Gone With the Witch (18 page)

Summoning all the inner strength I possessed, I slipped a length of that cloth under Baz's leg.

Woozy, I swayed as blood oozed over my hands. Tears streamed from my eyes, making everything blurry.

I heard the coo of the mourning dove above my head, but it brought me no solace at this moment.

I thought I might be sick.

Fighting nausea, I sucked in some air and had just grabbed hold of both ends of the shirt material when I felt someone drop down next to me.

“I'll do it.”

Nick's strong hands nudged mine aside and took hold of the cloth. He quickly fashioned the material into a tourniquet, slipping a nearby stick into the knot he'd made. Then he twisted the stick. It was the last thing I remembered before I passed out.

A
n hour and a half later, I sat on a bench outside the front entrance of the Wisp, soaking in air heavily scented with pending rain. I hadn't budged from this spot in nearly twenty minutes, mostly because I was afraid to move in fear the nausea would return.

The time between the accident and now had passed in a blur. Baz had been taken to the hospital, but Nick had declined any treatment. He was banged and bruised and stubborn but okay. He was currently searching the village for any sign of Vivienne Lucas.

Voices rose and fell all around me as a steady stream of people trooped in and out of the Wisp. It had reopened an hour ago, which was why Nick had been running late for our meeting in the first place. He'd been taking one last look at the reports before giving the okay for Extravaganzers to return to collect their belongings.

“It's chaos in there,” Harper said, sliding onto the
bench next to me. She handed me the spy pen and a bottle of water. “Here.”

“Thanks.”

“You should see Ivy. She's rushing around like a crazy woman, alternately apologizing about the delay and barking at people to clean up after themselves. Her head might pop clean off by the end of the day.”

“Honestly, I'm surprised it hasn't already.”

“We should start a betting pool on when it will happen.” Her golden brown eyes flared with humor, then softened as she asked, “Are you feeling any better?”

“Some.”

“You're not green anymore. That was disturbing, I'm not even going to lie.”

Our upper arms were touching, as she sat a little closer to me than usual. It appeared my little sister had a bit of a mother hen in her as well.

Her gaze swept over my face. “I've never seen someone actually turn green before.”

“The whole incident was disturbing.” I took a quick look at my fingers and battled a terrible case of the heebie-jeebies before I cracked the seal on the water.

The paramedics had thoroughly cleansed the blood from my hands, but I wanted nothing more than to go home to soak them in hot soapy water. I wondered if I could possibly douse them with bleach without burning the skin straight off my fingers.

I doubted it. Harsh chemicals tended to have that effect on skin.

“Has Nick found Vivienne yet?” she asked.

The cool water soothed my parched throat. “Not that I know of. Last I heard, she wasn't at the Pixie Cottage, where she'd been staying with Harmony and Angela, or at home. No sign of her car, either. She could be in Maine right now for all we know.”

I capped the bottle, set it next to me, and rolled the
spy pen between two fingers. At this point Vivienne was going to need a good criminal defense lawyer, rather than a divorce attorney.

The good news for her was that it appeared Baz would survive his injuries.

The bad news was that she was now the lead suspect in Natasha's death.

Perhaps the footage on this pen would help her case. Proving temporary insanity or some such.

Unfortunately, I had the feeling it would do more harm than good. This little pen provided an undeniable motive.

“I'm on Vivienne's side in all this,” Harper said. “I might have buttons made up. Team Vivienne. Baz had it coming. If Marcus had cheated on me with anything that walks and talks, then I might have run him over, too. I'd have finished the job, though, and not just left him with a broken leg. Bye-bye. See ya later.
Adios
.”

My sister had a vigilante streak a mile wide. “I'm glad you don't own a car.”

Harper hadn't yet realized that Vivienne was now a suspect in Natasha's death, and I didn't inform her, for one simple reason: I didn't want to talk about it. Didn't even want to think that somehow Vivienne had fooled me so completely. I'd felt so sorry for her.

I supposed I still did. In a way.

“Come on,” Harper said. “Like you never wanted to run over Troy?”

My ex-husband. “Maybe so, but there's a big difference between thinking about hurting someone versus actually
running them down
.”

“Yeah, courage.” Harper waved away a fly buzzing near her face. “The guts to actually go through with it.”

I seriously hoped she
never
bought a car.

“No,” I countered. “
Self
-
control
. If I'd run over Troy,
I'd be in jail. I wouldn't be sitting here with you. I wouldn't have Nick. I wouldn't have Mimi. I wouldn't have . . . this life I love so much. As much as Troy broke my heart at the time, I had enough control over emotions not to let that situation destroy my life. Not to let a white-hot moment of hurt and anger rob me of my future. It took time, but I picked up the pieces of that broken marriage, and now I can see that he actually did me a favor.”

“I suppose if you put it that way,” she grumbled as she snaked her arm around my elbow and reached down to entwine her fingers with mine. “You're such a sap. The sappiest.”

“I know.” Smiling, I leaned my head against hers.

“You're going to marry Nick,” she said.

I laughed. “Are you asking me or telling me?”

“Telling.”

“I think he should ask me first, don't you?”

“He will.”

For some reason tears filled my eyes. “You think?”

“No, Darcy. I
know
.”

I
didn't know. But I hoped with all my heart.

She squeezed my fingers, then let go of my hand. “I'd better get back inside to finish packing up our booths.”

“Thanks for doing all that. I've got to drag myself off this bench to go see Natasha's sister.”

“Right. About Titania.”

“Annie,” I corrected. “It's her new nickname.”

“Cute. It fits her,” Harper said as she stood up. She started to walk away, then looked back at me. “Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“Remind me to send Troy a thank-you card one of these days, okay? We probably never would have come to this village if not for him. Seems to me, he did me a big favor, too.”

I met her warm gaze. “And you call me the sappy one?”

“Shut up.” She came back, kissed my cheek, then strode away.

I was willing myself to stand up and go when I heard the flutter of wings. The mourning dove had landed on a lower branch of a Rose of Sharon tree not five feet from the bench. Its shimmery neck bobbed as it paced back and forth along the branch before it slowed to a stop and tipped its head, looking my way.

For a moment, I simply watched it, trying to determine if the bird had any unusual features I could identify, but it was too far away to make out any detail.

Then I recalled the spy pen in my hand. If I could get a couple of pictures of the bird, I could enlarge them on the computer for a better look. . . .

As surreptitiously as I could, I aimed the lens of the spy pen toward the tree and snapped at least four photos before someone sat next to me. I turned, expecting it to be Harper again. Instead I found Ivy fanning her face with an Extravaganza program book.

Perspiration beaded along her hairline. “I just needed some fresh air. It's stifling in there.”

She'd ditched the wig and sunglasses but still wore the shift dress she'd had on earlier. I supposed she no longer needed a disguise, seeing as she wasn't hiding from the Extravaganzers anymore.

With a loud burble, the bird flew into an upper branch of the tree, hidden by glossy green leaves. I tucked the spy pen into my backpack.

“Do you need anything?” she asked. “You look a little rough around the edges.”

“It was a tough morning.” It seemed everyone already knew what had happened, so I didn't feel the need to explain.

“Is Baz going to be okay?”

“The doctors think so.”

“Is Vivienne still on the run?”

“As far as I know.”

“It's been a bad weekend all around. I'm going to need a vacation after all this is said and done,” she said. “I'm not sure how relaxing it will be, since I can afford approximately one night at a campground after the financial hits I took this weekend. And camping has never been my idea of fun. The bugs alone . . .” She shuddered.

I had to agree with her about that. “But I heard you came into a bit of a windfall today, so why not go somewhere nice?”

Her eyebrows dipped in confusion.

“You found Lady Catherine?” I prompted. “Didn't you collect the reward?”

Fanning faster, she said, “Oh, that. I wouldn't say found so much as came across her. Dumb luck, really.”

“Came across her at Fairytails?”

“Word sure gets around fast, doesn't it?”

“Small village,” I said with a shrug.

“Yes. At Fairytails. I came around the corner and there she was, sitting by the back door as though waiting for a grooming appointment.”

“That is lucky.”

“Don't I know it? That reward money couldn't have come at a better time.”

“Especially if you want to upgrade your vacation.”

She set the program down on her lap. “I would, but I need to use that money to pay the judges' honorariums. Dorothy's been harping on me about how she doesn't work for free. I'll be more than happy to pay her off. Thankfully, Reggie's been as patient as a saint, and Godfrey's been great, too. He's a good guy.”

“The best,” I said.

“So, the reward money will go to good use. I suppose the only good news is that I heard whispers among everyone inside about what's going on with the Lucases and Baz's affair with Natasha.”

So the news of the affair had leaked. It had been only a matter of time. “How's that good news?”

She began picking at her fingernails.
Flick, flick
. “Because, Darcy, no one is connecting Natasha's death to the Extravaganza any longer. It's such a relief. Now if I could only convince them all that there is no petnapper on the loose . . . I might be able to salvage this event. I'm already daydreaming ways to make it bigger and better next year. Lots of pizzazz!” she said, complete with the use of jazz hands.

“You don't think there's a petnapper? Or, as Harmony thinks, a pet flipper?”

“It's unlikely,” she said quickly. “Especially here in the village. This is one nosy town. I mean, you already knew I found Lady Catherine—and where I found her—and that was only a few hours ago. Pets get loose all the time—I should know. My clients are always asking me to hang Lost flyers in the window of Fairytails.”

Now that she said it, I recalled seeing one the last time I'd been in there with Missy. Just how many pets had gone missing in the village lately?

And how many, exactly, had been clients of Ivy's?

I started to wonder just how much dumb luck was involved in her finding Lady Catherine. Or . . . perhaps . . . how much planning had gone into it. After all, it was just a couple of hours ago that I had thought the Extravaganza was the perfect place to scout targets if I were a petnapper.

But what if the petnapping had been an inside job all along?

*   *   *

I was still wondering if Ivy was the mastermind behind a petnapping ring as I walked around the back of the Wisp five minutes later.

I hadn't let on about my suspicions to her, but I had a lousy poker face, so I assumed she had known what I was thinking. Which was probably why she'd quickly proclaimed that she had to get inside and had hotfooted it back into the building.

I was still feeling a bit weak in the knees as I headed for the rear of the property, to the spot where Archie had told me he'd freed himself after his attempted birdnapping.

It was easy to see where his struggle to get out of the sack had taken place, as the grass was matted, some of it uprooted.

However, there was no sign of a bag at all.

I quickly sent a text to Nick, asking if one of his officers had retrieved the bag Archie had escaped from. Then I sent another that said there was no rush to answer—that I knew he was busy but I didn't want to forget to ask him. Then I sent a third text that said there might be somewhat of a rush as I suspected Ivy might be a petnapper. I sent a fourth asking about the surveillance videos at the Wisp. A fifth to tell him that I loved him.

I hoped the last would soften the irritation caused by the first four.

Carefully walking around the area, I looked for any clue that it had been Ivy who might have taken Archie. She'd told me she'd been inside the building with the police when it happened, but she could have been lying about that. It was an easy enough alibi to check now that I had reason to.

How much would a beautiful, talkative, somewhat pretentious macaw get on the black market?

I wasn't sure, but it had to be a lot for someone to try to steal him in broad daylight.

I'd been so sure a Crafter had been involved because there had been no witnesses and that made it seem that witchcraft might have been involved, yet Archie had been certain it was a mortal simply because of the consequences otherwise.

If it turned out that Ivy, who was very much a mortal, was in fact the one who had tried to abduct him, I was never—ever—going to hear the end of it.