Chapter 28
SARAH
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, blinking like a baby bird pushed out of the nest and asking ever so politely to be put back in. ‘I didn’t know who else to come to. The people I’d normally ask for help if Maggie was in trouble are, uh, the people that have done this to her.’
‘And what do you imagine I can do?’ I ask.
Chester Greenstreet wrings his hands. ‘Something?’ he says eventually, in the strangulated way I’ve learned means my petitioner really wants to say, ‘Magic?’
‘I can’t do anything to override Theodorou’s free will,’ I say, with a bluntness born of weary habit. No, the only person I ever broke that rule for was Julia, and look how it shattered our friendship. ‘But I’ll go talk to him.’
I’m uneasy all the way as I drive to Beulah County police station.
It doesn’t help that I pass Bittershore Nature Preserve.
It’s still not reopened, and each road sign has a hi-vis yellow one affixed beneath: ‘TEMPORARILY CLOSED’.
Detective Knight and I caught a murderer when Theodorou couldn’t – and this is how she gets repaid?
I remember the night of unexpected camaraderie Maggie and I spent in the homely little restaurant, after she asked me to evaluate the cabin on Bittershore beach.
The spilled wine and shared confidences.
How she drew a line between what the law calls justice and what Harper and I had experienced.
Maybe her colleagues have decided such distinctions don’t sit well on a cop.
But still, I’m surprised it’s Theodorou who’s holding her. Surely he can’t really think she’d help Luka escape?
‘She was the one who took Luka down,’ I remind him, once I’m standing in Theodorou’s bearish presence.
Behind his paperwork-strewn desk, the officer is looking a little haggard in his skin, like he didn’t eat enough before hibernating, and it pulls a small tide of unwilling sympathy his way.
‘At great risk to herself. If she’d misfired it might have let Luka escape – or fatally injured him. ’
His response is all over the place. Something about ensuring her integrity as a witness. An assertion that she’s in danger from parties with an interest in the outcome of the trial. He looks startled when I ask who that means.
‘It’s for her own good,’ he comes right out and says.
I’m curious now. And pissed off. And I know I told Chester I wouldn’t, but this isn’t doing anything to override Detective Theo’s free will …
A quick twist of fingers behind my back, and the door to his office closes noiselessly as if a passing gust of air nudged it.
Then I cough, and behind a shielding hand my lips move almost silently to shape a cantrip of truth-telling.
These are magics so small they hardly deserve the name.
Their effects, slight. The cantrip I mostly use on clients who are struggling to find the words to tell me what afflicts them.
I see it as a benevolent charm, helping people find their voice.
There’s certainly no compulsion. Nothing that would get me bound by the Moot.
Though I can’t imagine Okoye would approve …
And it comes. A loosening of Theodorou’s tongue.
Nothing explicit. No she made me do it. But he mentions Sandra Ortiz and her concern for her son enough times that it’s clear to me she’s behind this move to keep Maggie out of play.
She must have leant on Theo or put pressure on his higher-ups.
Does she believe Maggie was responsible for Luka’s escape?
Perhaps she imagines this detention will weaken Maggie’s credibility as a prosecution witness in Luka’s upcoming trial.
Not for the first time, I’m glad those archaic legal strictures about witches not being able to give evidence either for or against other magicals still exist. Those rules were meant to prevent witches from protecting fellow witches.
But in this case, they mean I can’t testify against Luka Ortiz.
The detailed evidence presented to the jury will come from the other witnesses, and my contribution will be limited to yes or no, in agreement with or rejection of their accounts.
Which is when I remember that of those who were there, Pierre is dead, Bridget beginning to wonder if Sandra Ortiz is right, Julia is absent in California … and Chester. No wonder he wants to know what happened to Maggie. The two cops could be the only strong prosecution voices.
‘I hear you,’ I tell Theodorou, my thoughts swirling like a potion at first blending. ‘You believe it’s for her own good.’
He nods, and I mouth the release of the cantrip. He’s still nodding as I wish him good day.
Back in my car, I rest my forehead against the steering wheel. There’s only one way I can think of to get at even a little knowledge of what Sandra Ortiz is up to. Or rather, only one that won’t get me bound or stripped of magic, if caught.
Bea still works for Ortiz – and she lives with Bridget.
I haven’t seen Bridge since I went to her house the day Pierre died.
When she sobbed and raged and claimed Pierre always put me first. The day Izzy, who’s been half a daughter to me her whole life, told me to leave and shut the door in my face.
I’ve texted since then. Left an occasional voicemail when my calls go unanswered – they’re always unanswered.
But I’ve respected Izzy’s grief-stricken command and stayed away from the house.
Am I really going to visit now, simply to winkle out anything I can about Ortiz from my grieving friend and her daughter?
No, I’m going because it’s time I stopped letting cowardice and guilt keep me away from my oldest friend. If I hear useful things about Ortiz, then so much the better.
Supper time is approaching, so I pick up a family-size clam bake to-go, from her favourite seafood restaurant.
When Bridget opens the door and the scent of it hits her, I’ll be in.
The two bottles of wine in my other hand will guarantee it.
I’ve been so wrong not to attempt this reconciliation earlier.
I’ve missed her so much and know that however heartbroken and wounded she’s been feeling, Bridge will have missed me, too.
We’ll talk. We’ll cry. And we will forgive each other – me, her harsh words, and her, my selfishness in never having the heart to warn Pierre off loving me.
It’s dark by the time I’m crawling along her narrow harbour road for a parking spot, and multiple lights are on in Bridget’s house.
I should have figured Bea would be there, though I’d hoped she’d be out with college friends or staying late in Ortiz’s office, given how busy they must be running a 24/7 campaign of witch-hate.
It’s only as I look up from rescuing one of the bottles from where it’s rolled into the passenger footwell, that I realise there are too many figures moving back and forth behind Bridget’s part-lowered blinds.
I leave the food and drink and creep closer.
If they’re friends of Izzy, or even Bea, this should still work.
Bridge and I can shut ourselves up in the kitchen.
It’s not, though. It’s Sandra Ortiz.
And at her side, Michael Whitman.
It’s a gut-punch. They’re here for Bea, I tell myself.
Bridget must be out, or even away, and Beatriz has invited her boss over.
Michael’s part of their campaign. It cuts me deep to see the man who accused me and my daughter and would have burned us alive – who I believe engineered Jake Bolt’s death to tip Sanctuary into a frenzy of fear – walking around in the home of my friend.
But this won’t have been Bridget’s doing.
Which is when I see Bridge’s unmistakable silhouette.
She’s pouring a glass of wine for Michael.
Tips her head back in that throaty laugh at something Sandra said.
I sag against the picket fence, winded by disappointment.
One of the fishermen’s buoys that hangs from the fence bumps me, and in my agitation I smack it away. It makes the gate bell tinkle.
‘Mrs Perelli, is that you?’ a person says behind me in the indigo twilight. ‘Or Sandra?’
Heart hammering, I shrink against her neighbour’s leafy mountain laurel hedge – the one Bridget keeps threatening to take a chainsaw to because it’s poisonous to animals.
I recognise that voice.