Playing With Magic

Chapter Sixteen

Sixteen

With a promise that Rich would come to my place that evening to pick me up for our stakeout date, I headed back down to the Earl’s Study to get my morning duties completed.

I was amazed that in the short time I’d been upstairs with Rich, the street was already bustling with activity. The tourists were obvious at first sight, their cameras out to capture the idyllic charm of our little European-inspired town, where you might find an English-inspired bookshop next to a Parisian-inspired bakery.

There were food trucks parked at the end of Main in front of Lansing Grocery, and the queue for various treats was already running up the block. I thought nine in the morning was a bit early for grilled cheese or nachos, but it was Independence Day, after all, and if there was any day you should be allowed to eat and drink whatever you want, it was July Fourth.

In a few hours Main Street would close completely to vehicle traffic, but right now cars were still able to come and go. There was a junky-looking sedan parked in front of Amy’s shop that drew my attention almost immediately. It wasn’t uncommon to see cars in rough shape in Raven Creek. Like most Pacific Northwest towns, we were no strangers to a nomadic population of new-age-philosophy and van-life folks who tended to smell like patchouli and know where all the best truck-stop showers were.

This looked different, though. It was an early-2000s Toyota with a bumper so rusty it was probably hanging on by magic more powerful than anything I could muster. But most importantly, it didn’t look like it belonged to a modern wayfarer.

Something about it prickled my interest, and I stopped to take a closer look. The back seat had a suitcase in it that was partially opened, with clothes spilling out, and a hanger dangling in front of one of the rear windows had a suit jacket on it.

In the front seat were a sea of fast-food wrappers, and . . . was that a law textbook ?

The phonebook-sized tome was half covered in Burger King bags, but it was pretty apparent what I was looking at.

A yellow legal pad was sitting on the front seat, and with one quick glance I could see familiar names in messy scrawl on it. Lansing Grocery was emphatically crossed off. Under the pad was a familiar-looking flyer for Sebastian’s book-signing event.

“Can I help you?” came a voice that was pure malice. It was so unfriendly I actually gave an involuntary shudder before turning around.

The lawyer—I couldn’t recall ever learning his name—was standing barely a foot away from me with a nasty expression twisting his otherwise bland features into something more memorable.

“Just checking,” I said quickly. “The street is going to be cleared soon for the festivities; I wanted to make sure no one was planning to leave this long-term.” It wasn’t a great lie, but it was close enough to the truth that he seemed satisfied.

“I was just leaving. Do you own the block or something?” This was obviously said to be dismissive, but I had to choke back a laugh.

“Or something.”

The lawyer continued to stare at me as he rounded the car and got in the driver’s side. He was just so unnerving ; I could see why he’d managed to rub Leo the wrong way immediately. There was just something instantly loathsome about the guy.

As soon as he drove off, I ducked into the Sugarplum Fairy, only to find Amy loudly banging baking trays in the back.

“Amy?”

She came out a moment later, her cheeks flushed red and what looked like a hint of tears clinging to her eyelashes.

“Whoa, are you okay?” I asked, making a beeline for the counter.

“Is he gone?” Her voice was strained.

“The lawyer? Yeah, he just drove off in possibly the ugliest car I’ve ever seen. What did he want?”

“Oh, he must have gotten it in his head that I might be an easy target for his little scheme of buying up property around town. When he found out that I rented, he was pretty quick to suggest that if his buyers had their way, my shop would be one of the first that got the boot. I know I shouldn’t have let him bother me; I know my landlord isn’t going to just sell to some corporation with deep pockets. If they were like that, they’d have done it years ago. But it just ruffled my feathers so much I couldn’t help but give him a little bit of an earful.”

She tossed a business card on the floor, and I picked it up so she wouldn’t need to deal with collecting it later. The name on the very simple card said Andrew Bachman and gave contact information but no company name.

I also knew perfectly well that her landlord wouldn’t sell to Andrew, because I was her landlord. But she didn’t know that.

The bell over the door chimed, and the massive form of Leo hulked into the shop. He smiled when he saw us, but if I wasn’t looking I might not have noticed that the smile brightened considerably more when it landed on Amy than on me.

And almost as quickly it faltered when he saw her face.

“What happened?”

Amy offered him a smile that was almost convincing and waved a hand in the air, as if dismissing his concerns would be so easy. “It’s nothing. Just that lawyer.”

Leo had a thick beard, making it hard to tell when he blushed, but I had no problem whatsoever seeing how red his face got at the mention of the lawyer.

“Where is he?” Leo snarled.

For my soft-spoken friend to get so angry, the resentment of his previous encounter with Andrew must still be fresh on his mind.

“Don’t you go doing anything rash, Leo Lansing. I’m a big girl, and I already gave him what for, okay?” She gave him a look, and I . . . was she . . . flirting? There was certainly something about their shared expressions that caught me off guard.

Amy was a little older than Leo but by no means old , and neither of them had anyone in their lives at the moment. For a while I’d thought Leo might be harboring a bit of a crush on me, and it was hard not to have a soft spot for the gentle giant. But Rich had stolen my heart, even if our courtship was moving at a snail’s pace.

Leo and Amy . . .

Or maybe I was just misunderstanding.

“If he comes back here, call me,” Leo insisted.

“He won’t come back,” Amy said. “Now that he knows I don’t own the place, he can’t bully me. Let me go get your order.”

She returned a moment later with a big sheet cake box and lifted the lid. Inside, the cake was decorated in a Fourth of July theme with red strawberries and deep-violet blueberries and a finely piped Thanks for Your Work message.

“’S for my staff,” Leo explained. “Didn’t want the bakery to have to make their own thank-you cake.” He flushed, embarrassed by his own thoughtfulness, and picked up the cake as if it weighed nothing.

I grabbed the door for him, though I was sure he could have managed. “I’ll check in with you later, okay?” I said to Amy. “And if you need anything, I’m right next door.”

“I know. Get out of here.” She seemed to have already recouped, and I suspected it was in no small part due to Leo’s appearance. I returned to the Earl’s Study, but I was still put off by the unsettling encounter with the lawyer. I tried to refocus myself but found that every time I was out in the store, I let my gaze drift to Main Street, expecting to see the return of the shoddy-looking car.

My brother, Sam, was a lawyer, so I shot him a quick text while I worked.

Can you look up another lawyer for me?

I wasn’t expecting an immediate reply—Sam frequently took days to respond to texts—but at least I’d put it out there. Maybe he could tell me if Andrew really was who he claimed to be. Something about him rankled me, and apparently everyone else in town.

Trying to boost my spirits, I set about getting everything ready for the day. Taking inspiration from the holiday, I put the usual loaves and cookies in to bake and set about prepping the day’s themed iced teas. I had made the three usual bases the day before—white, black, and green—and I was planning to turn them into red-white-and-blue-inspired teas.

I took fresh berries from the freezer, where I’d placed them two nights earlier. They’d help chill the drinks more quickly when frozen. I pulled the already chilled teas out of the fridge and immediately started to prep new batches that would steep and chill while we served these.

If we continued to sell iced tea at the rate we were this summer, I was going to need to explore different options for storing and serving it next year. As it was, we were barely keeping up with demand, which was a great problem to have but still a problem.

With the big glass jugs on the counter, I started to sort out my ingredients for each tea. The white was going to be the most obvious base for my white tea, and while I was disappointed I couldn’t actually make a clear tea to amp up the theme, I figured people would get it.

Into the white tea base, I added a homemade pineapple syrup and diced up young coconut. Almost immediately the kitchen was a pi?a colada–scented dream, with the two mingling scents transporting me to another country where I could dip my toes in the ocean and lounge around in the sun. I knew instantly this would be a hit.

The green tea base would be the perfect complement for our red tea, which also used a homemade syrup, this one made from dried hibiscus flowers. The rich scarlet color was eye catching, and the syrup was flavored with brown sugar, ginger, and cinnamon, giving it a unique taste that was almost autumnal, but the brightness of the floral still kept it summer appropriate.

I was obsessed with the hibiscus syrup. At home I liked to mix it with some club soda and enjoy it out on my deck. To the pitcher I also added a full container of fresh raspberries.

The last tea was the blue, which used a bergamot-forward black tea with lavender in it, accompanied by a lemon simple syrup. The final touch was fresh frozen blueberries in the jug. The end product would be a lemony delight with the sweetness from the berries keeping it from getting overly tart.

With my patriotic collection of teas ready to go, it was time to swap the baking out from the oven. The scent of fresh loaves of sourdough made my stomach rumble, even though I’d eaten a delicious breakfast with Rich. There was just something powerful about the alluring fragrance of fresh-baked bread. I knew if I was at home I would have ripped into the loaf with my bare hands before it even had the opportunity to cool.

Instead, I set the loaves aside to sit before lunch and put two trays of shortbread in. Even the uncooked dough smelled good—sugary, buttery, a little hint of sweetness from the dried strawberries.

Everything just smelled like summer in the kitchen, from the mason jar filled with fresh mint cuttings from pots on my front porch to the sunny rounds of lemon cut and waiting to go into drinks. It was nice to be so focused on the tasks in front of me. At no point did my anxiety creep in, and the only kitchen disasters were the ones my own clumsiness was responsible for.

I was just bringing the tea jugs out to the front counter when the back door of the shop opened and closed. I tensed for a moment, trying to recall if I had locked it and wondering if the person who was about to come down the hall would be friend or foe. In a sort of panic state, I held on to the heavy glass dispenser. I wasn’t sure if my intent was to throw it at the person as a weapon, but the much more logical solution would have been to put it down so I could defend myself.

Daphne appeared, her blonde curls piled up on her head in a messy bun and a sequined Old Glory shirt paired with her denim cutoffs. “Oh gosh, Phoebe, do you need help with that?”

I realized, in my breath of relief to see her, I was still holding on to the heavy jug like an absolute moron. Daphne’s offer of assistance only made me manage to feel like I was a borderline “golden girl” that my youthful employee thought needed to be saved.

“No,” I replied stubbornly—even though the thing was legitimately very awkward to lift onto the counter. “I got it.”

I quickly explained the day’s drink blends to Daphne, and she went into artist mode, grabbing the little chalkboard we used to display our specials. She erased what she’d done up for the book signing, an evening I was sure now felt bittersweet to both of us, and set to work drawing up cutesy descriptions of each iced tea as well as the toasts we were doing for lunch.

While she worked on that, I finished hauling out the glass jugs and getting the bowls with featured loose-leaf teas set in front of their canisters.

A few minutes after Daphne’s arrival, Imogen came through the front door. Her braids had been wrapped up into two space buns at the top of her head, and she sported a shirt with sparkly gold letters that simply read resist in all caps.

“I have a potentially controversial suggestion,” Imogen announced.

I wiped condensation off the sides of the iced-tea containers and arranged our reusable tumblers so they were right out where everyone could see them. “I’m listening.”

“I think we should put up a big display of Sebastian’s books at the front table.”

“Oh, Immie, that’s terrible,” Daphne said, holding a hand to her chest.

“No, no, wait. Let’s hear her out.” I had to admit Imogen usually had great marketing foresight, and whenever she wanted to do a specific table theme, it tended to boost our sales.

“Here’s the truth, and I’m sorry, Daph, but I’m right. People are going to want those books. Especially the signed overstock. You put them out front because the gawkers are going to be here asking for them anyway, and then we don’t have to point them out anywhere.”

Imogen tossed a newspaper on the cash desk, and the first story on the front page was Popular Nature Influencer Meets Foul Play . I could tell someone at the paper was just dying to turn that foul into a fowl , but calmer editorial heads had prevailed.

I scanned the story quickly, but it was mostly things I already knew. It shared details of Sebastian’s rise to fame online and his sudden death in town. One interesting tidbit was a quote from Melody: “Everyone who knew Sebastian loved him, and I knew him better than most. I think I can say on good authority that Sebastian wouldn’t want us to dwell on this. He didn’t believe in grudges; he said they were bad karma.”

For that quote to have made it into the morning edition, she’d have had to be interviewed the same day as the murder. How had she gone from the bereft woman I’d left outside the B and B to telling people that the dead man would want to move on?

I didn’t know Sebastian well, certainly not as well as she was claiming to, but if someone murdered me in cold blood, I’d want that person to be held accountable. Grudges might be bad karma, but killing someone was way worse.

I passed the paper over to Daphne, who had been pretending not to read it over my shoulder. She scooped it up and immediately started to flip through the pages to see if there was additional coverage. “Oh hey, they mention the Earl’s Study in here. ‘The victim had been planning to attend a highly anticipated nature hike presented by local bookstore The Earl’s Study, following a successful book signing.’”

“Well, at least they didn’t make us sound too bad,” I said with a sigh of relief.

“And they mentioned us,” Imogen continued. “So we should definitely put those books out front and center, because you know people will be asking.”

Daphne made another face of displeasure, but she didn’t argue this time, which made me feel like even she could admit it was a good idea. There was bad taste and then there was just smart business. I had noticed that after the passing of a celebrity, streaming services would suddenly have a bunch of older movies with that person front and center on the browsing page. This was no different.

Imogen was right, because I could already see a few people queued up outside waiting for us to open, and I suspected they weren’t here for our delicious iced tea. I glanced at my watch.

“If you can get it done in ten minutes, I’m all for it. But we can’t change tables around while people are in the store.”

Imogen gave me a little mock salute and then set to work clearing off our front display table. She didn’t leave any of the bird-related books we had put there, but she worked like a whirlwind, taking all our remaining Sebastian Marlow books out of the front window display in the stacks and leaving that space empty for the moment. I normally would have preferred something there, but I knew that on a short day, when everyone and their dog would be here to ask about the murder, a vacant window display wouldn’t be on anyone’s radar but mine.

With a minute to go before my deadline, Imogen plopped a framed photo of Sebastian that we’d had on his meet-and-greet table in the middle of her new display and raised her hands in the air like she’d just broken an Olympic record. “Done.”

“Okay, Grimogen Reaper, maybe let’s tone our enthusiasm down a bit; it’s supposed to be a memorial table.” But admittedly I still chuckled over how proud of herself she was. She was typically fairly stoic, so I liked the brief moment she was letting excitement shine through.

She opened the door right at ten, and our first wave of customers barely let her get out of the way before swooping in.

Imogen would definitely get to gloat with a big round of I told you so later, because nearly every single person through the door in the first hour made a beeline for our Sebastian table display.

The signed copies were gone in the first thirty minutes we were open. It was a little ghoulish how excited people were to get their hands on one. And, of course, the questions came in fast and furious. People wanted to know everything—if we had any idea who the killer was, if one of us was the killer, if Sebastian’s ghost was haunting the store, if we thought someone else might be next on the killer’s list.

This last point I hadn’t considered much, but after overhearing the argument with Melody this morning and tying it to what Honey had said, I was a little uneasy. It seemed as if Melody—if she wasn’t guilty of the murder herself—might know too much. And if that was the case, then she could be in some real danger.

I decided to head over to the B and B when my shift was done just to have a quick chat with her. I didn’t need to mention what I’d heard at the river, but I could try to gauge where she was emotionally and maybe see if she’d let something slip that might help me determine if she was the villain or a possible victim.

A lot depended on what Rich and I learned from our little stakeout later, and I was sure he wouldn’t approve of me nosing around and having face time with Melody beforehand, but I also figured if she was guilty of something, then our conversation might drive her into action, which Rich and I would spot later.

I should not be as excited for a stakeout as I was, but I knew the entire reason I got butterflies in my stomach thinking about it was because I was looking forward to that alone time with Rich.

As I got ready for our busy day, I noticed a familiar form pass by the front window. The short figure with distinctive glasses grabbed my attention right away.

“Hey, Daph.” I turned my attention to my adorable nineteen-year-old employee, someone who would definitely be able to get Connor talking a lot more easily than I could. “I just spotted Connor Reeves go by. Why don’t you catch up to him, see how he’s holding up with all this Sebastian stuff? If he’s feeling up to it, you could pick his brain a little about social media for the shop.”

Daphne and Imogen both looked at me like I’d spoken in another language. I gave Imogen a quick warning glance, because I could tell she was about to say something. Daphne asked, “Are you sure? It’s going to be so busy.”

“I’m not suggesting you go for hours, just tell him we’re thinking of him, okay?” I wanted to ask her to specifically grill him about Melody or Deacon, but that might be too obvious. “Come back in fifteen or so. Imogen and I can hold down the fort.”

I took a twenty from the till and handed it to her, and she ran off to catch up with Sebastian’s social media manager.

“What was that all about?” Imogen asked as we watched the sprightly blonde head out. “Since when are we a counseling service?”

“I have some . . . reservations about the people in Sebastian’s inner circle. I think Connor might be a weak link to spill. Detective Martin did ask me to keep my ears open.”

“I don’t think she meant you should enlist your employees in subterfuge, but I like where your head is at.” Imogen gave an approving nod, and we got to work.

*

The shortened morning flew by. Daphne had returned from her coffee meeting with Connor—and I hadn’t failed to notice how smitten he looked when they walked back—but I hadn’t been able to grill her about what had gone down. We were simply too busy. While people might have been coming in to grab copies of Sebastian’s book, they were leaving with bags full of books, loose-leaf tea, and cup after cup of iced tea. We were sold out of bread before twelve thirty, and it was all I could do to make the small fridge meet the demands of our thirsty customers.

I hammered out a quick text to Amy, seeing if she might have space in her walk-in cooler. I had the supplies to make more tea, I just didn’t have the space. She wrote back in minutes saying she did and it was all mine if I needed it. The moment we had a lull between customers, I shoved a fistful of cash into Daphne’s hands and sent her to the grocery store.

“I need whatever berries they have, I don’t care.” I could make adjustments on the fly as needed; I was just grateful I’d made enough of my various simple syrups for a week, because a week was turning into a day.

All the chairs in the reading area of the bookstore were occupied, even Bob’s usual haunt. My heartbeat skipped a step, and I worried he might have gotten out in all the hubbub, which was precisely why I’d been nervous to bring him today.

I left Imogen in charge of the cash register and headed into the reading room, my stomach in my shoes and knotted with worry.

Evidently my worries were unfounded, because I found Bob curled up on the back of a chair occupied by a little girl, her sleek black hair in pigtails and a picture book open on her lap. I scanned the store for her parents and spotted a smartly dressed Korean couple standing by the pastry display who seemed to be likely candidates.

Bob had an eye on her in the meantime.

I gave him a quick pat on the head and then returned to the front counter to help Imogen.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of red, white, and blue.

As we got toward closing, I finally had a free moment to pester Daphne about her meeting with Connor. I had to be careful about my questions, though, or risk her realizing I’d sent her out on something of a spy mission.

“So, how’d your coffee with Connor go? How was he feeling?”

Daphne took a stack of books I’d offered her and started filling the new release section with them. “It went by in such a blur. We went into Amy’s place, and it was so busy we were practically shouting at each other. He’s so smart, Phoebe. He started from nothing, but he was intuitive, and he taught himself everything he knows. That’s so hard to do in the industry. I think he’s part of the reason Sebastian got so famous, you know.”

I thought Sebastian being very hot and charming probably had a lot more to do with it than algorithms, but I kept that to myself.

“Did he talk about Sebastian?”

“Not really. He said they weren’t friends, exactly. He’s really worried about his job now that Sebastian is gone, and I can’t blame him. It’s a tough industry. He told me that Travis from the publishing house already left town, so he doesn’t know what that means for the book and his job now.”

It was interesting that Connor seemed more interested in his job prospects than his dead boss. The news about Travis being gone also struck me as suspect—hadn’t Patsy told everyone to stay put?—but I focused on information Connor might have spilled to Daphne.

“Did he mention Melody at all?”

Daphne took another stack of books. If she realized I was giving her the third degree for clues, it didn’t show. “Nah, I think he might have said something like it being hard to work with her, especially now, but nothing else.”

Especially now.

Interesting.

I left Daphne to finish putting the books away, wishing I’d gotten more from her conversation but definitely more curious about Connor’s part in all this, and especially his relationship with Melody. They’d been thick as thieves at the signing, but suddenly now she was hard to work for.

I wanted to know what that meant.