Bewitched, Bothered, and Biscotti: A Magical Bakery Mystery (23 page)

“Thanks,” I mumbled, oddly grateful to be taken care of even though it made me feel
like a weakling at the same time.

“Go to sleep.”

The last thing I remembered was Mungo burrowing in next to me and beginning to snore
softly.

 * * *

I awoke to daylight streaming in through my bedroom window and the sound of male voices
in my living room. It was so strange for me to wake up after dawn that for a long
moment I simply stared at the sunshine splashing across the quilt. Then I looked over
at the bedside clock. It was after nine o’clock.

I sat straight up and rubbed my eyes.

The events of the night before came flooding back. In the light of day I could hardly
believe it had happened at all. I searched for Mungo, but he wasn’t in the bedroom.

Holy cow, was I ever late for work. Lucy must be frantic with worry.

“This isn’t about you,” I heard Steve say from the living room. “This is about Katie.”

“Like you know what’s good for her. Like you
care
what’s good for her.”

I recognized Declan’s voice, and my stomach sank.

Throwing off the covers, I leaped out of bed and ran into the living room. Mungo sat
on the purple velvet couch watching the two men face off. Steve stood with his hand
on one of the wingback chairs. His hair, so wild the night before, was smoothed into
its usual sleek ponytail, but he wore the same clothes. Declan stood next to the other
wingback, five feet away. His blue T-shirt read,
FIRST IN, LAST OUT
, and his jeans were faded and worn. His jaw slackened when he saw me.

“Katie? Are you okay?”

I nodded. “I’m fine.”

His mouth clamped shut and his eyes turned hard. “I went to the Honeybee to pick you
up, and Lucy told me you were
sick
. So I came by to see if there was anything I could do.” His hand struck the back
of the chair, and I flinched. “Obviously you don’t need my help—not with that little
favor you asked me for, and not with anything else, either.” He turned to glare at
Steve. “You’ve been here all night.” It wasn’t a question. His attention transferred
to me, and his eyes swept me up and down. “And obviously you’re feeling anything but
under the weather.”

I became aware of what I was wearing and looked down at my tank and knit shorts. Great.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I said, “Deck—”

He held up his hand. “I don’t want to hear it. You’ve made your choice.”

“No, wait. You don’t understand. And I do need your help.”

Incredulity infused his features. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“What favor?” Steve asked me, his gaze running over my body.

“I wanted him to go with me to see Greer Eastmore.”

“You don’t need him for that,” Steve said. “I’ll go with you.”

“It’s none of your business, Dawes,” Declan said.

“It’s more my business than yours,” Steve countered.

“Katie and I found that man in the square, not you.”

“There’s more going on than you know, McCarthy, more than you’re equipped to deal
with.”

The muscles along Declan’s jawline flexed dangerously.

“Will you two stop it?” I said.

Declan turned to face me. “Yes. I will. You’re on your own. Good luck with this guy,
Katie. I’m done playing your game.” And he strode out the door. It slammed behind
him. I heard his pickup start up out front and the squeal of tires as he accelerated
away.

A low whine issued from the back of Mungo’s throat.

Margie would be asking all sorts of questions about the screeching comings and goings
in the last twelve hours. With a sigh, I pushed the thought out of my mind. Enough
time to think about that later.

“You stayed here all night?” I asked Steve.

“Did you really think I’d leave you alone?”

“I was too tired to think anything,” I said with a grimace. “But thank you.”

“Sure got you in trouble with your firefighter.”

“He’s not—” I started to protest, then saw him grinning. “Stop it.”

Steve shrugged and changed the subject. “I called
Lucy around five this morning—luckily she was up and heading out the door to the bakery
already—and told her you weren’t feeling well. She said she’d call your new employee
in to cover for you.”

My shoulders relaxed a fraction, then tensed again. “You didn’t tell her about last
night?”

“No. I thought that should be your decision.”

“And she knew you were here.”

“Yes.” Amused.

Great. More explanations. Though knowing Lucy, she would applaud any forward momentum
in my love life.

“Katie, go shower and put on some clothes, will you? You’re driving me crazy in that
getup. I’ll throw together something to eat, and we can discuss Greer Eastmore.”

 * * *

Despite the after-midnight nosh, Mungo and I both wolfed down the breakfast Steve
had set out on the back patio: bowls of my homemade granola topped with yogurt and
fresh strawberries from the garden. A couple cups of strong, steaming coffee didn’t
hurt, either. As we ate, Steve played with my amulet, running it over and through
his fingers like a Las Vegas showman.

“I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“I don’t want it anymore,” I said.

He paused in his machinations, considering, then nodded. He reached back and unwrapped
the leather braid from his ponytail. His hair swung forward, obscuring his face as
he worked something out of the plait. It flashed in a wayward ray of sunlight that
had found its way under the patio roof. When he held it up, I saw a thin silver wire
circle.

It was one of the Dragoh rings.

“Steve, no.”

“Hush.” He removed the ruined amulet Lucy had given me, and slipped the thin ring
onto the chain instead. Then he stood and fastened it around my neck. His fingers
ran lightly across my jawline, just once, and he sat down again.

The thin metal felt cool against my warm skin. I watched him tie his hair back once
more.

“This is your protection, isn’t it? But aren’t these to repel Dragoh magic?”

“It’s supposed to fend off all potentially harmful magic, actually. Father gave one
to me and one to Arnie when we were children.”

“You can’t give this to me,” I protested again.

“I just did. Besides, I don’t know how much good these really do, you know? The one
Andersen gave you didn’t help much last night.”

“We don’t know that,” I said. “It might have been part of what saved me.”

“Well, Arnie’s sure didn’t do him much good.”

I knew by now it wouldn’t do any good to point out that his brother had perished as
a result of bad judgment, not magic. So all I said was, “Thank you.”

 * * *

Half an hour later my big, powerful wolf from the night before was sitting in my tote
bag as Steve drove us to the Honeybee. I’d insisted that we stop by and put Lucy’s
and Ben’s worries to rest. Besides, Nel was still brand-new, and it seemed like a
lot to ask her to cover for me on her very first full day as an employee. Even though
Steve suggested I check in via telephone, I knew I wouldn’t feel right until I’d stopped
by and
made sure everything was okay. Besides, it was only blocks from the Eastmore home.

After breakfast, I’d showered, and now I wore sedate khaki capris, a short-sleeved
camp shirt, and flip-flops—unsexy and mundane. Still, I kept catching Steve’s eyes
cutting to where I sat in the passenger seat, looking at me in a way that reminded
me of how Mungo looked at steak sizzling on the hibachi.

I remembered the break in my resolve the night before, how I’d clung to him. The feel
of his hands on my back, his lips on my neck…

“Whatcha thinking about?” he asked.

I realized I’d been staring straight at him without speaking for over a minute. A
deep blush crept up my neck and flared in my cheeks. “Nothing. So what do you know
about Greer Eastmore?”

He shrugged. “Not much since I was a boy. He’s in his late forties, and he left to
live in Europe when I was about fourteen. So he would have been in his twenties still.
I remember him as a pretty cool guy, actually. He’d toss a ball around with me—something
my father never had the time or inclination to do. Greer took me hiking right before
he left, on the Tupelo Trail in the wildlife refuge. We made a fire and cooked our
lunch over it. Fried baloney on a stick.” His laugh held bitterness. “Can you believe
that? But wow, did I feel like a real Boy Scout.”

I thought of fourteen-year-old Steve, poor little rich boy, thrilled with the experience
of eating baloney toasted over a fire in the woods.

“Then he went away,” he continued. “And he ended all contact with his father for decades.
I missed him, but it broke Lawrence’s heart.”

“That’s what Andersen said.” The fear I’d been successfully keeping at bay suddenly
swooped through me. “Do you think Greer attacked me?”

“I don’t know.” He sounded almost angry.

“Does he practice magic at all? Or did he turn his back on it altogether when he broke
off contact with his father?”

He lifted one shoulder and let it drop.

“We really don’t know anything about him. Maybe he needed money.” I was thinking out
loud. “He obviously wasn’t close to his father. What if the murder didn’t have anything
to do with the Dragohs or the Spell of Necretius? Maybe he killed his father out of
old-fashioned family greed.”

“Then why is the spell for summoning Zesh gone?” Steve asked.

My throat tightened at the name. “Right. I don’t know. Maybe someone else took it?
What does Greer do, anyway? Is he obsessed with worldly success?”

“Not unless he’s changed a lot. He used to be kind of a Bohemian, actually. The family
money was part of the problem between him and his father.”

“Heck.” I thought for a moment. “Who knows? Perhaps Eastmore Junior will turn out
to be another ally in this investigation. At least be able to shed some light on what
happened. Seems like we could use all the help we can get, you know. Tomorrow is Samhain.”

“Just be careful when you’re talking to him.”

I put up a hand. “I’m not going to spill the beans. Andersen suggested I ask to borrow
another book from Dr. Eastmore’s collection for our book club.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Right.”

“No, really. He wants me to get a copy of
The
33 Curses
for the counterspell he’s working on in case the killer tries to summon this Zesh
character.” But something had been bothering me ever since I’d talked to Andersen
the day before. I waited, allowing the thought to gel. “Steve, do you think…Could
Andersen have asked me to help him in order to divert attention from himself? He’s
the only druid who doesn’t have an alibi. He told me he got into Dr. Eastmore’s collection
and took a couple of books to help with the counterspell, but what if he didn’t? What
if he wants me to get this other book because he can’t get in? I mean, something called
The 33 Curses
doesn’t exactly sound like it’s full of nice fluffy magic.”

Steve’s expression was grim as he pulled to the curb a few doors down from the Honeybee.

“But we have to do
something
,” I said. “If whoever came after me last night has the additional power of this Zesh
character behind them, things are going to get really bad really fast.”

I slowed as we approached the entrance. “You might not want to mention going to see
Greer in front of our new employee,” I said.

Steve looked at me in surprise. “Okay.”

“Not that you would anyway, but I rather suspect she knows him. She sure knew you,
‘Stevie.’”

He stopped. “You’re kidding. Nel?”

I nodded. “Cookie roped her in after we left the gallery the other night. As her replacement.
She’d already filled out an application, and it turns out the early-morning hours
of a bakery are a bit much for Ms. Rios.”

He snorted. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

“It also turns out your old friend has plenty of experience working in a bakery, a
portfolio of cake decorating, and her arrival dovetailed perfectly with Cookie’s plans.
Andersen said she didn’t know anything about her father’s druidic activities, but
she told Lucy that she’s a practicing Wiccan. Lucy was so relieved that the spellbook
club wouldn’t have to sneak around and that we could continue to practice our hedgewitchery
at the bakery.”

He shook his finger slowly in my face. “I knew you hexed your baked goods.” His voice
was triumphant.

“We don’t hex! We…help.”

“Whatever. Still, I’m glad it worked out with Nel. Like Greer, she’s quite a bit older
than us, but she was awfully nice to Arnie and me and the other kids.”

“So you all socialized?” I said, opening the door. The bell tinkled over our heads.

“All our families have been friends for a long time. Oh. My. God.”

As I followed him inside I saw what he meant. Our adorable, homemade, kitschy Halloween
decorations still festooned the bakery, but there were a few additions.

“Katie! You’re okay! Thank goodness!” Nel bustled toward us. Her skirt was cotton
today, bright orange and covered with black cats. She wore a tall black witch hat
with the top bent over, and a pair of false buckteeth jutted over her lower lip. Boots
with long, curled toes adorned her feet, and she wore striped stockings like something
out of
The
Wizard of Oz
.

So much for perpetuating the witchy stereotype. Still, she looked both dorky and adorable,
and it was hard not to laugh. She looked tired, though, and I felt bad for making
her come in early after she’d worked until closing time the evening before.

Ben waved at me from the register. “Glad you’re feeling better, Katie! How do you
like what we’ve done? Nel had all sorts of suggestions.”

“And supplies,” she said in a low tone. “I must say, Halloween is my favorite holiday—you
can guess why, of course—and my dear father had lots of decorations
stowed away in a back closet. I’m so glad to have a chance to bring them out and dust
them off.”