Gone With the Witch (25 page)

I
sprinted across the green, shoved open the side gate at As You Wish, and hurried toward the back door.

Archie squawked in his cage as I ran past. “‘Russell! If you don't hurry up, the tigers will eat you.'”

“Up!” I yelled over my shoulder.

“Damn it,” he cried.

I kicked off my flip-flops in the mudroom and nearly tripped over Missy and Annie as they greeted me. I bent to scratch their ears. “Harper? Are you still here?”

“In the family room!” she yelled. “We're just admiring your paintings.”

I grabbed the cordless phone to call Nick. “You'll never guess— Wait. We?” Aunt Ve and Tilda were supposed to be at the vet's office right about now. I walked into the family room and found Harper and Ivy standing in front of the fireplace, where my paintings leaned against the stone hearth.

“Ivy was on her way over here when she saw me on the green and helped me carry over the paintings.”

“I was wrong about the pizzazz, Darcy,” Ivy said, looking back at me. “These are spectacular up close. You're very talented.”

“I, uh—thanks.” I tucked the phone under my arm and wiped suddenly damp palms on my jeans. I told myself to stay calm. To not let on what I suspected about Ivy. I needed a plan.

Harper eyed me. “Why are you all sweaty?”

So much for not letting on. “I, uh, ran over here from the bookshop when Angela told me where you were.”

“You could have walked.”

I forced a laugh. “I didn't get my jog in this morning. Thought I'd work in a little cardio. . . .”

“In jeans?”

I shot her a “drop it” look.

Ivy's gaze narrowed.

“I was in a rush to tell you that Cookie's been found,” I said, wiping my forehead with the back of my hand.

“Really?” Ivy said. “That's fantastic news. All the missing pets are now accounted for. Now maybe those ridiculous petnapper rumors will die.”

I swallowed hard as she said the word “die.”

“Are you calling for some lunch delivery?” Harper asked, motioning to the phone. “Because I'm starved.”

I stared at the phone. “Yes! I was. I was thinking Chinese food. Would you like to stay for lunch, Ivy?”

“Thanks, but I can't. I'm due back at Fairytails. I just stopped by to pay you.” She sat in the armchair and reached in her tote bag. She pulled out her checkbook.

I hooked a thumb over my shoulder. “Then I'll hold off on calling, but let me get some water.” I smacked my lips. “Dry mouth. Either of you want anything?” I asked. “We have coffee, tea, water . . .”

“I'm good,” Harper said, eyeing me as if I were a crazy woman.

“Me, too,” Ivy added.

I turned and nearly tripped over Missy and Annie again. They followed me into the kitchen, where I grabbed a glass and filled it with water. I rattled some ice cubes as I quickly punched in 9-1-1, then left the handset on the counter.

My hand was shaking so badly when I went back into the living room that I spilled some water on the wooden floor. I left it. I didn't want to explain why I was so sloppy.

Ivy had her pen poised, and Harper was on the sofa, sifting through the photos Glinda and I had left on the table. She must have bumped my laptop, bringing the computer out of sleep mode, because the screen was bright with the images of the mourning dove.

“What is all this?” Harper asked.

I sat next to her. “Oh, nothing really. Glinda and I were trying to find some leads in Natasha's death, but we didn't find anything,” I lied. “Glinda was hoping to clear Vivienne's name, but it's looking more and more like she's guilty.”

Harper nodded as she held up the photo of telltale silhouettes. I noticed the time stamp. Four days ago. So Baz
hadn't
kept his promise of exclusivity to Natasha. In my head, Vivienne's voice echoed.

“Once a cheater, always a cheater.”

“I heard they found cyanide in her car,” Harper said as she kept staring at the photo.

“Yeah,” I said, willing her to drop the picture. “That's what Nick said.”

Ivy motioned to the computer. “Looks like you finally got a good picture of that bird.”

A change of subject I was grateful for, even though I knew why she was doing it.

“I did at that.” I bumped Harper with my elbow. “I thought you might like some copies of the bird photos as well, being the nature lover you are.”

I wanted her to make the connection that I had made . . . that the mourning dove was a Wishcrafter. If Harper did, she'd drop the photo and start running through every female Wishcrafter in the village to determine which one might be the Elder. “Isn't it a pretty bird? Look at that blue around its eye. . . .”

As I said the words, I suddenly realized that the Elder was the reason the Lunumbra spell had been created. It was because I kept trying to take her picture, which would reveal she was a Wishcrafter. No wonder Ve cast the spell only on me—I was the reason the spell was needed in the first place. But the question still remained as to why the bird always seemed to be watching over me.

Harper glanced up at me as though not really listening, then back at the photo in her hand. She didn't even look at the computer screen. “This isn't Natasha,” she said, pointing at the woman in the picture.

“Oh, I know.” I grabbed the photo and tucked it into a pile on the table. “Baz apparently had lots of girlfriends. A regular Romeo.”

“Nick should look into that,” Harper said. “It opens a whole new door as to who might have killed Natasha and run him over. Maybe Vivienne's innocent after all. She really doesn't strike me as the murderous type.”

“How much do I owe you, Darcy?” Ivy asked, her voice tight.

I waved my hand. “You know what? Nothing. I truly didn't do much, and ha! I even at one point thought you might have been the petnapper. So let's just call it even.”

I couldn't believe how she'd fooled me and I wondered now if she purposely planted clues that led me to
believe she'd taken the animals . . . so I wouldn't become suspicious about what she'd really done.

Harper riffled through the pictures on the table. “That silhouette looked familiar,” she said. “I might be able to tell who it is if I look at it a little more closely.”

Curse Harper and her love of forensics.

Ivy tucked her pen away. “The petnapper? That's funny. I could never steal a pet.” She pulled out a plastic container of cookies and set them on the coffee table. “I brought you some cookies. As a thank-you. Double chocolate chunk.”

That
got Harper's attention. She reached for the container. “I've died and gone to heaven. You're a lifesaver. I'm
starving
.” Lifting the lid, she pulled out a beautiful-looking cookie.

I slapped it out of her hands.

“Darcy!” she cried.

“You don't want to eat that. Does she, Ivy?”

Ivy lifted an eyebrow. “So you
have
figured it out. The cookies are perfectly fine, by the way. I just wanted to see how you'd react to them, since you've been rambling uncomfortably since laying eyes on me.”

Missy hopped down from the couch and started pacing as though sensing the danger in the air.

I just needed to keep Ivy talking until the police arrived. I strained to hear any sirens, but heard none. I did hear the coo of the mourning dove, however, and looked over to see the bird bobbing along the windowsill.

“I was with you all along, Darcy.

“I'll always be with you.”

With a little more confidence, I turned back to Ivy. “I didn't know until a witness came forward today and said he saw you with a black wig on going into the back of Fairytails.
After
Baz had been hit by the car.”

“It's
your
silhouette!” Harper said suddenly.

I sighed.

“Yes,” Ivy confirmed. “It looks to me that the picture was taken minutes before Baz told me he was marrying Natasha and leaving the village for good. I couldn't let that happen. I had too much invested in our relationship.”

“Competition changes people. Trust me.”

I realized Ivy had been talking about herself, not Natasha.

Ivy glanced at me. “I thought you had figured it out yesterday, Darcy, but I see now your pointed questions were about the petnapping. My mistake.”

“Why'd you run him over if you wanted a relationship with him?” Harper asked.

It was a good question.

“I got scared when Darcy suggested that the police were looking to arrest Baz for Natasha's murder. I needed someone else to take the blame. Vivienne was my next obvious choice, since framing Chip didn't work out as planned. Thanks to you,” she said drolly.

“But you poisoned Chip,” I said. “How was that framing him?”

“After he was found
dead
, I was going to mail a typed suicide note to the police that confessed he killed Natasha and couldn't live with himself. Darcy botched that plan by getting him medical help.”

She sounded thoroughly disgusted with me, but I didn't think this was a good time to point out that she was the one who'd asked me to go to Chip's apartment in the first place.

“How'd you even get into his apartment?” Harper asked.

“During one of my break-ins at Natasha's, I stole her keys and had copies made. One of those keys belonged to Chip's apartment. I used it to sneak in there the morning of the Extravaganza to poison his smoothie
mix and bide my time. When that didn't work out, I needed another scapegoat. Vivienne was the only one left. I was going to plant the cyanide at her house, but the police were there that morning. Then I saw her car at the Pixie Cottage and made a plan. By the way,
that's
where I found Lady Catherine. At the Pixie Cottage. She was there getting a drink in the garden. For some reason, there were six bowls of water set out. I took Lady Catherine back to Marigold, and went home and got the wig and the car keys and set out to find Baz, which wasn't hard, thanks to the GPS app I put on his phone a year ago.”

“You could have killed him,” I pointed out.

“If I wanted him dead, he'd be dead by now,” Ivy said succinctly. “I only clipped him.”

She was delusional. He absolutely could have died from his wound.

“Were you the one who hit Vivienne, too?” I asked. “A year and a half ago?”

Ivy smiled, cool, calm, and collected. Gone was her anxiety, her high energy. I suddenly preferred the latter. Because a calm Ivy was terrifying.

“You're good,” she said. “I knew you were, but not many people would have put that together. I meant to kill her, but I wasn't as skilled then as I am now. You're not so smart, however, to have figured out that it was I who was behind the food poisoning incident last year. The salad Baz ate was meant for Vivienne. With her weakened immune system because of the accident, it would have killed her. But it didn't matter much anyway. Baz kept coming back to me.”

Harper frowned. “Why'd you even hire Darcy in the first place?”

“An alibi, of course,” she said. “No one would think I'd hire someone to watch the woman I was about to get rid of. The second time I hired Darcy was purely to get
information on the case that the police weren't releasing to the general public, and her relationship to the chief of police paid off handsomely for me.”

I didn't want to think about how I'd been used. How easily I'd fallen for her lies because I wanted to
help
.

No, I couldn't think about that right now. I had to keep her talking until the police showed up. “How'd you and Baz meet? I thought it was because of Audrey, but it had to have been earlier than that if you ran over Vivienne.”

“A movie. We'd both gone to see a showing of
Charade
at the playhouse and struck up a conversation.”

He'd probably been there to see Audrey Hepburn, and she'd probably gone to get tips on being a psychopath.

“It was love at first sight,” she said. “On my part, at least. He made promises to me, and I intend to make him keep them.”

“How?” Harper asked. “He's going to know what you did.”

“How?”

“We'll tell him,” she said.

Ivy lifted up a small gun. She must have pulled it out of her tote when she took out the cookies. “No, you won't. You and your sister are going to have an argument, and one of you is going to kill the other, then turn the gun on herself. Now, which one of you is that going to be?” She waved the gun between us.

Missy started whining and raced past us, through the mudroom, and out her dog door. I was glad she'd be safe at least.

Annie hopped down from the back of the couch, onto my lap.

Harper took my hand.

I prayed for sirens.

“No volunteers?” Ivy said. “Fine. Harper first. Just
because that'll hurt Darcy more, and this is all her fault for figuring out the truth.”

Just as she aimed the gun, something slammed into the window—the mourning dove. Ivy turned and fired. Glass shattered. Annie dove off my lap, and I pulled Harper to her feet. “Run!”

Ivy jumped up. “No!”

We'd almost made it to the kitchen when she fired the second bullet. It hit the doorframe of the laundry room.

I glanced back and saw Ivy take aim again as she started after us. Annie darted in front of her, tripping her. Another bullet hit the ceiling. Harper screamed as I pushed her forward. I was right behind her until I slipped on the puddle of water I'd spilled earlier and went down hard. My breath wooshed out of me, and I was momentarily stunned as I fought for air.

Harper dropped next to me. “Darcy!”

“Go!” I managed to say, shoving her.

“No! Not without you.”

Ivy scrambled to her feet, laughing.