What's a Witch to Do?: A Midnight Magic Mystery (8 page)

“Okay,” she says, scampering into the other room.

“Why is he still here?” Debbie asks, folding her arms. She looks just like Mommy when she does that. My heart aches. “The sheriff came to the door asking all sorts of questions and told the girls to look out for strangers.”

“Well, if anyone asks, he’s our cousin A.J. from Boston, okay? He’s Great Uncle Cal’s grandson here for the wedding.”

“Why would … ” She groans. “Mona, what the hell is going on?”

In any other circumstance, I wouldn’t tell her. This is the week of her wedding, and she’s my baby sister. I’ve spent my life protecting her. But like the girls and my friends, she can be used to get to me, so I spill.

“What?” she shouts.

“Shush! I don’t want the girls to know!”

“The naked man upstairs was in on a plot to kill you? And he’s still in this house asleep when he should be protecting you?” She spins around and runs up the stairs two at a time. Crap. I follow close behind. Without knocking, she storms into the spare bedroom where Adam slumbers. I’m almost sad to see he’s put on pajamas. “You! Werewolf! Wake up!”

He stirs, blinking those baby blues to focus. “Oh. What time is it?”

“Time for you to do some talking. How are you going to protect my sister and nieces from a freaking murderer, huh? Is sleeping part of you plan?”

“What—”

I grab Debbie’s shoulders and steer her out of the room. “Sorry. Excuse us.” I push her across to my bedroom, shutting the door. “Will you calm down?”

“No! Someone wants to kill you! The week I’m getting married! I need you! If you die who’s gonna walk me down the aisle? Or teach me the summoning spell?”

“Gee Debbie, sorry my possible death is affecting you so,” I say sarcastically.

“Sorry, sorry,” she says plopping down on my bed. “This is just a lot to take in. I mean if you die, that’s it. You’re my family, Mona. You’re all I have left.”

I sit next to her, taking her hand. “Nothing is gonna happen to me, okay? Put it out of your mind. We’ll find the person and have them arrested.” I kiss her cheek. “But I’m gonna need your help.”

“How? Anything.”

“I need you to discreetly ask around the coven about the others. Especially Cheyenne, Collins, and Erica.”

“Collins? She wouldn’t do this,” she says. “You’re like a sister to her. She loves you.”

“She might have information about Cheyenne.”

“Well, if it’s anyone, it’s that cow,” Debbie says.

“We need proof.” And I need to stay alive long enough to find it. There’s a knock on the bedroom door. “Come in.” Adam steps in, now dressed in black jeans and camouflage T-shirt. Without the bruises and ectoplasm, his impish face is just a few degrees shy of handsome. “You’re looking better. How you feeling?”

He shuts the door. “Good. Tired.”

“Lot of that going around,” I say. “Debbie, give us a minute?”

Debbie stands and walks past Adam, giving him the evil eye. “I’ll order the pizza.”

“She’s tough,” Adam says after the door shuts.

“She’s scared. Getting married, now this. Finding you naked didn’t help matters.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” he says, blushing a little.

I rise from the bed. “Just wear pajamas from now on. Impressionable young girls around and all.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Does that mean I’m staying?”

“So it seems. No one else is rushing to my rescue anytime soon.”

He nods sadly. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well, I’m used to it,” I say with a shrug. He just looks at me with pity. I don’t do pity. “What do we do now? I have my spies out in full force collecting intel. I’ve identified potential suspects. I’ve established your alibi. I’ve whipped up a few protection charms at work, and dinner’s on the way. What next?”

He seems suitably impressed, even raising an eyebrow. “I guess we eat pizza.”

“Best damn idea I’ve heard all day.”

• Sunday Supper
  

The girls, Debbie, Greg, Adam, and I all sit around the dining room table scarfing down pizza and apple juice. The dinner of champions. I figure if I’m dying soon, screw Weight Watchers, I’m going to enjoy fat, sweets, and empty calories as much as I can. Though my eating habits are positively dainty compared to Adam’s. He shovels an entire pepperoni and sausage pizza into his mouth in record time, having warned Debbie to order extra. Cora giggles and tries to do the same, barely chewing, but I yank the piece away with a scowl.

“Hungry there, uh, Adam?” Greg asks as he exchanges a glance with Debbie.

“Sorry,” Adam says with his mouth full. “I haven’t eaten all day.”

“You shouldn’t talk with your mouth full,” Sophie sneers. “It’s rude.”

Adam takes a few seconds to chew and swallow. “You’re right. I apologize.”

Sophie’s sneer doesn’t waver as she sips her juice. We eat in silence for a few seconds. Cora smiles brightly at Adam, who smiles back. Greg and Debbie exchange another look, neither too happy with our latest addition. My house, I have to play host before the atmosphere goes from frosty to arctic. “So girls, it looks as if we’re having a guest stay with us for a few days.”

“Him?” Sophie asks.

“Yes, and if anyone asks, he’s our cousin A.J. from Boston here for the wedding.”

“Why do we have to lie?” Sophie asks.

“You’ll understand when you’re older,” Debbie says. “Your aunt has a reputation to maintain. We don’t want the entire town thinking she’s Paris Hilton, do we?”

“But why does he have to stay
here?”
Sophie asks.

“Because he’s our friend,” I say, “and since he is a guest in this house, we will treat him accordingly, okay? So drop the attitude.”

“But—”

“Not another word. You are being rude, and you know better.”

Sophie tosses her half eaten slice down and stands. “This sucks!” she says before running off. Um … okay. Debbie, Greg, and I are all speechless. This is not normal behavior for her. She does silent seething, not temper tantrums. Something is really wrong. I excuse myself from the table and follow her as the unfazed Cora chatters on about all that she wants to do with Adam. Tea parties and movies are on tonight’s agenda. He’ll be worn out by tomorrow.

The girls’ bedroom door is shut, so I knock. When there’s no answer, I let myself in. Sophie lies face down on her bed and doesn’t look up when I step in. “Soph?”

“What?”

“You need to go downstairs and apologize.”

She flips over, indignant rage written all over her face. “No! I hate him!”

“What is your problem?” I ask, shutting the door.

“He’s bad! You told us never to lie, and now he’s making us all lie! Someone hurt him, and now they’re going to hurt us!”

Wow. I knew she was precocious, but now I think she might be a freaking genius. That or she can see there’s trouble. It wouldn’t surprise me if my sister was into some pretty bad stuff and the girls got dragged into it. And here I am doing it all over again. I join her on the bed. “Nobody is going to hurt us, okay?”

“I heard Aunt Debbie yelling. Someone wants to … ” She can’t finish. Her lower lip quivers, but she bites it to stop it. She refuses to cry. Even in the hospital after the bee sting when she almost died, she didn’t cry once. Damn my sister.

“Hey, hey,” I say, taking her hands. “No one is going to hurt me or you or your sister, okay? I’m gonna make sure of it. I promise.”

“You can’t know that,” Sophie whispers.

“Would you feel better if you spent the week with Aunt Debbie or Miss Tamara?”

Sophie sits up, eyes like telescopes. “No!” she shouts, suddenly terrified. “Oh please don’t send us away! Please! Don’t send us away!” She grabs a hold of me for dear life. “I can protect you! I can, I swear it! Just don’t make us go away!
Please!”

I’m momentarily shocked by her vehemence. What the hell did Ivy do to this poor girl? I wrap my arms around her tiny body, enveloping her to keep out the bad. “Okay, it’s okay, baby. You don’t have to go anywhere. You’re not going anywhere. You’re staying right here with me, I promise.”

“I can protect you, I can,” she says quietly, squeezing me even tighter.

“Hey,” I say, extracting her. I meet her blue eyes. “You listen to me. It is not your job to protect me, it’s my job to protect you. Got that? Now, I made a promise, okay? Nothing is going to happen to me or any of us, so don’t you spend a minute worrying about it. You just keep doing what you always do: go to school, keep a close eye on your sister, and be ten years old. Can you do that for me?”

She shakes her head. “Okay.”

I smooth her hair then kiss it. “Thank you. And be nice to Adam, please. He’s here to help us.”

“Why?”

Good question. “Because he’s a good guy,” I say for lack of a better answer.

“Cora’s in love with him.”

“Cora’s also in love with the mailman. She’ll get over it.” I kiss my niece’s head again and stand. “Come on. You have an apology to make.”

I hold out my hand and she takes it, lacing her fingers with mine. And we re-join the family for Sunday Supper.

I just pray it’s not our last.

• Hem Sophie’s damn skirt
  

The rest of the night runs smoothly. After dinner Debbie and Greg reluctantly leave, Adam returns upstairs to his room to rest, and the girls get ready for bed. In between all of this, I plant the charm bags I whipped up at work and some crystals around the perimeter of the house. Magical security system, better than ADT. If someone breeches it, I’ll get a psychic heads up. I also line black salt at every entrance to ward against people who want to do me immediate harm. Keeps bad energy away. A person who wants to kill me certainly fits.

I read to the girls and sing them two songs before kissing them goodnight. I’d join them in slumberland but still have a few things left on my To Do list. I’m happy to find “feed Captain,” “make lunches,” and “dishes” all done for me. Adam even remembered the juice boxes. All that remains (that can be done tonight) is to hem Sophie’s skirt. I grab a beer, my rarely used sewing kit, and plop down on the sofa in front of the television. For the first time in days, I have a few minutes to myself to relax. I don’t even mind the Captain meowing from inside the fireplace. He’s crawled up the flue, the silly thing. I’ll go through my grimoire tomorrow and see if I can locate a spell to make him more comfortable around Adam.

About halfway through
Game of Thrones
and with two bleeding fingers, I hear footsteps on the stairs. A second later Adam strolls in. We smile at each other as he slips his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his feet in the doorway. I guess I’m not alone in not knowing how to act around a virtual stranger in my space. “Mind if I get a beer?” he asks.

“Mi casa es su casa,”
I say.

He disappears then reappears with a beer, sitting on the sea green armchair next to me. “Oh, I like this show.”

“Yeah, me—fucking hell!” I say as I prick my finger with the damn needle again. I wince and stick the bleeding digit into my mouth. “Crap.”

“Here, let me … ” Adam says, reaching for the skirt.

“What?”

He puts his beer on the coffee table. “I can do it. Give it here.”

Reluctantly, I hand him the skirt and needle. “You can sew?”

He raises an eyebrow. “You can’t?”

I give him the stink eye. Smiling, he sits back and starts hemming. “Wow. I am impressed,” I say.

“Well, we werewolves rip a lot of clothes. If I didn’t know how to do this, I’d be bankrupt. Also useful if you need a quick field suture.”

“Need a lot of those? Field sutures?”

“Enough,” he says with a half smile.

He has a nice smile. It melts years off his already youthful face. I wonder how old he is. Werewolves age slower than humans, so he could be anywhere from twenty-five to sixty-five. He hasn’t changed much through the years, either. Never even changed his haircut from the short-on-the-sides-and-floppy-on-the-top style. I fold my arms across my chest. “You know, we’ve known each other for eighteen years, and I just realized the only thing I
really
know about you is that you can change a tire.”

“You remember that?” he asks with genuine surprise.

“Of course. It was the nicest thing anyone’s done for me in years.”

“Really? That’s sad.”

“It is what it is. So how old are you?”

“I’ll be forty-three next week,” he says, still sewing.

“Happy early birthday,” I say.

“Thanks.”

“Do you have a job? A career besides being Jason’s Beta?”

“Me and some of the other wolves have a general contracting business we run. I didn’t do so hot in school, didn’t even graduate high school with the dyslexia, but I found something to suit me.” He holds up the skirt. “I’m very useful with my hands.”

“Obviously,” I say with a smirk. “The girls must love you.”

His smile wavers a little. “I do alright.”

“Ever been married?”

“Haven’t even come close.”

“Hard to believe. Good-looking guy like you, handy around the house.” Great butt doesn’t hurt either.

“Next subject, please,” he says.

“What, some girl break your heart?” I ask with a fake pout.

He looks me square in the eyes. “Next. Subject.”

Touchy. “Okay, favorite food?”

“Veal Parmesan. You?”

“Blackberry pie. Favorite color?”

“Green.”

“Purple. Favorite TV show?”

“Anything football. Especially when the Ravens play. A bomb could go off, and I wouldn’t move from the TV. Yours?”

“We’re watching it. Were you born a werewolf?”

“Yep. My grandfather was Alpha before Frank Dahl. I took over Beta duty under Jason when Frank was murdered.”

“I remember that. I’m so sorry.” A few years ago some nasty werewolves tried to take over the Eastern Pack and killed a lot of wolves, including the Alpha Frank Dahl. Jason stopped them and became Alpha. “What about siblings?”