Playing With Magic

Chapter Nineteen

Nineteen

I raced home, my thoughts a blur. I tried to make sense of what I’d learned as I fed Bob his dinner and scarfed down a quick bite of some leftover pasta I had in the fridge.

I needed a distraction to let my thoughts run wild, and the best way I knew how to do that was to make some tea. I headed downstairs to my tea storage and pulled out the list of teas we had nearly emptied at the shop that day. I was stunned by the sheer volume of tea sales we had made. I’d been confident that the iced tea would sell well on a hot, sunny day, but what I hadn’t been prepared for was the number of people who had wanted to buy the loose teas to take home with them.

I’d also nearly sold out of my reusable travel cups and ceramic mugs. I was going to need to place a new order tomorrow, which I had been sure I wouldn’t need to do for months.

Today had been a very good day for business, which made my heart happy. One of my main worries after moving here had been that I wouldn’t be able to keep Eudora’s legacy with the store alive, and it was becoming obvious day after day that I was not only succeeding but perhaps even exceeding all the great work she had done for the store. Modernizing it for the new generation, allowing for online sales, and establishing a social media presence had taken us further than I ever could have imagined the little shop going, and I hadn’t even been in charge for a full year.

Yes, there were going to be lulls, and yes, it was far too soon for me to start congratulating myself. I did, however, feel a spark of inspiration while thinking about all the positives. I wanted to make a tea specifically to thank our customers and to embrace my aunt’s memory of giving.

I filled up some jumbo freezer bags of the teas I needed to restock—there were simply too many for me to use jars—and set those bags on the stairs leading back up to the main floor so I could grab them later. Then, rather than going to Eudora’s big book of recipes or checking one of the recipes on a card inside the premade mixed teas, I grabbed the big glass mixing bowl I used to make tea and took it over to the ingredient shelf with me.

I decided that whatever spoke to me from the big glass jars and metal tins was what I would use to make this new tea.

Since I was a big fan of black tea, I started there for my base, filling the bowl with some big scoops of the rich-smelling leaves. There was just something about black tea that smelled like tea to me—not quite as earthy-grassy as green tea, not as light as white tea. I knew most of my friends had grown up trying a basic black tea as their very first (an orange pekoe was a classic first tea), and I always gravitated toward it as my favorite.

Of course, growing up around Eudora meant I’d learned quickly about different tea bases and all the most common blends. Not a lot of preteens grew up on rooibos mixes or jasmine handpicked by their adventurous aunt on a different continent.

Black teas were better paired with sweet or citrus mixes instead of fruitier offerings, which usually went well with green or white. I was going to buck that trend, though, because I adored the way freeze-dried strawberry tasted with the black tea.

I grabbed the strawberries, some vanilla sugar, some lemon rind, and elderflower. The white elderflower petals and the subdued pink hue of the strawberry would make the loose tea look beautiful and eye-catching, while the strawberry would help infuse the liquid with a rosy shade.

I brought all my ingredients back to the table and started to mix them together. I roughly chopped the strawberries to make the pieces smaller so each scoop was sure to get some. Even though the berries were no longer fresh, the freeze-drying process had locked that summery sweetness in, so as I chopped, the air was filled with the tart and candy-like fragrance of fresh berries.

The lemon peel had been dehydrated so it would stay preserved longer, and as I dropped the long, bright-yellow strands into the mixture, my fingertips came away smelling of sunlight and lemonade.

The sugary vanilla made me think of fresh sugar cookies, and the elderflower had a unique, bittersweet and almost spicy scent, with a hint of honey as the fragrance lingered in the air. I mixed all the ingredients together until the bowl resembled beautiful confetti. I smiled at my work, proud that I had created something new and wholly original to honor my aunt’s legacy and to thank the people who had helped me keep it alive.

Grabbing an empty storage tin from the bottom shelf, I filled it up and put a fresh label on the outside—the first one on the shelf with my writing on it—that said Gra-tea-tude .

The remaining mixture in the bowl went to a big bag for me to take to the store tomorrow and give away to anyone who made a purchase. I’d fill up some twenty-five-gram bags when I got to work in the morning.

Making the tea was the most relaxed I’d felt in days. The stresses that had been weighing me down had vanished, if only for a little bit, and when I stepped away from my worktable, there was nothing floating in the air around my head.

Bob was watching me from the top step of the staircase, his striped orange tail flicking. He didn’t particularly enjoy the basement and rarely came down even if I was there, but he did like to keep an eye on me while I worked.

I didn’t blame him; my general opinion of basements was that they were dark, spooky, and full of spiders. Being a town in the middle of the woods in the Pacific Northwest meant that there was no escaping the spiders. I couldn’t do much about that, but I’d established a rule with them: if I don’t see you, you can keep eating any critters you find inside.

The agreement seemed to work for the most part, though admittedly there had been one time when I pulled a canister of tea off the shelf and a big brown spider and I shared a mutual moment of abject horror before we both ran off. I never saw her again, but I assumed she was still somewhere in the house, avoiding me just as carefully as I avoided her.

I put all my bags of tea into a basket and carried them upstairs, putting them by the front door to take with me tomorrow. Bob trailed after me, sniffing my legs and the hem of my dress with intense interest, since I’d brought up foreign basement smells with me.

It was a good reminder that I was still wearing my little sundress, and while it had been a sweet and charming choice for my morning meeting with Rich, it didn’t feel like an appropriate choice for a stakeout. It certainly hadn’t been great for scurrying under a bed several times. But standing in front of my closet, I had to ask an even bigger question: what was an appropriate outfit for a stakeout?

My immediate thought was all black, perhaps some kind of turtleneck, but then I wondered if that might be more avant-garde beat poet or cat burglar rather than the ideal for sitting in a car for hours.

Plus a turtleneck would be much too hot, given the sticky humidity still clinging in the air. We were going to be punished for these nice sunny days with one heck of a storm in the next twenty-four hours, I could feel it in my bones.

I grabbed a pair of black capris that I would normally wear for yoga but would be comfortable if we did have to sit for hours. I topped them with a cute, lightweight sweater in a baby-blue shade. It was made of super-fine yarn, so while it had long sleeves and an off-the-shoulder neckline, it wouldn’t be overly hot to wear. I had no idea if it was the right choice, but it looked cute and casual, which was the right vibe for this not-a-date event.

Heading back downstairs with my orange shadow in tow, I brewed up a fresh pot of coffee and was just filling a thermos with it when a knock sounded at my door. For a moment I paused, recalling Deacon’s sudden appearance the day before. I was expecting Rich, but that didn’t necessarily mean I should assume it was Rich.

When I opened the door a crack and saw the familiar tangle of Rich’s unruly curls and his whiskey-colored eyes, I couldn’t help but break out in a smile as I opened the door the rest of the way. “Good, it is you.”

“Do you want me to come up with a secret knock or something so you don’t need to check next time? A password, maybe?”

I held open the door, and he came in. “You’re kidding, but these days that doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.”

“Okay, I propose Bubbles .”

“Bubbles?” I gave him an incredulous look, not sure I dared ask why he had selected this particular passcode, but the curiosity was too much. “ Why? ”

“She was my favorite Powerpuff Girl.”

“Oh my god.” I rolled my eyes.

“Would you prefer Buttercup ?”

I thrust the thermos into his hand. “You are still twelve years old, I swear.”

Bob agreed, announcing, “Brow. Mrreoow .”

“I think he wants to come with us,” Rich said.

“Of course he wants to come with us. Bob always wants to come. But we’re not bringing a cat on a stakeout. I can’t believe I, the woman with a space-age cat backpack, have to be the one to set that boundary.”

“It wouldn’t be his first time investigating a murder,” Rich reminded me.

I gave a little shudder, recalling the time Bob had inadvertently helped me find a body. I hoped to never relive that particular adventure.

“I think he’s going to have to sit this one out.”

Rich leaned over and scratched Bob behind his ears. “Sorry, pal, I did my best.”

Bob gave a happy little brr sound and then wandered off into the living room, where he settled onto the couch, obviously none too upset over being left out of our plans.

I locked up the house and followed Rich to his car, which was the definition of nondescript. It was navy blue but might have been black or gray or dark green, depending on the light and how hard you looked at it. I couldn’t even have made a guess of the brand; it was just a standard sedan that could have belonged to any cop or soccer mom or first-time car owner. It had been parked behind my store for months on and off, and yet it still felt like the first time I was seeing it.

As if reading my puzzled expression, Rich chuckled. “Eudora.”

“Hmm?”

“Eudora put a spell on the car. It helps keep it from being too recognizable, so the longer you look at it, the harder it is to describe. It’s pretty handy when you don’t want anyone to notice you.”

“Well, that is a cool use of magic. I wonder how she did that.”

Rich shrugged. “Beats me; I’m just glad it still works even though she’s gone. It’s actually very advantageous in my line of work that no one knows they’re being watched or followed because they can’t quite remember if they’ve seen the car before or not.”

“I could see that being very beneficial.”

He opened the car door for me and waited until I was sitting before handing me the thermos I’d completely forgotten I’d given to him. While he was circling the car, I glanced around the interior. I’d been expecting it to be messy. His apartment was clean, but I knew how much time he spent in the car, so I’d imagined it being full of fast-food wrappers and discarded drink containers. Instead, it was neat as a pin and smelled like the vanilla car deodorizer shaped like a pine tree hanging from his rearview mirror.

Had Rich cleaned his car out just for tonight’s stakeout? I couldn’t be sure, but the dust-free interior and suspiciously spotless fabric on the seats and floorboards made me think he’d taken it to a carwash at some point between our meeting this morning and him picking me up tonight.

Really, it was the completely clean floor mats that convinced me I was right, because considering how much it had rained the last few weeks, there was simply no way the mats were that clean unless he’d just done them.

I decided not to tease him about it, but I did smile to myself as I leaned across the front seat to lift his door handle and push the door open as he arrived at it. From that angle I spotted a small cooler sitting in the back, behind my seat.

“Did you bring snacks?” I asked, craning my neck to get a better look at the cooler.

“Can’t have a stakeout without snacks, Winchester. That’s amateur hour.”

“And here I thought I was being so clever bringing us coffee.”

“Hey, I never look a caffeinated gift horse in the mouth.”

Dusk was barely falling as Rich turned around at the top of the street—since Lane End House was very literally named, there was nothing past it—and headed back into town. It was a short drive to the B and B on Apple Lane, but it took longer than expected with how crowded the streets were even now. Tourists and locals alike had turned Main Street into a party, with blockades set up to cordon off about six solid blocks from the grocery store all the way down to the gas station.

While most of the stores were closed, a few had opted to have evening hours or to set up booths outside and sell wares in a market-style environment. Seeing how busy it was, I knew next year I’d have to devise a plan to take advantage of all this foot traffic, but for today I wasn’t upset about my plan to close early. Most shops had done the same to allow their staff time to go out and enjoy the holiday festivities.

People up and down the block had glow-stick necklaces and bracelets or combinations of the two they’d turned into crowns. Kids ran amok with sparklers waving in the air, and people sang along to pop hits being played by a cover band at the far end of the street. I couldn’t see the band, but the acoustics of Main Street formed a kind of tunnel that brought sound downhill toward the grocery store, so as Rich navigated us away from the street festival, I could still perfectly hear a decent rendition of “Jack and Diane.”

I wondered if Daphne and Imogen were out enjoying themselves, or if Honey was taking her mother around to show her just how much the town loved celebrating holidays. While I was missing my first Independence Day party, I had already experienced a good number of holiday events in Raven Creek. Halloween and Christmas were huge ones, but the town had even gone out of its way to plan activities for Arbor Day and put on a celebration in November for the anniversary of Washington’s statehood. That was when I’d learned that my house was actually older than the state, which made me extra impressed that it still existed.

Of course, Lane End House had gone through a lot of different phases, so only a small portion of the current house was what had originally been constructed, but it still gave me immense pride to be living in something that had evolved alongside my family tree.

The further away we got from Main, the quieter it got, and once we pulled onto Apple Street, all we could hear of the festivities was the faint thump of the band’s bass and the occasional loud peal of laughter or cheering.

Rich parked a few houses down from the B and B and rolled the windows down just slightly before he turned the key off. Now that the sun was down, the humidity had dissipated, but there was still a thick, warm scent lingering in the air.

I pulled my hair away from my face, tying it into a messy bun on the top of my head so I could comfortably lean back and my neck wouldn’t get sticky from the heat left in the evening. It seemed there wasn’t going to be any air conditioning.

I caught Rich glancing over at me while I did my hair, but he looked away immediately when I turned my head in his direction.

The sky was the same deep purple-blue as a bruise, with fading hints of pink and lilac to the west. A few clouds had cropped up since I’d left work, but it still looked clear and promised to be a perfect night for fireworks. And since I had a pretty good idea how much the town spent on fireworks—after all, I technically paid for them—I anticipated it was going to be a good show.

Rich leaned his seat back slightly, and I did the same.

“Okay, what now?” I asked.

“We watch and we wait.”

While I’d fundamentally understood that a stakeout was just sitting in a car and waiting, very little could have prepared me for just how astonishingly boring an actual stakeout was.

Rich and I sat in the car for close to two hours, watching the B and B. I took that time to fill him in on what I’d learned during my time at the inn earlier, and while he grumbled loudly about me doing something so stupid , he certainly seemed interested in what fragments I had picked up.

“Sounds like Melody might be in a little trouble with money, based on what you heard at the river and this thing with the missing bank statement. Embezzlement, maybe? Seems to me like she was up to no good.”

“Embezzlement, you think?” Hadn’t Deacon implied that Melody had only been interested in Sebastian’s money? Not that I was necessarily taking his word for any of this. If the room swap had happened and Melody had been the intended victim, then Deacon was still a logical suspect.

“It would explain why her name was on an LLC fund. You said before she wasn’t in charge until this week, so that does seem a little suspect.”

“I’m more interested in the gloves . Were they the ones used in Sebastian’s murder, or were they just meant to look like that?”

“I think we’re going to need to let the police figure that particular plot out; that’s above our pay grade. I’m curious to see what she gets up to tonight, though.”

There was plenty of activity—the inn was fully booked with tourists; the murder hadn’t changed that—so guests were coming and going all night, most heading in the direction of Main Street and others returning from that same direction. People carried ice cream cones or bags of popcorn or twisted potatoes on a stick. The smell of cinnamon-sugar mini doughnuts wafting through the partially open window nearly did me in.

My stomach growled loudly.

Rich chuckled. “Guess it’s snack time.”

He leaned behind me, his shoulder grazing mine as he rummaged around in the little cooler. He handed me a cold can of soda and a miniature bag of pretzels. While it wasn’t street fair food, I was grateful for the bubbles in the soda and the salty goodness of the pretzels.

“Do you really do this every night?” I asked, munching happily on one of the pretzels.

“Every night? No. It’s not always necessary for every case, but at least once or twice a week I have to sit in front of a seedy motel somewhere, or follow someone’s husband or wife to see what they’re up to. I think people hear private investigator and assume it’s cool or glamorous, but it’s really just a lot of waiting around for people to do something stupid. And if someone is hiding something, they’re going to do something stupid eventually. It’s just a matter of patience to be there to catch it.”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“When I’m by myself, I usually have headphones in and listen to a podcast or audiobook. Helps pass the time. Not sure there’s any other way I would have read all the Wheel of Time books; those things are dense .”

Being a bookstore owner, I was familiar with the epic fantasy series. “That is certainly a commitment.”

“I’ve been listening to Stephen King’s Dark Tower books recently. I like to pick a lengthy series; gives me something to look forward to if the stakeouts take a few days or more. But I’d say ninety-nine percent of my business is either catching cheating spouses or busting employees who are trying to take advantage of insurance policies. I do missing-persons cases privately now and then, and I sometimes help the police department in a consulting role. It pays the bills, keeps me busy.”

“You don’t really talk about your time with the police department very much,” I said. Since he’d brought the police up, it seemed like a fair time to broach the topic.

“I guess there’s not that much to say. I was with the Barneswood PD as a detective for twelve years, which is a limited field in a small town, but Barneswood has a little bit of drug-related trouble, so that kept my attention most of the time. The problem was I could only show up to so many scenes that involved an overdose or a kid taking drugs and crashing their tree into a car, and it just caught up to me. I showed up one day to a tough scene, and that was it for me. Put in my notice as soon as that case was closed and never looked back. Maybe it’s me being na?ve or small town—I don’t know. I just don’t think I can wrap my head around how city cops get used to it. It made me too sad. Ruined my marriage in a way too. I kept bringing those big feelings home with me until there wasn’t room for her.”

I hadn’t expected him to open up quite so much. It was a fascinating insight into the man Rich had been before he’d come back into my life.

“And it’s easier? Following around cheating husbands?”

“Heck yeah. That doesn’t really do much to shake my faith in people. As long as there have been marriages, there have been cheating husbands.”

I sipped my drink. “Tell me about it.”

“Oh, man. Phoebe, I’m so sorry, that was completely thoughtless of me.”

I laughed. “I’m pretty sure it was more thoughtless of him. I think you’re safe.”

“Still. Foot-in-mouth disease is a real problem for me. I’m sorry.”

“Eh, don’t be. You’re right, there are always going to be husbands who cheat; it’s sort of an unfortunate but reality-based statistic. I was just unlucky enough to be married to one. And now I’m not.”

He tipped his can toward me and I raised mine, clinking it with a tinny chunk sound. “Cheers to failed first marriages,” he said. “Better luck next time.”

I flushed, and I was glad we were in a dark car so he couldn’t see how red my face was. Before I was forced to think of anything clever to say, Rich said, “Uh-oh, heads-up. Here’s our girl.”

I put my can in the drink holder of the car and sat up straighter in my seat. Sure enough, there was Melody, jogging down the front steps of the B and B. Her walk had a determined speed to it, and she was wearing a dark-colored hoodie. She pulled the hood up as she headed in the direction of Main Street.

Rich leaned over and undid my seat belt, a move that caught my breath in my throat. I stared at him; he was so close I could smell the fresh soap on his skin.

“Wh-what now?” I asked.

“Now we follow her.”