A Charming Spell (Magical Cures Mystery Series) (12 page)

“See?” Faith blew her nose in a Gathering Grove napkin.

“It doesn’t prove anything unless you are guilty.”

Faith’s head shot up. “You think I killed him don’t you!”

“What would be your reason for killing him?”

“To get more ratings for the paper. People do many things when they are desperate.” Gerald snapped out of his trace.

“What did you say?” There was a sudden urge for me to hear exactly what he had said.

“I’m not desperate!” Faith jumped up from the chair she was sitting in.

“What are you talking about?” Gerald reached out for the counter and held on. He was a little wobbly on his feet, so I offered him the chair Faith had been sitting in. The last thing I needed to have to do was take care of Faith and Gerald.

“You insinuated that she might have killed Alexelrod because she was desperate to get some subscribers to boost sales due to the downturn in the economy.” The words did make a lot of sense.

It was a lot to think about. If Faith’s job were in jeopardy because of budget cuts, following a murder investigation would get a lot more subscribers, which would turn the cuts away from the paper. As it stood now, the paper was the first thing to go.

“I did?” Gerald drew back. “I had no idea what all I said. It takes everything out of me nowadays to do a leaf-reading. I read what the spirit tells me.”

His vacant eyes glanced over at Faith. That was all she needed to hear before she bolted out of the door.

“It looks like this investigation has only begun.” Gerald twirled the edges of his mustache. “The reading also showed a new officer is in town.”

“Colton?”

“You know him?” Gerald questioned me.

“Not really.”
Only that he was muscular, hot, and hunky
I thought. But I wasn’t looking. “He stopped by the shop tonight to see if I was okay.”

“What do we really know about him? Did you hire him? Did Gandolf?” Gerald threw a lot of questions at me that I couldn’t answer. I had only assumed Izzy had taken part in the hiring since she was part of Oscar being fired.

I wasn’t about to tell Gerald that Colton was doing his own investigating. Nor did I say anything about the darts.

“About the reading.” I wanted to get back to more of the concrete stuff that we knew about. “The book you referred to, was it the one with the darts?”

“Oddly enough, no. The dart book wasn’t even in his tea-reading.” He tapped the back of his neck, right under the ear lobe, about where the dart hit Alexelrod. “There was a skull and crossbones over top of Faith’s name, which doesn’t fare well for her.”

My throat tightened. Even though Faith wasn’t named a suspect, the odds weren’t looking good. She had motive with the looming cuts to the paper and she was clearly upset, which could mean that she knew they were close to figuring out she did do it.

“I’m afraid the leaves say we have a murderer on the loose.” Gerald had that same faraway look in his eye as he had earlier. “And it will shake our village.”

“How?” I asked.

“I’m not sure.” His eyes glazed over yet again. His next words shook me to my core. “The animals in town are up to no good. I tried to tell my sweet Petunia, but she doesn’t want to believe it.”

“Do the animals have something to do with the killer?” My conversation with Colton about Ophelia being a good witch rushed into my thoughts like a raging hurricane. If Gerald said that the killer and the animals are tied, I was going to have to go to Gandolf with the information that Colton was hiding.

“I don’t know,” Gandolf whispered. He shook his head. His expression turned to stone.

After I had made it home safely, I checked and re-checked the locks on my cottage door. For the first time, I could honestly say that I was scared. A dart could come flying out from anywhere at any time and we’d never know who’d sent it flying.

I tried to keep calm and think about other things like Oscar, but Gerald’s last words spooked me to my core.

Chapter Nineteen

I barely slept at all and woke up early. There was no sense in delaying the day and putting off talking to Gandolf any longer. There were questions I had and had a right to know.

The sun peeked through the cracks of the window blinds, which meant that I could walk down the hill in daylight, which was much different than walking in the dark with a killer on the loose. Without further delay, I pulled my scared self out from underneath the blankets and sat on the edge of the bed.

“This dart thing didn’t bother you,” I said to Mr. Prince Charming who was curled at the end of the bed. “And don’t think I didn’t know what you were up to last night either with Officer Colton.”

“It looks like I don’t have to renew your profile on Make-Me-A-Match.” Madame Torres appeared in the crystal ball. She wore an emerald green turban with a yellow stone in the middle, and eye shadow to match.

“What does that mean?” I asked firmly. I knew what it meant, but I wasn’t going to give her the pleasure of admitting to knowing. When I went into the bathroom to get ready, I could hear her rattling off Colton’s stats like we were at a baseball game.

“Colton Lance, tall, blonde, handsome, muscular, from a spiritualist family. He loves family and hanging out. Colton has had one serious girlfriend who cheated on him two years ago. Since then, he has thrown himself into his job.” She barely took a breath. “Did I mention how hunky he is? And single?”

“You did.” I swabbed some lip-gloss on my lips and put the tube in my jeans pocket. “Did I mention that I’m having dinner with Oscar tonight?”

“Did you notice that Oscar doesn’t even know the real you?”

“Oscar knows perfectly well who I am.” Deep down I knew she was right, but that was all about to change. “With my new ideas for a cure, we will be back to normal in no time.”

“Have you ever thought that you aren’t supposed to make a cure for him?”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because you have not had this much trouble with a potion since you burned down your shed in your previous life.” Madame Torres reminded me of my last mortal days in Locust Grove.

“I’m not having problems with a cure.” Admitting to being stuck was not something I was willing to do. That seemed along the lines of failure and I wasn’t about to give up on Oscar. “I’ve got one part down, now I’m going to do the next one.”

There were two things that were going to help me. One was Aunt Helena and the other had to be written in the book I smuggled out of the bushes of Ever After Books.

I went to the kitchen to get the book out of my bag and realized I had put it behind the counter at A Charming Cure.

Just then, there was a knock at the door. I rushed over to see who it was.

“June, the inevitable has happened.” Faith was bent over, panting, out of breath. Her pale skin was almost haunting. “They might as well put me in jail. I have nothing to live for anymore.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Gandolf told me that more than likely, this week was going to be my last week for the Gazette.”

“What?” How did Gandolf know anything about the budget cuts? He was the interim sheriff, not the president. It was definitely time to get some answers around here.

“He told me they were going to have to bring in more officers to aid in the investigation and to be prepared to stop production of the paper.” She didn’t seem as upset as she was the night before.

“You know what.” I bit the corner of my lip. I was about to say something that I might regret, but I needed the time to go see some of the people on my to-see list and this was the only way I saw my list getting completed. “Don’t you worry about the Gazette. I haven’t heard anything about it. Can you work in the shop for me today? I have a ton of things to get done.”

I knew it wasn’t a fabulous job to help her “gift” but it was a paying job. Besides, A Charming Cure was doing so much business, it was about time to hire someone.

“June!” Faith squealed. “I’d love to! Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She threw her arms around my neck so tight that my head nearly popped right off my shoulders.

“No problem. I was just about to go down for the day.” I pried her off me and went back to get my bag. “You can follow me and I can show you the ropes.”

In a few minutes, we were at the shop. There wasn’t much to teach her. She had already run Wicked Good’s cash register, which was about the same. Plus, the bottles had prices on them. The only thing different was the extra-added ingredients, and those could be classified as special orders. Faith had a good enough intuition with her gift of Clairaudience that she would know when a client needed a true personal cure.

“Did you see a book about spells around here?” I was bent behind the counter looking for the “Mysteries and Magical Spells” book that I had found under the bushes in front of Ever After Books.

“No.” Faith was going around all the tables straightening the tablecloths and making sure the bottles were facing out. Even though I had done that last night, it was still good to see that she knew that’s the way I like them to look.

I rushed back to the storage room and looked around for the book, but nothing was there. With so much on my mind, I was sure it had to be at home.

I gave one more look behind the counter before I noticed my cauldron was empty.

“A…” My heart raced. I felt faint. “Faith, did you mess with my cauldron while I was in the back?” I prayed she didn’t think it was dirty and cleaned it.

“No. I’m not that stupid.” She flipped the sign to open.

Frantically, I ran all over the shop looking for any signs of the potion. It wasn’t like it grew legs and walked away.

There was a rush of butterflies to my gut. Something or someone had taken my potion, which meant they took the book. My first instinct was to get the police. That wasn’t going to happen. The two things that were missing were the two things I had done illegally.

The bell over the door chimed when someone came in.

“Good morning!” Eloise swept across the floor. She had on a blue cloak with beading all over the seams. “I’m excited to be starting our new book club.”

“I completely forgot.” I threw my palm to my forehead. My head hadn’t been screwed on lately with all the crazy commotion of the murder, Oscar, and now a break-in. “Faith are you okay without me?”

“Of course.” Faith had put an apron on and was behind the counter waiting anxiously for the first customer to come in. “I’m so grateful.”

The spark that used to be in her eyes was starting to come back. With a little luck, I would head over to the police station to ask Gandolf about the Gazette before Eloise and I went to Ever After Books.

“What was that about?” Eloise stopped me at A Charming Cure gate.

“I hired Faith to help me out for awhile. It will help both of us out.” I pointed across the street. “Before we go to the bookstore, can we go see Gandolf?”

We had to dodge a few tourists on our way over to the station, but stopped to see what everyone was gawking at outside of Glorybee Pet Shop. Petunia was sitting in a chair outside of an animal pen with her arms folded across her body. The scowl on her face was almost as crooked as the hair on her head. She was disheveled from top to bottom. Even the buttons on her shirt were mismatched.

“What is going on?” I tried to be as polite as I could, but seeing her this way was not the normal happy-go-lucky pet shop owner who loved animals that I knew.

“Those animals have to go!” She pointed behind her. All of the animals in the pen were the stray ones. “Last night I heard the most awful commotion coming from the shop. I went in and these animals were biting, scratching, and chasing my sweet animals. They went crazy! Berserk I tell you!”

We stood far away from the pen. The animals gnashed their teeth and threw themselves up against the fence. I wanted to ask Petunia if she believed what Gerald had said he told her about the animals, but decided this wasn’t the time or place.

“What is going on?” Eloise, who rarely comes out during the day, had a frightful look in her emerald green eyes.

“Watch out!” A scream from down the street followed by a honking horn caught our attention. Tourists scattered as Patience Karima rode on the ostrich’s back as though she were sidesaddle on a horse. Constance Karima was right behind in the pink hearse beeping the horn and screaming for the ostrich to stop.

The ostrich zipped right past us with Patience holding on for dear life and Constance on their tails.

“See!” Petunia pointed and shouted, “Berserk!”

“This is not good.” Whispering Falls tugged at my gut. Something was off, way off. Good thing I was on my way to see Gandolf. Maybe he had some answers.

“I’ll be back.” I assured Petunia before I ran across the street with Eloise and burst into the police station.

Gandolf was the only one in the station. Colton was nowhere to be seen.

“Good morning, June.” He stood up and took off his hat. He nodded. “Eloise.”

“Really? You think it’s a good morning?” I was ticked off and unable to hold my tongue. “First you tell Faith that the Gazette is the first business to be cut from the budget because we have to beef up the police department. Second, the stray animals have all gone crazy. You are telling me that is a good morning?”

“Settle down.” He pushed the palms of his hands to the ground like I was a ten-year old.

“Settle down?” I was about to go as berserk as the animals. “You are the sheriff interim. You do not make the rules nor do you know the status of budget cuts. Do your job of finding the person who killed Alexelrod and find out where these animals go,” I demanded.

“If you have a problem with my job description, I suggest you see Isadora Solstice.” He put his hat back on his head. His eyes bore through me. “If you don’t mind, I need to get back to a murder investigation.”

He sat back down, picked up his pencil and started flipping through some papers.

“Be expecting me to come back,” I growled, assuring him that the way he treated me was not acceptable.

Eloise and I stormed out of the station. One thing was for sure, Gandolf was going to be replaced by Colton, and fast.

“Who exactly did he think he was talking to?” I stomped down the street, passing by Ever After Books.