes when I tell him what Olivia said about being in Moonburrow for a couple of days… yeah. The sheriff isn’t pleased that the witch at the top of his shit list was right under his nose until she was killed.
The sheriff wants to know how. With a lofty sneer, she admits that one of her sister witches was hiding her until they could appeal to Delilah to let Olivia rejoin the coven.
In my opinion, the witch decided it was worth it to act contrite in order to get a second chance at stealing Morrigaine’s mirror, just like I get the vibe from Olivia’s reaction that Faith was the witch protecting her before both of their untimely deaths.
Not that I can ask Faith. Now that Max has confessed that she was most likely the killer’s first victim, I wonder if Faith crossed over after she was murdered.
It’s not a secret among the covens that I’m a seer—something that Olivia obviously knew since she showed up in my apartment—but I hadn’t sensed another ghost before that happened.
At this point, our only lead when it comes to who is targeting witches in Moonburrow is Olivia, and I can’t believe a word that comes out of her mouth.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the alpha wolf’s ability to sense when someone is lying.
I have to take her at face value, but when all evidence proves that she’s at least being honest about it having been a big, black wolf that killed her, that’s all we can go on for the moment.
Well, that, plus the undeniable realization that, if the wards are working like they’re supposed to—and Max plans to go and talk to Delilah to inform her about Olivia’s murder, find out who will take charge of the body, and double-check that the wards are still functional and keeping everyone in and out of town—then that means it wasn’t some unknown wolf that wandered into Moonburrow, murdered a witch on the edge of pack territory before disappearing again.
Nope. Whoever killed Olivia is already here—and with the wards supposedly at max value, they’re still here.
That thought is bad enough… and that’s when I think about how Olivia isn’t the first witch to die in Moonburrow this past week. Two witches are dead, and as Max’s gaze settles on me from across the clearing, I realize the sheriff has already reached the same conclusion that I just did.
If someone in Moonburrow is hunting witches, there’s no reason to assume they’re finished. That they don’t plan on going after more of the magically-inclined supes.
And look at that: I’m a witch, too.
Goddess help me because I’m beginning to think that she might be the only one who can.
As if the situation in Moonburrow couldn’t get any worse for me, I learn that Riordan Lobo is back in town around the time I’m holding seven books destined for the romance section while trying to decide whether I can carry an eighth without causing another library-related disaster.
Considering my recent history, the answer is probably no. My optimism says ‘sure’, and I reach for it anyway.
Should I stay in Moonburrow? I almost wanted to excuse myself, high-tail out of the supe town, and drive all the way back to Salem.
I couldn’t, though, and hiding out in my apartment because I’m suddenly convinced I’ll be the next victim…
that was ridiculous. There’s no reason to think I’ll be targeted, and if I am, all I’ll have to do is cast a spell and let the fallout take care of any would-be witch killer.
Still, my whirring brain needed a distraction so I went to ‘work’ this afternoon. On the plus side, when I woke up after another restless sleep earlier this morning, I discovered that Olivia was finally gone.
She’ll be back. I know she will. While I might be the only cursebreaker I know of in the States, there are a handful of supernatural seers who can talk with ghosts.
We all agree that, whenever a ghost in need realizes they have a Living willing to work with them to get closure, they’re like a dog with a bone: they don’t let go.
There is a lot about ghosts and the afterlife that I don’t know even after all these years.
Then again, that’s on purpose. A ghost can only talk about their lived experiences, especially since they’ve never crossed over and don’t know what to expect when they do.
Despite Olivia being a pain in my ass, I feel sorry for her.
I mean, she is dead. No matter what trouble she got into when she was alive, she didn’t deserve to be mauled like that.
So, yeah, I’ll do whatever I can to help her rest—but that doesn’t mean I need her breathing down my neck every second of the day.
Ghosts are like that, vanishing as quickly as they appear.
It takes a lot of spectral energy to manifest into the world of the Living so they usually build it up, say what they need to say, then pop out of existence until they gather up some more.
Unless I use herbs or a copious amount of salt to block her, she can find me anywhere.
The shock of her death might be hitting her now, but give it a few days, and I’m sure she’ll be asking if I pulled a Nancy Drew and figured out who killed her yet.
I have no idea. I spent most of yesterday at the bakery, downing donut after donut while keeping Honey company and trying my best to get the idea of Olivia’s ruined body out of my brain.
It didn’t help that I had the translucent, greyed-out form of Olivia Frost hovering behind Honey, adding her two cents while Honey cheerily decided to act like there wasn’t another murder in Moonburrow.
Yes. I said it.
Another murder in Moonburrow.
I’d heard rumors about a rogue wolf that had poisoned two of his packmates long before I came to town, but I had been very careful to ignore them.
I just knew that Max, as sheriff, had taken care of that killer.
I have no doubt he’ll find the culprit who murdered Olivia, and I’m happy to leave him to it.
Olivia? Not so much. She seems to think that I should be out there with a magnifying glass, comparing paw prints and claw marks to the site of her murder, while I chose to find a little refuge in the peaceful library where none of the nosey citizens of Moonburrow can find me and ask me if it’s really true that the dead witch came to me in a dream.
Firstly, I can see her ghost. Secondly, I’d rather not broadcast that ability around the notoriously gossipy town if I don’t have to.
Thirdly, I hate that Max mentioned that it seems that witches are a target for this vicious killer…
and I am a witch. I don’t want to hole up in the apartment over the bakery, and after yesterday, hanging out with Honey seemed to be too…
overwhelming when most of her customers came to buy a treat and gawk at the traumatized witch.
The library seemed like just the right place to go as it’s technically closed to the public and, ever since the disaster, it’s only Ash and me working inside to put it back together—