Mind Over Magic by Lindsay Buroker

21

“Deputy Franklin?”Morgen approached his SUV, where he leaned against the door, watching the house while the hunt continued in the woods.

She would have preferred to walk to her car and leave without being questioned, but she doubted Franklin would allow that. She would have to convince him to let her go.

Even better would be if she could convince him to go with her. She didn’t want to confront Arbuckle alone, and she also feared she wouldn’t be able to stop Amar by herself. Even if it turned out Arbuckle had killed Grandma, Morgen couldn’t let Amar kill him. He was already in trouble with the law. But with Christian’s death, he’d been manipulated against his will. Maybe there would be a way to clear his name. But not if he murdered Arbuckle in cold blood.

“Yes, ma’am?” Franklin was peering into the woods and barely glanced at her.

Since Morgen hadn’t heard any shots, she assumed that Amar had slipped out past the men and was on his way to Arbuckle’s estate by now. It was on the other side of town, and he hadn’t tried to leave in his truck—the deputies would have seen him if he had—so he had to be on foot. But that didn’t mean she had a lot of time. If he traveled in his wolf form, he would be able to cross the miles quickly.

“I need a favor,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am?” Franklin repeated, now eyeing her warily, as if certain her favor would be onerous—or put him at odds with his duty.

This could help him with his duty. If he went along with her.

“Could you give me a ride across town? I think I have a lead on…” Morgen gestured to where the body had been.

“A lead? You’re not on the case, ma’am. You don’t pursue leads.” He squinted at her. “Unless that werewolf has been in contact with you. Has he? He didn’t ask you to meet him somewhere, did he?”

That was the first time Franklin had admitted to what she’d suspected all along. That he—and likely the whole sheriff’s department—knew about the werewolves.

“He didn’t, no.” No need to mention the chat she’d had with Amar at the kitchen table. “But before we were going to meet in person, Mr. Christian gave me the name of the person who put an offer in on this property. He’d just listed it for sale, you see. I thought it might be worth talking to that man about the murder.” The murder of her grandmother, not the murder of the agent, but she kept that part to herself.

“If he wanted to buy the property, why would he have anything to do with the murder of the real-estate agent?”

“He might not have, but don’t you think we should talk to him? Maybe warn him about this? I’ve learned from the local wit— er, locals that there are some people in Bellrock who don’t want to see this property sold. If whoever killed Christian did it to stop the sale, the buyer might be in danger too.” There. That seemed plausible, didn’t it? Maybe it was even true.

Franklin’s eyes had narrowed further at her slip-up—did he know all about the witches as well as the werewolves?—and he regarded her thoughtfully for a long moment.

“Who’s the buyer?” he finally asked.

“Mason Arbuckle.”

“That guy?” Franklin looked like he meant to spit, but he refrained.

“Do the locals not like him?”

“He’s got a lot of money and likes to show it off.”

One of the other men came over, mud spattering his boots and uniform pants.

“Any luck?” Franklin asked him, holding up a finger to Morgen.

“We followed some big wolf prints, but there are a lot of them out there, and then a lot of recent prints from people too.” The man looked down at Morgen’s shoes. “They looked like women’s prints. Not that big.”

“I haven’t been roaming in the woods, but there was an arson yesterday—” Morgen waved toward the barn, “—and I saw some women run into the woods as I drove up.”

“This place is trouble,” Franklin said. “I’m going to take Ms. Keller to a hotel in town.”

Morgen tamped down her frown as she imagined walking to Arbuckle’s estate alone all the way from the Wild Trout. From what she’d seen thus far, the little town of Bellrock wasn’t serviced by taxis or ride-sharing services.

“That’s a good idea,” the other man said.

“Get your things, ma’am.” Franklin pointed to the passenger side of his SUV.

She withdrew the antler staff from her car and joined him. “I’ve got everything I need.”

He eyed the staff as well as the tomes she had tucked under her arm and was being careful not to let him see closely. “Such as your recipe books?”

“People get hungry in hotels.”

“Is that for stirring?” Franklin pointed at the staff.

“It could be. Dough can be feisty.”

Franklin looked toward the house, and Morgen expected him to remember her dog, so she groped for an excuse to explain why she would leave Lucky there instead of taking him with her. Because she had no intention of being gone all night or staying at a hotel…

“Right.” Franklin pointed toward the passenger side again and climbed into the driver’s seat.

She would have preferred to take her car, especially if he wouldn’t come with her to Arbuckle’s, but she didn’t know if she had a choice.

After she buckled herself in, and they started down the long driveway, Franklin said, “We’ll stop by Arbuckle’s and warn him about this.”

She glanced at him in surprise. “Oh, good. Thanks.”

“Maybe one of our men should watch him tonight too. I don’t like the guy, but we don’t need another murder.”

Morgen thought Arbuckle was more likely to be behind the murders than be a victim, but if the witches were after anyone trying to develop the property, maybe that wasn’t true. She wondered if they would think of getting rid of her since she’d been the one to list it. Maybe they would hope that if she died, the next of kin would leave the place vacant and not do anything with it. If her sister inherited it, that might be exactly what would happen, since she hadn’t been in the country for more than a year.

The night had grown chilly, and Franklin flipped on seat warmers for both of them. Morgen opened the potion book to resume her search for recipes calling for moss ingredients. As soon as she’d seen that Amar was gone, she hadn’t dared linger for a leisurely perusal at the kitchen table. Now, she was stuck reading by the glow of her phone.

“Going to make a meatloaf at the Wild Trout?” Franklin asked dryly, glancing over.

“I’m a vegetarian. I don’t make meatloaf.”

“Soy loaf?”

“Even though food becomes much more appealing when pulverized and shaped into rectangular cuboids, loaves aren’t really my thing.”

“Odd.”

“So my family tells me.”

“Because you dislike loaves or because you use words like cuboid?”

“Those are two of the data points in the array, yes.”

Franklin turned before reaching Main Street, taking a road that looped around the outside of town. Morgen paused in flipping pages. There it was. A recipe with four ingredients, including daylight bioluminescent moss. It called for two grams of the stuff.

“Performance-Enhancing Elixir,” she murmured, reading the title at the top.

That was it?

Commercials for erectile dysfunction pharmaceuticals popped into her mind. Who would pay a fortune for a potion—an elixir—that helped with that?

But as she flipped through more pages in the book and didn’t see any other recipes calling for the moss, it occurred to her that the elixir might help with other kinds of performance. What if it improved athleticability? Or cognitive function? If it worked better than other stuff out there, she could imagine people paying handsomely.

She remembered the college track-and-field records she’d found with Arbuckle’s name on them. The next commercial that came to mind was the old one that went: I’m not only the Hair Club president, but I’m also a client.

Morgen closed the book and gazed thoughtfully at the dashboard.

“I know about the witches.” Franklin glanced at the books in her lap. He must have seen the titles, despite her efforts to hide them. “Everyone in the department does.”

She didn’t know whether to be relieved or chagrined at the news. Did that mean they believed in magic too?

“Do you know that they can control the werewolves?” she asked.

He grunted. “Is that what he told you?”

“It’s what another werewolf said.” And it was what the incantation in her pocket was supposed to do. She’d memorized it, just in case she needed it and didn’t have time to pull out the paper.

“Don’t believe anything they say,” Franklin said. “They’re dangerous. The witches are just kooky ladies who pretend they can put hexes on you. They’re harmless.”

Ah, maybe he didn’t believe in magic after all, at least not witch magic.

“The werewolves are a different story,” he continued. “There have been a lot more tourists disappearing since they showed up, not to mention the occasional murder. Like tonight. They’re trouble. Both packs. But it’s not easy to drive them out. Our department is small—the men you saw tonight are basically all we’ve got. Even then, a couple of those men were on loan from up north. Besides, the Loups have bought a bunch of real estate in town, and they’re in with the mayor and some of the wealthy landowners. It’s complicated.” He grimaced.

“Sorry,” Morgen said and opened the second book. Maybe she could find something useful in it.

But only a couple of minutes later, Franklin turned onto a dark, winding road without center lines. “We’re almost to the property.”

“So soon?”

That quashed her hopes of finding and memorizing a helpful incantation. Ideally one that erected a huge shield made from diamonds all around her and made her impervious to bullets, magic, and fangs. Sadly, she hadn’t found anything like that. Most of the spells listed were for such mundane things as keeping slugs out of the garden, repelling termites from the house, and putting hexes on newspaper-delivery people who left the Sunday edition in a puddle instead of on the porch. She had a feeling the fantasy novels full of magic users flinging fireballs and lightning bolts at each other might not be indicative of the common witching experience.

“Bellrock is a small town,” Franklin said.

Morgen’s phone vibrated. She would have ignored it, but it was her sister.

The urge to speak with her before going into a possibly dangerous situation washed over her with startling intensity. Maybe her gut knew something that her brain didn’t, that her desire to speak with Arbuckle would turn into more.

“Hey, Sian,” Morgen said. “I don’t have long to talk, but I’m glad you called.”

“I am certain you are. As I was witnessing previously captive orangutans being released into the wild and discussing the threat of Sunda clouded leopards with a colleague, it occurred to me that you may wish some tips on dealing with your local predators, the wolves you mentioned. Assuming you truly are having encounters with such near Grandma’s property and your previous call about werewolves wasn’t a hoax.”

“I’m dealing with such, yes.”

“Wolves are wary animals and generally not dangerous to humans—most historical attacks involved rabid wolves—but it is possible that they will bite if they’re provoked or have, through nearby habitation, lost their natural fear of humans. There have also been incidents when humans have greatly altered the wolves’ environment.”

“They can also be aggressive when you’re innocently dining in an establishment that they partially own and consider their territory.”

Judging by the long pause, Sian hadn’t yet accepted that werewolves existed and Morgen truly was walking among them. Well, siblings weren’t perfect.

“Perhaps I shouldn’t have called,” Sian said.

“No, I’m glad you did.” Morgen glanced over at Franklin, but the dark road either demanded all of his attention, or werewolves owning restaurants was nothing new to him. She lowered her voice. “If anything happens to me… Grandma didn’t want the property sold, all right? She left a letter. It’s on the kitchen table and explains… Well, there’s a lot she never explained to her children or grandchildren. But don’t sell it, all right?”

“What is going to happen to you? Morgen, if you’re in danger, you should call the police.”

“Bellrock doesn’t have police, but I’m riding in a deputy sheriff’s car right now.”

“That doesn’t sound sufficient.”

Franklin glanced over. Sian hadn’t lowered her voice.

“It is,” Morgen said. “There are seat warmers and everything. Just promise me that if the house ends up in your hands—the house and the land—that you won’t sell it, all right?”

“Morgen. What is going on? Do you need me to call Jun?”

“He’s the last person who could help with this, even if we weren’t divorced.”

“Oh, I forgot about that.”

“I’ll wager you don’t forget which of your orangutans are together and which are split up.”

“All of them are split up. Males are solitary and generally only remain with a female long enough to ensure a successful mating.”

“Never mind.”

“Don’t do anything dangerous, Morgen. It would be inconvenient if I had to ask one of our brothers to send my bamboo underwear.”

“You’d get something goofy instead. Didn’t Rhett give you a Goonies T-shirt for your fortieth birthday?”

“Yes. Because I watched the movie as a child.”

“You did watch it eighty-three times.”

“It’s a superior movie that was chosen for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.”

“You wear that T-shirt, don’t you?”

“Almost there,” Franklin said, drowning out Sian’s response.

“I need to go,” Morgen told her sister.

“Don’t do anything even an orangutan would know is foolish.”

“Aren’t they pretty smart?”

“Yes, but I hope for your sake that you’re smarter.” Sian hung up.

“Don’t you love siblings?” Morgen asked Franklin.

He only grunted and turned up a paved driveway. It wound through dark trees, but landscaping lights on either side brightened the way.

Up ahead, more lights came into view. They were atop a tall stone wall that stretched into the trees on either side of the driveway and looked to wrap around the house on all sides. The entry was barred by a wrought-iron gate with two ornamental lion heads incorporated into the design. Through the bars, a four-story stone mansion was visible—it looked more like a castle than traditional Pacific Northwest architecture. Cameras perched atop the rock wall as well as on a porte-cochère that led to wooden double doors at the front of the mansion. Numerous signs proclaimed that the premises were protected by a home-security company.

“I bet he has towel warmers,” Morgen muttered, glancing into the woods to either side, wondering if Amar might be skulking around out there in wolf form.

Franklin stopped at an intercom next to the gate and buzzed it.

“Yes?” a woman answered after a minute.

That wasn’t likely Mason Arbuckle. Maybe his mom was visiting. Or he had servants to answer his intercom for him.

“This is Deputy Franklin from the sheriff’s office. There’s been an incident with someone Mr. Arbuckle might have been working with, and I have a warning for him.”

“Show your badge to the camera, please.”

Franklin turned and did so.

“Very well,” the woman said.

The iron gate clanked open, and Franklin drove in.

That had been easier than Morgen expected, but when the front doors opened, and an older woman in a butler’s uniform stepped out to the porte-cochère, she had a feeling they might not get to talk to Arbuckle. Not that she wanted to have a long, in-depth conversation with him. What would she even ask? Did you kill my grandmother?

No, she would pretend she was there to do just what she’d told Franklin, warn Arbuckle that he might be a target. If he didn’t invite her in, she would say she wanted to discuss his offer. That ought to force a longer conversation and maybe give her an opportunity to snoop.

As long as the butler cooperated by inviting them in so they could speak with Arbuckle. She had to find out if he’d been responsible for the cursed tusk clip. One way or another. Too bad she hadn’t stumbled across an invisibility spell in the grimoires.

Franklin parked before reaching the porte-cochère. “Stay here.”

Stay there? Morgen was the one who’d wanted to come here. And she needed to go with him and somehow finagle an invitation to get them invited inside.

“Uhm.”

“Stay here,” Franklin repeated firmly.

“Sure. I’ll just look for interesting loaves in my recipe books.”

He shot her a dirty look, then hopped out.

Morgen waited to see if the butler would invite him in. If they both disappeared into the mansion, maybe she could slip out and admire the copious shrubbery, flower beds, and tidily pruned trees in the front and side yards. And find a back door that the butler had left ajar after taking out the trash.

“Yeah, right.” More likely, she would set off the security alarm.

The butler listened to Franklin without inviting him in. She waved toward the front gate, either to indicate the deputy should go or that Arbuckle wasn’t home.

Morgen willed Franklin to try harder to get them invited inside, but he’d already turned back toward the SUV, as if they were wrapping up the conversation.

The butler propped her hands on her hips, watching to make sure he left. A gray braid of hair hung over one of her shoulders, and Morgen sucked in a breath. She recognized that braid—and the black ponytail holder with something like a fabric spider decorating it. The butler was the cloaked woman who’d spied on her from across the street of the Wild Trout.

Abruptly certain that she needed to search the premises, Morgen tucked her books under her arm, grabbed the staff, and wrapped her fingers around the door handle. Thanks to the bushes near the driveway, and the fact that Franklin had parked so that the passenger door faced away from the mansion, she might be able to slip out without being seen.

But what then? With all that security, she was certain to be spotted on a camera somewhere.

The butler turned for the front door as Franklin neared the SUV. Morgen didn’t have time to come up with a better plan.

She opened the door, ducked low, and eased out, not closing it for fear of making noise. The antlers on the staff clacked on the pavement. She winced and darted between two bushes, imagining Franklin chasing her down and tackling her. There was no way he would miss seeing her—not seeing her.

Still, she hoped vainly that he would believe she had a plan and that he should leave her behind to snoop. As she ran from tree to rose bush to flowerbed, staying low and trying to avoid the cameras and the windows with lights on, she angled around to the side of the mansion.

Up ahead, she spotted a door. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t open. Neither were any of the windows. She tried to remember if any of the incantations in the grimoires had been for opening locks and thwarting security systems.

As she hurried toward the back of the house, a hand reached out of a bush and grabbed her.

It locked around her biceps like a vise and tugged her into the shrubs. She almost screamed before remembering that shewas a trespasser and dared not make any noise. There was no help for her.