23. A LITTLE LOVE IN A LONELY PLACE
A LITTLE LOVE IN A LONELY PLACE
AN HOUR AND A THIRD—POSSIBLY IRRESPONSIBLE—LATTE LATER, Embry’s bones were vibrating with so much energy, she was sure her pulse could power the entire coffee shop.
The more questions she and Rye asked each other, the more questions they needed to ask. Rye’s thumbs typed fast and furious as their queries piled atop one another, a mountain now. And even with so many lines of thought unanswered, Embry’s hope was rising.
For all the ways they vexed each other, Rye and Embry made the perfect team.
Embry was sure this was because of a lifetime spent as neighbors. That made sense.
“We’re assuming Oakley was killed by a strong spell because of how they found the body,” Embry said, thinking out loud as Rye tore apart a bear claw the size of a large pizza that Van just happened to not have room for in the pastry case.
“Everyone immediately jumped to that conclusion even before I’d walked up to the scene.
But what if it wasn’t a spell that killed her?
What if it was something else? If it is, that could help my case, right? ”
They’d moved on to the manner in which Oakley was killed after hitting dead ends on adding more suspects without any additional information.
Across the booth, Rye nodded and thumbed at the stubble running down his jaw.
“It’d be worth it to see if we can get our hands on Oakley’s autopsy.
I’m not sure how quickly they’re performed or how long it will take for results to any lab tests they need to run to confirm the manner of death…
but if Oakley’s family is here, it’s likely that after their questioning, they were given access to the body, which means they may have been given access to the preliminary findings on how she died—”
“And if her magic has been stolen by the killer.” Embry sighed as Rye nodded. “I’m pretty sure if I roll up to the morgue and ask for those records, they’re going to say no.”
“Then I’ll do it. In and out.”
She appreciated the sentiment, but it was possible Rye’s flair for drama had gone a tad too far. “You can’t steal them.”
Rye tapped at the cell phone on the table. “No, but I can photograph them.” When she didn’t protest, he went on. “It’s, what? Not even nine? If I go now, I might be able to get in there before anyone has even clocked in for the day.”
“The morgue is an around-the-clock institution,” Embry sassed.
“Then I’ll get there and wait for just the right time and if it takes hours, it takes hours,” Rye answered in a straightforward tone that brooked no argument.
Then, with eye contact so strong it would’ve pinned her to the spot even in antigravity, he added, “I have nothing in my life more important than this.”
Embry’s heart leaped at this, plugging her windpipe. “Thank you.”
Her words came out in a rasp, but if Rye noticed that or the hot flush of embarrassment climbing her neck, he didn’t comment. Instead, he pushed on. “Meanwhile, you’ll check in on Lazarus, talk to Doc Goldman, and rest.”
All the emotion unclogged from her throat as Embry realized what he was suggesting.
“I can’t rest while you’re crawling through air ducts or whatever to get the info we need. It’s not fair,” she said, still a little raspy. “You’re just as exhausted as me.”
“Then lock yourself in the conservatory to see if you can research what—spell or otherwise—could kill a vampire beyond the normal ways, if there are any active vampire hunters or evidence of a movement online, you know, those sorts of things,” Rye replied, conveniently ignoring the last part.
“I’ll return with what I’ve learned at the morgue along with any information Ames and Fairfax send us from Raven’s Head.
Then I’ll come your way, and we’ll go from there. Okay?”
No, it wasn’t okay.
Sure, she’d been a little reluctant in the early hours of the morning when they embarked on this whole thing, but Rye had been right then.
The best thing they could do is prove her innocence.
And she couldn’t do that at rest. She also couldn’t waste precious minutes and energy fighting with him about this, so she decided to take another tack altogether and didn’t answer.
Which, of course, signaled to Rye that she’d agreed with him.
Rye swept the remainder of the bear claw into a paper bag and pushed it across the table. “Take this.”
She shook her head.
Rye nudged it closer. “Take it. Give it to Lazarus as a treat.”
Her eyes narrowed. “He’s not supposed to have pastries.”
“Yes, but he loves them. It may not nourish his body, but it’ll make his soul sing. Give that to him today. He can go back to the chia slop tomorrow.”
Embry groaned but accepted the pastry.
As they both slid out of the booth, Rye snatched Embry’s empty dishes, collecting them with his own to return to the tub on one end of the service counter.
That boy’s manners were automatic, no matter what the occasion—the previous Ryszard Knighton had taught his son well before joining his wife, Clara, in Raven’s End Cemetery.
Embry loitered outside on the sidewalk, Rye’s task proving to take longer than anticipated because he ran into someone he knew. Someone they both knew, actually: Merle.
The carpenter witch wore his customary trucker cap, light brown hair curling out either side.
Given his push to have her Coven Ascension delayed, Embry wasn’t exactly jonesing to talk with him herself, though she was grateful he seemed to be moving okay after the fight.
Merle had finished the battle with a long, nasty gash down his side, courtesy of one of Oakley’s aunts.
It wasn’t pretty, and like Daddy’s injury, had taken Dr. Goldman’s talents to heal.
They were talking near the counter, Merle about to get in line to order his usual.
“Embry, hon, is that you?” Embry whirled to see Jonesy, standing there on the sidewalk, only a couple of feet away. As the witch turned, the empath smiled and flung her arms wide. “Oh, dear, I’ve been thinking about you so much, may I hug you? Do you need a hug?”
She really did. Embry leaped into her arms. It was only as the drama teacher pulled away, that a drop of fear plunked in Embry’s latte-laden gut. Did she know they broke into Marlow that morning?
Nothing in Jonesy’s sympathetic smile gave it away. “How are you?”
“I’ve been better,” Embry answered, both because it was the truth and because she wasn’t sure what else to say.
“Oh, sweet girl.” Jonesy gripped Embry’s forearms, her big brown eyes welling behind her glasses. “Everyone on the faculty knows you’d never do anything to harm Oakley. Poor love. What a rotten way to go. And after such an exciting night. It’s just too terrible for words.”
She hadn’t seen the video, then.
“We’ll get this straightened out,” Jonesy assured her. “Then we’ll start to heal together.”
Embry nodded; words crowded in her throat. She wanted to know who the faculty suspected, if not her. If they had more details than she and her friends had scraped together. How many extra keys were floating around to Marlow Theatre?
Instead, she swallowed hard and asked, “What are you doing here?”
“Oh. I should be using my planning period to actually plan—Goddess knows I need to figure something out if the musical is dead in the water… Oh, terrible turn of phrase.” She shook her head.
“Long story short, I’m not thinking straight, as you can tell, and hoped a few shots of espresso could get me through the rest of the morning.
I would’ve gone to the café on campus, but I really needed to get out, you know? ”
Embry did know. “That’s why I’m here.”
“Good, good. You need to take care of yourself as they sort out this nasty business.” Jonesy squeezed her forearms one more time and then drew Embry’s hands together to pat. “I’ve got to run, but please let me know if you need anything, hon.”
“Will do, Jonesy.”
And with that, the teacher bustled into the shop.
Of course, Jonesy immediately spotted Rye coming the other way and talked to him for a good five minutes before he could extract himself.
Which gave Embry plenty of time to come up with a plan completely separate from the one she and Rye were currently running. Okay, well, she’d thought of this exact thing weeks ago, but a certain grumpy boy next door had discouraged her follow-through.
As Rye left his conversation with Jonesy after an embrace, because, well, Jonesy, Embry tracked her across the length of the café. Right up until she stepped in line behind Merle.
Rye exited the shop in the exact moment Embry’s spell whispered into existence.
“Okay, I’m cleared for my errand—Jonesy is fine with my absence from class and rehearsal this week.”
Oh. Right. He did have somewhere to be today—maybe he really did mean nothing, not even his devotion to volunteering, was more important than helping her. Wow, that—
“Woodcross, are you casting a spell?”
“Shhhh, I’m concentrating.”
Rye sighed and stared at her long enough before also turning to the glass that she knew he was following her gaze. Right to where the lip of the ceramic tile an inch in front of Merle’s battered boot edged up just enough that when he moved forward, he tripped.
Jonesy—hands-on, big-gesture Jonesy—lunged forward and caught his elbow as Merle stumbled. His hat flew off in the commotion, landing gently between their feet—and, very conveniently, atop the tile, which now shifted back in place.
The widower witch and the scorned fiancée faced each other, her gripping his elbow and somehow the front of his LOBSTER IS LIFE T-shirt. Then Jonesy burst into laughter—a sound so sweet and infectious that grumpy Merle O’Grady couldn’t help but crack a smile himself.
“Woodcross, you didn’t,” Rye groaned.
“Shhhh, I have to see if it works.”
It did. The mutual laughing melted into a near bumping of foreheads as both Merle and Jonesy bent down to retrieve his hat.
“You know love spells are illegal,” Rye whispered in her ear. “And I know you have one memorized because you tried to con me into reciting the words in a soliloquy you wrote my freshman year.”
Okay, this was true. Because what thirteen-year-old with access to a conservatory full of witchy history wouldn’t look up an illegal love spell if given the chance?
It was just as tempting as thumbing through one’s first dictionary for all the four-letter words that were off-limits at home.
And, though Embry would never actually use an illegal love spell on someone—because what kind of long-term disappointment would it be to force someone to fall for you?
—she did find it hilarious, sneaking it into the play she and Rye were writing in his backyard.
Especially if he happened to aim his performance at their single audience member: a nearby squirrel.
Embry pursed her lips. “It wasn’t a soliloquy; it was one-sided dialogue with an adoring woodland creature.”
To her surprise, Rye laughed, his hand gently brushing her forearm as he reached to rub his brow. “Goddess, we did write the best little plays.” They did. It had been what made her want to act in the first place. “Even if you did try to stick me with a lovesick squirrel.”
Ignoring the zing of adrenaline accompanying the new touch, Embry roughly pushed a lock of hair that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear and waved a hand at the couple in a way that just happened to inch them a little bit closer together.
“No illegality needed here. They’re totally doing this on their own. All they needed was to meet.”
Though a bitterer witch might have tripped Merle as payback for his push to delay her Ascension, Embry did it with the sole aim of making two lonely worlds literally collide.
So they watched as, indeed, the curmudgeon and the extrovert continued to chat. Van called them up, and suddenly Merle was very clearly paying for Jonesy’s drink as his savior.
“Woodcross.” Rye sighed, so close again that she felt the heat of his body over her shoulder.
At least the morning breeze absconded with the rosemary scent.
“I cannot believe that you are playing matchmaker while mid-investigation into how you’ve been framed for the murder of one of your best friends. ”
Embry slugged Rye in the gut. He must have tensed because it was like smacking a brick building. Still, despite the fact that her hand now hurt, he moved away.
“And I can’t believe you’d think I’d pass up an opportunity to set those two up after I already told you I’d planned on doing so weeks ago.” She smugly smiled up at him. “I should also inform you that I’m not heading home—I’m going with you to the morgue.”
“Woodcross, your dad—”
“Is fine. As you pointed out, he has a CIA-trained witch with a medical degree watching over him and the house.” Embry tossed up a stop sign of a hand, her tasteful pale manicure flashing in the autumn morning light, a relic from a much different time just days ago.
“No use in arguing with me because you won’t win.
You’ll just lose and have me on your tail anyway. ”
Rye sighed as heavily as an aggrieved cartoon character. Drama queen.
“I’ll take that as resignation. Smart boy, save your strength.”
Even with the sigh, mirth shone in Rye’s eyes when he hooked an arm around her neck and pulled her in the direction of the police station. For once, Embry didn’t bat him away.