The Bakery Murder

Sweetland Witch Series

Zoe Arden

ReedFoster Press House

A Cozy Mystery Book

Contents

Copyright

Like my page

For You Personally

Dedication

About The Author

Personal Word from Zoe

Prologue

.

Chapter One

.

Chapter Two

.

Chapter Three

.

Chapter Four

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Chapter Five

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Chapter Six

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Chapter Seven

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Chapter Eight

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Chapter Nine

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Chapter Ten

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Chapter Eleven

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Chapter Twelve

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Chapter Thirteen

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Chapter Fourteen

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Chapter Fifteen

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Chapter Sixteen

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Chapter Seventeen

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Chapter Eighteen

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Chapter Nineteen

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Chapter Twenty

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Chapter Twenty-one

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Chapter Twenty-two

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Chapter Twenty-three

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Chapter Twenty-four

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Chapter Twenty-five

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Chapter Twenty-six

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Chapter Twenty-seven

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Chapter Twenty-eight

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Chapter Twenty-nine

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Chapter Thirty

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Chapter Thirty-one

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Chapter Thirty-two

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Chapter Thirty-three

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Chapter Thirty-four

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Chapter Thirty-five

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Chapter Thirty-six

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Chapter Thirty-seven

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Chapter Thirty-eigth

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Chapter Thirty-nine

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Chapter Forty

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Epilogue

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Preview of Next Book

Also By . ORDER OF BOOKS

For You Personally

Copyright

Copyright © 2018 by

Zoe Arden

and

ReedFoster press House

All Rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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DEDICATION

This book is specially dedicated to YOU- the reader!

First of all, I would like to thank you for picking my book and reading it.

Your interest to do so spurs me on to write even better stories, stories that will be capable in bringing us to a world of fun, mystery and suspense, albeit just for a little while.

Your support has always meant a lot to me and I hope you will continue to enjoy reading what I have written.

Thank you!

“ The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible. ”

Oscar Wilde

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

It was from reading Agatha Christie’s mystery books that inspired Zoe to write cozy mystery novels. Zoe liked the fact that cozy mysteries are able to offer readers a form of escapism that typical detective stories can’t.

Like what Marilyn Stasio, who has been the Crime columnist forThe New York TimesBook Review since the late 1980s, recently wrote: “The abiding appeal of the cozy mystery owes a lot to our collective memory, true or false, of simpler, sweeter times.” It is Zoe’s desire that her writings will evoke that nostalgic memory in all of us; those memories of the good old days.

What sets Zoe apart in her writings is her fusing of Mystery with Paranormal elements, a combination which will bring about fantasies that are intriguing and engaging. Her stories contain unexpected twists and sometimes light-hearted moments that will make one smile at Zoe’s quirkiness, fun and wittiness in her writings.

Much Love,

PERSONAL WORD

FROM ZOE ARDEN

Hello, lovely reader!

In my stories, you will find a unique juxtaposition of mystery and paranormal themes, an attempt which I believe will be enthralling.

You will discover how a mystery case is being cracked through peeling off layers and layers of suspense and clues.

And fantastical creatures play a part in this…how can it be?

That’s for you to find out.

Thank you once again, for being such an incredible support in my writing career.

Much Love,

Prologue

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Lonnie Goodrich sat on a hospital bed in an empty room, a thin sheet of paper shaking in her hand. Noises surrounded her on all sides—the sound of doctors and nurses being paged, of patients’ buzzers going off as they called for a nurse, of monitors beeping. She loved it all. To her, they were the sounds of old friends who'd stopped in for a visit, a lullaby that helped her to feel at rest.

She had been head nurse at Sweetland Hospital since her late twenties and had cherished every minute of it. She'd saved patients, lost patients, and always she had kept her head held high in the knowledge that she did the best she could for those who came to her.

Now, just over twenty years after her first day on the job, she realized she was lost. She did not know what she was going to do when she walked out of this room; heck, when she walked out of this hospital. Her life could never be the same again.

She drew in a deep breath and pushed a lock of blond hair behind her ear. When she'd started this job, that hair color had been natural. Now it either came out of a bottle or she had to use magic to cover the gray. Sometimes, the bottle was easier for her. That was the other thing. Her powers weren't quite as strong as they used to be, though she'd never admit that to anyone. She could barely admit it to herself.

Magic sometimes dulled with age, she knew that, but she hadn't thought it would happen to her. That was the sort of thing that happened to old ladies, to witches’ grandmothers and great-aunts. Loni was still under fifty—barely—but still possessed all the youthful qualities that had made her so attractive to boys in her younger days. Good looks, a trim figure, a lighthearted personality that could make people laugh.

All she had to do was use a wand with her spells to get the same results she was used to getting, but in an emergency situation, she might not have time for that, and if word got around to the other nurses, what would they say? They already talked behind her back as it was. She didn't need them mocking her, too.

Despite being well-liked, Loni was a supervisor. With that came a certain amount of responsibility, including disciplining those nurses who needed it. Oh, it wasn't like she sent them to their rooms without dessert, but she had gone so far as to adjust their schedules—to dole out nightshifts to the nurses who thought they were better than everyone else or send certain ones home early without pay. Things like that had earned her a reputation as being hard, which was so far from the truth it made Loni want to laugh.

She rose off the bed and made the slow trek down to Dr. Dunne's office, clinging protectively to her oversized clipboard as if it were a shield. Not many women found Dr. Dunne attractive. Personality wise, everyone agreed he was a darling, but that was just his personality. He had a fatherly look that a lot of women found "cute" or "handsome" but not particularly sexy. Loni had always had a thing for cute older men though. And he'd always been kind to her... mostly.

She exhaled the breath she'd been holding, then knocked on his door. It came out as a tap instead of a knock, drowned out by the heavy footsteps of Hubert Moss, the head of security, as he passed by her in the hall. He glanced at her and smiled but said nothing. She was glad of it. She didn't feel much like talking just now, and she found Hubert intimidating. He was large and burly—the kind of man born for security. He hadn't been at Sweetland Hospital long, but he'd made a big impression on everyone he came across.

She knocked again, louder this time.

"Come in," Dr. Dunne said.

Loni entered his office and shut the door behind her. He was seated in a large black leather chair behind his crowded oak desk. A computer monitor sat on one end, mounds of papers everywhere else.

"Hello, Ms. Goodrich," he said. "Have a seat."

Ms. Goodrich? She almost laughed. When had he decided to be so formal?

"Thanks, but I think I'll stand."

"As you like."

He leaned back in his chair, adjusting the round glasses that sat atop his nose. His belly was larger than average but not so big as to make him unattractive, in her opinion, though the kids sometimes referred to him as Santa Claus. Last winter, he'd actually dressed up and given out gifts to the kids. For a human, Dr. Dunne was pretty swell. When he wasn't being obnoxious, of course.

"What can I do for you?" he asked, as if he didn't know.

She forced a smile, but it was tight and thin. No matter how she tried, her lips refused to show her teeth. If they'd somehow managed, she probably would have looked more like a ravenous dog than a respectable head nurse.

"I've got something for you," she said and crossed the room, handing him the envelope which contained her resignation letter. He ran a hand over his balding head and pursed his lips as he scanned her letter. She had typed it up late last night, after a couple of glasses of wine and a bout of insomnia.

Only after the letter had been printed and signed had she been able to fall asleep.

He pushed his glasses back up his nose and looked at her. "You're serious about this?"

She nodded. "I am."

"Are you sure you're making the right decision? There's nothing you want to tell me?"

She shook her head.

He stared at her letter for a long moment before setting it down on his desk and interlacing his fingers. "I've been thinking..."

Uh oh. It was never a good sign when someone said that to her. It inevitably led to one of two things—they either had a crazy idea they wanted her to agree with, or they had half an idea and wanted her to complete it for them. No matter how it turned out, it was going to irritate her.

"Before you say anything," she said, cutting him off. "I want you to know that my mind is set on this."

"What if it's a mistake?" he asked. "Are you sure you're doing the right thing? You've spent your whole life at this hospital."

"I know that. I also know what's best for me, and this is it."

"What should I tell the other nurses? I can't tell them the truth."

She shrugged. "Tell them whatever you like."

He scoffed. "They're going to ask questions. Going to want to know why you left so suddenly."

"I don't care what you say, not anymore."

They glared at each other from across the room, his nostrils flaring, hers contracting.

"Do you have any recommendations as to who should take your place?" he asked.

"Sadie Belle," she said, glad that he'd asked her. Her opinion still meant something to him, after all.

He raised his eyebrows. "She's a good nurse. She hasn't been here as long as you—"

"No one's been here as long as me," Loni interrupted him and the tension between them dropped slightly. "Consider it my last request."

"Why Sadie?"

Loni shrugged. "She's got what it takes. Besides... you owe me." That was all the answer that was required of her.

Dr. Dunne stared at her another moment. "Consider it done."

"Thank you."

Loni left his office and realized she'd had her hands balled into fists the whole time she was there. So much for appearing unconcerned. If he'd noticed, though, he'd not said anything.

She looked around and saw Sadie at the opposite end of the hall talking to Hubert. They were too engrossed with whatever they were saying to notice her. She slipped into an empty room and dug her cell phone from her pocket.

She dialed the number she wanted, and a voice answered. "What happened?"

"It's done," she said.

"And your sure that Sadie will be head nurse when you're gone?"

"He guaranteed it."

"Good. You did good."

"Will you keep your promise to me?"

"I always keep my promises. You'll be out of Sweetland and off Heavenly Haven inside of two weeks."

"Two weeks?" That sounded like forever.

"It takes a little time to set these things up. I'll see if I can speed up the process. Maybe only one week."

"Do what you can," she said. "I didn't just give up my dream job for nothing." She hung up and took several deep breaths before leaving the room and getting back to work. For now, at least, she was still head nurse. She might as well make take some pleasure in it and get to work.

CHAPTER

ONE

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My phone was ringing. I jumped at the sound and let out a squeal. It had just hit seven o' clock and the sky was dark but summer dark. Lights still lingered in the background, flickering on and off, back and forth, as if the sky were a movie screen and the clouds passing across it were spotlights.

I grabbed my phone out of my bag, quickly looking around. The streets were clear. "Hello?" I whispered.

"Ava? It's Colt. Where are you?"

"I'm almost there."

"Almost here?"

I heard my Aunt Trixie squeal in the background as Colt repeated I was saying. "She's not here yet?"

Aunt Eleanor shushed her.

"You should've been here a half hour ago," Colt said.

"Don't scold me. I got here as fast as I could. I was really busy."

"You fell asleep, didn't you?"

Darn it. Colt knew me too well. I sometimes wished my fiancé didn't work for a government agency. If he'd been a garbage collector or a sales clerk instead of an agent for the Council on Magic and Human Affairs, I might have been able to sneak more past him.

"I didn't fall asleep," I said. "Exactly."

I had been working on a new formula for my insomniac-buster cookies and had crossed some wires somewhere. Apparently, adding too much nuggerwart to Fluffernutter root made for a combustible concoction of gases that put you out like a light, which was great, except that it did it wherever you happened to be standing at the time.

I happened to be in the kitchen of the house I shared with Trixie and my dad. The gas hit my nose and went up my nostrils, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up with my face in Snowball's food dish. I still smelled like tuna.

"Is Mama okay?" Snowball had asked, her furry white face just inches from mine as she licked flakes of tuna off my nose. Her tail curled, and she purred softly as she got every last chunk.

"I'm fine," I'd told her as she continued to lick me. "I'm glad to know that you're more concerned with me than you are with your tuna," I said sarcastically. She blinked lovingly back at me, and I couldn't stay mad at her. That was both the beauty and the curse of having a familiar—you could never stay mad at them when they irritated you.

I'd sat up, rubbed my head, and barely had time to wash the slimy trail of fish off my skin before heading down to the bakery. And I was still late.

"Well, get in here fast," Colt said. "Just make sure you're not seen. They must almost be here."

I put the phone back in my pocket and crossed several blocks at a sprint. Maybe one of these days I really would take up running and get into some sort of shape. That day wasn't today, though. I made it to the bakery, out of breath and panting, my eyes darting around the store.

There they are!

Crud. I was too late. Sadie and my dad were coming down the street. If I moved too quickly, they would see me. I'd just have to wait outside and miss the fun.

I looked around, biting my lower lip, wishing I'd learned to master that invisibility spell Lucy had tried to teach me. Even she couldn't execute that spell, though. Only one in ten thousand witches could. My heart thumped as I reached into my purse, pulling out a black knitted cap and placing it on my head, making sure to cover my hair.

My hair was so bright blond that if Sadie spotted it, she'd know at once it was me. Only Eleanor and Trixie shared a similar hair color. My dad's was a medium brown. The blond ran on my mom's side of the family. If she were still alive, I'd have looked just like her.

Sadie giggled from a block away, pausing on the sidewalk as my dad picked her up and swung her around like they were teenagers in love instead of middle-aged adults. I made a split decision—I still had time.

I watched them from the corner of my eye as I scurried across the street, keeping my head down and my body bent at the waist, like people did in a movie theatre when they moved quickly toward the end of a long row during the best part of the film so that they could get out and use the bathroom.

Maybe I was being a little too cautious. It was only seven, and Sweetland Cove didn't exactly die at seven. Tourists were still milling around here and there. If they weren't downtown, then they were down at Sweetland Beach. This was an island, after all; everywhere you went was beach. It was one of the things that drew tourists in.

If Sadie saw me with my hair covered up like it was, she might just think I was another tourist. Still... better not to take chances.

I got to the Mystic Cupcake sign that glowed out front of our bakery just as my dad set Sadie back on her feet. I quickly made my way to the back entrance in the alley and tripped over a pile of wood at the base of the stairs. I grunted and picked myself up, kicking at one of the pieces as though it had tripped me on purpose.

"Haven't the garbage men taken you away yet?" I hissed at it. It was a good thing we almost never came out here.

Eleanor and my dad had set the pile out back almost a month ago after they'd finished rebuilding a pantry that had caved in on itself when one of the strength extracts I'd been testing went awry. I brushed myself off and hurried to the door, afraid a delay of another second would be one second too many.

The door was locked. I knocked lightly on it, then louder when no one answered. Almost the entire town was inside our shop; someone had to hear me.

Finally, I heard a click and the door opened. Colt stood smiling at me, blocking the path inside.

"Look who finally decided to show up," he said.

If he hadn't looked so good, I'd have hexed him right there. His brown hair was cut close to his head, but it had been growing out a little lately so that he had a slightly messy look to it, as if he'd just stepped out of the shower and towel dried his hair. His gray eyes were hidden in the dim lights of the room, but bright enough that I could see him looking at me with a playful glint that made my heart race.

He was impeccably dressed in a gray sport coat and dark jeans that fit him well. Just beneath the fabric of his clothes, I could make out the faint lines of muscle. Women easily cast their eyes in his direction whenever he walked past, and it was not uncommon for him to be asked whether he was a model.

If he looked this good now, in his mid-twenties, I couldn't wait to find out how he'd look once he hit thirty. Men only got better looking as they aged. Women, on the other hand... well, with a little help from a few choice spells and a new line of magical cosmetics called Forever Young that was supposed to be launching in the fall and would forever change the way witches took care of their skin—or so they claimed—I supposed it wasn't as hard to keep up with appearances as it used to be. Of course, Eleanor would probably have told me to say that again when I was her age instead of twenty-three.

I rolled my eyes and pushed past Colt into the bakery. "Hurry up, they're coming."

"They're here?" he asked, alert now that he knew the moment was at hand. He shut the door as I bumped elbows with Mayor Otis Winken. The room was filled with people. Eleanor had used an expansion charm so that everyone could fit, and we were still cramped.

"They're at the end of the block," I told him.

Colt quickly hit the lights. "They're here!" he shouted. "Everyone hide."

People ducked down behind the counters, under tables, in closets. A few people did quick expansion charms of their own on our cupboards and climbed inside. More than one person tried to fit in our dishwasher, but the racks kept poking them and they eventually gave up.

"Sssh!" Eleanor said. "They're at the door!"

Everyone froze. I could hear people breathing, though most of them were even trying to hide that. Natalie Vargas' children took several deep breaths and tried to hold them, their faces turning blue.

From out front, just beyond the single swing door that connected the back room where we did our baking to the main room the customers saw, we heard a door click and lights flickered on.

Sadie's voice rang out. "Hurry up. I don't want to be late or we'll miss our reservation, and I'm starving. I had no time to eat today."

"It was your first day as head nurse," my dad said. "You'll get used to it, I'm sure. Either that, or you'll starve yourself to death."

Sadie giggled. "Anyway, I have sort of a surprise for you. I was hoping to give it to you over dinner."

"A surprise for me?" my dad said. "What for?"

"Well..." she said coyly. "I'll tell you over dinner."

"Okay, I just left my coat in back."

"Why do you need your coat anyway? It's seventy-five degrees outside."

"I caught a chill I can't shake."

"Are you getting sick? You should've told me."

"I'm fine."

They were just on the other side of the door.

"Why did you guys close up early tonight anyway?" Sadie asked. "I thought you never shut down before nine."

"Oh, we do for special occasions," he said.

"What's so special about tonight?" she asked just as she came into the back room.

Everyone jumped up and a thousand different voices shouted, "Surprise!" She jumped about a foot in the air and let out a scream. The lights flicked on and revealed Sadie's astonished face. She was breathing hard, her eyes wide. A slow smile crept up her face.

"Oh my goodness," she said as she took in the banner strung across the room that read, Congrats, Sadie!

Everyone laughed, and cheers broke out.

"This is for me?" Sadie cried, turning to my father.

"Surprise," he said.

"Oh, Eli, I just..." Tears welled in her eyes as she threw her arms around him. My dad kissed her, and the party got started.

CHAPTER

TWO

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Everyone at the party insisted on going up to Sadie and personally congratulating her on her new job as head nurse. All right, so maybe it wasn't the entire town that was packed inside our little shop, but it was enough that it took me forty-five minutes to even reach her, and I was one of the owners of The Mystic Cupcake. I should've been given top priority.

My dad stood by her side, refusing to let go of her arm as if he were protecting her from an angry mob rather than friends and family. The well-wishers crowded around her as I forced my way between them, shouting their congratulations.

"Oh, Sadie, you're so lucky!"

"Congrats, girl!"

"The next party will be your wedding reception!"

Everyone was happy. Everyone was laughing. Everyone, that was, except Sadie.

"I need to talk to you," she whispered in my ear when I made it up to her.

"Is everything okay?" I asked.

She shot a glance at my dad, who was still holding her arm but was busy talking to Eleanor's husband, Sheriff Zane Knoxx.

"I've got a problem," Sadie said before she was yanked backward by a woman with bushy hair and a plump frame. Lottie Mudget began gushing at her, telling her how happy she was while simultaneously wheedling her for any sort of juicy gossip coming out of the hospital.

"Sorry," Sadie said. "The most exciting thing happening there is me taking on the head nurse position, and I'm pretty sure that's no secret."

Lottie continued talking to her, however, and I could tell it was going to be a while. Colt tapped me on the shoulder and I followed him to the front of the bakery, where tables had been laid out with happiness lava cakes, jubilant cherries jubilee, and snickerdoodles with peppy powder, among other things.

"I've been trying to get you alone for the last twenty minutes," he said.

I looked around at all the people milling about the place. Trixie had set music to play, and people were dancing; others stood by laughing and talking and eating.

"I don't think there's anywhere to go to be alone just now," I told him.

He shrugged then pulled me into his arms and kissed me. His lips were like cotton candy and honey rolled into one. When he let me up for air, I said, "I thought you wanted to get me alone to do that."

"I don't think anyone in this place even noticed, and so what if they did? I'm your fiancé, I can kiss you if I want to." And just to prove his point, he kissed me again.

A couple dancing some sort of jitterbug bumped into me, knocking me away from Colt's lips and into a man with light blond hair and bright blue eyes.

"Sorry," I said as Colt pulled me back.

"It's okay," the man said.

He was standing near the wall and looking around the place as if searching for someone. I didn't recognize him, and for a moment, I got worried he was a tourist who'd wandered in, thinking we were open.

"Are you looking for someone?" he asked.

"Sadie Belle," he said.

"Oh, the woman of the hour. She's in back," I said. "But good luck getting to her. You might have to take a number."

He thanked me and hurried to the back room.

"Who was that?" Colt asked.

I shrugged. "No idea."

"Wanna dance?"

"Sure."

He spun me out onto the dance floor just as the next song was getting started. We'd taken two steps when Sadie came running out of the back room, barreling down on me like she was a football player and I was the ball.

"Ava!" she cried, yanking me away from Colt. "I've got to talk to you."

"Whoa," said Colt playfully. "If you want to dance with her, you'll have to wait your turn."

Sadie shot him a look. "Sorry. I need to borrow your date, but I'll give her back to you when I'm through with her."

Then Sadie grabbed my shirt and pulled me so hard I nearly lost my balance. "What in the world..." I said as she continued to pull and push me through the crowd toward the exit.

"We need to get outside," she said. "I can't talk to you in here."

I managed to get the door open, and Sadie followed me out. We stood in front of the bakery's front window. From outside, it looked as if the lights were out and the place was shut down. You couldn't hear the music or the people. Whatever spell my dad had cast over the place, he'd done an excellent job of it.

"Well?" I said. "What's going on?"

Her eyes were wide. "I didn't know I was having a surprise party."

I laughed. "Well, good. We were planning it for two weeks. If you'd known about it, then it would mean someone let the cat out of the bag and I'd have to hex them for it."

I smiled to show I was joking, then double checked to make sure Snowball wasn't lurking around. She was one sneaky feline when she wanted to be and hated that expression. The last time I'd used it, she'd told me that cats did not go crawling into bags for no good reason, and if they did, they could certainly find their way out again.

"You don't understand," Sadie said, panic rising in her voice. "I thought your dad was taking me to dinner."

"So...?"

"So, I invited Finn."

My jaw dropped open. "Finn's here?"

She shushed me, looking nervously around. "I asked him to fly in, so he could meet your dad before the wedding. I know it's still two months away, but your dad's been so weird about me inviting my old boyfriend, I thought it would help if they could meet sooner rather than later. Privately. Away from any chaos."

"Boy, did you pick the wrong night."

"I know. What should I do? When we were running late to the restaurant, I texted Finn and told him where we were. I just checked my messages and when we didn't show, he said he was coming down. Should I text him back and tell him to wait at his hotel?"

"Uh oh," I said, thinking of the blond who'd asked for Sadie.

"What?" she said, her face going pale. Her red hair only made it worse. It was short and playful, just like her, but every time she got embarrassed or worried about something and her cheeks glowed pink, there was no way to hide it. It looked like she had two beets for cheeks instead of skin.

"What does Finn look like?" I asked her.

"He's tall... light blond hair... good looking, I guess." The beets rose in her cheeks. "But not as handsome as your father," she quickly added.

"I think he's already here."

Her eyes bugged out of her head. She gulped. "What? You mean you saw him?"

"I talked to him. Some guy with bright blond hair asked where you were. I'd never seen him before."

"I haven't seen him in years, not since he moved to Norway. We were high school sweethearts, that's it. Your dad has nothing to worry about. This isn't high school anymore."

"You don't have to explain anything to me," I said. "My dad, on the other hand..."

"This is a disaster. If he finds Finn before I do..."

The front door opened. Colt poked his head out. "Ava, you better get in here. Your dad's about to kill some guy."

From inside the store, my dad's voice erupted in a shout loud enough to cross whatever invisible sound barriers he'd set up. "You're who and you're looking for who?"

"Oh, my roses," said Sadie and she took off.

"We'd better go help her," I said.

"What's going on?"

"That guy who asked for Sadie before? The blond?" Colt nodded. "It's Finn."

"As in... the Finn? The one your dad's been whining about?"

"That's the one."

"Yeah. We better get in there."

There was a loud crash and what sounded like glass breaking. "Too late," I said and ran inside to stop whatever fight had just erupted.

CHAPTER

THREE

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My dad and Finn were on opposite sides of the room, glaring at each other. Sadie bounced back and forth between them, trying to calm them both down. I tried to help her by keeping my dad talking to me instead of thinking about Finn.

"Have you talked to Loni?" I asked him. "Sadie says she's leaving on some sort of extended trip." My dad grunted. "She'll be gone for three months." He grunted again. It sounded like a cross between a car horn and a dragon's roar.

"Is your hand okay?" I asked, trying for a different subject. The crashing sound Colt and I had heard had not been my dad and Finn getting into a fight, it had been my dad breaking his punch glass. A small nuisance, but nothing so bad as fists flying. A shard of glass had left a tiny cut on his hand.

"It's fine," he said. At least I got more than a grunt out of him that time.

I turned to see Colt taking Finn into the other room, and my dad seemed to relax.

"You know that Sadie loves you, right?" I asked him.

He blinked and looked at me. "Sure, I know that."

"Then why are you so jealous of an old boyfriend?"

My dad's cheeks reddened. "I'm not," he said and walked off.

I sighed and watched him a minute, making sure he wasn't going after Finn. When I saw him stop by the snack table, I turned and looked for Lucy. She was around here somewhere, and I could use the ear of my best friend to lean on for a bit.

When I spotted her, she was talking to Clifford and Olivia. They all worked at Coffee Cove together. I started toward them but paused when I saw Loni Goodrich standing in a corner alone, looking sullen.

I went over to her. "Hey, Loni."

"Hi." She was sipping on a soda can and watching the room. Her eyes darted to every other corner as if she thought there were shadow figures lurking inside them.

"Having fun?" I asked.

Her eyes turned distrustfully to me. "Fun?" she said, as if the word were foreign to her.

"Yeah... um, I heard you were going on a trip." I hoped the change in subject might stir some new emotion in her. As of now, she looked as though she were hovering between dread and boredom.

"Yes, that's right. A trip."

"Where are you going?"

"Why do you want to know?" she snapped. Her jaw tightened, and her normally pretty face turned dark.

"I just thought it sounded like fun."

"Fun," she muttered. "There's that word again. Is life supposed to be fun?"

"Um..." I looked back in Lucy's direction, wishing I hadn't stopped to talk to Loni. No wonder she was standing alone. She was the only person at the party determined not to enjoy herself.

"I should have left already, you know," Loni said.

"What?"

"For my trip. I was supposed to leave days ago, but he—I mean, they, the travel agents—messed it up."

"Oh." I was looking for an escape route now. "That's too bad." Now that I wanted to go, Loni seemed determined to talk.

"They told me a couple of weeks at the most. A couple of weeks. Now my trip doesn't start for another week. That's almost a month." I wasn't really sure what she was talking about, but whatever it was, she was clearly upset about it. Her eyebrows drew together, and her face flushed as she went on and on... and on.

I tried to get Lucy's attention, but she wasn't even looking my way. Olivia glanced over at me. She was eighteen or nineteen, just a few years younger than me and Lucy, and she seemed far more alert to her surroundings. She screwed her face up and tilted her head to the side, then mouthed the word, "What?"

Loni was just talking now. It wasn't all making sense, but that didn't stop her. I'd opened a floodgate. She was barely paying attention to me. I wondered if it was possible I might just slip away from her unnoticed. I signaled to Olivia, who finally interrupted whatever Lucy was saying and pointed to me.

I gave her a look, and Lucy instantly got it. Help! She hurried over to me and locked her arm in mine, her dark hair bouncing behind her in a long ponytail. Several young men turned their eyes in her direction as she made her way over to me. Her ruby lips were hard for most women to compete with. She was always dating some guy or another but lately had been stuck on one man in particular—Ford Shelby. He couldn't make it to the party tonight, however, so she was on her own.

"There you are," Lucy cried, coming up to me as if she'd been searching for me for hours. "Thank the witches. You know, I was starting to think you'd ditched me." She turned her head to Loni. "Hi, Loni. Mind if I steal Ava away from you?"

Loni shrugged, and Lucy pulled me away before Loni could change her mind.

"What was that about?" Lucy said in a loud whisper once we were safely several feet away from her.

"No idea," I told her. "She looked kinda down, so I went over to say hi, and she started rambling about her vacation and some travel agent who made her mad and this and that and whatever."

Lucy laughed. "I should have warned you. She was in Coffee Cove earlier today and in the same foul mood. I guess whoever messed up her travel plans really got her going."

"I guess."

We rejoined Olivia and Clifford, who were holding hands and trying not to drool all over each other. "Anyway, forget about it and give us the scoop on the guy Sadie's talking to."

"Finn? He's her ex-boyfriend."

Lucy's eyes widened. "And your dad invited him to the party?"

"No."

"You invited him to the party?" Olivia screeched.

"No," I snapped. How dim did they think I was? "Sadie invited him."

Olivia gasped. "You're kidding. Is she trying to make him jealous?"

"It's not like that. They're high school sweethearts who stayed friends. It's been over twenty years since they were together. My dad's got nothing to be jealous of. Sadie was hoping if they met, he'd see that."

"Speak for yourself," said Cliff. "If Olivia's old boyfriend suddenly showed up—" He ran one finger across his throat in a slicing motion.

Olivia blushed. "Oh, please. You couldn't hurt a fly."

"Maybe not, but it looks like your dad doesn't share my temperament," Cliff said and pointed behind me and Lucy. I turned and saw my dad stomping toward Sadie and Finn, who was smiling and laughing with her.

Sadie's face went white. "Eli," she said, stepping between Finn and my dad.

I ran to help her. "Dad," I cried, grabbing him from behind.

"What's your problem?" Finn asked, setting his drink down and throwing his arms out like he was getting ready for a fight.

Oh, jeez.

I turned and grabbed Finn, since he was closer to me, leaving Sadie for my father. "So, tell me something about yourself."

"Who are you?" he snapped.

"I'm Sadie's soon-to-be stepdaughter. She tells me you're from Norway. What do you do there?"

I was throwing out anything I thought might distract him.

He glanced at me. "I own a pharmaceutical research company."

"Really?" I asked. "That sounds so interesting." It sounded boring as toast, but I wasn't about to let him and my dad get into an argument at Sadie's party, or anywhere else if I could help it.

"It is, actually," said Finn, and he started going on about all the products his company was responsible for. The different medications, both magical and non-magical, liquid and pill. I listened and nodded as he discussed pills versus tablets and which was better, which chemicals were necessary to combat certain diseases, and so much more than I ever wanted to know about medicine that my head began to hurt.

"Did you know that there are a lot of beauty products that started out as pharmaceutical drugs? Hair growth treatments for men, for instance, started as blood pressure medication."

I glanced over at Sadie and saw she was having far worse luck than I was. My dad's face was red, and they were arguing.

"He's just a friend!" she shouted.

"Men and women can't be just friends!"

"That's ridiculous!"

He finally stormed past her, glaring at Finn. I thought he was headed for the door, but he headed for us instead.

I jumped in front of Finn. "Dad, stop it. You're being irrational. Go home."

He pointed his finger at Finn, who was standing behind me and not at all scared. "Go back to Norway."

"Or what?" asked Finn.

"Or else," my dad said and this time, he did walk to the door and slammed it shut behind him.

CHAPTER

FOUR

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The party was dead. People had stopped dancing even though the music was still going. Food sat on the tables, half of it uneaten. A cake my aunts and I had prepared for Sadie stood in the fridge. We hadn't even brought it out yet. It was a sad reminder of the life that had been happening inside these walls not more than an hour ago.

What on Earth had gotten into my dad anyway?

"Well, that couldn't have gone any worse, could it?" Sadie asked, coming up beside me. Her eyes were watery.

"Hey, it's not so bad," I said, lying through my teeth.

She cocked her head and looked at me with crossed eyes. "You don't really expect me to believe that, do you?"

I shrugged. "Thought I'd take a shot."

She attempted a smile. "I appreciate it. I really do, but I think the party's over."

It was hard to argue with her. Even Colt had taken off. He'd gotten a call from his boss, Dean Lampton, made a few apologies to me, then rushed off into the night. Without him, the fun had definitely dwindled.

I looked around at the mixture of confused yet animated people talking in rushed whispers. The gossip was already starting to spread. By tomorrow, the people who weren't here would know everything that had happened and then some.

Natalie Vargas was talking loudly to Lottie Mudget, both on sugar highs they would not come down from for hours yet. I wondered if we should have put out something other than just baked goods. Maybe a pizza or some burgers. Something to help curb the sweets people had been munching on since their arrival.

"I can't believe Eli punched him," said Natalie. "I've never seen him so mad."

"I know," said Lottie. "It's not like him at all."

"Excuse me," I said, my tone harsh. "My dad didn't punch anyone. He was smart enough to leave before it got to that point."

"It was a verbal punch," said Natalie.

"I don't think that's a thing," I told her.

"Sure, it is," said Lottie. "Eli threatened Sadie's boyfriend. That's a verbal punch if ever I heard one."

I shook my head. "Finn is not Sadie's boyfriend.

"Tell that to your dad," Lottie said.

I groaned and walked away. People were drifting out of the bakery now. They trickled out slowly like a brook, but once it started, it picked up speed. Fifteen minutes later, a river of guests rushed out the door in a messy line and then the place was deserted. Even Lucy took off, though she'd asked if I minded before going at least. She said she had left a pot of her latest coffee concoction brewing and wanted to check on it before it got too late. I'd told her it was fine.

"Where's your broom?" Sadie asked Eleanor.

"You don't think you're going to clean up your own party, do you?" asked Eleanor.

"I might as well," Sadie said.

"Come on," said Finn, who'd been sitting in a corner. "I'll walk you home. Maybe you can explain Eli's good points to me since I seemed to have missed them all."

She smiled wearily at him. "He's normally not so..."

"Crazy?" Finn volunteered, and I couldn't disagree with him.

"Go on," said Trixie. "Go home and rest. I'll talk to Eli later when I get home and make sure he realizes what a complete buffoon he was tonight. Tomorrow he'll be begging your forgiveness."

"I think Trixie's right," I told her. "He must've had too much sugar or something. Tomorrow he'll be a different man."

Finn scoffed. "He'd have to be for her to marry him." He shot Sadie a look. "No way can you marry a guy with a temper like that," he said, and I bristled. "What if he got so mad one day he hexed you and couldn't undo it? You might end up with four arms or six eyes or something."

"My dad would never do something like that to Sadie," I said. "He loves her."

"Well, he has a funny way of showing it," Finn retorted. "Come on, Sadie. Let's go."

Sadie's hands shook as she grabbed her purse and headed out with him.

When she was gone, Eleanor turned to me and Trixie. "So? What are we gonna do about this?"

"Do?" asked Trixie. "What can we do?"

"This is why I'm the older sister," said Eleanor, smoothing down her gypsy-style skirt and wiping some dried frosting off the fabric and onto the floor. "You saw how Sadie looked just now. Eli ruined tonight for her. Who knows what she's thinking."

Trixie gasped. "You don't think... you don't think she's thinking about calling off the wedding?"

Now I gasped, too. "No, she wouldn't do that. Would she?"

Trixie, Eleanor, and I all looked at each other. "Let's think and clean," said Eleanor, who cut her hand through the air like a karate chop and got to work. The leftover cookies and cakes started gathering themselves together onto the plates. Eleanor picked one up and carried it to the back.

"What if we have another party?" Trixie said. "Only, you know, a better one?"

"That'll never work," shouted Eleanor from the other room. "We need to show Sadie that Eli can get along with Finn."

I snorted. "Good luck with that. You saw how he reacted to his being here."

Eleanor returned from the other room. Trixie and I went back there, setting cupcake trays and cake trays near the dishwasher. It would be running all night. Maybe Eleanor could set it so that the dishes would load and unload themselves. I wasn't sure there was a spell for that, but it couldn't hurt to ask.

"We just have to find something my dad and Finn have in common," I said.

"Like what?" asked Trixie.

I shrugged. "I don't know."

"That's not a bad idea," Eleanor said, joining us again. "We know what your dad likes. What does Finn like?"

"I don't know. Pills." They both looked at me. "He owns a pharmaceutical research company. He kept talking about men's hair growth treatments and high blood pressure."

"Hmm," Eleanor said. "That's not very interesting, is it?"

"No," I agreed. "And definitely not something my dad would be into."

"Well, we'll just have to keep thinking. Let's finish this up and get home. Zane's probably already asleep in bed."

It was only nine by the time we finished. The party had broken up an hour or so ago. It was dark outside, but not particularly late. Eleanor said goodnight and hurried in the opposite direction. Trixie and I walked slowly along together, enjoying the night air and talking.

"I could use a Brass Monkey right about now," Trixie said, yawning. That was her favorite caffeinated drink, sold exclusively by Coffee Cove.

"I'll pick one up for you on the way to work tomorrow," I told her.

"Thanks."

There was a noise from across the street, like someone knocking over a garbage can. Trixie and I looked in its direction and saw a hooded figure who'd done just that. He or she—it was impossible to tell at this distance, in the dark—righted only one of the two garbage cans they'd knocked down, looked around, then took off when they spotted us. Half the trash still lay in the street. Trixie snapped her fingers and did a quick clean-up spell. The trash went back to its proper place.

"Looks like our friend there could use a Brass Monkey or two as well," Trixie said.

We walked on in silence for a minute. I broke it with the question most weighing on my mind. "You don't really think Sadie will break it off with my dad, do you?"

She was the first woman he'd cared about since my mother died twenty years ago.

Trixie screwed her face up. "I don't think so. She's mad, though. And hurt. I know that much."

"Yeah. What got into him tonight anyway?"

"I don't know. He's a man. Men get weird when they get jealous."

"I know, but it's just not like him. I wonder if—"

I stopped walking.

"Wonder if...?" said.

My heart thumped once in my chest and felt like it was about to break through. "Trixie... what's that?"

She followed my gaze, and her eyes found the spot where I was looking. In the grass, poking out from behind two large bushes, was what looked like a leg.

"I... don't... know..." Trixie said and started slowly toward it. I followed her.

"Hello?" I asked. "Is someone there?"

"It's a man," Trixie said, gasping.

We ran instead of walked now and came upon the bushes fast. Too fast. It didn't give us any time to prepare.

"Oh, my roses," I said. My heart wasn't just thumping now, it was racing.

"Ava," said Trixie, kneeling quickly beside the man. "Call the sheriff’s station. Tell whoever answers we need an ambulance."

"Are they okay?" I asked, pulling my phone from my pocket and dialing the number.

Trixie didn't answer. She gently slapped Sadie's face. "Sadie? Sadie!" she shouted. Sadie did not stir. Something that looked like blood was smeared across her forehead.

Trixie turned to Finn next, calling his name. He looked even worse than Sadie did.

"Erwin?" I said when Sherriff Knoxx's head deputy answered. "It's Ava Fortune. We need an ambulance. Sadie Belle and her friend have been hurt."

After I hung up, I turned to Trixie. "The ambulance is on its way. Elwin's calling Sheriff Knoxx, which means Eleanor will know, too. Are they okay? What happened? Were they robbed?"

Trixie's eyes were wide and frightened when she looked at me. "Finn's dead. And Sadie's not far off. If that ambulance doesn't get here soon..."

Her voice trailed off. In the distance, a siren blared.

CHAPTER

FIVE

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Sheriff Knoxx showed up with Eleanor not more than five minutes after the ambulance arrived. One of his deputies had shown up almost immediately after I'd hung up with Elwin. It turned out that he'd already been en route. A neighbor had heard a woman screaming for help and called it in; the deputy had been on his way to check it out when our call about the bodies came through.

Elwin had been able to reach Sheriff Knoxx easily, since he was home in bed sleeping. He grunted at everyone, his eyes irritable but alert, and walked directly up to me and Trixie.

"What happened?" he said.

Trixie and I looked at each other and shrugged.

"We don't know," Trixie said. "We found them after their attacker was already gone."

"And you didn't see anything?" He was tall and wide and very good at putting a glint in his eye that could rival Clint Eastwood.

"No," I said. "We didn't see anything. Now can we go? I want to get to the hospital." They had just left with Sadie on a stretcher. I'd tried calling my dad once but hadn't gotten an answer, and this wasn't the sort of news you delivered in a voicemail or text message.

"Zane," Eleanor said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

She must've had curlers in her hair when they'd gotten the call from Elwin and pulled them out as fast as she could before coming down here. Her hair was a frizzy mess, big loopy half-curls bouncing all around her head like someone had taken a curling iron the size of a baseball bat, run her hair around it, then set a wind machine on full speed ahead and had her stand in front of it for five minutes straight.

Sheriff Knoxx looked at her, and his face softened. It was almost like magic, though I knew no magic was needed to set their love in motion. He'd been smitten with her from the start of their relationship.

"Okay," he said to us. "Just a few more questions and you can go."

Trixie and I let out sighs of relief. "Go on then," I said, hoping he'd make it quick.

"You say you didn't see anything, but in my experience, people always see more than they realize; they just don't always know it. Go back over what happened with me."

Eleanor was attempting to fix her hair. Trixie was tapping her foot. I was looking anxiously in the direction of Sweetland Hospital. I pulled my phone from my pocket and checked to see whether my dad had tried calling. He hadn't. I put it back in my pocket and started from the top.

"Trixie and I were walking down the street when I spotted a leg sticking out from behind the bush. At first, I thought... I don't know, I thought maybe someone had just fallen, or maybe it was a drunken tourist. You know we get them from time to time."

Sheriff Knoxx nodded, writing everything down. I suddenly wondered where Colt was. I knew he'd gone to run errands for Dean or be a secret agent man or whatever he did when he wasn't with me, but I thought that he'd have come back when he heard about what had happened.

"Did anyone call Colt?" I asked.

Sheriff Knoxx blinked. "I don't know. I assumed Elwin did." He picked up his radio, pushed a button, and Elwin Muster's voice came crackling through.

"Go ahead, Sheriff. Over," said Elwin from his end.

"Did you call Colt Hudson and tell him what happened here tonight? Over."

"No, Sheriff. Should I? Over."

Sheriff Knoxx rolled his eyes. "Yes. Over."

He stuck his radio back on his belt and puffed his chest out, a nervous habit he got from his father's side of the family. The sheriff was part goblin, and they were known for puffing out their chests to make themselves look bigger than they were whenever they were embarrassed or in trouble.

"All right," said the sheriff to me and Trixie. "Let's get this wrapped up. You were walking. You saw Finn's leg from behind the bush. Did you see anyone else? Did you hear anything?"

"No," I said then grabbed Trixie's arm. "Wait a minute!" I shouted and looked at her. "The garbage man!"

Trixie's eyes widened. "I can't believe we forgot all about him!"

The sheriff looked from one of us to the other. "Garbage man?" he asked, drawing his brows together. "What was the garbage man doing out at this time of night? Don't they usually collect in the morning?"

I shook my head. "No, he wasn't a real garbage man, that's just what I was calling him. He ran into the trash cans across the street just before we stumbled on the body. I think he was coming from their direction."

Now the sheriff was interested. He scribbled furiously in his notepad. "What did this garbage man look like?"

"He was wearing a black hoodie," said Trixie.

Sheriff Knoxx blinked at her. "And?"

"And...?" Trixie said, biting her bottom lip.

Sheriff Knoxx groaned. "Was he tall? Short? Thin? Fat? Old? Young? Anything?"

"Oh." Her face flushed. "It was dark. I didn't really see him."

"I'm not even sure it was a man," I said. "It could've been a woman."

Sheriff Knoxx looked around. "Which cans?"

"In front of the gray house," I said and pointed. He sent one of his deputies to go and rope the spot off.

"I want to take those cans in," he yelled to his deputy as he got together some yellow police tape. "Maybe we can get a print."

"What about a murder weapon?" Eleanor asked as if being married to a sheriff made her co-sheriff. In a way, I supposed it did.

"We didn't see anything lying around the bodies," I told her. "Whoever did it must've taken it with them."

"How do you think they were attacked?" Eleanor asked.

I shrugged. "Looked to me like they got hit over the head with something. A baseball bat, maybe?"

Eleanor made a face.

"This is all conjecture for now," said the sheriff.

"We're just thinking out loud," Trixie told him.

"What's wrong with a little conjecture, anyway?" I asked.

"All right, go on. Get to the hospital. If you think of anything else, call me."

Trixie and I grabbed Eleanor and the three of us started away before he could change his mind.

He called after me. "Ava!"

I turned back to him.

"Has anyone spoken to your father?"

"Not yet," I said. "I tried calling but he didn't answer."

Sheriff Knoxx's face looked far too serious for my taste.

"Why?" I asked.

"Just wondering," he said and was saved from any more of my questions by the deputy who'd been roping off the trash cans with the police tape. He started shouting and waving his hands in the air.

"Sheriff Knoxx! Sheriff Knoxx! I think I've got something."

Sheriff Knoxx hurried to the trash cans. We followed. The deputy bent down and started digging through the trash. He held up a large two-by-four stained red on one corner. He was grinning.

"Don't touch it!" the sheriff snapped, and the deputy dropped it at once, his grin fading.

Sheriff Knoxx bent over the ground where it lay. "Is that..." I said, and he nodded.

"Yep. It's the murder weapon."

CHAPTER

SIX

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Sweetland Hospital was always surprisingly crowded for such a small town. I supposed that in a town made up mostly of magic, on an island made up entirely of magic, it made sense that there would be a neverending supply of injuries.

There was always one witch or another trying to come up with the latest, greatest potion. Or a warlock developing new brooms and other methods of travel. One time, just last year, there'd been a wizard who'd come up with the brilliant idea of traveling by skateboard. He figured that human teenagers could do it, so why not witches and wizards?

He crafted an entire line of skateboards that could not only fly through the air but float over water and drive as fast as a racecar. The line had sold out in a matter of minutes when it went on sale, and it had only been when the accidents started that people began to realize there was anything wrong.

The skateboards flew wonderfully, but they also had a tendency to jerk around, flipping witches and wizards off the boards and onto their backs. With nothing to hold onto, several of them crashed to the ground from hundreds of feet up in the air.

There was a plethora of broken legs, arms, collarbones, and those were the lucky ones. Since then, most witches and wizards had stuck with good old-fashioned brooms, and even then, they weren't quite as trustful as they used to be.

A human man in his thirties was wheeled past me moaning and groaning. His face was purple with yellow polka dots and his tongue was three feet long. Humans weren't supposed to know about the magic that took place on Heavenly Haven, but that didn't stop them from finding out. The few humans who lived on the island all knew, and the ones who came to visit sometimes left with their eyes open a little wider than when they'd arrived. Most of the tourists, however, were blissfully ignorant.

Dr. Dunne spotted me, Eleanor, and Trixie standing off to the side of the nurses' station. He walked over to us. "Sadie's in surgery," he said before we'd even asked any questions.

"Is she okay?" I asked.

"We don't know yet."

I groaned almost as loud as the man who'd wheeled past me with the three-foot tongue. "Just give it to us straight."

"In terms we can understand," added Eleanor.

Dr. Dunne licked his lips and nodded. "Her head was bleeding. Internally."

My aunts and I gasped.

Dr. Dunne continued, "I don't think it's her brain, I think it's just blood from her skull that got trapped in there, but I can't say anything for sure until the surgeon's done with her. And he's our best surgeon. Sadie's very well liked here. Magic circles are already being formed in the staff lounge to help guide her recovery, and I've contacted Amanda Hollyberry and asked her to start crafting some elixirs to help her heal faster."

"Is my dad here?" I asked.

Dr. Dunne shook his head. "I've tried to call him and had no luck. I was hoping you'd talked to him."

"No."

Dr. Dunne received a page and had to go but promised to come back the minute he knew anything.

I looked at my aunts, biting my lower lip. Trixie and Eleanor were biting theirs as well. It was a trait we all shared. A small boy of maybe four or five walked past and pointed at Trixie.

"Look, Mommy. Candy canes. That woman is wearing candy canes."

The mother of the boy quickly shoved his hand back to his side and smiled apologetically at Trixie. Trixie smiled back at her. She was used to people commenting on her clothing. I even suspected that she rather enjoyed it.

Today, she was wearing red and white tights that I had thought looked more like a barber pole than candy canes, but I could see where the child had gotten the idea from. Her shirt was a glittery mass of silver sparkles that fitted nicely to her trim figure. Around her waist was a short white skirt so bright it almost hurt your eyes to look at it. If I didn't know this was how she dressed every day, I would have thought she was on her way to a party.

Eleanor's clothes were far more subdued. She stuck with mostly dark greens, blues, and purples, though there was something in the style of the clothes she selected that reminded me of a Gypsy. A slight ruffle in her skirt, gold hoop earrings dangling from her ears, a gold belt looped around her waist.

I was boring in comparison to my aunts. I wore jeans and a T-shirt to work almost every day. The only shoes I ever wore were sneakers. When Colt and I went out together, I sometimes felt like we were mismatched, but every time I thought about stepping up my dress, I got the uncomfortable sensation of too-tight clothes, aching feet, and sunburn. I was not a skinny jeans and stilettos kind of gal, and I didn't like to expose too much of my skin to sunlight as I tended to burn easily.

"Ava?" Eleanor asked, waving a hand in front of my face.

I blinked. "Sorry, did you say something?"

"I asked if you had any idea where your father might be."

"I don't know. He was pretty steamed when he left the party, but I'm sure if he knew that Sadie was injured, he'd be here in a heartbeat. He must not know what's happened."

Eleanor frowned. "We've got to find him."

"Maybe I should check at home," I said.

Eleanor said, "I can check down by the docks. Maybe he went to the beach to cool off."

"No, you stay here with Trixie," I said. "If Sadie wakes up, I don't want her to be alone. I'll send Snowball down to the beach. She knows her way around there better than any of us.

"Tootsie can double check the bakery and maybe look around town," Trixie said. Tootsie was Trixie's familiar, an orange cat who loved everyone and tried to keep Snowball from getting into too much mischief.

"Good idea," I told her. "Maybe he went back to the bakery after we all left."

"Have Tootsie get Rocky first, and he can help her," Eleanor said. Rocky was Eleanor's familiar, a wolfhound with a love of bacon to rival Snowy's love of tuna.

"Call if you hear anything," I told them before I left. They promised they would, and I hurried home.

The front door was locked when I got there, and I thought that was a bad sign. If my dad was at home, he tended to leave the door unlocked. He figured no burglar would ever try to break into a home filled with two witches and a wizard, and even if there was someone stupid enough to try it, the protection spells he'd placed all around the house would no doubt hold them off. When we were out or going to bed for the night, however, Trixie insisted on keeping the doors locked.

"Dad?" I called as I walked inside. There was no answer. "Dad?"

Snowball came running into the room. "Mama, Snowy is out of tuna in her dish." She sat and stared at me as if it were some sort of directive.

"Snowy, have you seen my dad?"

Snowball blinked. "Papa's not been home since he left for the party." She licked one paw and wiped it across her face.

I let out a sigh. "All right, I need you to do me a favor. If you do it, then you'll get more tuna."

"Tuna first?" Snowball asked hopefully.

"No, favor first, tuna second."

Snowball reluctantly agreed. I told her what I needed her to do and asked her to fill in Tootsie for me. Snowball hurried off, eager for her reward.

When she was gone, I called Colt. He didn't answer, so I left him a message and sat down. I'd been sitting for exactly five minutes, wondering what to do next, when the phone in my hand suddenly started vibrating.

"Hello?" I said frantically.

Eleanor's voice came back to me. "Sadie's out of surgery. Dr. Dunne says she's going to live."

I sighed and held the phone against my chest. One piece of good news was better than none.

CHAPTER

SEVEN

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Trixie and I woke up late the next day. We had stayed up well past midnight waiting for Snowball and Tootsie to come home, hoping they'd bring good news with them, but neither of them had seen my father. Eleanor called us around one in the morning to tell us that Rocky had had no better luck.

I was worried but only mildly so. I knew my dad well enough to know he could take care of himself and also that he was probably kicking himself for the way he'd acted at Sadie's party. He was the type of man who, when he made a mistake, owned up to it. The problem was that the bigger the mistake was, the bigger his reaction was when he realized he'd been wrong.

One time, when I was a little girl, he forgot to send me to school with my lunch sack. He'd realized it halfway through his day and had left work to bring it down to me, making it just in time for my lunch period. When I'd gotten home from school that day, I'd found a giant stuffed animal sitting on my bed, a box of fancy chocolates that no six-year-old could fully appreciate, and fifty dollars.

He'd taken the rest of his day off work to not only shop for those items but also to clean the house, including my room, and fill the fridge with all my favorite foods. We had fried chicken and pizza that night for dinner and for the next two weeks afterward. It had taken a month before he'd finally stopped apologizing.

Just before two a.m. last night, Eleanor had called again to suggest that we all get some sleep and go on with our day tomorrow as usual. She said that Sadie would want us to do just that, and my dad would probably be home by morning anyway.

It had taken another hour for me to fall asleep. I'd lain awake listening to the sounds the house made in the dark at night, hoping one of those sounds would turn out to be my father's footsteps on the stairs.

As soon as I'd woke up this morning, I'd bounded into his bedroom without even knocking on the door. His bed was empty.

"Darn it!" I shouted, then smelled coffee brewing. I ran down the stairs to the kitchen and found Trixie sitting at the table still in her pajamas. She shook her head at me and my face fell.

"Where is he?" I demanded, furious with him. I was even more furious because now I was starting to get worried. I checked my phone and there were no messages.

"What should we do?" I asked Trixie when we were both dressed.

She shrugged. "Go to the bakery. I can't remember the last time he's missed a day of work, can you?"

"No," I admitted.

Trixie put one arm around me as we left the house. "For all we know, he's already there. In fact, I bet he slept there."

Eleanor already had the ovens going and a bowl of cookie dough underway when we showed up. Her head snapped up as we came in, her eyes anxious. "Any word?"

My face fell. "I guess that means he's not here."

Eleanor pursed her lips. "Have you talked to Colt?"

"He texted me after I fell asleep last night. Said if Dad still wasn't home by this morning to let him know and he'd put some of his men on it."

Colt was considered one of the best, if not the best, agent at the Council on Magic and Human Affairs. He had several men who worked under him, and he could pull them at a moment's notice to help him with whatever he needed. It was a somewhat comforting thought. It would have been more comforting if Colt had already put his men on it.

"What if something's happened to him?" I asked, voicing the concern I knew we all shared.

Trixie frowned. "I'm sure he's fine."

But I wasn't about to let this go. "What if whoever attacked Sadie and Finn attacked my father, too?"

Eleanor and Trixie exchanged a look. "That occurred to me last night when he didn't come home," Eleanor said. "But I didn't want to think about it."

"I still think he's okay," Trixie said. "He's just being a warthog is all."

"Call Colt," said Eleanor. "I'll call Zane. Between the two of them, I'm sure they can find him."

I made the call and actually got Colt himself this time, not just his voicemail. Relief washed over me. "Thank the witches. I was afraid you wouldn't answer."

His voice came back to me thick with sleep. "What's wrong?"

"My dad's not home yet."

Now I had his attention. The next time he spoke, his voice sounded clearer, less groggy. "Don't worry," he said with all the care and concern I'd have expected of a fiancé. "I'll find him. I'm calling my guys now."

"Your guys?" I laughed. "You sound like you're in the mob or something."

Colt chuckled. "Just call me Colt 'Snake Eyes' Hudson." The chuckle subsided. "Seriously, though, we'll find him, even if I have to get the Godfather himself down here to do it."

"Can you do that?" I asked, teasing. "Call the Godfather and ask him for a favor? Don't you need to wait until the day of his daughter's wedding for that?" It felt odd making jokes at a time like this but also sort of good. If I couldn't joke, I thought I might go crazy with worry.

"Nah," Colt said. "I gave him some fish and cannolis a while back. We're tight, me and him."

I giggled. "Thanks for your help."

"Don't worry. I bet he's on his way home even as we're speaking."

CHAPTER

EIGHT

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It was hard going about my morning pretending like everything was fine. Dr. Dunne called just before we opened the bakery to let us know that Sadie had remained stable through the night, even though she hadn't woken up yet.

He said that was perfectly normal and not to worry about it; she would wake up when she was ready to. The word "coma" escaped his lips, but he tried to play it off as if it were no big deal, just a run of the mill coma, nothing to worry about. None of us bought it.

We opened the doors ten minutes earlier than usual, just because we wanted the distraction of the customers. The morning rush started, and the gossip started along with it.

Because it had happened after the party had broken up, not everyone seemed to know about Sadie and Finn just yet. Those who did started to fill in the blanks for those who didn't until Eleanor shot them all a look and said, "Anyone who discusses anything other than cookies and weather while inside this shop will leave here without so much as a strudel!"

The gossip mongers wisely waited until they were outside the store with their baked goods before discussing Sadie, Finn, or my father, though a few people did ask where he was this morning. Natalie Vargas attempted to be kind and told us that he should not be so embarrassed about his behavior at the party that he stayed home hiding his face all day.

At least she only thought he was at home. No one seemed to realize he was missing. It was probably better if it stayed that way, at least for now.

The morning rush finished, and the lunch rush would not start for at least another hour or two. My aunts and I stood around taking a well-deserved break.

"Any messages from Colt?" asked Trixie.

"Nothing yet," I said.

Eleanor and Trixie had their backs to the door. I was leaning against the counter facing it. The door chimed, and my eyes nearly bugged out of my head.

"Dad?" I said.

Eleanor and Trixie turned around, their jaws dropping open. "Eli!" they shouted together.

My dad strolled in, his brown hair standing up around his head as if he'd just jumped out a plane. His face was unshaven, though it didn't look bad on him. He was in his mid-forties and well muscled, the gruff look sort of worked for him.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"I'm fine," he said. "I don't want to talk about it. It was a long night, and I just don't know what to think about any of it."

He walked behind the counters and grabbed an apron off a hook.

"I'm sorry I missed the morning rush. I just kept hoping she'd show up." He let out a heavy sigh and balled his hands into fists at his side. "Maybe I'd be better off in back today," he said and turned immediately around, pushing the swing door out onto the back room where he disappeared.

Trixie, Eleanor, and I all looked at each other. There were no customers in the store just now, so we followed him into the other room. Even if the store had been packed with people, I didn't think we were going to let him get away from us.

"Eli," Eleanor began.

He held up one hand, stopping her. "I know, all right? I already know. I messed up."

We all stared at him, none of us speaking for a full minute as we watched him start on a cinnamon roll dough Trixie had left proofing in back. He started pounding the dough with his fists.

"When I think of all the things I said..." he said quietly, almost like he was talking to himself. Maybe he was. His head snapped up. "It's not all my fault, you know. I mean, Sadie could have told me that Finn was in town. She could have warned me instead of ambushing me like that."

"Dad—"

"Oh, who am I kidding? If I hadn't acted like a complete fool..." He shook his head out, his eyes tearing even as he continued to pound the dough. "If Sadie went home with Finn last night, it's my fault entirely, not hers. But that doesn't mean I'm okay with it."

"What are you talking about?" I finally blurted out. "Where have you been? Do you have any idea how worried we were? I called Colt. He's got men out looking for you!"

"And I called Zane," said Eleanor, her hands on her hips. She was scowling at him.

Even Trixie, usually the lightest-hearted of us, was shooting daggers at him right now.

He blinked. "Didn't any of you get my text?"

"What text?" I said.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket. "Oh no," he muttered, a look of horror on his face. "My phone died when I was at Sadie's last night. I thought I got the text off to you all before it did, but it must not have gone through."

"You were at Sadie's?" I asked.

He let go of the dough now and came over to me, pulling me into a hug and kissing my cheek. "Oh, honey, I'm so sorry. If I'd known you were worried about me, I would have called from Sadie's house phone."

Trixie scratched her head. "You mean you spent the whole night at Sadie's apartment?"

"None of us thought to look there," Eleanor said.

My dad let go of me. "I went for a walk down by the beach after I stormed out of the party. I cooled off a little and came back, but everyone had gone home. So, I went to Sadie's. I wanted to apologize. I was prepared to fall down on my knees and beg her forgiveness, but she didn't answer when I rang her bell."

I slapped my hand to my forehead. "Of course! You have a key. I should have thought of that. Why didn't I think of that?"

"I waited for her all night, but she never came home. I don't know when, but sometime just before dawn I finally fell asleep on her couch. I only woke up about twenty minutes ago and came straight here. I'm so sorry if I made you guys worry."

"Wait a minute," said Trixie. "Does this mean... you don't know?"

My dad looked from one to the other of us. "Know what?"

My aunts and I looked at each other, not saying anything.

"Know what?" my dad repeated, a little uneasily.

I cleared my throat. "Sadie had an accident last night." His eyes widened. I felt my heart begin to thump. "Actually, it was more than an accident. She and Finn were attacked after the party."

"Attacked? Is she okay?" His face had gone pale.

"She's going to be," I told him. "She's at Sweetland Hospital. After her surgery—"

"She had surgery?" my dad asked, starting to freak out as what we were telling him sank in.

"Yes," Eleanor said. "But's she's all right. She came through it and should make a full recovery."

My dad relaxed but only slightly. "I've gotta get down there," he said, taking off his apron. "She must be so angry with me. Do they know who attacked her? I can't believe I—"

"Dad, there's more," I said. He stopped what he was doing and looked at me. "They don't know who attacked them. They're looking into it."

"And?" he said, sensing something bigger.

"Sadie's okay, but she hasn't woken up yet. She's... she's in a coma."

His face slackened. "Coma," he said, the word sounding strangled in his throat. He looked away for a second, staring at the floor before lifting his eyes back up to me. "What about Finn?"

"Finn's dead," I told him.

For a minute, I thought he was going to collapse onto one of the stools. Instead, he rolled his shoulders back, steadied his gaze, and said, "I'll be at the hospital if you need me."

CHAPTER

NINE

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The first thing I did after my dad left was call Colt and tell him to call off the search.

"I'm glad he's all right," he said. "I didn't want to say anything, but I was starting to worry a little myself. An agent's mindset and all that. I'm always envisioning the worst possibilities."

"You mean you thought he might be dead?" I asked, kind of horrified to realize that's what Colt had been thinking. I was glad he hadn't told me.

"That or—" Colt's voice suddenly broke off.

"Colt?" I asked.

"Still here," he said.

There was a sudden silence between us, awkward and seemingly out of nowhere. "What were you going to say?" I asked him.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"You said 'or.' That you thought my father was either dead 'or'..."

"Oh, it was nothing. I was just thinking out loud."

I scoffed. "Am I supposed to believe that?"

"What are you talking about?" he said, playing innocent. "You had a long night. You're imagining things."

"You're hiding something from me. I can hear it in your voice."

He hesitated. "We need to talk, but not now. Not over the phone."

My heart thumped. "What is it? Why can't you just tell me now? You haven't caught the guy who killed Finn, have you?"

"No, we're still looking into things. What I was gonna say isn't that important, really. I'm on my way to the bakery now, anyway. We'll talk when I get there."

He hung up quickly, before I could ask any more questions. I frowned and put my phone back into my pocket then went out front.

"What's wrong?" Trixie asked when she saw my face. "Did you hear from the hospital?"

"No," I said. "I talked to Colt. Something funny is going on."

Trixie laughed. "You can say that again. The last twenty-four hours have all been haywire, if you ask me."

"No, I mean, Colt's keeping something from me." I looked at Eleanor. "Did Sheriff Knoxx say anything to you about the case when you called? Have they caught anyone?"

"All he'd tell me is that they're still looking into things."

"That's almost exactly what Colt said to me."

Eleanor and I exchanged a look. She said, "What do you think they know that they're not telling us?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. But Colt's on his way here right now. Whatever it is, I think he wants to tell me in person."

"Oh, no," said Trixie, her face going pink.

"What?" I asked.

"In person? That's never good. Did he use the phrase 'we need to talk?' "

"Yeah..."

Her eyes widened. "You know what that means."

It suddenly hit me what she was getting at, and I burst out laughing. "You think he wants to break up with me? I'm pretty sure that's not it."

Trixie pressed her lips together and went back to fixing the display of chocolate happiness cookies she'd been working on.

I frowned and looked at her. "Is there something that you know that you're not telling me? Should I be worried?"

"I'm not keeping anything from you," Trixie said. "If I knew anything at all, I'd tell you. I'm terrible at keeping secrets. You both know that."

I looked at Eleanor. "He did say we needed to talk."

Eleanor brushed her off. "I'm sure it's nothing. Certainly nothing like what Trixie is suggesting. It's probably got to do with the case."

"I don't know," I said, worried now. I looked at the clock and began counting the minutes. Ten minutes and an eternity later, Colt arrived.

"Hey," he said, kissing me quickly before pulling me into the back.

I shot a terrified look to Trixie and Eleanor. Whatever it was he wanted to say to me, he wanted to do it alone. What if Trixie was right?

He sat me on a stool in the back room and started pacing the floor.

"Oh, my roses." I put one hand over my mouth. I could hardly breathe.

He looked at me. "Are you okay?"

I nodded. "Whatever it is, just say it."

He smiled. But it was one of those falsely reassuring smiles. The kind of smile a cop gave you when he knew you were the one who'd committed the crime and he was trying to get you to confess to it.

"You look like you're about to pass out," Colt said. "You want some water?"

"For witch's sake. If you're going to break up with me, don't beat around the bush, just spit it out already."

Colt's face went blank. He stared at me a moment and then burst out laughing. "Break up with you? Where did you get such a ridiculous idea?"

"Y-You mean you're not here to dump me?"

He was still laughing, quickly replacing the relief I'd first felt with irritation. "It's not funny," I scolded him.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I swear, I don't know what runs through your mind sometimes."

"It's not my fault," I said. "You're the one who said, 'We need to talk.' You know what that means."

He stopped laughing, and his eyes widened. "Oh, crud. I did say that, didn't I?" He shook his head and wrapped his arms around me. "I'm sorry. I was only trying to think of the best way to break the news to you about your dad." His cheeks turned a dark pink, and I realized that he'd just let something slip.

"What about my dad?"

Colt still had his arms around me, but now they were squeezing me a little too tightly. I looked at his face and was alarmed to find not just worry there but guilt. What did he have to feel guilty about?

"It's just that your dad was missing all night."

"I told you where he was. Sadie's."

"Yeah, but did anyone see him there?"

I shrugged. "I have no idea."

"Did anyone even pass him on the street? Is there anyone who can corroborate his story?"

"I don't—" My eyes widened, and I shook Colt's hands off me. I got off the stool and moved away from him. "You think he did it. You think my dad killed Finn."

Colt took a quick step toward me. "I don't think that. I'm just... I have to look into all the possibilities."

"My dad did not kill Finn!" I shouted so loud that Eleanor and Trixie pushed the swing door open and looked in. They quickly shut it again.

"I didn't say he did," Colt tried to reason with me.

"What about Sadie? Do you honestly believe he'd hurt Sadie?"

"Not on purpose," he said, which was the wrong response. "But, Ava, I've seen men—and women—do crazy things in the heat of passion. Things they'd normally never do otherwise."

"This is ridiculous," I told him. "Get out of here. I don't want to see you right now."

Colt sighed. He stopped at the door but didn't turn back to me. "It's not just me, you know."

"What do you mean?"

"Sheriff Knoxx is looking into it, too." Now he did turn around. "He has to, Ava. It's his job."

I picked a cookie off the counter and threw it at him. It just missed his head. He walked out the door just as I was getting ready to chuck another one at him.

CHAPTER

TEN

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The call came in from Dr. Dunne just as we were opening the bakery up the next day. Sadie was awake.

My dad was already down there. He'd been there the whole night, texting us each about ten times just to make sure we knew where he was.

Eleanor, Trixie, and I all looked at each other. "You should go," Eleanor said to me. "We can hold down the fort here for a while ourselves."

I looked doubtfully at the long line of people streaming into the store for the morning rush.

"It will be fine," Trixie said. "One of us needs to be there. It might as well be you. She's going to be your stepmother, after all."

"Thanks," I said and took off my apron.

When I got to the hospital, I went straight to Sadie's room. There were two guards positioned outside of it. They stopped me as I approached. The one on the right seemed to be in charge. He was tall and muscular with lightly tanned skin and brown eyes that said he knew how to have fun but only when he was off-duty. 'Burly' was the word that sprang to mind, though I wasn't sure that was quite right. He wasn't heavy; he just had a lot of muscles.

"State your name," he said. I looked at his name tag. Hubert Moss was etched in black against a gold plate.

"Ava Fortune."

He looked down at his clipboard. "All right, you're on the list. Go on in."

"Why are there guards posted outside Sadie's room?" I asked him.

"The sheriff asked us to stand here. He wanted to know who came in and out."

Sheriff Knoxx must've been worried that whoever had attacked Sadie might try it again.

I glanced at the guard on the left. His name tag read Tanner Holiday. He was skinnier and less muscled than Hubert Moss, but he had a much sterner countenance. If I had to pick between the two of them to stand alone in a dark room with, I'd have picked Hubert all the way.

I entered Sadie's room and found my dad sitting next to her on the bed. Her eyes were open, and she was smiling, but it was a sleepy smile. Her head was wrapped in bandages, and a dark bruise ran up and down along her left temple. She looked over at me as I came in.

"Ava." Her voice sounded as groggy as she looked.

I took her hand and gave it a squeeze. "How are you feeling?"

"Not great," she admitted. "My head feels like it was hit with a brick."

"I think it was a two-by-four, actually," I told her.

Her eyes widened. "Dr. Dunne told me what happened. He told me about... Finn." Her eyes misted over. My dad squeezed her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing it gently.

"It's okay," he said softly. "You'll get through this."

Sadie yanked her hand away. "You never even liked him."

My dad let out a sigh and looked at me. "Maybe it's time I got some air."

"Sure," I said. "I'll stay with her for a while."

"You don't have to talk about me like I'm not in the room," Sadie said.

"Sorry," I told her.

She let out a breath and shook her head. "No, I'm sorry. Everything hurts me right now and I just feel like... I just can't believe that... that he's gone." The tears spilled over now and ran down her cheeks.

My dad kissed her forehead and said, "I'll bring you back some chocolates."

"And caramels," she said, sniffing. "Not the ones we sell here though, the good kind."

"Sure," my dad said. I got the impression that he would've done anything she asked him just now. If she'd asked him to sneak an elephant up to her room, he'd have figured out a way to do it.

He looked at me. "I'll be back in an hour or two," he said and left the room, a man on a mission.

I took his place beside Sadie. "Do you remember anything?" I asked her, not wanting to press the issue if she wasn't ready to talk about it but needing to know anything that might help to clear my father's name.

Neither my aunts nor myself had told him he was a suspect. We'd discussed it and decided he had enough on his mind as it was.

Sadie looked at me with wide, wet eyes. I handed her a tissue. She honked loudly into it and set it on the hospital tray next to her bed.

"I don't remember anything," she said.

My heart fell. "Nothing?"

She shook her head. "Sheriff Knoxx and Colt have already been in to talk to me. I told them the same thing I'm telling you. Finn and I were walking along together talking. I remember I was trying to make him understand about your father. Trying to explain to him that he wasn't normally like that."

"What did Finn say?" I asked her.

She scrunched her face up then winced. Her hand went instinctively to the side of her face where the bruise was and rested there. "Finn didn't believe me. He told me I should break it off with your father. In fact..."

Her eyes drifted away from me, and her cheeks colored.

"Yes?" I asked, wanting her to finish saying whatever it was she wanted to say.

"Well..." She cleared her throat. "Do you promise you won't tell your father?"

"Sure."

"Finn told me that I should go back to Norway with him. That he could offer me more than your father ever could, that he was about to become the richest man in the world, and I could never do better than him. That he'd never stopped loving me."

"Wow," I said, thinking maybe my dad had been right to be jealous after all. Maybe it wasn't just jealousy, Maybe he'd tapped into some unconscious part of his mind that knew Finn wanted Sadie for himself. "What did you say?"

"I was angry. I told him money didn't matter to me, that I loved your father. I loved Finn, too, but only as a friend."

"What did Finn say?”

Sadie looked at me and shrugged. Fresh tears sprang up in her eyes. "I don't remember. Everything's a big blur. The last thing I know for sure he said to me was that I'd regret it one day if I didn't go back with him. I told him he was wrong, then everything just went black."

She started crying again. I handed her a fresh tissue.

"Did you tell all this to Colt and the sheriff?"

"Sort of. I told them that Finn and I were arguing, which was true enough, but that I couldn't remember what we are arguing about." She wiped her eyes and looked at me. "Do you think that was wrong? Do you think it's important? I was afraid your father might find out, so I just kept it to myself."

"I think it's okay," I told her. "I don't think what you were arguing about really matters."

She smiled and closed her hand around mine, squeezing tightly. I was glad she had more strength in her than it looked like.

"Sadie..." I said carefully, not wanting to burden her with anything more than she already had weighing on her shoulders. "Do you remember seeing my father that night?"

She frowned. "Your father? You mean after we left the party?"

"Yes."

"No. Why?"

I shrugged. "Trixie and I saw a man running away from the area we found you in. He knocked over some garbage cans."

Her eyes widened. "You think it was your father? He would never hurt me."

"No, of course not. That's not what I meant. I just thought... I wondered if it was possible that maybe he happened upon you and Finn before you were attacked. Maybe he overheard you arguing?"

I bit my lip, afraid of her answer.

"No," she said. "He wasn't there that night. Definitely not."

I relaxed my shoulders.

"At least," she said, frowning, "I don't think so. But then again, I can't remember a whole lot." Now we were both frowning. We sat that way for an hour before she fell asleep, and I finally decided it was time for me to go.

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

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I stepped into the hospital elevator and pushed the ground floor button.

"Hold it, please!" a voice called out and my hand shot out, stopping the doors before they could close. Loni Goodrich rushed in.

"Thanks," she said, breathless. She smoothed down her nurse's uniform. "I thought I was going to miss it."

I blinked "Loni? What are you doing here?"

"Working," she said as if it were obvious. Her clipboard was in her left hand. It was almost as big as a laptop.

"Yes, but, I mean... your trip."

"Oh, that," she said, smiling and shrugging. "That can wait."

I couldn't stop my mouth from hanging open. The last time I'd seen Loni, she hadn't stopped talking about her trip and how upset she was that it had been postponed for as long as it had. Now she was postponing it longer?

"But I thought you were looking so forward to it. Didn't you retire?"

"Resigned," she said. "I'm still a little young for retirement." She laughed. Her face was bright, her eyes sparkly, her smile bubbly. She was a completely different person from the woman I'd chatted with at the party just a few days ago.

"So, you un-resigned?" I didn't even know you could do that.

The elevator started moving. "After Sadie's accident, Dr. Dunne called me at home and asked me if I wouldn't mind staying on as head nurse a little longer. Just until Sadie's recovered, of course. I couldn't say no."

"Of course not," I said, biting my lip. "I'm sure Sadie appreciates it."

The elevator stopped on floor two. I waited for the doors to open and more people to walk on, but nothing happened. We stood there a minute, not moving, and I began to get nervous. I pushed the button for the first floor again even though it was already lit up.

"These elevators are old," Loni said reassuringly. "They stick sometimes."

"Stick?" I said, alarmed. "What do you mean 'stick?' For how long?"

"Don't worry. It never stays this way."

A minute passed, and nothing happened. I pushed the button again.

Loni seemed completely nonplussed. "So, you were visiting with Sadie?"

"Huh?" My heart was racing. Suddenly, the space around us felt entirely too small.

"Sadie," Loni repeated. "You were visiting with her?"

"Oh, yeah. I was." I pushed the button again, then started pushing all the buttons. "Shouldn't a bell be ringing or something?"

"It's fine," Loni said. "We'll start moving again any minute now. So, what did Sadie say?"

"What?"

"I just wondered if she's remembered anything. I tried asking her about it myself earlier, but she didn't seem to want to talk about it."

"There's not really anything to talk about. She doesn't remember what happened."

"Nothing?" Loni asked. "She didn't see her attacker's face? Didn't hear a noise?" She laughed. "She must've heard or seen something. Even if it didn't seem important at the time."

I forgot the elevator for a minute and looked at Loni. Her eyes were glowing with anticipation. She was looking at me like I was a cheeseburger, and she hadn't eaten in a month. I started to shift my feet uncomfortably.

"As far as I know, Sadie doesn't remember a thing."

"As far as you know?" Loni asked, stepping toward me in this already tight space. She was holding her hand up in front of her in a half-fist. It wasn't threatening, it was just... anxious. "So, you think she remembers something, and she's just not telling you?"

"That's not what I said." I banged on the elevator doors. "Why aren't we moving?"

I looked at the buttons again. They were all lit up. I realized that there was a panel just beneath them that I hadn't opened yet. The kind that usually held an emergency phone. I opened it and the phone was gone, but there was a big red button that said Emergency in its place. I pushed it and an alarm went off. I relaxed and leaned back against the wall behind me.

Loni was still looking at me. "She really didn't tell you anything?" Disappointment sounded in her voice even over the blare of the alarm.

"No," I yelled back as the alarm continued to ring.

Loni turned away from me and folded her arms across her chest, still clinging tightly to her clipboard. The elevator started moving again. The alarm turned off.

I looked at her, trying to figure out what had just happened. The elevator opened on the first floor, and she stepped out ahead of me.

"Have a nice day," she said and walked away from me without even a glance back.

I got quickly off the elevator before it could trap me again, wondering if I was imagining things, or if Loni had just used magic to lock me in an elevator with her so she could question me about Sadie. It didn't seem like a coincidence that the elevator only started moving again once Loni decided she was done with me.

I walked out of the hospital, replaying the incident in my head, when my phone rang. I glanced down at the number.

"Hey, Eleanor. Something weird just happened."

"Ava," she said, cutting me off. "Get down to the sheriff's station quick as you can."

"Why?" I asked. "What's wrong?"

"Zane just arrested your father!"

CHAPTER

TWELVE

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I got to the sheriff's station as fast as I could. Eleanor and Trixie were already inside.

"We closed up the shop and came down here just as soon as we found out," Eleanor said as I came in.

Sheriff Knox was standing behind his desk. The station was small, and there wasn't a lot of room for too many people in here at once. Elwin Muster, the sheriff's head deputy, was at his desk just to the left of the sheriff's. It was smaller but also more organized. There was one other desk pushed off into a far corner, smaller than either of the other two. It was the desk the remaining deputies were forced to share.

There were two or three jail cells in the back, just behind the wall the smallest desk was pushed against. One interrogation room served as a storage area which occasionally got cleaned out, the other two were where the deputies went to take their naps when they worked the night shift.

"Let us explain before you start yelling like your Aunt Eleanor," Colt pleaded.

I'd been so flummoxed upon my arrival that I hadn't even noticed that he was in the room. "Are you a part of this?"

Colt sighed and looked at the sheriff. "Sheriff Knoxx and I are working together on this. I'm a part of anything he is and vice versa."

My hands clenched into fists at my side. I stomped over to him while at the same time Eleanor stomped over to Sheriff Knoxx. Trixie stood next to Elwin, watching us both with equal parts fascination and anxiety.

"What do you mean by arresting my father?" I demanded of Colt. I brandished one long finger at him, shaking it as if the threat of my fingernail alone could make him answer me.

"I told you before that your father was a suspect. I gave you fair warning."

"Fair warning?" I screeched. "You told me that you were looking into things, not that you were going to arrest him. That's quite a difference, don't you agree? Just because you look into the fridge doesn't mean you're going to eat something."

"That's a terrible analogy," Colt said.

"I don't think you're in any position to criticize me just now."

Eleanor was not just brandishing one finger but a whole handful of them at her husband. "If you were going to arrest Eli, you should have told me."

"If I'd done that," said Sheriff Knoxx, "you'd have warned him."

"Of course, I would have." Sheriff Knoxx looked at her as if he'd just caught her in a trap.

Eleanor let out a frustrated grunt. "Just because I warned him doesn't mean he would've run."

"It doesn't mean he wouldn't have," the sheriff replied.

"That's a double negative," Eleanor said. "And I don't respond to double negatives. If you wish to talk to me, you will speak to me properly or not at all." She folded her arms across her chest as if she'd just told him off.

Sheriff Knoxx leaned against his desk and kept his mouth shut.

Trixie stepped nervously forward. "Maybe we should all take a break. Get some food. I can run down the street and pick up a pizza. Or go back to the bakery and make up a box of cookies and brownies and peanut butter dream bars." She looked knowingly at the sheriff.

"Peanut butter dream bars?" he asked, licking his lips. Everyone knew that those were his absolute favorite item from The Mystic Cupcake.

"No peanut butter dream bars for you," shouted Eleanor, "until you release Eli."

The sheriff resumed leaning against his desk, but he looked disappointed. With the threat of peanut butter dream bars on the line now, I wasn't sure how much longer he'd be able to hold out. He practically lived on those things. Eleanor's threatening to take them away from him might actually have an effect.

Until that time, however, I figured I might as well resume my tirade on Colt. "You can't arrest my father."

"I'm sorry to contradict you," Colt said, "but it appears that I can."

My gut was burning inside. If I hadn't been inside a sheriff's station, I might have actually hit him or at least stomped on his foot.

"Ava," Colt said calmly. It was far to calm for my taste, however, and only made me that much angrier at him.

If he'd only shown some emotion... If he'd been just as angry as I was about the whole thing... If he'd told me that Dean Lampton had forced him to do this... If he'd sworn to me that he would get my dad out of this mess no matter what it took...

Any of these things might have stirred forgiveness in me. Might have stirred understanding. Instead, all that got stirred up was my anger at him and the sheriff, though mostly at him. That may not have been entirely fair, but I didn't care about fair right now. Was it fair that Colt and Sheriff Knoxx had worked together to arrest my father?

"You can't arrest him," I repeated, angry tears flooding my eyes now.

"I already did," Colt said. "And we'll let you see him once you calm down."

"How am I supposed to calm down?" I demanded. "You have no reason to arrest him. No one saw him attack Sadie and Finn; no one saw him anywhere near the crime scene. Sadie doesn't even remember what happened. You have absolutely no evidence against him whatsoever."

"Actually, I do," said Colt.

I blinked. Trixie and Eleanor stepped up on either side of me.

"What do you mean?" I asked him. "What evidence can you possibly have against my father? No one saw him. I know that for a fact because Trixie and I were the only ones there other than Sadie and Finn, and Sadie doesn't remember anything, and Finn, well..."

"No one has to remember anything or even have seen him if we have fingerprints."

"Fingerprints?" My eyes widened, and I turned to my aunts. They looked just as surprised as I was.

"What fingerprints?" Eleanor asked.

"On the murder weapon," Sheriff Knoxx said. "That's what we've been trying to tell you for the last twenty minutes."

"It took a little longer than it normally does to get the results back," Colt said. "Getting fingerprints off a two-by-four of wood isn't always the easiest thing, but my guys managed to do it."

"You really got his fingerprints?" I asked, dumbfounded. Colt nodded. I drew in a deep breath and let it out. "Let me see him."

Colt looked at Sheriff Knoxx, who nodded. "Come on," Colt said and led me to the back.

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

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My first reaction to seeing my dad behind bars was to cry. That lasted all of two seconds before anger took over.

I rounded on Colt. "If you ever want to even think of kissing me again then you'd better get out of here and leave us alone."

Colt was no fool. He knew my dad wasn't going anywhere, so he turned around and went back out.

"Oh, Dad," I said when we were alone. Tears filled my eyes at an alarming rate. I wiped them quickly away and took the hand that protruded from between the bars of his cell. "What happened?"

I wasn't sure why I asked the question. It was obvious what had happened. I suddenly felt like a little girl, lost and scared and just looking to my father for a comforting word that would solve all my problems. Only this time, he had no comforting words to offer. It was I who would have to comfort him.

I rolled my shoulders back, determined to be strong.

"I really don't know what happened," my dad said. "I was buying some chocolates for Sadie and had just left the shop when it occurred to me that I ought to go by the bakery and pick her up a few snacks. You know how she loves our orange cranberry white chocolate bars."

I nodded. "They're her favorite."

He nodded back. "Anyway, I had just finished packing up a box of goodies for her when Sheriff Knoxx and Colt came into the store. They kinda stopped when they saw me and looked at me funny. They waved me over, and I thought they were going to tell me something about Sadie. I thought maybe she'd had some sort of relapse or something, so I got worried. Instead, they arrested me. They actually read me my rights and all of it." His hands were shaking.

"I'm so sorry," I said.

"Why? It's not your fault." He gave a short laugh. "I wouldn't want to be Colt or the sheriff just now. I hate to imagine what Eleanor will do to him when she gets him alone. Tomorrow we might all be reading in the papers about how some crazed witch turned her husband into a toad and left him that way."

He laughed but there was no humor behind his eyes.

"Colt told me they were investigating you." The words choked in my throat, but I forced them out. "I didn't want to believe it. I know you're innocent. I didn't think there'd be any way they could actually arrest you or I'd have told you."

"It's not your fault, honey. They came to talk to Sadie at the hospital while I was there, asking her all sorts of questions about that night. When they were through with her, they started in on me. I figured out pretty fast what was going on. I knew I was a suspect, but the significant other is always a suspect."

He let go of my hand and ran it through his hair. He leaned his forehead against the bars and looked at me. "I don't want to spoil the rest of your week."

I blinked twice then burst out laughing. "You talk about Aunt Eleanor being crazy but talk about yourself. 'Spoil my week?' You make it sound like you're a carton of milk that went bad." I couldn't stop the laughter from bubbling up out of me. Soon, he joined in. It felt good to laugh right now. Tears ran out of the corners of my eyes, but they were not sad tears. I wiped them away and after a few minutes, we were able to get ourselves under control again.

I drew in a deep breath and let it out. It was time to get serious. "Eleanor wants to see you too before she goes. She just thought we might like to talk alone for a bit first."

He nodded.

I licked my lips. "I know Colt and the sheriff already questioned you, but I think we need to go over it all again."

He let out a sigh. "What do you want to know?"

"For starters, how did your fingerprints get on that two-by-four?"

He shrugged. "I don't have any idea." I opened my mouth and my dad cut me off with a wave of his hand. "I've been going over it and over it in my mind since I got here, and I just can't think of anything."

His face was screwed up so tight that for a moment, I was afraid he was going to give himself a heart attack.

"Forget that," I said. "Let's go back to the beginning. What did you do after you left the party that night?"

"I told you."

"Well, tell me again."

He sighed. "I went for a long walk around town, then headed to the beach."

"Sweetland Beach, right? Not Mistmoor?" Mistmoor Point was the only other town on Heavenly Haven, and on the opposite side of the island.

"Why would I go to Mistmoor Beach?" he asked, looking at me like it was my turn to be crazy.

"I'm just making sure that we don't go so fast over the information that we glaze over the details."

He rubbed his temples. "Yes. I went to Sweetland Beach."

"Did anyone see you while you were walking around town?"

"No, I wasn't really walking, I guess. I was sitting under Wanda's Willow." Wanda's Willow was a giant willow tree that stood in the middle of the town square that people liked to picnic under. It made for a great hiding spot once the sun went down."

"How long were you there?"

He shrugged. "About an hour, I guess."

"You sat under Wanda's Willow for an hour?"

"I was thinking."

"Okay, so that means you probably headed for the beach a little after Sadie and Finn left the bakery." He shrugged. "How did you get to the beach?"

"I walked."

"Down which roads? Did you stay on the sidewalk? Did you pass anyone?"

He frowned and started relating the different roads he'd taken up to the beach as best he could remember. Sweetland was small, which was in our favor. There were only so many routes he could've taken to get there.

"You must have walked past someone," I said. "It wasn't that late. Think."

"I am thinking. I'm thinking so hard my head is starting to hurt."

"It'll hurt a lot more if you spend the rest of your life behind bars.”

"All right, all right." He screwed his face up again but this time I didn't stop him. I didn't want to mess with his concentration. "There was a man on the street. A couple, actually. I bumped elbows with him as we passed each other."

"Great!" I shouted. "What did he look like?"

"I don't know. I was looking at the ground."

I let out an exasperated sigh. "What about conversation?"

"I didn't talk to anyone."

"Not you, them. You said you bumped into a couple, right? Well, couples are usually talking, especially if they're on a date."

He frowned. "I guess they were saying something to each other when I went past them."

"Good. Can you remember what it was?"

"I wasn't listening. I was thinking."

"Yes, but your ears are always listening even if you're not. Maybe you picked up something that you weren't even aware."

"Maybe..." he said doubtfully.

"Let's replay it. Were they talking about a... a meal they'd just eaten?"

He thought about it for a second. "I don't think so."

"What about a movie that they'd seen?"

My dad's eyes lit up. "Yes!" he cried out, excited. "That's right. When I bumped into him, the girl had just said that she liked the movie, and he said it was too romantic for him. She pinched him when he said that, and he jumped. That's why I bumped into him. He got in my way."

"Great! Now, did they call each other anything? Any names?"

He shrugged again, and it felt like we were back to square one.

"Nothing?" I asked.

"Nothing," he said.

I was racking my brain trying to come up with something that might help. "Do you remember what kind of shoes he was wearing? What color shirt or pants?"

"Jeans. He was wearing jeans. She was wearing sandals. I remember because her toenails were painted green, and I thought the color reminded me of Sadie's eyes. Funny, I'd forgotten all about that."

"Okay, good, what else?"

"That's it. There isn't anything..." His voice trailed off. He stared at the ceiling.

"Dad?"

"Snoopy," he said.

"What?"

"He called her Snoopy."

"Her name was Snoopy?" I asked doubtfully.

"I think it was a pet name."

"Snoopy," I repeated, already running through a list of people to ask about this. Snoopy couldn't have been that common of a name, even if it was a pet name. "Don't worry," I told him. "I'll find her."

CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

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"Who? Did you say Snoopy?" Lucy was looking at me like I was speaking gibberish.

"It's a pet name," I said. "My dad told me about it yesterday when I went to see him."

Eleanor, Trixie, and I had conferred about it long into the night yesterday, trying to come up with possible women from our town who could've been called Snoopy, and we'd gotten nowhere with it.

Lucy's reaction wasn't what I'd hoped for. Lucy was not only popular, she knew everyone in this town. If there was anyone walking around nicknamed Snoopy, she would be the one to ask about it.

A customer walked up to the counter, and I stepped to the side. He ordered a latte and an espresso to go. Lucy turned toward the espresso machine, hesitated for half a second, then made up the drinks. Ever since the espresso machine had gone squirrely on her a few weeks ago, she'd been a little uncertain around it.

Melbourne, one of the two owners of Coffee Cove, stood in his usual spot off to the side of the room watching. He and Trixie had been going out for a few months now, and he'd finally begun to show signs that she was having a positive effect on him. He smiled at me—a full smile, not just turning up the corners of his mouth like he normally did—and waved. I waved back.

When Lucy returned, she said, "I can't think of anyone in town who goes by the name Snoopy. Maybe it was a tourist."

"Maybe it was," I said. "Crud, I hope not."

That would make things even harder if it were true. If they'd been tourists, they might already be gone. Some tourists only came to the island for a weekend, some just for a day. Heavenly Haven was off the coast of Florida, and the ferry made several trips a day back and forth between us and the mainland.

"Tell you what I can do," Lucy said. "I'll spread the word that we're looking for a girl named Snoopy." She tried not to laugh as she said it but failed miserably. "If she's in town, we'll find her."

"How are you going to spread the word? Are you going to make an announcement one day before closing or tack it up on your bulletin board? Because I don't think—"

"I'm going to tell Natalie Vargas."

A smile broke out on my face. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"Because if you could think of these things on your own, then what would you need me for?"

Natalie was the biggest gossip in town. Once she got wind of this, it would be all over Sweetland Cove in a matter of hours, maybe even faster than that.

Two more customers got in line and it looked like more were coming. The midday rush was about to start at Coffee Cove, and I figured I'd better get back to the bakery before it started for us, too.

As soon as I walked into the bakery I knew that something was wrong. Several customers were standing outside the store lined up, angry scowls on their faces.

"There she is," one of them cried when they saw me coming.

"Where are your aunts?" cried another.

"Do you have any idea how long we've been standing out here?"

The sign on the door still read open.

"Why don't you just go in?" I asked them.

They started laughing. "You think we haven't tried?" said the first man who'd yelled at me. He pulled on the knob and twisted. The door jingled in its hinges and stayed shut.

Either my aunts had closed in a hurry and forgotten to turn the sign around, or they were still inside. I fished my key out of my pocket and went in, fighting off the customers who tried to push their way inside with me.

"It's my daughter's birthday!"

"I promised the office I'd bring in six dozen chocolate happiness cookies! Tomorrow we're having reviews!"

"I can't sleep at night unless I eat one of your peanut butter dream bars!"

"Hold on!" I yelled. "Everyone just hold on. Give me a few minutes to sort this out."

I shut the door as quickly as I could and made my way to the back room. I could hear voices in the back.

"Trixie? Eleanor?" I called out. The voices stopped.

Trixie's head suddenly popped out from behind the swing door.

"Ava! You're back. Thank the witches. Come back here and see if you can talk some sense into her because I can't!"

"Uh oh," I muttered to myself and quickened my pace. When I got into the back though, it wasn't Eleanor that Trixie was glaring at. It was Sadie.

"Sadie?" I cried, happy to see her up and walking around. "You're out! That was fast."

"Not fast enough," she said. "Dr. Dunne and Amanda Hollyberry poured all sorts of concoctions down my throat trying to make my memory come back. One of them tasted like Windex." She made a gagging sound. "They had an unanticipated side effect though. They didn't just help my memory, they kind of fixed everything that was wrong with me. My head's feeling a whole lot better than it was last time you saw me."

"I just can't believe Dr. Dunne actually let you out."

"He didn't, exactly. He wanted to keep me a few more nights, but I wanted to go home and be in my own bed. He finally agreed so long as I swore to come in every day for the next week for a checkup."

"I've gotta go and tell Dad. He'll be so relieved." I ran to her and gave her a hug. She hugged me back. "Do you want to come see him at the station with me? Maybe you can talk some sense into the sheriff."

"Erm... maybe later."

When I turned around, I realized it wasn't just Trixie who was glaring at Sadie. Eleanor was looking at her as though she were her mortal enemy.

"Tell her," Eleanor said through her teeth. Her hands were on her hips and if I didn't know better, I’d think she was just waiting for the perfect opportunity to hex Sadie.

"Tell me what?" I asked.

Sadie gulped and turned to me. "I'm not trying to cause problems for anyone. I love your father, and I love you and your aunts."

"Oh, please," Eleanor grunted and turned away as if the scene before her was too disgusting to look at.

Sadie blushed and continued, "The potions they gave me helped my memory."

"They did?" I asked. "That's great!" Then I saw her face. "Isn't it?"

"Well... They didn't work completely, you understand. I want to be very clear about that."

"Okay..." I said, waiting for the ball to drop. Whatever was coming was going to be a doozy.

"I just have pieces of images, like snapshots." She drew in a deep breath and let it out. "In one of those snapshots, Finn and I are walking down the sidewalk after leaving the party and someone starts screaming at us... it's your father."

I froze. "What are you saying?"

"Nothing for sure. I don't remember enough to say anything for sure. But I do remember enough to know that your father was there the night Finn was killed."

I stared at her for a long moment. "Maybe your memories aren't accurate. Maybe one of those potions Dr. Dunne and Amanda Hollyberry gave you had some sort of delusional effect on your mind."

"I'm not delusional," snapped Sadie. "I'm just as upset as you by this, but I can't change it. I'm not making this up; this isn't my imagination. It's true."

"Have you told Sheriff Knoxx or Colt any of this yet?"

"No, they're my next stop when I leave here. I wanted to give you and your aunts the courtesy of hearing it from me first."

"Don't tell the sheriff anything," I said, pleading with my eyes. "My dad's got a witness. Someone saw him heading for the beach at the exact moment you were probably getting attacked."

"A witness?" she asked uncertainly.

"That's right. Two of them, actually. A couple. They were coming out of a movie theatre when they bumped into my dad, so we can place the time they ran into him pretty precisely. And Elwin got a call about a woman screaming for help a few minutes before Trixie and I stumbled over you and Finn."

Sadie bit her lip.

"Let me see if I can find them. If the time they bumped into my dad was the same time as the call to Elwin, then he couldn't have been the attacker. Just give me two days. If nothing turns up, then go and talk to Sheriff Knoxx."

She hesitated but finally said, "All right. Two days. I owe him that much, at least."

CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

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After spending an entire day looking for Snoopy, I finally began to accept that she did not exist. Or rather, she did not exist on the island of Heavenly Haven.

"She must have been a tourist," I lamented to Eleanor between morning and afternoon rushes. I leaned against the counter, my head propped up on my elbow, trying to stop my stomach from spinning in circles. "Sadie gave me two days. Forty-eight hours. Time's almost up."

"You still have the rest of today," Eleanor said.

"What good will it do? I've looked everywhere, talked to everyone."

Eleanor went into the back room without a word. I thought she was going to check on Trixie, who'd been busy with her frostings all morning—she claimed to be on the verge of creating a new strawberry-mint frosting that was going to blow all our minds— but returned a minute later with a single cookie sitting on a plate.

She set the plate down in front of me. "Eat."

"I don't think I could eat anything right now. My stomach's all in knots."

Eleanor gave me "the look." It was something she had been practicing over the last year, and I had to admit it was pretty good. All she had to do was tilt her chin down, arch one eyebrow, and glare, and people would do just about anything she asked them to do, including me.

I picked up the cookie and took a bite. The moment it hit my mouth, I felt a surge of energy hit my brain. My confidence suddenly soared. I looked down at the cookie in my hand; it looked like an ordinary chocolate chip happiness cookie, but I knew it had to be more than that.

"What is this?" I asked her.

"Do you like it?" Eleanor asked, smiling. "I took some of your happiness extract and combined it with peppy powder and a confidence booster. It's one of my new creations."

"It's delicious," I told her as the bell above the door jingled.

I looked up, hoping to see Snoopy herself walk in. Rationally, I knew that was ridiculous. The chances of such a thing happening were slim to none, and even if she had walked in here, how would I have recognized her? She probably didn't have "Snoopy" tattooed on her forehead.

My eyes lit up, though, when I saw who had entered our store. It wasn't Snoopy, but it was the next best thing.

"Natalie," I said so cheerfully she looked startled for a moment.

"I talked to Lucy," Natalie said, walking up to the counter. "She tells me you're looking for Snoopy."

"You put out the word?" I asked hopefully.

"No." My face fell. "I didn't have to. I know Snoopy. I'm surprised you don't know her, too. Certainly, you've met her before, you probably just didn't realize it."

"You mean she's an islander?"

"Not an islander, exactly, but she makes frequent enough trips down here so that she ought to be. She's dating that guy who works at the barbershop. The skinny one with the bad hair."

"Luke?"

"That's the one."

"What about her?" I asked. "What's her real name?"

Natalie blinked. "Snoopy."

Even Eleanor giggled at that one.

"You mean to tell me that Snoopy isn't just a pet name? Someone actually named their kid that?" I cried out, feeling bad for the girl, whoever she was.

Natalie smiled. "Her full name is Snoopy Lampton. She usually just goes by Sue though. That's probably why Lucy didn't recognize the name when you mentioned it to her. I think the 'Snoopy' thing is a closely guarded secret of hers. So, of course, I know all about it."

My jaw hit the floor. "Dean Lampton's daughter? I don't think I even knew he had a daughter."

"Really?" Natalie frowned. "I assumed that since Colt works so closely with him you must've known about her. He didn't mention it when you asked him about her?"

I let out a heavy sigh. "I've been so mad at him about arresting my father I've hardly spoken to him in the last few days." If I had just found a way to let go of some of my anger for even half an hour, I might've solved the mystery of Snoopy that much sooner. Maybe my father would already be out of jail.

"Do you know where she is now?" I asked Natalie.

"The ice cream parlor. I just walked past her on my way here. I think Luke is with her."

I shot a look to Eleanor who waved her arm toward the door. "Go," she said.

I ran out of the bakery so fast I didn't even bother to take off my apron. I managed to shout out a "thank you" to Natalie before the door slammed shut behind me and I was running down the sidewalk.

CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

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The ice cream parlor was just a few blocks away. I made it there in about five minutes, huffing and puffing as I threw the door open.

A few people looked in my direction as I stood motionless, panting, sweat running down my face, but I ignored them, focusing only on finding Snoopy. I wished that I had thought to ask Natalie what she looked like before running out like that. From what she said, though, it sounded as if I ought to recognize her when I saw her.

I scanned the room and my eyes settled on Luke. I didn't know him well, but I knew him well enough to know him by sight. He was seated at the and of the counter talking to a brunette with her back to me. I made my way over to them, trying to remain calm. The last thing I wanted to do was scare her off by acting like I'd taken one too many potions.

There was a napkin dispenser on the counter. I pulled one out and ran it across my forehead, wiping away the sweat that had accumulated there during my five-minute run. The waitress was looking at me but said nothing. I'm sure with all the witches, wizards, and tourists they got in here, she'd seen far stranger things than a sweaty twentysomething who probably appeared as if she was looking for her friends.

"Hi," I said, grabbing the stool next to Snoopy.

She turned around, and I realized that I did recognize her. Her eyebrows weren't quite as bushy as her father's—probably because she had sense enough to trim them— but there was a distinct impression of Dean Lampton behind her eyes. They were the same dark, suspicious eyes I'd seen looking out at me from Dean's face time and time again. She was all of eighteen.

"Who are you?" Snoopy snapped. She was holding an ice cream laden spoon in front of her like it was a shield, or maybe a sword. She seemed the type of person who would fling ice cream at another person if she got mad enough.

"I know her," said Luke. "Hey, Ava."

Snoopy glared at him. "You know this... person?"

She certainly had her father's attitude. I wasn't sure I quite understood what Luke saw in her, but to each his own, I figured.

"Relax, Snoopy," Luke said. "You know I only have eyes for you." He put his hand over hers and gave it a squeeze. She pulled it away.

"Don't call me that." She pinched him hard, and he let out a yelp. "You know how much I hate that name. I should never have told you what it really is. As far as you or anyone else is concerned, my name is Sue, not Snoopy."

"Whatever you say... Snoopy."

She narrowed her eyes at him and made a sound like a cat growling, getting ready to strike. Luke was either a very brave man or a very stupid one. If he had even the slightest bit of sense, he would stop teasing her now before she clawed him.

"Um," I said, drawing their attention back to me. "This may sound like a strange question, but were you at the movies the night of Sadie Belle's party?"

"What's it to you?" Snoopy asked.

"Well," I said, trying to think of the best way to explain all this. "You heard about what happened after the party, right?"

"You mean that guy who got killed?" Luke asked. "Yeah, we heard about it. Heard your dad almost took him out right there at the party. At least he had enough sense to wait till they left." He snickered behind his hand, and I realized he and Snoopy had more in common than I'd thought.

"My dad did not kill anyone," I shouted.

Snoopy took another spoonful of her sundae and ate it as if we were discussing the weather rather than murder. She really did take after her father. "Sounds like all the interesting stuff happened after we left the party."

I looked at her. "You were at Sadie's party?"

She nodded. Luke did, too.

"I don't remember seeing either of you there."

"The party was a drag. The only people dancing were all old, none of the food was low carb, and I found some woman crying in the bathroom."

"The bathroom?" I asked. "What woman?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I think I heard someone call her Loni when she came out."

Loni was crying in the bathroom that night? I tucked that information away for later and tried to get back on track.

"When did you leave the party?"

"We took off almost as soon as we got there and went to a movie I'd been wanting to see," Snoopy told me.

"Only it was boring," said Luke.

"It wasn't boring," Snoopy snapped.

I cut them off before their conversation could continue. I had the feeling these two could argue about that movie for another three hours and still not reach an agreement.

"Do you remember bumping into a man that night on the sidewalk in front of the theatre?"

It was such a trivial incident to have stuck in their heads I wasn't sure that either of them would remember it.

"You mean your dad," Luke said.

My heart raced. "You remember seeing him?"

"Yeah. Snoopy pinched me, and I nearly knocked him over when I jumped away from her."

Snoopy said, "You deserved it, and anyway, he knocked into you. I told you that you should've gone after him and made him apologize."

Luke said nothing.

"Do you remember what time that was?" I asked.

"Just after the movie let out," Luke said.

"What's this about, anyway?" asked Snoopy.

"Is this to do with the murder?" Luke asked.

I nodded. "The sheriff thinks my dad did it, but Elwin Muster got another call before mine came in about a woman screaming. That was about 9:10, the time Sadie was being attacked. But if you two can place him outside the movie theater at the time the crime was being committed, then he couldn't have done it."

I doubted that Snoopy gave two cents about helping my dad, but Luke seemed thoughtful.

"We got out of the movie around 9:10 or 9:15," he said. "The movie theater can probably tell you more precisely." He gave me the name of the movie. Snoopy sat there silently. She wasn't helping, but at least she wasn't making things any harder either.

"Ava," Luke said as I was rising to go. I wanted to talk to Sheriff Knoxx as soon as possible.

"Yeah?" I asked.

"What if the time we saw your dad doesn't match up with the time of Elwin's phone call? What if it doesn't clear him?"

"Of course, it will."

"The thing is, we were a little further down from the theater when we ran into him. Closer to the spot where Sadie's boyfriend was killed."

"He wasn't her boyfriend," I snapped, sounding a bit like Snoopy. "And what do you mean, you weren't outside the theater?"

He shrugged. "It's just what I told you. We'd already been walking for a little ways when we bumped into him."

I frowned. "Were you near town center? By Wanda's Willow?"

This time, Snoopy answered, "We were a little past your bakery."

I froze. "But that doesn't make sense. My dad said he was coming from town center when he ran into you. If what you're saying is true, then he wasn't coming from town center at all. He wasn't anywhere near it."

Snoopy and Luke exchanged looks.

"Thanks," I said and left feeling more lost than when I'd arrived.

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

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Elwin Muster was sitting at the sheriff's desk when I came in. He jumped up, looking guilty.

"Sheriff Knoxx lets me sit here when he's out," he said by way of explanation as to why he wasn't at his own desk.

"It's okay, Elwin. I won't tell anyone."

He smiled at me and took back his seat. "You here to see your dad? Go on back."

"Thanks." I started back but stopped and turned around. "Elwin, you had another call the night Finn was killed, right? It came in just before mine?"

Elwin nodded. "Sure did. A lady called in to say she'd heard a woman screaming for help, and we better send someone down. I figure the woman must've been Sadie Belle."

"Why did you only send one deputy?"

"Well, the last call we got about a woman crying out for help turned out to be not so bad. It was just a woman whose cat had gotten caught in a tree. I didn't really think anything big was wrong till your call came in."

"Who was it that made the first call?" I asked.

"Wouldn't say. Wanted to remain anonymous."

"What time was that?"

"About ten after nine."

"And what time did I call in?"

"Oh... about fifteen after."

I frowned. If Luke had been correct and their movie had gotten out at 9:15, which was just when Trixie and I were discovering Sadie and Finn, then whoever had killed them had done so before 9:15. So far, this timeframe wasn't really helping my dad too much.

"Thanks, Elwin," I said and went into the back.

My dad rose from the cot he'd been lying on when I came in. "I'm glad you're back. I never realized how boring it was to be in jail. That's the real punishment these criminals get, utter and complete boredom all day and night." He smiled and gave a quick laugh, but I knew he wasn't joking.

I pulled up a seat next to his cell, then decided to stand. I crossed my fingers together and tapped my foot on the floor.

My dad looked at me with his head cocked to the side. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know," I told him.

He continued to stare at me.

"Something about this timeframe doesn't add up."

"What are you talking about? What timeframe?"

"Yours." I started pacing the floor, looking at him every few steps. I finally stopped and turned to him. "I found Snoopy."

His eyes widened. "You did? That's terrific!"

"Not as terrific as you might think."

He frowned. "You mean, she doesn't remember me?"

"Oh, she remembers you. So does her boyfriend. It's that guy Luke who works at the barbershop. He remembers you even better than she does, can positively identify you, in fact."

He was reserving his smile until he'd heard the whole story. "So, why aren't we jumping for joy?"

"Because they say when they ran into you, it wasn't outside the movie theater, it was a little past Mystic. Around 9:15."

He was no longer frowning. He was staring blankly at me.

"If they're right, Dad, then their alibi doesn't help you at all. In fact, it hurts you. It means you weren't coming from Wanda's Willow at all. You were coming from the spot where Trixie and I found Sadie and Finn. Around the time they were attacked."

He looked at the floor as if he couldn't meet my eyes and let out a heavy sigh.

"Dad?" I asked. "Is there something you want to tell me?"

He kept his head down for a full minute and when he finally looked up again, his eyes were red and teary. "I didn't hurt them. I swear I didn't."

"Okaaaay..." My heart was starting to thump in my chest. It was getting harder to breathe.

"I was just so angry with them," he said, clenching his hands into fists and letting out a loud moan. His face was beet red.

"Dad, you're starting to scare me." I took a gulp of air and felt like a fish out of water. "Were you there that night? Did... did you see what happened?"

He lifted his eyes to mine and shook his head. "I didn't see anything. I must have left before it happened. If I'd only stayed a few more minutes, Finn might still be alive, and Sadie would never have gotten hurt."

"What are you saying?" I asked.

"I did go to Wanda's Willow that night after I left the party. I wanted to cool down. I knew I was out of control. Only... it didn't work. Instead of getting calmer, I got angrier. I kept thinking about Finn and Sadie together, and I just lost it."

"What do you mean you just 'lost it'?"

He took a deep breath. "I left Wanda's Willow and went back to the party, only it had already broken up. I saw you and your aunts inside cleaning, but Sadie wasn't there. So, I started walking around looking for her. I finally found her a while later... with Finn. I heard..."

He stopped talking entirely for several minutes, and I wasn't sure he'd be able to start again. When he did, his voice was thick with tears and regret.

"I heard him tell her to get rid of me and go back to Norway with him." He grunted and banged his hand against the bars. "I knew that man was no good, but she wouldn't listen to me."

"Dad, Sadie told me all about this. She turned him down. She told him no."

"I know," he said. "I heard her. But I was so upset at that point I didn't care. I came out from behind some bushes yelling at them both. I think I scared her. I wasn't trying to scare her; I only wanted her to come home with me. But she said she wasn't going anywhere with me when I was like that."

"What did you do?" I asked, holding my breath.

"I left."

I blinked. "You left? That's it?"

He nodded.

"Did you... did you see the two-by-four anywhere?"

"No," he said. "I never saw it, and I never touched it. I never laid a hand on them. Ava, you've got to believe me."

I nodded, unable to think. My dad was looking at me, begging me with his eyes to believe him, and I just wasn't sure I could anymore.

CHAPTER

EIGHTEEN

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Before leaving the bakery that night, I told Eleanor and Trixie what my dad had said when I'd gone to visit him. They were just as shocked as I was.

"I can't believe Eli would be so jealous as to actually attack Sadie and Finn," said Trixie.

"According to him, he didn't attack them. He just kinda ranted and raved a little bit," I said.

Eleanor looked at me. "If Colt ever did that to you, say when you were out walking around with Damon, what would you do? How would you feel?"

I bit my bottom lip. "I guess I'd feel... threatened."

"I bet that's exactly how Sadie felt," Eleanor said. "That's probably why she stayed with Finn after your dad left."

"I guess so," I said, feeling miserable.

"Maybe it's not his fault," said Trixie, brightening. "Maybe he's sick."

"What should I do? Should I tell anyone? I texted Colt and asked him to call me, but I'm not sure I can bring myself to rat my dad out like that."

"You wouldn't be ratting him out," said Eleanor. "You'd be helping him. If he really is responsible for what happened to Sadie and Finn, then he really does need help."

I frowned and bit my lip harder.

"Don't say anything if Colt calls," Eleanor said. "I'll tell Zane. That way the only one who has to bear the burden of guilt here is me."

"You'd do that?" I said.

"For you? I'd do anything."

Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. "Thanks," I said and gave her a hug.

We went home, but I couldn't sleep. The next day, I got to the bakery twenty minutes ahead of Trixie just because I was so anxious to hear what the sheriff had said when Eleanor told him about my dad.

"He said he'd look into it," Eleanor told me.

I frowned. "Look into it?"

"Zane can be very reserved with his emotions at times."

I let out a sigh and started in on the chocolate chip blondies we still had to prep for the day. Trixie arrived, but the place felt different without my dad here. Everything seemed to take longer; everything seemed that much more tedious.

"You okay?" Eleanor asked me after a half hour had gone by without me saying one word.

I nodded. "I'm all right. I'm just thinking about everything. I wish I'd never found Snoopy."

Eleanor patted my back reassuringly and listened to me as I began to ramble.

"Did you know that Snoopy and Luke were at the party that night? They said it was boring. She actually complained that our food was not low-carb." I scoffed, and Trixie giggled. "It's not funny," I said but I felt myself start to giggle, too. "I think the only other person there that night who must have had a worse time than those two was Loni."

"She did seem out of sorts that night," Eleanor said, taking a mixing bowl and starting to whip up a chocolate cake.

"Snoopy told me she actually found her crying in the bathroom." I looked up at my aunts, an idea occurring to me. "Do you think I should talk to her?"

"What for?" Trixie asked.

"She's been acting so weird lately. I never told you what happened on the elevator."

Eleanor and Trixie looked at me. I filled them in on my encounter with Loni in the elevator at Sweetland Hospital the day I'd gone to visit Sadie. They looked thoughtful as I told them how the elevator only started to move again after Loni had finished interrogating me. I was almost positive that it hadn't been a coincidence.

"You think it's important?" I asked.

Eleanor shrugged. "We can't let anything slide right now. We all agree that Loni's not acting like herself. Eli's also not acting like himself. Maybe there's a connection we're missing."

"Isn't Sadie back at the hospital again?" Trixie asked suddenly. "What if Loni's not there?"

"She's there," Eleanor said. "I talked to Sadie the other day. They're keeping them both on as co-head-nurses right now until Dr. Dunne is satisfied Sadie's fully recovered. Being head nurse means working long hours. No one wants to see her hurt herself."

By the time I got to the hospital, it was almost ten. I'd left Eleanor and Trixie in the middle of the morning rush because Eleanor seemed to think that Loni might leave the hospital at noon. She wasn't a hundred percent sure on that, but she didn't want to take any chances.

I found Loni on the fourth-floor hospital ward handing out medication to the long-term patients. I watched her roll her medicine cart up and down the hall making her rounds and tried to stay off to the side and out of her way. I didn't want her to feel like I was attacking her by coming here. I could wait until she'd finished what she was doing before speaking with her. After all, how long could it take to hand out medication?

An hour later, I had just decided that even if she wasn't finished, I had to step in. I couldn't sit here all day. Noon was fast approaching, and Loni didn't look any closer to being done with her shift.

Sadie walked past her, and I noticed the tension between the two of them. Sadie glared at Loni, and Loni glared at Sadie. Neither of them spoke to each other, and from what I could see, that was exactly how they wanted it.

I knew that normally they were friends. Sadie had always spoken of Loni with the highest regard, and according to what she'd told us, Loni had been the one to recommend Sadie as head nurse. So, why were they acting like they hated each other all of a sudden?

I watched Sadie walk down the hall headed in the opposite direction from me. I didn't want to talk to her just now. As far as I knew, she hadn't told Colt or Sheriff Knoxx about her memory of my father yelling at her and Finn, but I supposed it didn't matter now. Eleanor had told the sheriff for her. I sighed and figured I ought to at least send her a text later and let her know.

I didn't blame her for her doubts about my father, but neither could I forgive her for them at this moment. It didn't matter that I now had my own doubts, I only resented Sadie all the more for them.

"Loni," I said, coming up behind her.

She jumped and spun around, her eyes wide. "Oh, Ava," she said, laughing.

"Who did you think it was?"

She shrugged. "No one." She quickly brushed a stray strand of hair out of her eyes and looked around me as if searching for an escape route. "I'm very busy right now. Was there something that you needed? If you're looking for Sadie—"

"I was looking for you, actually."

"Oh," she said, and her stance changed. Her spine straightened, and her chin stuck firmly out. I had her cornered against a wall not too far from the nurses' station. "Well? What is it? Like I said, I'm busy."

"Why were you crying in the bathroom at Sadie's party?" I asked, getting straight to the point.

Her mouth dropped open, and her eyes bugged out of her head. "How dare you?" she shouted louder than she meant to. She quickly looked around and dropped her voice. "I don't know who told you that, but it's a silly lie."

"How dear you stop the elevator in a hospital with some sort of spell just so you can interrogate me about Sadie?" I countered.

If possible, her eyes grew even wider and her mouth dropped that much more. "I... I... I have no idea what you're talking about." She brushed past me then, hurrying down the hall to a far door on the right. She got to it just ahead of me and shut it behind her. I turned the knob, but it was locked.

"Warthogs," I cursed under my breath. I tried the first anti-lock spell that came to my mind and it worked. The door swung open, and Loni jumped off the couch she had sunk into.

"You can't come in here," she yelled. "This is the nurses’ break room."

I stepped inside and shut the door with a loud bang.

"That's it," Loni said. "I'm calling security." She pushed a button on the wall and an intercom sprang to life. "I need Hubert Moss to the nurses' breakroom right away." There was a long silence. "Hello...? Hello...?" No one responded.

"I'm not trying to upset you, Loni," I said. "I'm only trying to figure out what's going on around here."

She looked nervous for a second. "What do you mean 'around here?' "

"Sweetland Cove. The bakery, the hospital, all of it. People are acting completely out of character."

"You mean this is about your father?" she asked, her face softening.

I nodded. "Why did you corner me in the elevator that day and ask me about Sadie's memories?"

For a second, I thought she was going to answer but then she said, "I didn't want to give up my position as head nurse. I thought... I thought that if her memories hadn't returned, she might not be able to fulfill her role and I could stay on."

I blinked. "You didn't want to give up the position? Didn't you resign?"

She nodded and wiped tears from her eyes. "It wasn't my idea."

"What do you mean?"

"I love being head nurse. I only gave it up because... because..." Tears were running down her cheeks now. Instead of feeling angry at her, I felt nothing but sympathy. I went to her and put my arms around her, pulling her into a hug.

"What happened?" I asked.

"My b-b-boyfriend dumped me," she said.

"Oh." It was the last thing I had expected her to say. "I didn't even realize you were seeing anyone."

"He's human. We kept it quiet because we weren't sure his family would approve."

"I'm sorry," I said. "You must've really cared about him."

She nodded, sniffling, and grabbed a tissue off the counter. She blew into it and threw it in the trashcan. "I'm sorry about that day in the elevator. When I resigned from here, I was fresh off the breakup. I didn't think I could stay in the same town as him. Now that I've had a little time to cool down, though, I realize what a mistake I've made."

Understanding hit me. "That's why you were crying in the bathroom at Sadie's party. We were celebrating her taking over the role you still wanted."

She nodded.

"I'm really sorry," I told her and meant it.

"Me, too," she said.

Huber Moss entered the room just then. He looked at me, looked at Loni, and asked her if she needed assistance.

"No, it's okay," Loni said, waving her hand in the air.

"Yeah, I was just leaving anyway," I told him. The last thing I needed right now was to get myself arrested.

He glared at me for another minute before finally retracing his steps back out the door, but I noticed that he left the door open as he did so.

"You won't tell anyone what I told you, will you? I'd hate for Sadie or anyone else to find out. I think she already senses something's wrong, even though I'm doing my best not to show it around her."

"Don't worry," I said. "Your secret's safe with me."

CHAPTER

NINETEEN

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Colt showed up at the bakery just before closing. Part of me was happy to see him, part of me was still angry with him for arresting my father. I didn't know how Eleanor was dealing with it at home. She actually shared a house with Sheriff Knoxx. At least Colt and I weren't living together yet. If we had been, I was pretty sure he'd be sleeping on the couch. For all I knew, that's exactly where Sheriff Knoxx was spending his nights.

I'd told my aunts that after talking to Loni, it all been a huge misunderstanding. I hadn't gone into details about everything, I'd simply said that I'd been mistaken about the elevator incident and that her crying in the bathroom at Sadie's party had nothing to do with what was going on with my father.

They seemed satisfied with that answer, more or less, and had dropped the subject as fresh customers rolled in. We had already cleaned up the back room and were just waiting out the last twenty minutes before we could lock the doors when Colt entered, looking sheepish.

"Hey, Ava." He looked at Eleanor and Trixie and nodded to them.

Trixie and Eleanor exchanged a look, and Eleanor said, "I just remembered that I forgot to finish washing the cookie sheets."

"No, you didn't," Trixie said.

"Yes, I did," Eleanor countered, glaring at her. She quickly linked arms with Trixie and dragged her into the back room, Trixie insisting all the way that the cookie sheets were washed and dried.

Colt laughed. "I think Eleanor wants to give us a minute alone."

"Seems like it."

We stared at each other for a long minute before Colt crossed the room in three swift strides. Without a word, he pulled me into his arms and held me tightly. "I'm sorry," he said, pressing his hand against the back of my neck where he massaged the top of my spine. My body tingled from my head to my toes.

"I know you are," I told him.

"Are you still mad at me?" he asked.

"Yes," I told him. "But I'll get over it."

He kissed me hard and his warmth filled all my empty places. It felt so good to be back in his arms that for a moment I forgot that Eleanor had told Sheriff Knoxx all about Snoopy and Luke. When I finally remembered, I froze up.

"What's wrong?" he asked as I took a step back.

"Why are you here?" I asked, suddenly suspicious.

He frowned. "I missed you."

"And?" I asked. I knew there was more, and I wasn't about to let him off that easily.

"Look, I know you're angry at me—"

"It's not just me. Eleanor and Trixie are just as mad as I am. And I'm sure my father is livid. Snowball's upset, too, by the way. You're lucky she's spending a few days with Max to learn how he brings in the tuna off his boat. Otherwise, she'd scratch you a good one."

"Snowball doesn't scratch," he said, calling my bluff. "You're letting her go out fishing with Max?"

Max was a fishmonger who had a little stand down on Sweetland's boardwalk where he sold fresh fish every day. It was one of Snowball's favorite places to hang out when she wasn't at home.

I shrugged. "Familiars are even more magical than witches. Besides, Max loves her. He won't let anything happen to her. Now tell me why you're really here, because it's not just to tell me that you missed me."

A smile broke out on his face. "You're smarter than you look," he said, trying to be funny. "Which is good. I'm definitely as smart as I look, which isn't saying a whole lot."

The most I could muster was the quick lift of one corner of my mouth. I wasn't in the mood for jokes, but the feel of his lips was still on mine and I didn't want to start arguing again. Yet.

"You look pretty good to me," I told him.

Colt let scratched his head and let out a sigh. "We're releasing your father."

I blinked, and my breath stopped. "Say that again," I told him.

He smiled. "We're releasing your father."

I let out a shriek, and Trixie and Eleanor came running out to see what had happened. "They're releasing Dad," I told them.

Eleanor and Trixie shot Colt a look that was part amazement part joy. "Releasing him?" Eleanor asked. "But how? Zane hasn't said anything to me about it."

"We only just made the decision," Colt said. "I talked to Snoopy Lampton and her boyfriend earlier today."

"But their story only made Dad look guilty, didn't it?"

"At first glance, that's true," Colt said. "But when I went and checked with the movie theater, that movie they saw let out a little before nine on the day in question, not 9:15 like Luke had thought."

"He lied?" Trixie cried.

Colt shook his head. "He just misremembered. In fact, after checking around a little more, Snoopy and Luke passed another couple that night who was headed toward that burger place down the street from here. They remember seeing Luke and Snoopy at about nine. They even remember seeing your dad."

"What?" I yelled. "You mean another couple saw him before the murder happened?"

"That's right," said Colt. "Your dad probably didn't notice them because he was on the opposite side of the street. But they remember seeing him. They'd been at Sadie's party and had seen him storm out, so when they saw him on the street later, it made an impression."

"That means..." I said, my heart racing.

"That means your dad couldn't have been the killer."

I ran to him and threw my arms around him. "Thank you!" I cried. "Thank you thank you thank you!" I kissed his mouth, his cheeks, his nose, his head, and probably would have kept kissing him if Eleanor hadn't interrupted.

"When should we expect him home?" Eleanor asked.

"The sheriff is finishing up the paperwork right now. He might be home by the time you get there."

I kissed him again and ripped off my apron. "Let's go."

Eleanor and Trixie were already one step ahead of me. Both had hung their aprons by the door.

"Anything else we need to know about?" Trixie asked, almost as an afterthought.

Colt hesitated. I almost missed it, but I happened to turn my head just as he pursed his lips and ran a hand nervously through his hair.

"What is it?" I asked him. He had just given us such good news that I didn't want to hear anything bad.

"I had my guys at COMHA do a second pass over that two-by-four... they came up with a second set of prints they missed the first time."

We all paused and looked at him. "And?" I asked. "Who do they belong to?"

He looked at me and then looked quickly away. "We're still working on it," he said. And I knew he was lying.

CHAPTER

TWENTY

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"Will you go to the hospital with me?" asked my dad.

We were at The Mystic Cupcake, sitting in the back room rolling out cookie dough. He'd been released from the sheriff's jail two days ago and had come immediately back to work. Trixie and Eleanor had told him to take a few days off and stay home to recuperate from his experience, but he'd said he wanted to do something to keep his mind occupied. He didn't want to think about the time he'd spent behind bars or how close he'd come to staying behind them for the rest of his life.

At first, he'd tried to work at the counter out front, thinking that interacting with the customers would be good for him. Between me, Trixie, and Eleanor he'd had visitors for every day he'd spent at the sheriff's station, but that didn't make up for lack of contact with the outside world.

It had taken exactly one hour after his return to the bakery for us to realize that his being out front was never going to work. Yes, he had plenty of conversation, but it was the wrong kind of conversation. All people wanted to talk about was what had happened to him and what he knew about Finn's killer. Everyone seemed to think that he knew more than he'd let on to Sheriff Knoxx. When he'd tried to explain that wasn't the case, they scoffed and raised their voices demanding more answers.

My father had finally retreated to the back room, where he had stayed hidden ever since.

"Ava?" he asked again after a minute when I still hadn't answered him.

"I'm sorry, what?" I asked, shaking out my head.

I was having my own troubles concentrating this morning. Colt and I had started talking again after my father's release and had, for all intents and purposes, made up. But I still felt as if he was keeping something from me. There was a distance in his eyes and embrace that bothered me. Whenever I asked him about it, he said I was worrying over nothing and laughed to show how silly I was being.

Still... I wasn't quite buying it.

"Do you want to go to the hospital with me?" His cheeks colored. "Or rather... will you go to the hospital with me?"

I frowned. "Why do you want to go to the hospital? Do you think you're getting sick? Did you catch something when you were in jail?"

He shook his head. "No, I feel fine. It's Sadie."

"What about her?" I asked.

His blush deepened. "She won't talk to me."

"Ohhh," I said, understanding sinking in.

"I've called, I've texted, I even sent her a letter by mail." He laughed at that. "Do you remember the last time you sent anyone an actual letter in the mail? But I did it. She won't return any of them. I'm not really sure where I stand with her right now."

"I'm sure she still loves you. She's just been through a lot in the last couple weeks."

"So have we all."

"Yeah, but it was her friend who died. And she was the one who ended up in the hospital with a coma. We've all been dealing with a lot, but I think maybe she's been dealing with just a little bit more."

He sighed. "Point taken." He rolled his cookie dough so thin that holes started to form in it and he had to start all over again. "I'd feel better if I could just see her. Just talk to her, even if it's only for a minute or two."

I felt bad for him, but I wasn't sure what I could do. "Do you want me to talk to her?"

"No, I'm not sure that would help anything. I was hoping if you just came along with me, it might help smooth things over a little bit when she saw me. She's always liked you, and I don't think she's blamed you for any part of what happened. The same can't be said of me."

"All right," I said. "When do you want to go?"

"Is now too soon?"

I set my cookie dough aside and rose from my stool. I was making no better progress with it than he was. The morning rush was at its tail end and Eleanor and Trixie made no objection when my dad told them his plans.

"We'll be back before noon," he said.

"Be back before eleven if you can," Eleanor called after us. "The lunch rush has been starting earlier and earlier every day this week."

Trixie threw her a scalding a look, and I heard her say, "You can't rush love."

Eleanor blushed and retracted her statement. "Never mind. Take all the time you need."

When we got to the hospital, Sadie was seated at the nurses' station. I didn't see Loni anywhere and thought it might be better that way. I wasn't exactly her favorite person right now. The last time I'd seen her, I'd made her cry. I couldn't help but wonder who her boyfriend was—or rather, had been. Why had he dumped her? Was that the real reason she had resigned from her position as head nurse?

When she'd told me that story, I'd felt so bad for her that I hadn't questioned it. It had made sense at the time, and it still did, but that didn't mean there was nothing else going on.

Sadie looked up as we approached. Her face colored. "May I help you?" she asked, sounding as professional as possible.

My dad looked hurt. "Sadie," he said. "Can we talk?"

"I'm sorry," she said, rising and turning away from us, "but I'm on duty right now."

Loni suddenly rounded the corner and came up behind her. She saw us talking to Sadie and started. She offered us a small smile and looked at Sadie. "Are you going on break?"

Sadie's eyes narrowed. "No," she said, her voice snappish. I got the sudden impression that Sadie felt threatened by her. I didn't entirely blame her. She'd been offered Loni's job then had it taken away almost as soon as she'd started. Well, not taken away exactly, I supposed. Just... curtailed.

Loni's eyes narrowed right back. "If you want to talk to your friends, then you need to go on break."

"I'm not talking to them. I'm going to... see Dr. Dunne. He paged me."

Loni frowned. "I didn't hear a page."

"Sadie, please, just talk to me for a few minutes," my dad said, so much emotion in his voice that Sadie could not help but turn to him. She frowned when she saw his face. His brows were drawn tightly together, the corners of his lips turned down. A deep line formed across his forehead. He looked as though he were about to cry.

She exhaled a long sigh. "All right," she said and turned back to Loni. "You'll watch the station till I come back?"

"Of course," she said, and for a moment the tension that clearly lay between them broke. The smile that Loni offered Sadie was genuine, and Sadie's return of it was just as genuine.

Sadie followed me and my dad down the hall toward the elevator that would lead us to the cafeteria.

"Um..." Sadie said, looking at me and blushing. "It might be better if your dad and I talked alone."

"Sure," I said, looking at him. He nodded almost imperceptibly.

"You don't mind, do you?" Sadie said quickly. "You understand, right?" She didn't want to offend me.

"No, not at all." I told my dad I'd just wait for him here, and he followed Sadie into the elevator.

"Be good," he told me as the elevator doors closed, and I wondered briefly if he'd had some kind of premonition.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-ONE

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When my dad and Sadie were gone, I turned back around and headed toward the waiting room, intent on being good just as my dad had told me. But then I had a thought.

Loni was stuck at the nurses' station. She would be occupied for the next fifteen or twenty minutes, at least. This might be my best chance to talk to Dr. Dunne alone and see if he could tell me anything more about Loni's resignation or this boyfriend of hers. I wasn't quite sure why it was stuck in my head—call it witch's intuition—but I felt like there was something about this whole thing I was missing.

I knocked on Dr. Dunne's door and waited for his reply. He called out, "Come in," and I went inside.

"Oh, Ava, it's you," he said, sounding as if he was not altogether pleased to see me. He had a cup of coffee on his desk and began to fidget with it. He pushed it away after a moment and shut the top drawer of his desk so quickly as to draw my attention to it, even though I was quite certain that had been the exact opposite of his intent.

"Hi, sorry for just dropping in like this," I said.

"It's fine. What can I do for you?"

I took the seat opposite him. "What do you know about Loni's ex-boyfriend?" I asked, jumping straight to the point.

His eyes widened. "Her ex-boyfriend?" he said, laughing. It was a forced laugh, however. "Why would you ask me about something like that? Why not ask her?"

"I did," I said. "She didn't want to talk about it."

"Well then," he said. "If she didn't care to speak about it with you, it's not my place to say anything."

"So, you do know something?"

He laughed again. It was even higher and shriller than last time. "No, I'm afraid not. All I know is that Loni was seeing someone and they broke it off for whatever reason. I don't even know the man's name."

He glanced at his desk drawer again as it popped open. He pushed it back in.

"Is he the reason Loni resigned?" I asked.

Dr. Dunne shrugged. "I don't know why Loni resigned. Anyway, she's back now, and she doesn't seem to want to go anywhere, even though I've urged her to several times."

"You have?" I asked, confused. "I thought you wanted her to stay on until Sadie was fully recovered."

"I did. But as far as I'm concerned, Sadie is fully recovered now and Loni's still here." His face grew red and pinched.

There was another knock on his door and Hubert Moss poked his head in. He glared at me when he saw me. "Everything okay in here?" he asked Dr. Dunne. Dr. Dunne nodded. "Sorry to disturb you, sir," Hubert continued, "but we've got a slight situation in the cafeteria."

I groaned. I hoped it wasn't Sadie and my dad.

"Well?" asked Dr. Dunne. "Why don't you handle it?"

"It involves one of your nurses, sir. Miss Belle."

I winced at her name and wished that I'd gone with my dad after all. Dr. Dunne looked at me. "Excuse me for a moment," he said and followed Hubert out into the hall.

I sat in my chair for another minute or two before rising out of it and heading around to his side of the desk. The top drawer was ajar. I looked anxiously up, afraid he might come in at any moment. I could hear muffled voices talking in the hallway, but I couldn't make out what they were saying.

I quickly pulled open the drawer and looked inside. It was a mess. Pencils, papers, and prescription notepads lay jumbled together. I searched through them all and found nothing of particular interest. Maybe I'd been imagining things when I thought he was trying to hide something from me.

I closed the door and opened the one on the right. It was filled with patients’ folders. I hesitated, then shut that drawer, too. I doubted that there was anything inside the folders that would help me find Finn's killer, and I didn't want to violate anyone's privacy by peeking into their folders for no reason.

The drawer on the left produced similar results. I shut it as well and was about to go back to my own seat when the top drawer popped open all on its own. Apparently, the latch was broken. I took it as a sign that I should give it another pass through, and this time, I noticed a stack of pictures that I'd missed the first time. There were off to the side, hidden under one of the prescription pads.

I pulled the pictures out and sifted through them. They were all of Loni. Not just Loni, though... Loni and Dr. Dunne. They were smiling together, holding hands, kissing.

"Oh, my roses," I said. I never even heard Dr. Dunne come back into the office until it was too late. The door slammed shut and I jumped, looking up with the guiltiest of expressions on my face. I threw the pictures back into the drawer and slammed it shut, jumping out of Dr. Dunne's chair.

"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded, his face a mask of fury.

"Nothing," I said quickly. "I'm sorry."

He came around to my side of the desk and pulled the drawer open as I backed away. He saw the pictures lying on top and let out a heavy sigh. He looked at me.

"It's against hospital policy for a doctor to date a nurse," he said. "Especially when that doctor is me. I run this place. If anyone found out about us, people would start to say things like I was giving her preferential treatment, or maybe even that I was guilty of misconduct."

He picked the pictures up and looked at them, his face losing much of the anger and turning to sadness. "I should've gotten rid of these pictures long ago."

"Why didn't you?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I guess part of me hoped... thought... one day..." He shrugged again. "I just didn't," he finally said.

"You're the reason why Loni resigned," I said, "aren't you?"

He nodded grimly. "I asked her if she was sure that was what she wanted to do, but she said it was." He let out another heavy sigh and sank into his chair. "When I broke up with her, I never thought she'd resign."

"Why did you break up with her?" Now that his secret was out, he seemed a lot more willing to talk about it, as if he were anxious to explain.

"I started getting nervous. She started wanting to eat with me in the cafeteria. She'd stop and talk to me in the halls more than any of the other nurses. I was a coward. My position at this hospital means everything to me. As much as I cared for her, I didn't want to lose it."

"So, you ended things." He nodded. "How did she take it?"

"Not very well, I'm afraid. She yelled a lot, cursed a little. I've never seen her quite so upset. Told me she'd get back at me for this."

"Get back at you?" I asked.

He looked at me now, his eyes wide. "She was angry when she said that. She didn't mean anything by it."

I pressed my lips together and said nothing.

"Your father is waiting for you outside," Dr. Dunne said after a minute. "You better go to him before he gets himself arrested again."

"Arrested? What happened?"

"He and Sadie had some sort of argument in the cafeteria. Apparently, some cafeteria trays may have gotten thrown around, though I can't say for sure whether it was Sadie or your father or both who were responsible for it. Hubert wanted me to call Sheriff Knoxx, but I convinced him to let your father go. If he comes back into the hospital though, I'm not sure I can stop Mr. Moss. He's quite a tough security guard."

"Thanks," I said and headed for the door.

"Ava... you won't tell anyone what we discussed, will you?"

"No," I said to him. To myself, I added, At least, not right now.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-TWO

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My dad didn't say much for several minutes as we walked away from the hospital as quickly as we could. I had to hurry to keep up with him. I asked him what had happened with Sadie, and he merely grunted and said, "She's upset right now, that's all."

I thought about pressing the matter but decided against it. My father's moods were not generally erratic or melancholy, but when they became that way, it was better to leave him alone. He would tell me what had happened when he was ready.

Finally, when we were a little more than halfway back to the bakery, he paused on the sidewalk, taking a deep breath and turning to me. "Sadie ended things with me."

"What?" I asked, my eyes going wide. I watched him closely to see if he might be joking, but this was no joke.

"She doesn't want to see me anymore," he went on.

"But why? Does she still think you're responsible for Finn's death?"

"She says if I'm not directly responsible, I'm still indirectly responsible. She doesn't trust me anymore."

"I don't understand. How can you be indirectly responsible?"

He shot me a look. "You know that second set of fingerprints Colt says they got off that two-by-four?" I nodded. "She claims she knows who they belong to. That part of her memory came back, and she had a vision."

"A vision? What sort of vision? If she thinks she knows who the killer is, she should say something. Tell the sheriff, not you."

His voice was strained as he said, "I'm not sure that's the best idea. It's your Aunt Eleanor." He looked at me again, trying to gauge my reaction.

I burst out laughing. "Aunt Eleanor? You can't be serious."

"I am," he said, looking grim

"But... but... Eleanor would never hurt Sadie. And what possible reason could she have for murdering Finn?"

"Sadie didn't have answers for those questions. Trust me, I asked them several times. Nothing she said made much sense, at least not to me. All she would say was that she remembered seeing Eleanor there. That your aunt attacked them."

"Yeah, but before that, she remembered you attacking them as well."

He paused. "Yes, but she was sort of right about that. I mean, I didn't attack them, but I was there that night. I did confront them."

"You think Eleanor confronted them, too?"

He shook his head. "No. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I think Sadie's memories are a little mixed up right now, that's all. I think she knows it, too. That's why she hasn't spoken to Sheriff Knoxx yet."

I put a reassuring hand on his back. "She'll come around. I'm sure she didn't mean it when she said she didn't want to see you again."

"I'm sure she did, but that doesn't mean she won't change her mind."

We walked the rest of the way to the bakery in silence. When we arrived, Eleanor was prepping for the lunch rush.

"Oh, good, you're back," she said as we came in.

My dad returned to the back room to try again with the cookies we'd been working on earlier, saying nothing about Eleanor's accusations. I followed his lead and kept quiet, but it was hard. I stayed out front with my aunts. They would need me more out here right now than in the back. I watched Eleanor fill our display cases and set out samples.

I replayed the night of Sadie's party in my head. Eleanor had left the bakery at the same time as me and Trixie. There was no way she could have reached Sadie and Finn before us. Could she? Even if she'd gotten a new broom, it couldn't have been that fast.

"Is there something caught in my teeth?" Eleanor asked after she caught me staring at her.

"Huh? Oh, no," I said and turned quickly away. "I was just... spacing out a little." I laughed it off like it was no big deal, and Eleanor thought no more about it.

People began to file in but only here and there at first. Eleanor was standing next to me as Trixie rang up a woman who bought two dozen chocolate chip happiness cookies, one of our best sellers.

"You're staring at me again," Eleanor said.

"Sorry. I was just thinking."

"About what?"

"The night of Sadie's party. You went straight home after we left, right?"

She nodded. "Of course. Why?"

I shrugged. "It just occurred to me that I never asked you if you'd seen anything suspicious that night."

Eleanor laughed. "The only suspicious thing I saw was when I got home and found Rocky with his nose in the refrigerator." She laughed loudly now. "I swear that wolfhound has a one-track mind."

"You're sure you didn't see anything?"

She stopped laughing. "Like what?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. Like Sadie and Finn... walking together."

She blinked at me. "How would I have seen Sadie and Finn? I live in the opposite direction from where they were found."

"I know."

She looked at me a little close more closely now. "What's going on? Is there some reason you're asking me these questions all of a sudden?"

I felt my face flush and looked away from her. If she saw my cheeks turning red they would be a dead giveaway that there was more to my questions than simple curiosity.

"No reason." I felt her staring at the back of my head and refused to turn around and meet her gaze. Instead, I busied myself with refilling the dark chocolate caramel brownies.

The bell chimed above the door and Cole and Sheriff Knoxx rushed in, one right after the other.

"You cannot do this!" shouted Sheriff Knoxx. "I won't allow it." He sounded furious.

"I don't need your permission, Sheriff," said Colt, just as loud loudly though not quite as angry. There was a hint of compassion behind his voice that the sheriff's was lacking.

"What's going on?" I asked Colt, exchanging a quick glance with Eleanor and Trixie.

Sheriff Knoxx answered for him. "He's here for your aunt."

Eleanor looked astonished. "Trixie?" she said, moving protectively to her sister's side. Her eyes darted to Sheriff Knoxx before moving to Colt. "What do you want with Trixie?"

"Nothing," Colt said, and suddenly, I had a bad feeling.

"You talked to Sadie," I said.

Colt looked at me and cocked his head to the side. "Yes. She called me just after you and your dad left the hospital."

Eleanor looked at me, confused. "What does Sadie have to do with anything? What is this?" Her voice, normally calm and even, was rising with every word. Her cheeks flushed and a thin film of sweat broke out on her brow.

Sheriff Knoxx stepped protectively over to her. The expression on his face dared Colt to cross the imaginary line separating them.

My dad came out of the back room just then and caught the tail end of our conversation. Between that and the expressions on our faces, it was enough for him to understand what was happening. "Sadie's mistaken about a lot of things right now," he said, directing his statement to Colt.

Eleanor and Trixie continued to look confused.

My dad went on, "She was wrong about me, and she's wrong about Eleanor."

"Wrong about me how?" asked Eleanor. "Would someone please tell me what you are all talking about."

My dad sighed and turned to her. "Sadie had a vision, or rather, a flash of memory."

"Or what she thinks is memory," I added. "For all we know, it was part of a dream or something."

My dad nodded emphatically, as did Sheriff Knoxx.

"And?" Trixie prompted.

"And the memory has to do with Eleanor," my dad said. "And the night Sadie and Finn were attacked."

Colt looked at me. "I'm sorry," he said and took a deep breath.

"If you do this," I told him, "I'll never forgive you."

He exhaled the breath. "Eleanor Rose, you're under arrest for the murder of Finn Riley."

Cries of protest rang out.

"She didn't do it!"

"Impossible!"

"Don't be ridiculous!"

"I hate you!" This last cry came from me. I felt like a child throwing a tantrum, but how could I not? How could anyone calmly accept something so ridiculous?

Sheriff Knox looked like he was ready to kill Colt if he so much as laid one hand on Eleanor. The handcuffs dangled from Colt's fingers as he inched forward.

He paused and looked around the room, addressing not just me, but all of us. "It's not just Sadie's statement that's forcing me to do this. Don't blame her for this. I was going to have to do it anyway. Her statement was just sort of... the final push."

My dad grunted. "Right," he said sarcastically.

Colt looked my father. "It's true. She called us an hour ago and told us what she'd remembered, but it had little impact on anything. She'd been wrong once before, I couldn't take anything she said as gospel the second time around."

"So, what are—?" my dad began but Colt cut him off.

"The second set of fingerprints we found on the two-by-four belonged to Eleanor."

I looked at Eleanor. She looked baffled.

Sheriff Knoxx stepped forward and yanked the handcuffs out of Colt's hands. "Don't you dare put these things on my wife," he yelled. It was a lucky thing the lunch rush hadn't started yet. Or maybe it wasn't luck at all. Maybe Colt had planned it that way. He knew the bakery's schedule as well as anyone.

"It's all right, Zane." Eleanor put one hand on his shoulder and he let up a little, stepping back from Colt. "You don't need to put those things on me," she told Colt. "I'll go quietly with you. I prefer that our friends and neighbors don't see me walking out of here looking like a criminal."

Colt hesitated then put the handcuffs back on his belt. "I'm sorry about this. I really am. Dean Lampton's really coming down hard on me to solve this thing, and right now, all the evidence points to you." I had to admit that he sounded sincere. His voice was apologetic, his face embarrassed.

"It's okay," she told him. "I only feel sorry for you."

Colt paused and looked at her. "Sorry for me?"

She nodded and turned back to the room, facing all of us. Her eyes lingered on first the sheriff, then me, my dad, and Trixie. She looked sadly back at Colt. "Everyone in this room believes I'm innocent. If I were you, I wouldn't walk anywhere alone at night for a while." She smiled sweetly, almost casually up at him.

He tensed and looked at the angry faces staring back at him, including mine, and gulped.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-THREE

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Sheriff Knox told us all that Eleanor's arrest was a huge mistake and we shouldn't worry about anything, that he would take care of it. We frowned but allowed for the possibility that he could do precisely as he said. After all, he was the sheriff. He might not have as much weight with Dean Lampton as Colt had, but he had some.

My dad expressed his doubts, however.

"Colt works for COMHA," he said. "He outranks Sheriff Knoxx."

Technically, he was right. It was like the FBI versus the state police. They both had their own jurisdictions and reported to different people, but in the end, if COMHA wanted to take control of a case, there was little the sheriff could do to stop them. Still, that didn't mean the sheriff couldn't figure something out.

I thought Sheriff Knox might be angrier than any of us. His face was red and pinched when he left the bakery. If he'd been any angrier, steam would have been coming out of his nose.

"What if he does something stupid?" I asked Trixie and my dad after he’d gone.

"Like what?" asked Trixie.

"Like kill Colt and break Eleanor out of jail," I said.

My dad shook his head. "The sheriff is angry right now, but he's a lawman above anything else. He won't do anything that would involve breaking the law, it's just not in his nature."

I wish I could have agreed with my father, but something told me that he was Eleanor's husband first, a lawman second.

But people started to file in and soon we had two choices before us—continue with our day as Eleanor would have wanted us to do and give the sheriff a chance to sort this out or let ourselves fall to pieces and shut the bakery down for the rest of the day. We all agreed that Eleanor would want us to continue—the bakery was her pride and joy—so that's what we did.

Besides, if we shut the bakery down, it would be all over town in a matter of hours—hours? heck, an hour tops—and we wouldn't have a moment's peace until the gossip mongers were satisfied as to why we'd closed up shop. Everyone would find out about Eleanor soon enough as it was, but that didn't mean we had to help speed things along.

Natalie Vargas came in a couple hours later, after the lunch rush had ended and when we were in a bit of a lull. I braced myself. If anyone knew what was happening with Eleanor, it was Natalie, the biggest gossip of them all.

"Hi," Natalie said, breathless. She looked as if she'd run all the way here from the pub she owned. "I need two dozen chocolate happiness cookies, three dozen peanut butter dream bars, half a dozen vanilla strawberry tranquility bars, and two lemon-frosted peppy pound cakes."

"Are you having a party?" I asked, wanting to know what she'd heard about Eleanor but not daring to bring it up unless she brought it up first. I saw Trixie watching her and knew she was thinking the same thing.

"Yes," she said. "A big birthday bash. This group just walked into the pub right off the street, no warning or anything. Of course, I told them I could accommodate them—far be it from me to push away customers—but I need a little help. This group has a real sweet tooth, and I don't have quite enough treats on hand to suit their needs."

She paused and looked around as if making sure we were alone. There were a couple of customers milling around in the left corner of the store talking to Trixie. It looked as though they were asking her about sampling some cookies.

"Have you heard the news?" Natalie’s cheeks colored. "Of course, you've heard the news. Look who I'm asking."

This was it. I took a deep breath and got ready for the barrage of questions that were sure to follow her statement.

My dad had retired to the back room about twenty minutes ago and I was glad of it now. His tolerance for Natalie's gossip was quite low compared to my own and Trixie's. I hated to admit that I was dying to hear what she knew. The thing about Natalie's gossip was that, unlike other gossip mongers in town, hers was fairly accurate.

"What news?" I asked, bracing myself.

"Snoopy and Luke ran off together last night."

My eyes bugged out of my head. That was quite possibly the last thing I'd expected her to say. "You're kidding."

"You mean you haven't heard this already?" she asked, delighted. "I thought for sure Colt would have told you, assuming he knows. Dean Lampton is trying to keep it under wraps as best he can, but there's no fighting news like this. It was bound to come out."

"So, they eloped?" I asked, brushing past her comment about Colt. I had no intention of informing her that Colt and I were most definitely not on speaking terms at the moment, so any gossip he had to share would never reach my ears. In fact, he was the last person in the world I wanted to see right now. First my father, now my aunt. Next, he'd be arresting me.

Natalie started going on about Snoopy and Luke and the notes they'd left behind for each of their families. Apparently, they'd jumped a plane to Las Vegas and were probably there this very second standing in one of the chapels saying their I do's.

I didn't interrupt her. Once Natalie got going, it was better to just let her finish. But I worked as she talked. By the time she was done with her story, I had gathered up all the items she asked for and packed them neatly into several bags.

"Thanks," she said after she'd paid. "You're a lifesaver." She hurried off.

Trixie had finished with her own customers, and we found ourselves alone in the store again. For the time being, at least.

"What did Natalie have to say about this business with Eleanor?" Trixie asked, her voice a little shaky.

"Nothing," I said, and she shot me a look. "I know, I'm just as surprised as you are." I relayed my conversation with Natalie to her.

"Do you think it's possible she doesn't know about Eleanor?"

I shrugged. "If she had, she would have asked me for the scoop."

"You think Colt is keeping it under wraps?"

"I don't know what Colt is doing anymore. I feel like I barely know him."

Trixie hesitated. "Maybe you'd better go down there and talk to him. I know Sheriff Knoxx said he'd handle everything, but..."

"But he doesn't have the kind of influence with Colt that his fiancée must surely possess," I finished for her.

Trixie nodded and looked hopefully at me. "Just put a little swagger in your steps when you walk into the station."

It took all my efforts not to laugh. "Swagger?" I said.

"Yeah, you know... a little oomph in your moves." I was smiling. "Well, it can't hurt," she said, sounding as if I'd insulted her. I promise to try and put a little 'oomph' into 'my moves' as she'd instructed me and went to the sheriff's station.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FOUR

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When I got to the sheriff's station, about three hours after he'd arrested Eleanor, Colt was standing next to Sheriff Knoxx's desk, facing the entrance as if he'd been expecting me. Sheriff Knoxx was nowhere to be seen.

"Took you longer than I expected to get down here," he said.

"I had to wait till things died down at the bakery," I told him. "Eleanor wouldn't want us to let the place go just because you suddenly lost your mind and arrested her."

Colt shook his head. "The only thing I'm afraid I've lost, is my fiancée."

I blushed and looked at the floor. "I wouldn't say you lost me... yet. But if you arrest anyone else in my family, I might have to kill you."

"You shouldn't joke about stuff like that with a COMHA agent," he said, sounding serious. That only made me want to joke with him all the more.

"Don't worry," I told him. "Your death won't be painless. Especially if Sheriff Knoxx gets to you before I do. I'm pretty sure he means to rip you from limb to limb."

Colt finally cracked a smile. "If he was going to rip me apart, I'm pretty sure he'd have done it by now. Though I admit that when we first got back to the station, I thought that was a distinct possibility."

"Well, I'm glad you're still alive. Especially since it appears you're the only one who can release my aunt."

I swung my hips from side to side as I stepped closer to him and thought that Trixie would be proud.

"Are you okay?" Colt asked. "Did you hurt your leg?"

I stopped with the oomph and just walked normally.

"Ava," Colt said, putting one hand up as though he were a traffic cop telling me to stop. "I love you, and I love your family, but I have a job to do."

"Do you think Eleanor killed Finn?" I asked him point blank.

He hesitated then said, "No, I don't."

That helped a little. Not much but enough to stop me from hating him. His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he took it out, glanced at it, then set it on the desk.

"Do you want to see her?" he asked. "Is that why you're here?"

"Yes, I want to see her. But I'm not just here for that, I'm here because..." I meant to say that I wanted him to release her, but I knew by looking at him that was never going to happen. The only way Eleanor was getting out of here was if the real killer was caught. "Did you find a third set of fingerprints on the two-by-four, by chance?"

"No," he said, looking tense. I could tell he was on the defensive.

"What about hair? Or fibers? Or... blood?"

"The only blood found on the two-by-four belonged to Finn and Sadie."

I frowned. "Okay. What about the other stuff?"

"You mean the hair and fibers?" He shook his head. "You've been watching too many detective shows on TV."

"Just answer the question," I snapped at him.

He looked taken aback for a second and pressed his lips together. "No. No hair, no fibers. At least, nothing belonging to anyone other than the victims."

"And Sadie doesn't remember anything else?" I asked.

"Nothing that would matter. Ava, Sadie's not the reason I arrested Eleanor. It was because of the fingerprints."

"So, what about my dad's fingerprints?" I asked suddenly, stepping closer. I felt heat rising up the back of my neck.

"What about them?" Colt asked.

"They were on the two-by-four, too. How do you explain that?"

Colt glowered at me. "I can't. Not yet, at least."

"But you don't think my dad had anything to do with the murder anymore."

He hesitated then said, "No, I don't."

"Well, then, there must be some logical explanation for all of this. We just need to find it."

Colt frowned. "If you want to see Eleanor, go on back. The sheriff's with her now, but I'm sure she'd like to see you before you go."

I got the hint. Colt wanted me gone. Elwin Muster came strolling into the room just then from the holding area. He looked at me and Colt and blushed as if he'd walked in on us kissing instead of standing three feet apart from each other glaring at one another with our arms folded across our chests.

"Oh, uh, hi, Ava," Elmer said, embarrassed.

"Hi, Elmer."

"You here to see Eleanor? The sheriff's talking to her now. They're sitting at the desk in the other room. There's only two chairs, but I can bring another one around for you if you—"

"They're doing what?" Colt yelled, his head snapping around to look at Elwin.

Elwin began to fidget. "Uh, they're sitting and talking in the holding area."

"At the desk?" Colt demanded. "You mean Eleanor's not in her cell?"

"Uh..." Elwin said and stared at the floor.

Colt ran into the other room, Elwin following closely behind him, looking scared. I think he was afraid he'd just gotten the sheriff in trouble. I was sure the sheriff could take care of himself though.

Colt's phone began to buzz on the desk where he'd left it, vibrating madly as a call came in. I thought it would stop after a minute, but it just kept going. Whoever was calling seemed rather insistent. I picked it up, afraid it was an emergency. The caller must have hung up, though, because the phone was silent. Suddenly, it buzzed once more, like he'd gotten a text. I bit my bottom lip.

I glanced down at the phone and unlocked it. His passcode was my birthday. The message was from Loni.

911! Answer your phone!

I blinked. What was Loni doing texting him? And what could be so important? The phone started ringing again. I stared at it for a moment as it vibrated in my hand and then answered.

Loni's voice cut me off before I could say anything. "What are you doing arresting Eleanor Rose?" she yelled. "Have you lost your mind? I told you that it's someone who works at the hospital. I'm not just sneaking around here for my health, you know. Whoever's responsible for Finn's death must be trying to frame her. And by the way, you never got back to me about that snoopy girlfriend of yours. I still can't believe I cried in front of her. I was that close to telling her everything about Dr. Dunne. Hey, you don't think he did it, do you?" There was a long pause and then, "Hello? Hello...?"

I panicked. I had no idea what to do so I hung up. Colt walked back into the room just then and saw me holding his phone in my hand. His eyebrows drew together, and he walked over and snatched the phone away from me. He glanced down at the missed message from Loni and saw that he'd had an incoming call from her that had lasted about a minute.

"Did you answer my phone?" he asked.

I bit my bottom lip and cast my eyes to the floor.

"Ava!" he cried.

"I'm sorry," I told him. "I didn't mean to."

"You mean my phone just accidentally answered itself? What did you say to Loni?"

"Nothing," I told him.

His phone chose that moment to start ringing again. He answered it. "Hello? Loni, can I call you back? I have a situation here." He hung up and glared at me.

I licked my lips. "Loni thought I was you when I answered. She said she wasn't sneaking around the hospital for no reason. What did she mean by that? What's really going on here?"

Colt sighed and sat on the edge of the desk. "What else did she say?"

"She asked if Dr. Dunne might have anything to do with this." I waited a second and asked, "Does he?"

Colt shook his head. "No. At least, I don't think so."

I stared at him. "If you don't tell me what Sweetland Hospital has to do with Sadie's attack then—"

"Nothing," he said.

I blinked. "What?"

"Nothing," he repeated. "Sadie was only attacked because she was with Finn. Or at least, that's my working theory for the moment."

"What are you talking about? You're saying that Finn was the target all along?" He nodded. "But why? No one here even knows Finn. He lives in Norway for crying out loud."

"That's true... to an extent." He rose from the desk and started pacing the room. "Finn works for a very lucrative pharmaceutical research company."

"Right..." I said. "I know that."

"He's been talking to Dr. Dunne and the rest of the board members at Sweetland Hospital about some sort of new medicine he's discovered. I think someone's after it."

"Medicine?" I asked. "What medicine?"

"I'm not entirely sure. But a laundry list of medications have gone missing from Sweetland Hospital recently. Whoever's taking the stuff works there. I think they're looking for Finn's stuff."

"And you think that Sadie's involved?" I asked.

I was angry with her for dumping my dad and accusing Eleanor of killing Finn, but at the same time, I knew she was struggling with these things herself. She was just confused. She'd been through a lot and beneath it all, I still cared about her. I just couldn't see her taking hospital supplies, especially medication, under any circumstances.

"Sadie's not involved with it," he said. "I cleared her a while back with Loni's help."

"Loni's helping you?"

"I needed someone on the inside."

"Why Loni?"

"She's head nurse. She can get into any room in that hospital. She has access to everything."

"So does Dr. Dunne."

Colt shook his head. "I knew Loni couldn't be responsible for the thefts. First of all, she's the one who first reported them. Second of all, she wasn't there when all of them took place. Dr. Dunne, however, was."

I scoffed. "You can't really believe that Dr. Dunne would steal from his own hospital."

He shrugged. "At the moment, I'm not quite sure what to believe. People that I never thought capable of committing a crime suddenly stand accused."

"Yeah, but you said you don't really believe Eleanor's guilty."

"I don't, but the evidence indicates otherwise. It's only because I know Eleanor as well as I do that I believe she's innocent. No one else will see it that way. Certainly not Dean Lampton."

"Oh, my roses," I said, lighting striking just in front of me. "This is why Loni resigned, isn't it?"

He nodded. "Dr. Dunne found out she was working with me. He got angry at her and broke off their relationship. She got upset and wanted to quit. I told her it was her choice whether she resigned, but now that her cover was blown, I thought that was probably the wisest course of action. But I insisted that Sadie take her place. She was the only other person there who I knew could be trusted, thanks to Loni."

"You mean you meant to bring Sadie in on your little scheme."

"I wouldn't call it a scheme exactly. It was a planned operation for the Council on Magic and Human Affairs. And yes, I meant to bring Sadie in on it. We haven't figured out yet who's taking the medication. And I haven't cleared Dr. Dunne. I needed someone else in there, but I never even got a chance to talk to her about it."

"So maybe whoever attacked Sadie and killed Finn knew about your operation and was trying to get rid of her."

"Or Finn," he added.

"Or both of them," I said.

"Do you still want to see Eleanor?"

I shook my head. Right now, all I wanted to do was get down to the hospital.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FIVE

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Sweetland Hospital was busier than usual when I arrived. It wasn't just your average sick or injured people milling about the place this time; there were large numbers of first-year medical students who were there to take a tour.

People my age walked up and down the halls led by dour-looking men and women twenty years older than them who seemed intent on explaining the intricacies of each and every room, hall, and patient they passed by.

I tried to walk around a particularly large group and got caught smack in the middle, unable to move through them. The man who was leading the tour pointed at me and said, "You! How would you diagnose a man with who comes in presenting with pain in his right shoulder, pain in his neck, and tingling up and down his arm?"

Another student, a boy of twenty-one with dark hair and an eager expression, jumped in and said, "That's a classic heart attack, sir. If ever I heard of one."

He sounded pretentious, like he thought he knew it all. It reminded me of a girl I'd gone to high school with who was always raising her hand before the teacher had even asked the question.

I shot him a look and said, "Heart attacks present with left shoulder pain, not right. The guy probably just sprained a muscle in his neck or pinched a nerve."

"Very good," said the man in charge, looking at me and smiling. "A pinched nerve might certainly present with pain radiating up and down his arm and shoulder, including the tingling sensation I mentioned. What's your name, young woman?"

I hesitated then said, "Ava Blockmeyer," making up the first name that came into my head.

"Well, Ava Blockmeyer, you certainly have a bright future ahead of you as a doctor."

The guy who'd said 'heart attack' glared at me.

I thanked him and waited for the group to move on before escaping down the first hall I came to. It was a tough squeeze, but I managed to get by the group and find Dr. Dunne's office.

I knocked on the door then spotted yet another group of med students coming down the hall toward me. I opened the door without waiting for a reply, not wanting to get sucked into their claustrophobic little world as I had with the first group.

Dr. Dunne looked up from his computer and glared at me. "Ava. You’re back. Again." He forced a smile. "It seems you just can't stay away from here these days." He rose from his chair and started toward me. "I'm sorry, but I'm very busy right now. I can't—"

"I know about the missing medication," I said quickly before he could usher me out of the room.

He let out a heavy sigh. "Who told you? Was it Loni?"

"No, I just heard it around town." I didn't want to give up Colt on the chance it might get him in trouble. If Dr. Dunne was not going to jump that to that conclusion on his own, then I certainly wasn't going to supply it for him.

His eyes widened. "You mean people in town know what's been happening?"

"Not exactly." I didn't want to alarm him. "I just... overheard some of the sheriff's deputies talking when I was at the station visiting Eleanor."

"Eleanor?" he asked. "What do you mean? Is she in some sort of trouble?"

I blanched, realizing too late that he hadn't heard about her arrest.

"Uh, no, she was just there visiting the sheriff and I went by to talk to her."

He nodded as if that made complete sense.

"Now what can you tell me about this missing medication?" I asked him. "Who's taking it and why?"

His face tightened. "I can't go into details about that with you." He turned around and went back to his desk, as if having the structure between us created a wall I would not be able to pass easily by.

"I already know someone's been stealing from the hospital. I know that Loni has been working with COMHA to catch whoever's responsible."

"Then it sounds to me as if you know as much as I do."

I lifted an eyebrow. "I'm sure there's more to it than what you're telling me."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because there's always more to stories like these," I said and waited.

Dr. Dunne leaned back in his chair. "If there is, then I'm certainly not going to tell you. Why not ask your fiancé?" A light dawned in his eyes. "Of course, you already have. That's who told you about the thefts in the first place." It wasn't a question, and I didn't deny it.

He pushed a button on his desk phone and a voice crackled out over the speaker, asking if he needed anything.

"Can you send in Hubert Moss please?"

The voice on the other end said they'd get him right away.

"I'm not leaving until I get some answers," I told him.

Why are you so concerned with what's happening at the hospital?" Dr. Dunne asked.

"Because it concerns Sadie and Loni, and I'm almost positive that whatever's going on here has something to do with Eleanor's... I mean my father's arrest."

Dr. Dunne ran a hand over his chin as if rubbing an imaginary beard. "I'm sorry, I can't help you."

There was a quick knock on the door and then Hubert Moss entered. He took one look at me and didn't even bother to ask Dr. Dunne what he needed. He grabbed my arm and began to pull me out of the room. I struggled against him, but he was quite strong.

"Mr. Moss," Dr. Dunne said and Hubert paused with me halfway out the door. "Once you've escorted Ms. Fortune out of the hospital, please add her name to our list of banned visitors. Unless she becomes ill, of course."

"Will do, Doc." Hubert started pulling me the rest of the way out of the room. I grabbed hold of the doorframe and dug my fingers in, refusing to let go.

"You can't just throw me out," I shouted.

"I can, and I will," Dr. Dunne said.

Hubert chuckled behind me.

"Loni still loves you!" I cried just as Hubert managed to pry my fingers off the door and pulled me into the hall. I was still struggling with him, and in our fight against each other, we fell to the floor.

Dr. Dunne appeared in the doorway and hovered over us. "What did you say?"

"Loni still loves you," I repeated for him.

He glared down at us. Hubert managed to grab my wrist and twisted it behind my back, pulling me to my feet.

"Ouch!" I cried.

Hubert did not apologize.

"Let her go," Dr. Dunne said.

Hubert looked at him as if he'd just declared himself to be the president of Venezuela.

“Sir?"

"Let her go," Dr. Dunne repeated. "It seems I'm not through talking with Ms. Fortune just yet."

Reluctantly, Hubert did as he was told. He looked distraught about it, however, and I was certain that if given the chance, he would ban me from the hospital for life.

Dr. Dunne held the door open for me. I stepped back into his office and he shut the door. He did not move away from it, however, simply leaned against it. Whatever he had to say, he clearly wanted to make it quick.

"How do you know she still loves me?" he asked.

"Because she still cries about you."

I could see him take that in and his mind began to work. "I broke it off with her when I found out she was working with Colt. I was upset neither of them had trusted me enough to involve me in what they were doing."

"They had to rule out everyone who was a suspect," I told him.

"I know, but that doesn't make it any easier when you find out you've been kept in the dark. Colt, I could understand. He doesn't know me like Loni. But I couldn't understand how she might think me capable of such a thing as stealing medication from patients." He shook his head. "It gave me pause."

I scrunched my brow together. "What do you mean?"

"I started to wonder if the real reason she had kept things from me was that she was involved with it all herself somehow."

My eyes widened. "You mean you think Loni might have been the one stealing from the hospital?"

"At the time, it made sense."

"You still love her though, don't you?"

He nodded solemnly.

"Do you still think she might be the one responsible for the thefts?"

"No. Not anymore. The last theft wasn't like the others. It happened the night of Sadie's party, and it wasn't just any medication that was stolen; it was something new from Norway."

My heart skipped a beat. "From Finn's company?"

He nodded.

"What did the medication do?"

"He brought the sample over the morning he was killed. I was due in surgery that morning and didn't have long to speak to him. All he said was that it was the cure for all viruses."

"What did you do with it?"

"I put it in my safe, in this office. I was the only one with the combination. The night of Sadie's party, I left the hospital early to attend, but I forgot my phone here and had to come back. When I returned, my safe was wide open and the potion was gone. I learned later that Loni was already at the party at the time the theft occurred. It couldn't have been her."

"And you're still not sure what the potion did?"

"If it could really kill all viruses as Finn indicated, it would be a huge thing for doctors everywhere. I'm just not sure I believe it. One medication that can kill all forms of viral infection would be remarkable. There must have been something more to it that he hadn't yet told me. But he died before I could ask him."

"What was the name of the medication?"

"Florahexadrine."

He opened the door. Hubert Moss was still in the hall, as if he'd been patrolling it waiting for me.

Dr. Dunne hesitated as I reached the door and added, "If you talk to Loni again, let her know that I still care for her, too."

I smiled and assured him I would, then I took my leave. Hubert Moss escorted me all the way to the exit on the first floor.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SIX

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"What did Sadie tell you about Finn?" I asked my dad a couple days later at the bakery.

He looked up at me from his bowl of snickerdoodle dough. We were in the back room. It was early morning, and the bakery wasn't even open yet. We were sitting together at the same table, each of us working on our own separate things. Trixie was out front setting the display cases. The place seemed oddly quiet without Eleanor there.

"Finn?" he asked, looking confused. "Nothing. All she ever told me about him was that he lives—lived—in Norway and they dated in high school."

"Yeah, but she must've told you something more than that. I mean, she was trying to get you to like the guy, right? Didn't she... I don't know... build him up to you somehow? Point out his better qualities?"

My dad frowned. "I tried not to listen when she did that."

"You must remember some of what she said though," I said, pressing the issue.

He let out an exasperated sigh. "She went on at quite some length about what a do-gooder he is. Said he was always trying to help people, that's why he'd gone into pharmaceutical research. He wanted to find cures for every disease on the planet."

I added some Fluffernutter root to my sleepy time extract and thought about what my dad was saying. A do-gooder bent on saving the world's population. It was a tall order for anyone.

"Did she ever say anything to indicate that his coming to Sweetland Cove had anything to do with something other than just meeting you before your wedding?"

Now he frowned and scrunched his brow. "No. Why?"

I shrugged. "Just wondering."

"That's an odd thing to wonder about. Finn flew in from Norway specifically at Sadie's request. What makes you think there might have been another motive behind it?"

"Just something Dr. Dunne said," I told him.

"You talked to Dr. Dunne?"

I nodded. I hadn't exactly filled my dad and Trixie in on everything I'd learned up till now, mostly because I wasn't sure what it all meant. Eleanor was still in jail, and I didn't want to start spreading rumors that might land others in jail as well, especially if they were unfounded.

"Do you know what hotel Finn was staying at?" I asked.

"Sweetland House," he told me, naming a popular bed and breakfast. He eyed me suspiciously. "Why?"

I shrugged. "No reason." I went back to my extract and dropped the conversation. It was only agitating my father and didn't seem to be getting me much of anywhere. At least I knew the name of the hotel Finn had been staying at now.

My dad went out front to help Trixie with something, and I pulled my phone from my pocket and texted Lucy.

Can you meet me at Sweetland House at two?

She texted me back a few minutes later.

Sure. Why?

I told her I'd tell her when we got there. At two o'clock, I told Trixie and my dad I was going to take a break and walk down to Coffee Cove. They each asked me to bring them something back and I promised I would.

Outside Sweetland House, I filled Lucy in on what my dad had told me as well as Dr. Dunne. She didn't look particularly surprised by it all.

"Well, he clearly came down here to see Sadie, but that didn't mean he couldn't kill two birds with one stone. Wasn't he rich? Sweetland House is one of the nicest places in town. It would make sense that he was staying here."

"What about the rest of it?"

She shrugged. "He's responsible for a huge pharmaceutical company. Of course, he's going to hand out samples to the hospitals. He wants to gain their support. After all, he can't stay rich if people don't buy his stuff."

She made it all sound so logical that I wondered if I was being silly for coming down here. Whatever room he'd been staying in had certainly been searched by now, either by Colt or Sheriff Knoxx or both. I wasn't sure what sort of speaking terms they were on these days, considering Eleanor's arrest, but I knew that even something like that would never stop the sheriff from doing his job. Even if he wanted to turn Colt into a toad, he wouldn't actually do it. I didn't think.

We opened the door and stepped into a large foyer that served as the lobby. A bell chimed overhead and a woman with dark gray and brown hair came out of a room on the right.

"I'm Mrs. Cambridge. May I help you?"

"We were wondering about a room of yours," I told her

"I'm afraid we're all booked up for this week, but if you leave your names and numbers I'd be happy to call you if we have any cancellations. Unless you'd like to reserve something for a later time, of course." She had a pleasant voice that matched her pleasant countenance.

"Actually," I said, "we're here about Finn Riley."

"Yeah," chimed in Lucy. "We were hoping we could get a peek at his room."

The hostess' demeanor suddenly changed. "I'm not in the habit of gossiping about previous guests. If it's pictures you want of the room he stayed in while he was here, then I'm afraid I can't help you. There's nothing there anyway. That room was cleaned out the day after the sheriff searched it."

I was disappointed to hear that I'd been right. It had already been searched and cleaned. Somehow, part of me had hoped that because it had been the room of a murder victim, it might have remained untouched these last couple of weeks.

"Now if you'll excuse me," Mrs. Cambridge said and turned around.

"He was my brother," Lucy called out after her.

The woman stopped and turned back. "Your brother?" she asked, raising one eyebrow suspiciously.

Lucy nodded and began to weep. Tears actually fell from her eyes. She reached for a tissue from the box on the counter and honked loudly into it.

Mrs. Cambridge's face softened. "I'm so sorry for your loss, dear."

Lucy nodded. "It was just s-s-so sudden. Of course, Sheriff Knoxx told me that he'd already searched the room, but I was hoping..." She shrugged helplessly, her performance so amazing that even I was buying it. I actually felt bad for her.

I took over for her now. "She was hoping that she might be able to see the room anyway. That perhaps her brother left something behind that was overlooked previously. Even the smallest thing could bring comfort to her at this time."

Mrs. Cambridge dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief then quickly put it back into her pocket. "I'm so sorry. I wish I could help, but the room's already been rented. There are people in it now. Even if there weren't, there's nothing there. I assure you, I take the utmost care when cleaning out a room for the next visitor. If there was anything left behind at all, I'd have found it."

"Ohhh," Lucy said, dragging the word out. She screwed her face up and fresh tears ran in rivers down her cheeks collecting at her feet. "I don't feel very well." She suddenly put her hand to her head as if she were about to faint.

Mrs. Cambridge quickly ushered her into a chair. "There is one thing, I suppose. I found it when I was cleaning and meant to turn it over to the sheriff, I just haven't had time to do it yet. It didn't seem very important anyway. Not now that he's gone, that is."

Lucy let out a loud wail.

"I'll just get it for you," Mrs. Cambridge said and hurried back to her counter. She removed a painting from the wall and opened a small safe.

"You kept it in the safe?" I asked.

"I thought I'd better. Like I said, I didn't think it was very important, but it did belong to Mr. Riley, and I didn't want any of the looky-loos to accidentally stumble across it and take it."

"Th-Thank you for taking such good care of my brother while he was here," Lucy said.

Mrs. Cambridge turned to her. "You look a little familiar. Might I have seen you on the island before?"

"Yes, I come here quite frequently. It's a favorites locale of mine, not too far from the mainland. Have you ever been to Coffee Cove? It's one of my favorite spots on the island."

"No, I don't care for coffee. I keep some in stock for the guests, of course, but I don't go in search of lattes and cappuccinos myself." There was a slight pause. "So, you live on the mainland then? Finn was from Sweden, I believe?" she said with a scrutinizing look, her hand paused on the safe's door.

"I live on the mainland, yes. Finn lived in Norway. He wanted to get away for a few days, and I recommended your bed-and-breakfast to him."

Mrs. Cambridge smiled. "That was very kind of you. He mentioned he was from Norway."

I thought perhaps Mrs. Cambridge had been testing Lucy one final time before handing over whatever it was she had. If Lucy had said anything other than Norway, I suspected Mrs. Cambridge would be on the phone to the sheriff right now instead of opening her safe.

She shut the safe and came back around to us, her hand extended, something dark in its grip. "I don't know what comfort it can bring you, but I suppose anything helps in times like these."

"Th-Thank you," Lucy said again, rising from her chair. She clasped her hand around whatever it was Mrs. Cambridge had handed her. It looked like a bottle of some sort. We both thanked the woman again and went outside.

Once we were a block away, I said, "Okay, what is it?"

Lucy uncurled her hand and held it out. "It's just a dropper bottle,” she said, shaking it and sounding disappointed. "It looks like medication. You think he was sick?"

I took the bottle from her and held it up, a broad smile breaking out on my face. The label on the bottle read, Florahexadrine.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SEVEN

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Lucy and I sat on a bench beneath Wanda's Willow, each of us with our phones in our hands. We were hardly talking, just staring at our screens as we typed "Florahexadrine" into the Internet search engine and hit enter.

"Anything?" I asked her.

"Nothing," she said.

"It's got to be mentioned somewhere," I said. "Even if it is not out yet, there must've been trials, studies, something."

Lucy looked up at me. "What if it's just for witches and wizards?"

My eyes widened. "You think we need to check the Witch's Web?"

She nodded. "Couldn't hurt, anyway."

"Good point." My phone buzzed, and a text came through from my dad wondering where I was. "I've gotta go," I told her. "Let's do this letter."

I was halfway back to the bakery when I remembered that I'd promised to bring my dad and Trixie both back something from Coffee Cove and had to turn around. Lucy seemed to have read my mind and had the drinks waiting for me.

"One Brass Monkey"—that was Trixie's drink, extra large, extra espresso, extra frozen—"and one caramel vanilla latte."

"You're a lifesaver," I told her.

"I know."

My dad looked at me suspiciously when I returned to the bakery but was soon smoothed over with the latte Lucy had prepared for him.

"Did you go and see Eleanor?" Trixie asked.

"No. I thought I'd go see her after we got out of here tonight. Why?"

"You were gone a little while. I thought maybe you'd wandered over to the sheriff's station."

I shrugged. "No, Lucy and I just got to talking."

People filtered into the store here and there, keeping us busy though not as busy as I had expected to be. Certainly, word about Eleanor was out by now. People should have been forming lines outside our door just so they could get in and ask us questions. It seemed impossible that people didn't know.

Still, no one seemed to be saying anything about it. People came in and ordered their birthday cakes or anniversary cupcake towers or a dozen chocolate happiness cookies, and no one said a word about Eleanor or Finn to either me, Trixie, or my father. The most any of us got was an occasional stare. Toward the end of the evening, Lottie Mudget came in and asked to speak to Eleanor.

My dad was in back, and Trixie and I exchanged a look with each other.

"Er," I said, "she's not here."

"Oh, well, I ordered a sheet cake for my nephew's birthday party for tomorrow, and I wanted to see if it wasn't too late to change the chocolate frosting to vanilla. Apparently, he's on a vanilla kick these days."

"No problem," I told her. "We'll mark it down in our books and take care of it."

"Thank you," Lottie said and turned to go. She paused halfway to the door and turned back to us. "Where is Eleanor anyway? It just occurred to me that I haven't seen her for a day or two."

"Oh," I said, "she's, um, sick."

"That's right," Trixie said, chiming in. "Poor thing has a fierce cold."

"Wish her well for me then," Lottie said and made her way out.

Trixie scratched her chin. "What do you think is going on? How can no one in town know about Eleanor by now?"

"I don't know. Let me text Colt and see what I can find out."

I shot him a text and he responded a minute later informing me that he knew how mad we all were at him and didn't blame us. Keeping things as quiet as possible with Eleanor was the least he felt he could do to make it up to us.

I relayed this information to Trixie and my father, who thought it sweet but also not quite enough to make up for actually arresting her.

Near the end of the day, I got another text from Lucy.

Meet me at the Cove at nine. I found something!

I looked at the clock. It was already eight-thirty. Me, Trixie, and my dad were all going to the station to see Eleanor once we were through here. They weren't normal visiting hours, but because of Eleanor's relationship with Sheriff Knox, we were able to get in and see her pretty much whenever we wanted.

"Why don't you guys go ahead to the sheriff's station?" I said.

"You don't want to see your aunt?" My dad sounded more suspicious than he did angry.

"Of course, I do, but Lucy is having problems with the espresso machine and is freaking out a little. I told her I'd come by and help."

"It's not cursed again, is it?" asked Trixie, looking worried. "Should I call Melbourne?"

"No, I'm sure it's fine. Lucy's been extra paranoid about that thing ever since the last episode."

"Tell her not to worry," my dad said reassuringly. "If there's anything wrong with this new one, I'm sure Melbourne won't hesitate to send it back. Not after what happened last time."

"I'll tell her," I assured them.

They told me to go ahead and head over now if I wanted, so I took off my apron and did just that.

When I got to Coffee Cove, Lucy had already locked the doors. I had to knock a full minute before I got her attention. When she let me in, I saw what had kept her. A large man sat in the corner reading a newspaper, earbuds in his ears, sipping his coffee as slowly as humanly possible. In fact, I was pretty sure he was human.

"Why don't you just tell him you're closed?" I asked Lucy.

She groaned. "It's one of Melbourne's new policies. We're not supposed to kick the customers out just because we lock the doors. I thought he'd be gone by the time you got here."

He looked in our direction. We smiled at him, he smiled back, and he went on sipping his coffee.

"Maybe he doesn't know you're closed," I said.

"I've done everything I can think of to get the point across. I even made an announcement."

"But he's wearing earbuds. He may not have heard you."

She sighed. "I suppose if I go nudge him along a little, Melbourne will never know."

"Or you can just tell me what you found. I doubt this guy will hear anything we say right now."

She looked doubtfully at me. "He's human. This is pretty witchy stuff I found out." She lowered her voice when she said witchy. "I guess I better just get to it. Grab a seat behind the counter so he won't think you're a customer, too."

She rolled her shoulders back and grabbed a rag, wiping down each table as she went. When she got to the guy in the corner, she wiped down the table on his left, the table on his right, then went back to the table on his left and did it all over again. He was either so absorbed in his own thoughts he didn't even notice, or he was purposely ignoring her.

I waited, watching, and Lucy just kept wiping down the same tables over and over again. I sighed and finally just gave a flick of my wrist. The coffee cup he'd been drinking from knocked over and he jumped out of his seat, startled.

"I'll get that for you," Lucy said, shooting me a look.

"I'm sorry," the man said. "I didn't even touch it."

"It's all right. Happens all the time."

He looked around and seemed to notice for the first time that the place was empty. "Are you closed?"

"We closed five minutes ago," Lucy said, smiling at him.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize..."

"Don't worry about it," Lucy said.

He hurried out of the coffee shop, his face red. When he was gone, Lucy started laughing.

"I should've thought to just knock his coffee over like that. A brilliant plan from a brilliant witch."

"Now can you tell me what this big news is that you've got for me?"

Lucy's eyes rounded. "When I took my last break, I checked the Witch's Web."

"And?"

"And the medication, potion, whatever, that Finn left behind in his room when he died... it's Forever Young."

I blinked, not understanding. "You mean that new line of cosmetics that's supposed to launch in the fall?"

"That's the one," she said, beaming. "Apparently, Florahexadrine was something that Finn and his company were working on when they discovered that not only does it kill viruses, but it reduces wrinkles."

"Reduces wrinkles?" I asked. "By how much?"

"By a lot. At least from what the studies say. It sounds like Finn was trying to double dip. He wanted to launch it in a new line of cosmetics while at the same time marketing it to hospitals as an anti-viral agent."

"Can he do that?"

Lucy shrugged. "Apparently, it's perfectly legal. Especially since he'd have to change the formula somewhat to get it into women's makeup. But he was already working on that and seemed to have it pretty well in hand. The last article I read was projecting that he stood to make a billion dollars from Florahexadrine."

"So, whoever killed him might have been after that bottle we've got," I said.

"Or Dr. Dunne's," Lucy countered. "You said someone stole it out of his safe, right?"

I nodded and looked at the bottle of Florahexadrine I'd brought with me. "You don't think this is the same sample that was stolen from Dr. Dunne?"

Lucy took the potion from me, shaking it in the air like it was an extension of her finger. "No way. Finn was no dope. He was trying to market it to the highest bidders. That means he brought multiple samples. He probably gave one to Dr. Wallace at Mistmoor Hospital, too. From what I read online, he'd just finished stabilizing the formula and was immensely proud of it. It took him months to do, and he did it all alone. Didn't trust anyone to help him with it. The guy was paranoid that someone would leak the formula."

"He just finished stabilizing it?" I asked.

Lucy nodded.

"That means that whoever attacked Finn and Sadie knew Finn had this potion—the stabilized potion—with him and wanted it for themselves. Let me see that bottle again," I said.

She handed it to me and I looked at the label. Under the name Florahexadrine, in much smaller print, were the words "Final Product." I pointed it out to Lucy.

"Final product?" Lucy repeated, frowning.

"This is the stabilized formula," I shouted excitedly. "I bet it was his only sample."

"So, if someone else gets a hold of it..."

"They can figure out how he stabilized it, claim it as theirs, and make the billions Finn was supposed to make. This is the reason he was murdered."

CHAPTER

TWENTY-EIGHT

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I went home instead of going to the sheriff's station to see Eleanor. I needed some time alone to think this through, and I knew that Trixie and my dad would be there for a while yet.

When I got home, Snowball was sitting in front of her favorite food dish. She looked up when I came in.

"Mama Mama Mama!" she cried, running figure eights around my legs. I bent over and scratched her head.

"It's good to see you," I told her. "You were gone for a while. Mama was starting to worry."

"Snowball did not mean to make Mama worry," she said, purring loudly as she rubbed her head against my ankle. "Snowball loves Mama."

I picked her up and held her to my chest, kissing her soft white furry head. She licked my face. "Did you have a good time with Max?"

Her eyes widened. "Snowball saw much tuna come in on the boat. Max said he stocked up extra for Snowball and that Snowball could have an entire tuna all to herself if Mama said it was okay." She licked my nose again and looked at me anxiously.

"It's okay," I told her and Snowy let out a loud meow. She jumped out of my arms, running back and forth across the kitchen.

"Can Mama go and get the tuna tonight?" she asked.

"Not tonight," I told her. "Auntie Eleanor's in jail, and Mama has to figure out a few things."

I sat down in a chair at the kitchen table and Snowball jumped into my lap. "Auntie Eleanor is in jail? With Papa?"

I didn't realize how long she'd been gone. She'd missed a lot in just a few days. "No, Papa is out of jail now, and Auntie Eleanor is in it."

Snowball frowned. She licked one paw and ran it over her face, blinking as she did so. "Why is Auntie Eleanor in jail?"

I sighed. "Colt has some very good evidence suggesting that Eleanor was there the night Sadie and her friend were attacked. In fact, the evidence suggests Eleanor might have been the one to actually hurt them."

"But, Mama," Snowy said. "Auntie Eleanor could not have hurt Sadie or her friend. Snowball saw Auntie Eleanor the night Sadie's friend was murdered. She was nowhere by Sadie."

Snowball blinked at me as if her word were all that was needed to get Eleanor out of jail. Maybe it was. Familiars were incapable of lying. They could bend the truth when need be, especially if it was to help the witch or wizard they were attached to, but otherwise, they could not lie. That did not, however, mean they did not occasionally make a mistake.

"Are you sure you saw Eleanor that night?" I asked her.

She nodded. "Snowball was coming home from Eleanor's with Tootsie. We went to play with Rocky."

"Does that mean Tootsie saw Eleanor, too?"

Snowy shook her head. "Tootsie went in search of bacon. Snowball continued home. Auntie Eleanor went by Snowy and did not even notice. Snowball was having fun crawling through the bushes looking for bugs."

"How do you know what time it was?"

Snowball shrugged. "Snowy and Tootsie left Rocky's at 9:10. Snowy knows it was 9:10 because Whoopie Pies Cartoon Hour had just come on, and Rocky was watching it."

Whoopie Pies Cartoon Hour was a show especially for dogs and cats, though cats didn't seem to hold as much interest in it as dogs.

"The first part ended," Snowy said, "and Tootsie and Snowball got bored and left."

I kissed the top of her head again. The first part of Whoopie Pies Cartoon Hour always lasted five to ten minutes. "Will you tell Colt what you just told me?"

"Snowy will tell. If detective man does not let Auntie Eleanor out, Snowball will leave a mouse on his doorstep."

Trixie and my father were still at the sheriff's station when Snowball and I arrived. Sheriff Knoxx looked up as we came in.

"They're in the back," he said, glaring at Colt, who sat on the desk at the opposite end of the room.

I looked at Colt. "Why are you here at this time of night?"

Usually, he left the station by eight. Since he was a COMHA agent, he wasn't required to stay here for any set length of time. He joined the sheriff frequently only because he felt it was part of his duty as an officer of the law to work with other officers of the law, even if they were of a different ilk. After all, the end game was the same for all of them—catch the bad guys, keep people safe.

Colt moved his eyes slowly from Sheriff Knoxx to me and said, "I couldn't sleep."

Sheriff Knoxx grunted. "More like he doesn't trust me." His eyes were still fixed on Colt. "He's afraid if he leaves me alone for too long, I'll get ideas."

"What sort of idea?"

"Like opening the cell up and letting Eleanor out."

Colt laughed. "You can't exactly blame me."

They continued to sit and stare at each other.

I looked at Snowball, whose nose twitched. "Snowy has something to say," I told them.

Snowball jumped up on the desk Colt sat at and let out a hiss, then jumped quickly off. Colt blinked and looked at me. Snowball had never hissed at him before.

"What was that for?" He almost sounded hurt.

Snowy licked one paw, sat back on her haunches, and said, "Detective man has been bad to Auntie Eleanor. Snowball saw her the day of Finn's murder and knows Auntie is innocent." She wiped one paw over her head.

Colt looked at us. "Snowball saw Eleanor?" he asked, and I nodded.

Sheriff Knoxx rose halfway out of his seat, looking excitedly at us. "Where did you see her?"

Snowball related her story, complete with Tootsie's love of bacon and Rocky's love of bad television shows.

When she had finished, Sheriff Knoxx looked at Colt triumphantly. "Familiars don't lie," he said and folded his arms across his chest, as if that settled everything. In my mind, it certainly did, but I knew Colt better than to think he was simply going to accept Snowball's story at face value.

"True," Colt said, "but they can make mistakes. They're not infallible."

"Yes," I counted, "but you can easily check the time Rocky's TV show started and see how well it meshes up with Snowball's account of things. Talk to Tootsie and Rocky, too.”

Colt looked uncertainly at me. "It won't hurt, I suppose."

"Of course, it won't hurt," the sheriff snapped.

Snowball rubbed her head on my ankles. She glared at Colt, opening her mouth as if she meant to curse him but closing it again before she could. I didn't think familiars could actually curse anyone... I didn't think.

Colt sighed. "I'll look into it."

"Let Auntie Eleanor out!" Snowball hissed again. Trixie and my father came out of the back room.

"I thought I heard voices out here." Trixie looked from me to the sheriff to Colt and back again. "What's going on?"

Snowball said, "Snowy saw Auntie Eleanor the night of the murder, but detective man won't listen because she is a feline."

Colt looked at her. "That's not why I won't listen to you. I mean, I will listen. I am listening." With so many eyes on him, he seemed flustered.

"Snowy," my dad said, "you saw Eleanor?"

Snowball nodded. She told them what she had just told Colt, and now they grew as incensed as she was.

"Familiars can't lie," Trixie shouted.

"I know that," Colt said. "We've already established that."

"Then why is my sister still behind bars?"

"Because we haven't established that Snowball isn't making an honest mistake."

The debate that raged for the next half hour became so loud it even drew Eleanor's attention from the holding cell. She began calling out to us from behind the wall, asking what was wrong. Finally, I went to go and fill her in on Snowball's statement.

Just before withdrawing from the main room, however, where sparks continued to fly—Trixie, my dad, and Sheriff Knoxx on one side, Colt all alone on his own—I saw Snowball scurry quickly out of the station, murmuring something about needing to find a mouse ASAP.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-NINE

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I was on my way to see Eleanor the next morning, taking a short break from the bakery—it turned out that word had finally begun to spread about Eleanor's arrest, and I was elected to go to the station and make sure she was holding up all right—when a call came in from Sadie.

I hesitated before answering, not sure I wanted to talk to her. Despite what Colt had said, it was hard not to blame her for Eleanor's arrest. Logically, I understood the matter of the fingerprints on the two-by-four far outweighed Sadie's statement about seeing Eleanor attack her and Finn, but emotionally it felt like a betrayal.

The matter of my father and their breakup was another sore point I didn't care to get into. Whatever Sadie was calling about, she would have to find someone else to talk to.

After a few more paces, my phone grew silent. I expelled a breath and continued to the sheriff's station. I didn't get far, however, before my phone started ringing again. I looked down and checked the number, and once again, it was Sadie. I let out a sigh.

What if she's calling to apologize? What if she wants to get back together with Dad? She might see me as an intermediary.

"Hello?" I said, holding the phone to my ear. Better to get this over with than have her continue calling me every five minutes for the rest of the day.

"Ava?" She was whispering.

"Sadie?" I asked, double checking it was her. I could hardly make out her voice.

"Yeah. I need to talk to you."

"Now's not really a good time. I'm on my way to see Eleanor. Word is finally out about her arrest, and I want to—"

"I didn't mean now," she said. "I need to see you in person." She was still whispering, and her voice was rushed.

"Is everything okay?" I asked her.

"I've made a huge mistake." Her voice grew slightly louder now, crackling through the line as she continued. I wasn't sure if it was our connection making that sound, or if she was crying. "Eleanor's not the one who attacked me."

I held my breath. "You're sure?" I asked her. I'd never doubted it but hearing confirmation from her seemed to somehow fill my whole body with an ease I hadn't felt in the last week.

"Yes, I took some more of those potions that Dr. Dunne and Amanda Hollyberry gave me after the attack, and my memory of that night is way off—was way off. But now I've got it straight."

"You need to call Colt and tell him that."

"I will, I promise, but first... Ava, I think I'm in trouble."

"Can you talk a little louder?" I asked her. "I think we've got a bad connection."

"No, I can't talk louder. I'm in trouble, Ava. Listen to me. Loni told me about the missing medications at the hospital, and I think I know who's been stealing them."

My heart knocked against my chest. "Who?"

There was a loud noise in the background and I heard Sadie gasp. "Just get down here as fast as you can," she said and hung up.

I turned around, forgetting the sheriff's station for now and heading straight for the hospital. I debated calling my dad and Trixie, or even Lucy, knowing they'd want to be a part of whatever was happening, but then I thought better of it. I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up until I had a chance to talk to Sadie in person.

What if she only thought her memory had come back? What if her memories were still all jumbled up, and she didn't realize it? For all I knew, she was calling me down there to tell me that Snowball was the one who'd attacked her, and Tootsie and Rocky were her accomplices.

When I got to the hospital's entrance, the sliding doors drew back, revealing Hubert Moss. It was like he'd been waiting for me, as if he'd known I was coming. He smiled as I approached, blocking my path.

"You can't come in here, Ms. Fortune. Or have you forgotten? Dr. Dunne's orders."

"This is an emergency," I told him.

He looked me up and down. "It doesn't look like you're sick or injured."

"It's not that kind of emergency."

"Oh, I see. Well, why don't you tell me what sort of emergency it is then?" His arms were at his side, ready to grab me if I made a run for it.

I hesitated. I couldn't very well tell him about my conversation with Sadie. I wasn't sure that it would matter to him anyway, even if I did. "I have a sick friend."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Hubert said mockingly. "What's their name? I'll look them up in the registry. If they're here, I'll escort you to their room and you can see them."

I fumbled for what to say next, but Hubert had me beat.

"That's what I thought. Why don't you turn around and head back to your little bakery before I tell Dr. Dunne you're here and he has me call Sheriff Knoxx to have you picked up for trespassing."

I stood there a moment longer before finally blowing air from my lungs and turning on my heels. I felt his eyes on the back of my head as I rounded the hospital corner and moved out of sight. Once I could no longer see him, and he could no longer see me, I pulled my phone from my pocket and tried to call Sadie.

Her cell phone rang and rang without any answer. I hung up and looked around to make sure that Hubert had not decided to follow me. I saw no one around except doctors, nurses, and paramedics, as well as the usual hospital patrons. There were no med students and no security guards.

Nevertheless, I thought it would be best if I hung out by the side of the building, ensuring some protection from the wall I stood against should Hubert suddenly decide to come after me. If I hugged the wall tight enough, Hubert could walk right past me and not even notice.

I tried calling Sadie's number again, and again, got no answer. I hung up, frustrated, and dialed the hospital's main number instead. A nasal recording came on the line, directing me to press one if I knew the extension I wanted, two if I knew the room number of the patient I was trying to contact, and so forth.

It finally told me what number I needed for the main nurses' station on the fourth floor, and I pressed the button. A woman's voice came on the line, sounding very much like the recording I'd just left.

"May I help you?" she said.

"Can I talk to Sadie Belle, please?" I asked. Maybe she could just come down instead of me going in.

"Hold please," the nurse said, and soft elevator music came on. A couple minutes later, the nurse came back on the line. "I'm sorry, Nurse Belle is not returning her pages at the moment."

I frowned. "Is that normal?"

The nurse hesitated. "I'm sure she's here somewhere. Sometimes our nurses get very busy and miss the page when it comes out over the P.A. system."

I hung up, wondering what to do next. I peeked around the corner, clinging to the wall as I made my way back toward the entrance. Hubert Moss was still standing there. I happened to catch him in a moment when he was looking the other way and quickly turned around before he could see me, all but sprinting back to my hiding spot.

This was a hospital. There had to be another way in. I started circling to the other side, almost positive there was another set of doors on the other side of the building that were used less frequently but would get me inside just as well as the main entrance.

The hospital was large for a small-town hospital. It took me several minutes to get to the other entrance, and when I did, I paused, watching for Hubert on the off chance he'd decided to come around to the other side and look for me there.

There was no Hubert. I let out a breath and made my way past the sliding doors. I was almost to the elevators when a hand reached out and gripped my shoulder. It wasn't Hubert, it was Tanner Holiday, another guard I'd seen around the hospital.

"Hi, there," he said, smiling at me. "Going somewhere?"

"Um, yes, I was looking for Sadie Belle."

His walkie-talkie crackled to life, and Hubert's voice sounded on the other end. "Does anyone have eyes on her?

Tanner pushed the button on his walkie-talkie, turned his head, and said, "I've got her. West end elevator."

CHAPTER

THIRTY

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I sat in the sheriff's station, my face red, as Colt yelled at Sheriff Knoxx.

"Trespassing?" Colt said. "You can't arrest Ava for trespassing at a hospital. Hospitals are for everybody."

The more Colt yelled, the more amused Sheriff Knoxx became.

"That a fact?" the sheriff asked.

"Yes!" Colt shouted as if the sheriff had lost his mind.

I began to wonder if they hadn't both lost their minds. Colt seems to be taking his duties as my protector to a new extreme, refusing to allow Sheriff Knoxx to place me in a cell. Sheriff Knoxx, on the other hand, seemed to think that he could use me to get back at Colt for arresting Eleanor.

I was on the verge of pointing out to the sheriff that Eleanor would not find my arrest nearly as amusing as he seemed to think it was, when my dad wandered in. He looked at the three of us sitting together around Sheriff Knoxx's desk and let out a heavy sigh.

"Dr. Dunne called me," he said. "I didn't want to believe it, yet here you are."

"It's not my fault," I told him. "Hubert Moss is unreasonable. For that matter, so is Dr. Dunne."

"What did you do to get yourself banned from Sweetland Hospital anyway? I didn't even know you could get banned from hospitals. Aren't hospitals for everyone?"

Colt let out a loud hiss of breath. His arm shot out to the right and he pointed at my father. "That's exactly what I've been trying to tell you. You can't trespass in public places unless it's after hours. And hospitals are open twenty-four hours a day."

My dad looked at him, then Sheriff Knoxx, then back at Colt. "Wait a second," he said, drawing his brows together. "Who's responsible for arresting Ava?"

Colt immediately pointed at the sheriff, and my dad frowned.

Colt scoffed. "You assumed it was me, didn't you?"

My dad shrugged. "Can you blame me? You've arrested everyone else in my family. Why stop at my daughter?"

"Technically," said Colt, "I didn't arrest you. That was a joint venture." He looked at the sheriff, who stared blankly ahead as if none of this meant anything to him. I knew he was upset about Eleanor, but that didn't mean he had to let his inner goblin out.

"Well," said my dad to Colt, "thank you for not arresting my daughter. I'm sure Ava thanks you, too. I couldn't imagine what kind of damper that would put on your honeymoon night."

I didn't bother to point out that Colt and I were hardly speaking these days, let alone planning for our wedding. Though by the way he was acting right now, it was obvious he hadn't given up on us.

"Look," I said, growing frustrated with everyone. They were talking about me as if I wasn't here. "The only reason I went down to the hospital in the first place was because of Sadie. She called me and asked me to meet her there." I looked at the sheriff. "Doesn't being invited into a place make it impossible to trespass there?"

A deep line formed across the sheriff's forehead as he thought it over. "You have a point."

I sighed with relief, but it didn't last for long.

"Of course," Sheriff Knoxx continued, "to be excused from trespassing, you'd have to be invited by the owner or person in charge of the establishment. Last I checked, Sadie was head nurse, but she didn't oversee things throughout the hospital. That particular job, I believe, belongs to Dr. Dunne. He is the man in charge, and he's the one who banned you from the hospital."

"Why did Sadie want to meet with you?" Colt asked, ignoring the sheriff's comments.

"She said she thought she knew who's been stealing the medication."

Colt's eyes widened. "You're kidding."

I shook my head. Even the sheriff looked interested now.

"Who?" Colt asked.

"She wouldn't say. It sounded like she was afraid to talk over the phone. In fact, right before we hung up, it sounded as if someone had walked in on her."

"What do you mean?" My dad seemed suddenly tense.

"There was a loud noise on her end of the phone, like someone had just walked into the room or something had crashed to the floor. It was too difficult to make out, but Sadie gasped and told me to get down there as fast as I could. She said she thought she was in trouble."

"Then what?" My dad’s lips were pressed so tightly together they looked almost white.

I shrugged. "Then nothing. I hung up with her and went down there. Only when I got there, I couldn't get in. Hubert Moss is a bulldog when it comes to patrolling the hospital. Dr. Dunne should be very proud of him. Nothing gets by that man."

My dad's face was drawn tightly.

"I think she realized that she made a mistake," I told him. "A big one. Not just with Eleanor, but with you as well."

"Where is she now?" Colt asked.

"I don't know. I didn't even make it to her floor before the guards picked me up. I tried calling her again on her cell but didn't get an answer. When I called the nurses' station, they told me they couldn't find her."

"Couldn't find her?" my dad said, obvious worry in his voice. He looked at Sheriff Knoxx. "What if something's happened to her?"

"I'm sure she's fine," the sheriff said, but he was frowning, and the line in his forehead had only grown deeper.

The phone on the sheriff's desk rang suddenly, and he picked it up. "Knoxx here." He listened to whoever was on the other line, glancing at me and then my father. "I understand, Dr. Dunne, but I'm sure there's... No, it doesn't sound like... I wouldn't worry if..."

Only being able to hear his end of the conversation was maddening. Was it about me? Was he calling to confirm that I'd been locked up with my aunt? Sheriff Knoxx was giving nothing away with his expressions.

"I'll come down there right away," the sheriff finally said, "but I'm sure it's nothing to worry about." He finally hung up and looked at us. "That was Dr. Dunne."

"Yeah, we figured that out," Colt snapped.

Sheriff Knoxx glared at him. "Sadie's missing."

"Missing?" my dad gulped. "How can she be missing?"

"No one can find her. They tried paging her, and when she didn't respond, Dr. Dunne had Hubert Moss organize a search. They found her cell phone in an empty patient's room, smashed on the floor."

My dad's face paled.

"It's probably nothing," the sheriff said. "She probably just dropped it. Nurses are always running around, I bet she hasn't even realized she's lost it." His eyes weren't as convincing as his voice. He looked worried, even if he didn't sound it.

"I'm going with you," my dad said. Colt expressed the same sentiment.

"I'll stay with Eleanor," I told them. "I'll let her know what's going on."

They hurried off, leaving me behind, my trespassing charges forgotten. It suddenly occurred to me that maybe whoever had attacked Sadie before had come back to finish the job.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-ONE

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Trixie, my dad, and I were getting ready for work the next morning when there was a knock on our front door.

"Who would be coming to see us at five in the morning?" Trixie asked, still yawning. "I'm hardly awake myself. If we didn't have to be at the bakery so early, I promise you I'd still be in bed."

"Let me get it," said my dad nervously.

"Dad, whoever killed Finn isn't going to knock on our door before attacking us."

My dad looked at me. "You don't know that. Sadie's still missing. From everything we know, it sounds like someone may have taken her right out of the hospital." He let out a heavy sigh. "Your greatest enemies are always the ones who present themselves first as friends."

"That's much too profound for so early in the morning," Trixie said, but when he again insisted on getting the door himself, neither of us objected.

Trixie and I were in the kitchen, each of us downing the last dregs of our coffee, when we heard my dad let out a loud whoop! from the other room. We exchanged a look and hurried to the front door, thinking Sadie had turned up after all. It wasn't Sadie, though.

Eleanor stood in the foyer, beaming widely at us. "They let me out a couple hours ago."

Trixie's eyes widened. "It took you two hours to come and see us? I should hex you for that right where you stand!"

Eleanor laughed as Trixie threw her arms around her sister, pulling her into a tight embrace. My dad and I joined in so that we had a four-way hug going.

"Who's ready to bake some cookies?" Eleanor asked.

"You're joking," my dad said. "You just got out of jail. How much sleep did you get? You can't really want to go and bake cookies right now, do you?"

"It's all I've been able to think about since they locked me up," Eleanor said. "Or I suppose I should say, since he locked me up."

Everyone looked at me as if I'd taken Eleanor to jail myself.

"I have no control over what Colt does," I told them defensively. "But believe me, the next time he takes someone in my family to jail, he's going to wake up looking like a tea kettle."

A tiny voice squeaked up at me. "Or a mouse."

We all looked down at Snowball, who had appeared out of nowhere. She licked one paw and looked innocently up at us.

"Auntie Eleanor is home," Snowball said, purring loudly.

"Did you leave a mouse on Colt's doorstep?" I asked her.

Snowball shook her head.

"Good," I said. "Though he probably deserved it."

"Snowball thought so, too. That's why she left one for him in his bed." She rubbed her head over Eleanor's ankles then turned and walked away, her tail high in the air and curled under at one end. We all burst out laughing.

"Colt didn't say anything to me about a dead mouse in his bed," I told them.

"He was probably too embarrassed," Eleanor said. "He didn't want any of us thinking that a cat had bested him."

When we'd finally gotten our laughter under control, we grabbed our jackets and headed for the bakery. Each of us took another stab at trying to convince Eleanor to go home and rest.

"I've rested long enough. What you think I've been doing in jail for the last week?"

"Sheriff Knoxx can't be happy that you're going to work today," my dad said.

"Zane has to work, too. He wouldn't be home anyway. Besides, what he doesn't know can't hurt him."

"Still..." Trixie said. "He was so worried about you when you were locked up."

"I know," Eleanor said, her face softening. "Do you know that he stayed with me the entire time? He refused to go home and sleep in our bed. He said without me there, the bed didn't feel right."

We all sighed, our eyes misting over. Even my dad.

"How did the sheriff finally convince Colt to let you go?" I asked her. "The last time we talked to him, he seemed dead set against it."

"I think it was Dean Lampton who was dead set against it. Colt just got caught in the middle. After he talked to Snowball the other day, he went and talked to Rocky and Tootsie, too. They each confirmed Snowball's story about leaving my house just after nine. Since familiars can't lie, Colt felt he had no choice but to release me, no matter what Dean threatened him with."

"Dean threatened him?" I asked, my heart skipping a beat.

"Don't worry," Eleanor said. "Dean can't really fire Colt. He's his best agent."

"He threatened to fire him?" I asked, dumbstruck.

"It was all a bluff," Eleanor assured me. "Dean's just grumpy right now because of his daughter running off with Luke. Apparently, she sent him wedding photos from Las Vegas. They were married by Caesar, and Dean is none too happy."

"How do you know all that?" I asked her.

She shrugged. "Colt told me."

I blinked. "You talked to him while you were in prison?"

"It wasn't prison, it was jail."

"What's the difference?" my dad asked.

"Prisons are far larger and more... serious. This was just a cell at a sheriff's station. Anyway, Colt and I talked quite a bit." We all stared at her. "Well, I had to talk to someone. What did you want me to do? Sit there all day and stare at the ceiling? Whenever Zane had to leave for some reason, Colt was there to keep me company."

"I thought we kept you company," Trixie said.

"Yes, but you couldn't be there with me all day every day."

My dad, Trixie, and I all exchanged looks with each other that plainly spoke of the same thought. Maybe Colt wasn't as bad as we'd made him out to be. Maybe we'd been a little hard on him, after all. When we got home, I'd make sure to tell Snowball not to leave any more dead mice lying in his bed, or anywhere else.

Just before the bakery opened, someone started tapping frantically at the front door. We were all in the back and the tap was loud enough for us to hear it above the roar of Trixie's egg beaters. I told them I'd get it, expecting to see Natalie Vargas or someone else anxious to get the scoop on Eleanor's release. My dad didn't put up a fight this time—gossip mongers may have been annoying, but they were hardly dangerous.

Instead of a gossip monger, though, I saw Lucy smiling brightly back at me. She was holding a tray of coffee to-go cups in one hand and signaling frantically to me with the other.

"Open up," she shouted through the glass.

I unlocked the door. "What are you doing here?"

"Isn't it obvious? I come bearing coffee." She handed me a cup.

I held it to my lips. "Mmmm. Thanks. This is way better than the stuff we make it home."

I would never have admitted it to anyone, not even Lucy, but we had a kitchen cupboard full of instant coffee back at the house. We only used it in an emergency situation, but emergencies turned up more often than you might think, and our supply had to be replenished on a weekly basis.

"Well, I should hope it's better," Lucy said. "Melbourne and I made it ourselves at Coffee Cove. He heard about Eleanor's release and thought you could all probably use a good jolt of caffeine to see you through the morning."

"Well, he thought right." I wasn't entirely surprised Melbourne knew Eleanor was out. He wasn't a gossip, just a vampire, and vampires had a way of finding things out.

"Any word on Sadie?" Lucy asked.

I shook my head. "Not yet. I think my dad's freaking out but trying not to show it. It's best not to mention her around him just now. Pretend like everything's fine and maybe it will be."

Lucy looked around the room. "Are they all in back?"

I nodded. "Yeah, just let me get them."

"Wait. Before you do, I've got to tell you what I read last night about Florahexadrine."

I lifted my eyebrows. "You mean there's more than we already know? What is it?"

My heart was beating nervously in my chest, as if she was about to expose some big secret that could win us the Pulitzer Prize. Do regular people win the Pulitzer Prize? Didn't you have to be famous or a journalist or something? Maybe I would look into it once we solved this thing.

"Finn's company only did pharmaceutical research," Lucy said. "They had nothing to do with distribution. That means that he had to partner with another company in order to sell his product to doctors and hospitals."

"And cosmetics companies," I said.

"Exactly. It turns out there were two companies in a bidding war over Florahexadrine, and both companies are on Heavenly Haven."

My eyes widened. "What companies? Did you get their names?"

She nodded. "Sunlight Enterprises, near Whisper Crossing, and MGCK Core, on the far side of Sweetland Cove, past the downtown area."

I bit my bottom lip. I'd heard of MGCK Core, pronounced 'Magic Core,' and thought I could find it fairly easily. "We need to go down there and see what we can find out."

"You read my mind."

"Trixie and my dad want to have a little party for Eleanor tonight, just us and the sheriff but I'm sure you'd be welcome, too, after the bakery closes. I promised to make the cake. I'm not sure when I'd have time to..."

"You want me to take Sunlight Enterprises?" she asked.

I nodded. "If you don't mind." Whisper Crossing wasn't far, but it would be a lot more difficult for me to get down there than it would Lucy.

She thought it over. "Melbourne still owes me for that thing with the espresso machine. I'll tell him I need the day off, and he won't be able to say anything about it."

"Thanks. MGCK Core isn't far from here. I can run up there and nose around on my lunch and no one will even miss me."

"We'll re-converge later tonight."

Eleanor's voice rang out from the back. "Is that Lucy? Invite her to my party. She's as good as family."

I looked at Lucy, who shrugged. "Perfect," we both said.

Trixie came out front just then, saw the coffees in Lucy's hand, and made a mad dash for them.

"You sweet girl," Trixie said. "You brought me a Brass Monkey." She started slurping from the two-liter-sized coffee cup protruding from Lucy's cupholder. "Will you let Melbourne know about the party? It's just going to be us, nothing fancy, but we'd love it if you both could make it."

"I'll be there," Lucy said and winked at me.

Trixie gave us a look but said nothing. The caffeine was just hitting her and she'd be dancing for hours. Now I just had to figure out what I was going to say and do when I got to MGCK Core.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-TWO

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MGCK Core wasn't hard to find once I got going. It was on the edge of town, hidden behind a large hill and an even larger patch of palm trees. The building was oddly shaped, more of a diamond than a square or rectangle. It reminded me of something I might have seen growing up in New York City but looked strangely out of place here on the island. Hidden in plain sight might have been the best way to describe it.

I'd done a quick online search of the place in the bathroom at work before heading down and knew that the man who ran it, Carl Bunsen, was considered something of a hothead, a trait not altogether uncommon in people who ran large corporations.

"Hi," I said as I approached the security gate. "I'm Ava Blockmeyer. I'm here to see Mr. Bunsen."

"What's this about?" asked the guard.

I batted my lashes at him and giggled. A little flirtatious behavior never hurt anyone, especially when you were trying to sneak inside a place where you probably didn't belong. The guard was only a few years older than me and smiled breezily back, laughing as though I'd told him a joke instead of my name.

"Ava," he said. "That's a pretty name."

"Thanks. I'm writing a paper on pharmaceutical distributors and was hoping I could interview Mr. Bunsen."

"You mean you don't have an appointment?" the guard asked, his smile fading.

I jutted out my bottom lip. "I didn't know I needed one." I made my eyes wide and watery the way I'd seen Lucy do, and it worked.

"Let me see what I can do," the guard said and got on the phone to his boss.

While I was waiting, I pulled my phone from my pocket and pretended I was texting but started snapping pictures of anything and everything. I got one of the guard, the outside of the bathroom, the employee of the month wall. You never knew what might come in handy.

The guard explained the situation to his boss by saying, "There's a college girl here who's hoping to interview you for a school paper... hold on I'll ask her." He held the phone away from him and turned to me. "Is this for a class or a school newspaper?"

I bit my bottom lip. "Which is more likely to get me my interview?" I asked, batting my lashes again.

The guard laughed and held the phone back to his head. "School paper," he said and winked at me. I thanked him as he buzzed me through and followed his directions down a long beige hall to a door on my far left. I snapped a picture then slipped my phone into my pocket again and knocked lightly.

"Come in," a voice called from inside.

I opened the door and was greeted by a man much older than I'd expected. He had graying hair that was nearly white in some places, a sturdy handshake, and a charming smile. Somehow, I'd expected him to be all sinuous and slimy, the way I pictured politicians. This man looked more like a college professor.

"Good afternoon, I'm Carl Bunsen," he said, taking my hand in his and offering me a chair and a glass of water. "Or tea, if you prefer. We also have coffee."

"Thanks," I said. "I'm good." I told him my name and took a seat.

He took his seat back behind his desk and folded his hands together in front of him. "Now then. Why don't you start by telling me what school you go to."

My heart flipped in my chest. "Florida State," I said, stating the first thing that came to mind.

"An excellent school. What's your major?"

"Journalism."

"Not pharmaceuticals?" he asked with a lift of his eyebrow.

I shook my head. "I started out majoring in pharmaceuticals but switched it my sophomore year."

He nodded as if that made perfect sense. "Well, then, what is it you would like to ask me?" He scrunched his brow together. "Do you have a pen and paper? Something to take notes with?"

"I... I..."

He chuckled just as I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest. "No need to worry. I have plenty." He rose and went to a drawer at the side of the room, pulling out a small yellow notepad and a pencil. He handed them to me. Each had the company's name and logo on them.

"Thanks," I said, realizing how warm it was in here. I cleared my throat and began. "I understand you distribute pharmaceuticals all over the world, is that right?"

He nodded. "Yes. We specialize in witching communities." He paused and looked at me. "You won't write that in the paper, of course? It's off the record."

"Of course," I said and watched him visibly relax. I wrote down what he said.

"As I was saying, we specialize in witching communities. But that's not all, no, certainly not all. We also manufacture goods for goblins, elves, and fairies as well. And we've recently begun to branch out into cosmetics."

"I think I read something about that online. You and another company are trying to acquire something called..." I screwed my face up as though trying to remember a name. "...Florahexadrine. Is that right?"

He hesitated. "You read that online?" I nodded. "What website?"

I shrugged. "I'm honestly not sure. I went through a lot of different websites preparing for this interview."

"Yet you failed to call and schedule it ahead of time. How strange for one so very detail oriented."

I laughed as though I wasn't sweating like it was a hundred degrees outside. "So, um... this Florahexadrine. What does it do, exactly?"

He stared hard at me for another moment. "It kills viruses and makes witches look twenty years younger."

"So, I'd look like a baby?" I laughed.

He chuckled. "When you are forty, you'll appreciate this advance in technology." He sounded just like Eleanor.

"I'm not sure it's really technology, is it? I mean, there's no moving components to it or anything like that, is there? No cords or electrical circuits?" I was fishing for information.

"Technology advances in many forms."

"I'm just saying that the word 'technology' doesn't really seem to fit."

He glowered at me.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I guess I'm still new at this interview thing."

He hesitated then smiled broadly at me. "It's all right, Miss... I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name."

For a moment, I forgot it, too. "Blockmeyer," I finally blurted after a few moments of hesitation.

"Blockmeyer. Of course. Well, I'm sorry, Miss Blockmeyer, but I have several meetings to attend today. If you require more time, please make an appointment on your way out."

"What about Florahexadrine?" I asked.

"What about it?" he said.

"Is your company going to buy it? I heard Sunlight Enterprises was after it as well."

His face immediately changed. The smile dropped away and he took two steps closer so that we were almost nose to nose. I could smell the garlic bagel he'd eaten for lunch. He still had a smudge of cream cheese in the corner of his lip.

"You tell your boss at Sunlight Enterprises that I will not engage in this... this... external espionage. If he has questions for me, he can call me and ask them himself. He doesn't have to send you in here. He has my number."

"What? But I don't—"

"Whether my company acquires Florahexadrine or his, the outcome will be the same. A year from now, copycat products will flood the marketplace. They'll be less expensive and easier to produce, and we'll each come out the richer for it."

"If that's true," I said, "then why not stop your bidding war and just wait it out?"

He smiled cynically. "Because whoever does win our little bidding war, as you call it, stands to gain far more in a single year than the generic will produce in its lifetime. And I'll do anything to make sure my company is the one to benefit." He crossed the room in three quick strides and held the door open for me.

"Does the name Sadie Belle mean anything to you?" I asked out of nowhere, drawing on a hunch.

Mr. Bunsen hesitated. "No. Should it?"

I shrugged. "She works at Sweetland Hospital."

"Many people work at Sweetland Hospital."

"Most people who work there aren't missing at the moment."

"I have nothing to do with her disappearance. You can ask anyone on my staff. I was here all day yesterday."

"All day, huh?" I asked, my spine tingling.

He rolled his shoulders back. "Good day to you, Miss Blockmeyer.”

"Good day."

CHAPTER

THIRTY-THREE

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Eleanor's small party had turned into a slightly larger party, which had turned into a bigger party, which had turned into what it was now. Almost everyone who had been at Sadie's celebration party was in attendance. Everyone except Lucy, that was. She still hadn't shown, and I was starting to get worried.

If she hadn't shown up in another hour, I was going to tell my dad about our investigative journalism and see if he thought I should call Sheriff Knoxx. The sheriff was supposed to come by in a little while anyway. All I'd have to do was cross the room and I could tell him what Lucy and I had been up to in person instead of over the phone.

Colt was here, but he was trying to give me some space. Now that Eleanor was out, it was easier to like him again, but I still got riled up when I thought about him arresting her. Colt was playing it safe. He would come over to me bearing gifts of pastries and punch, chat with me for a few minutes, then leave me alone and go talk to someone else, just in case I was envisioning what he would look like with carrots shoved up his nose.

I'd already decided to forgive him for arresting both my dad and Eleanor, but I thought it would be fun to make him squirm for a little while. It only seemed fair. I was simply giving him a taste of his own medicine.

Thirty minutes later, there was still no Lucy. Sheriff Knoxx showed up and stopped to talk to Colt after kissing Eleanor. The sheriff wasn't being quite as forgiving as I was, but Eleanor had told me she'd asked him to make an effort.

Colt and the sheriff had hated each other when they'd first met but had grown to respect each other over time and had eventually become friends. Besides, as Eleanor had put it to the sheriff, if she could forgive him for arresting my dad, he could darn well forgive Colt for arresting her.

Most of the people here had only come because they were hoping to find out something juicy. With both Eleanor and my dad in and out of jail, and Sadie missing, there was something for everyone to talk about for the next several days and not get bored.

Loni was standing in the corner, looking as out of place as she had at Sadie's party.

"You okay?" I asked her.

She blinked, surprised to see me, I think. "Fine," she said. Her bottom lip drooped. "I'm worried about Sadie, if you want to know the truth."

"You're not alone there," I said.

She glanced around the room. "It doesn't look much like anyone's worrying to me."

I sighed. "That's because you weren't here two hours ago. My dad was out of his mind with worry. He spent most of the afternoon walking up and down Sweetland looking for her. He even went by her house. He's only here now because Eleanor insisted he find a way to relax, and her being out of jail is as good a reason to celebrate as any."

Loni smiled. "I suppose so."

"Before Sadie disappeared, she told me that she thought she knew who was stealing from the hospital. Do you have any idea who she meant?"

Loni shook her head. "No. I told her about the thefts because I thought she had a right to know, given that she was supposed to be head nurse, but if she had any suspicions, she never confided them in me."

"Were you there when she disappeared?"

"Yes. Hubert Moss split the guards into three groups and each took a different level. They searched the place from top to bottom but all they found was her phone."

I frowned. I'd been hoping Loni might have more information "Are you still co-head nurses?"

"For now, but if she—" Loni paused, a horrified look on her face, "—when she comes back, I've decided to leave. The job was promised to her, and I should go."

I bit my bottom lip. "Dr. Dunne misses you, you know."

She scoffed. "I'll believe that when pigs fly."

"It's true. He told me so himself. He still cares about you."

Her bottom lip quivered. "Really? He told you that?"

I nodded, and she turned to look across the room. Dr. Dunne was chatting with Trixie and Melbourne, but his eyes were on Loni. He was looking at her like she was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. She blushed and turned away.

"You should go and talk to him," I said, hoping to encourage her. But Loni didn't have to do anything. Dr. Dunne was coming to her. I backed quietly away and left them to their corner.

When I went to grab some more brownie bites, I saw Lucy at the table, loading her paper plate up with pastries and pizza.

"You're here!" I shouted.

She looked up, surprised. "I'm here."

I grabbed her before she could finish filling her plate. "Why didn't you get me the second you walked in? I've been waiting for you."

She sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm starving, and I've got nothing to report. I spent three hours there, and all I found out was that Sunlight Enterprises is in desperate need of some new plumbing. Did you have any luck?"

"Sort of. I couldn't get anything out of the manager that we didn't already know. He thought I was some sort of spy for Sunlight Enterprises." Lucy laughed. "But when I mentioned Sadie's name, he got scared."

"Scared?" she asked, furrowing her brow.

"He said he didn't know her, had never even heard of her, but when I told him she was missing, he told me he'd been at work all day yesterday and had a bunch of witnesses who could vouch for him."

"So?"

"So... I never told him when Sadie went missing, just that she was missing."

Lucy's eyes widened. "Why would he be vouching for his whereabouts yesterday unless he knew that was when she'd gone missing, which means he's at least heard of her?"

"Exactly."

Lucy frowned. "It's not a lot to go on."

"It's a start," I said. "And a start was all we needed."

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FOUR

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My phone was ringing. I opened one eye, rolled over on my mattress, and knocked it off the nightstand where it lay motionless on the floor. I groaned and leaned over the bed, reaching for it, and bumped my head on the same nightstand, making my lamp rattle. I started to wonder if my nightstand was cursed or if I just had bad luck when I got woken up in the middle of the night.

"Ohhh," I groaned again and finally sat up in bed, turning on my light. The phone was still ringing on the floor. I pulled the covers back, climbed out of bed, and retrieved it. This time, I managed to do so without hitting the nightstand or anything else. Then I crawled back into bed as quickly as possible and pulled the covers back over me.

"Hello?" I could hear the grogginess in my voice and let out a yawn. The clock read twelve-thirty, and I wondered who would be calling at this ungodly hour. I hadn't thought to check caller i.d. before picking up.

"Ava?" a man's voice said.

"Colt?"

"No. It's Dr. Dunne."

I blinked and rubbed my eyes. I must've really been tired to confuse Colt with Dr. Dunne. They sounded nothing alike.

"What can I do for you?" I asked, and this time, managed to stifle my yawn. My head suddenly snapped back, and my eyes widened. "Oh, my roses, is it Sadie?"

"No, no, it's not Sadie. I still haven't heard anything about her, I'm afraid." His voice was strange. Almost like he was trying to sound light and easy, which for twelve-thirty at a hospital, seemed odd.

"No Sadie?" I said as if needing confirmation.

"No."

My heart fell. For half a minute, I'd thought he was calling to say they'd found her. It was irritating everyone involved, not just my father. Colt had started checking in regularly with me since Eleanor's party two nights ago, and Sheriff Knoxx had enlisted King Zulubar from Goblin Territory for help. The goblins were currently searching Beggars Forest on the off-chance Sadie had wandered in there... or been taken there against her will.

The sheriff from Mistmoor Point—Lincoln Maxwell—had offered his support as well. He and his deputies were searching every possible spot in Mistmoor where Sadie could be hiding, even the oddball things like rowboats and fairy shacks. If she was still on Heavenly Haven, someone was going to find her. It was only a matter of time.

"Oh," I said to Dr. Dunne. "Well, what's going on? Is everything okay?"

"I need that potion of Finn's you found," he said, getting straight to the point.

"The Florahexadrine? How did you know—"

"I talked to Mrs. Cambridge," he said quickly. "It occurred to me that she might know something that had been overlooked by the police. Something Finn might have mentioned to her in passing."

My sleepiness had passed. I was wide awake now. "So, she told you about the safe?"

"She told me she gave the bottle to Finn's sister, but I did some digging and Finn was an only child. From her descriptions, I figured it had to be you and Lucy she met that day. Besides, who else would attempt to pull off a stunt like that? You could have gotten yourselves into some real trouble."

"Could have, but didn't," I reminded him.

"Not yet, you mean.” It sounded like he was gritting his teeth. "You took evidence from a crime scene."

"Mrs. Cambridge gave us that bottle from her safe," I countered. "There was no crime scene left by the time we got there. Finn wasn't even killed in his room; he was killed on the street. So that potion has nothing to do with anything."

"She got it from Finn's room. She should have turned it over to authorities immediately, but she didn't. She could get in just as much trouble as you if this gets out."

I frowned. Was Dr. Dunne making threats? That didn't seem like him.

"Why do you want it?" I asked.

"It's mine," he said.

"Is it?" I asked, suspicious.

"That's the sample that was stolen from my safe."

"How do you know that?"

He hesitated. "Because who else could it belong to?"

"Maybe it was Finn's personal stash," I said. "What did your bottle look like?"

I rose from my bed and fished the bottle Mrs. Cambridge had given us from out of my bag. Dr. Dunne described it to a T.

"What does the label say?" I asked him.

This time, there was a longer pause. I thought I heard him whispering to someone in the background. When he came back on the line, he sounded confident. "Final product."

I frowned and bit my lip. He certainly seemed to know what the bottle looked like, but that didn't mean anything. Maybe he'd had a similar bottle. Maybe the samples Finn had given out had been the final product after all, not just the second-best.

"I thought you told me that Finn didn't give you the final product," I said. It was a bluff. Dr. Dunne had never said anything of the kind to me.

"I did?" he asked, and I could almost hear him scratching his head searching his mind for an answer. "If that's the case, I misspoke." Silence hung between us for several seconds. "Please, Ava. I need it."

He almost sounded desperate. It was oddly discomforting. Normally, Dr. Dunne was all smiles and courage. You had to be courageous to be a human running a paranormal hospital, but he was the best at what he did, and no one ever questioned him.

"I'll bring it down," I said and heard the relief in his voice.

"Now?" he asked.

I looked at my clock. It was almost 12:45. "I guess, if it's that important to you..."

"Thank you. I'll be waiting. And I'll make sure Hubert Moss knows to let you in."

I thought about waking up Trixie or my dad but decided to let them sleep. There was no reason someone in the house shouldn't rest peacefully. I told Snowball where I was going, though, and she promised to fill them in if I wasn't back within an hour.

There was no sign of Hubert Moss as I walked into the hospital. It was eerily quiet. People still buzzed about, but the energy seemed lower, less intense somehow. I searched the area for him... the waiting room, the halls, the elevators... and saw nothing. When I finally got to the right floor, I spotted him patrolling the area around the nurses' station.

He paused when he saw me, narrowing his eyes, but then he moved on. I let out a sigh of relief and knocked on Dr. Dunne's door. "Come in," he said.

I opened the door and found him standing at his desk, waiting for me.

"Did you bring it?" he asked excitedly.

I nodded and started to hand it to him. I paused with my hand halfway to him. "Why is it so important to you to get this back?"

He licked his lips nervously and looked around the room as if we were being watched. I looked around, too, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

"I just need it," he said.

"This doesn't have anything to do with Mr. Bunsen at MGCK Core, does it?" I asked him.

He seemed surprised by my question. "No."

"Is this about the money? Are you hoping Sweetland Hospital can make some kind of financial gain from this?"

"Yes, that's it," he said and made a grab for it. His brow was sweating, and his cheeks were red.

There was a knock on his door. "Everything all right in there, Dr. Dunne?" Hubert's voice sounded from the other side.

"Yes," Dr. Dunne called out to him. "Thank you, everything's fine." He looked at me, his eyes narrowing. "Give it to me," he hissed, and this time, when he reached across to grab it, I let him take it.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FIVE

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I sat at the table in the back room, a bowl of extract in one hand, a bowl of frosting in the other, and closed my eyes. I could hear my dad, Eleanor, and Trixie out front with the customers, but I couldn't bring myself to care. I let my eyes close and began to dream of powdered sugar that you smeared on your face to keep you looking young and cold cream that came in multiple flavors you could eat.

I was halfway through a jar of cold cream—it was sweet on my tongue despite the nasty aftertaste—when someone jostled me from behind. My eyes suddenly snapped open, and I spun around.

"Did we lose you?" my dad asked, joking, but he looked worried.

I blushed. "Sorry." I looked down to find my hand now sitting in the bowl of frosting as opposed to holding it. I yawned loudly and covered my mouth, wiping my hand on a towel.

"Couldn't sleep last night?" he asked.

Since Sadie had gone missing, he'd grown more and more worried about the rest of us. If we'd have let him, I was pretty sure he'd have installed surveillance cameras in our rooms.

"No, I was sleeping fine until Dr. Dunne called me at almost one in the morning and asked me to come down to the hospital."

I'd overslept this morning and barely had time to make some instant coffee let alone tell them what had happened last night with Dr. Dunne. I hadn't been sure I should tell them. I hadn't exactly been forthright about investigating Finn's murder, and no one but Lucy knew we had the Florahexadrine—had being the keyword.

I knew I needed to text her and tell her what had happened, but I was worried she would be mad I'd let him take it. There had been something in his eyes, though, that had worried me. A desperation that made me think I ought to give him what he wanted.

My dad was frowning. "Why did Dr. Dunne call you so late? Was it about Sadie?"

I heard him fighting to keep the fear out of his voice. "No. It wasn't to do with Sadie." I hesitated. "Maybe I should wait until Eleanor and Trixie can come back here, too, so I don't have to repeat this. It's kind of a long story, and I only want to freak you out with it once."

Now he looked really worried. He gave me his best 'dad' stare. It was equivalent to Eleanor's 'look.' Like a school teacher or a principal who'd just busted you for cutting class. I flinched without meaning to, averting my gaze.

"That might've sounded worse than I meant it to," I said. "Nothing's wrong, it's just that..." I threw my arms up and gave in. I told him all about Dr. Dunne and the potion Lucy and I had gotten from Mrs. Cambridge at Sweetland House.

His eyes widened as the story unfolded. "Why didn't you tell me or your aunts about this Flora... Flora..."

"Florahexadrine," I said.

"Florahexadrine," he repeated. His hands were on his hips, and he was bending slightly over at the waist as if speaking with a small child instead of his grown daughter. "What else have you and Lucy been up to?"

I hesitated, unsure of just how much to tell him without causing him further worry. "Well, I... that is, Lucy and I..."

I was about to tell him I'd gone down to MGCK Core but was saved by Eleanor, who poked her head into the back room and told us both to get out front before the customers rioted due to lack of service.

I followed my dad out front but knew this wasn't over yet. He had questions. Lots of questions. And once he filled Trixie and Eleanor in on what I'd told him so far, they were going to have quite a few questions for me as well. I braced myself for the verbal assault that was coming later when we had a break in the flow of customers and made a mental note to text Lucy ASAP.

Even if she was mad at me for giving up the Florahexadrine to Dr. Dunne, she would still be a strong ally in my face off with my family. The sooner she could get down here the better.

My dad continued looking at me from the corner of his eye for the next forty-five minutes until Natalie Vargas came in and asked for two dozen chocolate pound cakes, which she hoped she could pick up by one 'o clock.

"That's three hours from now!" Trixie said, astonished that anyone would place such a large order and allow no time for its preparation.

"It's not my fault," Natalie said, defending herself. "That birthday party from the other day is back. Only this time, it's an anniversary party. They liked my place so much they decided to bring their parents there for lunch, along with several dozen of their closest friends. At least this time, they called and gave me some notice—three hours notice, sure, but it's better than walking in off the street."

Trixie frowned but took down her order.

"Oh, I'll also need an anniversary cake. Three tiers with alternating layers of chocolate and vanilla cake. They specifically requested some cherries in the middle, maybe the frosting as well."

Eleanor's eyes bugged out of her head. "You're not serious."

"I'm afraid so. What can I say? These people like their cherries. Personally, I don't care for cherries in my cake. Give me an old-fashioned coconut cream any day of the week."

Eleanor let out an exasperated sigh. "I wasn't referring to the cherries. Do you think that we have spare cakes just lying around ready to go? We make these things from scratch, Natalie. That takes time."

"Does that mean you can't do it?" Natalie said, disappointment obvious on her face.

Eleanor's frown deepened. Tiny lines sprang up in the corners of her eyes. "No, we can do it," she said, though she was obviously not happy about it. Eleanor wouldn't say no to a customer unless they asked her to do something truly impossible, like make all the things Natalie had just asked for in three minutes instead of three hours. Even magic couldn't do that.

"Thank you," Natalie said. "I'll send someone by to pick everything up in a couple of hours."

"Three hours," Eleanor said.

"I need time to get everything set out, don't I?" Natalie asked. "They booked a private room. I can't have them walk in and find it empty." Eleanor was scowling at her. "Two and a half," she said.

"Two and a half," Eleanor conceded, and I wondered how we were ever going to get everything done in time. Natalie disappeared, and Eleanor told me to stay out front while she gathered up my dad and Trixie and hightailed it to the back room to start in on things. That left me with a crowd of hungry customers to contend with.

"Who's next?" I called and a group of four surged toward me, each of them claiming they were next. It was going to be a long day.

Things started to die down around eleven, and I was finally able to send off a text to Lucy. She texted me back almost immediately, her angry face emoticons shouting at me from my LED screen. I sent her back a sad face and a minute later, she sent a real reply, saying she was stuck at work and couldn't come by just now and asking what I thought the stuff with Dr. Dunne meant.

I'd been trying to figure that out all last night. Dr. Dunne had never seemed the type to care more about money than his patients. If he wanted the Florahexadrine, there had to be another reason behind it. I just couldn't figure out what it was.

Twenty minutes passed by with only one customer. They paid for their single chocolate caramel brownie, and when they were gone, I dialed the hospital and asked for Loni. She was paged and a moment later her voice came over the line.

"Loni Goodrich, how may I help you?"

"Loni? It's Ava."

There was a slight pause. "Have you heard something about Sadie?" she asked, sounding nervous.

"No, still nothing. Eleanor told us that Sheriff Maxwell over in Mistmoor's looked everywhere for her and turned up nothing. His girlfriend, Felicity Redfern, even printed up missing persons posters and tacked them to the light posts. I think Sheriff Knoxx is starting to think that Sadie isn't on the island anymore."

"What does Colt say?"

"I think he agrees with the sheriff." I'd texted with Colt yesterday afternoon and he told me he'd be on the mainland for most of today, tending to some work at COMHA headquarters.

I could almost hear Loni frown through the phone line.

"Listen," I said, "the reason I'm calling is that I wondered if you'd ever met Carl Bunsen. He works at MGCK Core."

Loni made a soft humming noise. "His name sounds vaguely familiar, but I'm not sure if we've ever met. I know MGCK Core was trying to get ahold of Finn's new medication, though. You know, that stuff that's supposed to kill all viruses and turn back the clock for aging witches. He called Dr. Dunne's office every day for two weeks when he found out Finn was supposed to give him a sample. That was before Finn even got to the island."

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"Gregory told me. I mean... Dr. Dunne." She sounded embarrassed, as if I didn't already know about her relationship with the doctor.

"Where is Dr. Dunne?" I asked. "Can you patch me through to him?"

"Actually, no one's seen him yet this morning."

I froze. "You mean he's missing?"

Loni laughed. "No. He was working late last night and probably just snuck off somewhere for a little nap."

I debated telling her about going to see him at the hospital last night and decided against it. There were already too many people in the cookie jar, and I still wasn't sure who to trust. "Can you ask him to call me when he resurfaces?"

Loni promised she would and we hung up. I poked my head into the back room to see how my dad and aunts were making out and withdrew my head just as quickly. The place was a mess. Cake pans and batter were everywhere. They were all arguing with each other over who got to use the oven next, even though we had three double ovens to choose from.

It was safer if I just stayed out front, I decided and plucked my phone back out of my pocket. I started scrolling through the pictures I'd taken while at MGCK Core, pausing on each photo to see if there was anything I'd missed but the camera had picked up. There was nothing particularly interesting.

The guard who'd helped get me in... the wall behind him... the door to Mr. Bunsen's office.

I stopped and went back to the picture of the wall behind the security counter. Pictures of the guards who worked there lined the wall. Employee of the Month was printed in big bold black letters over one section, a man's picture just beneath it. I stared at the photo a long moment, zooming in until I was sure I was right.

"Oh, my roses," I whispered, then ran into the back room. "I know who killed Finn!" I shouted, and everything stopped. My dad, Eleanor, and Trixie all looked at me. "We have to get to the hospital. Now. I think Dr. Dunne's in trouble."

CHAPTER

THIRTY-SIX

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We turned the closed sign around and the ovens off. Eleanor called Sheriff Knoxx and told him to meet us at the hospital. Trixie called Natalie and told her the cakes wouldn't be finished in time—I could hear her start weeping on the other end. I called Colt and left a message. When I hung up with him, I tried calling Loni back, but the nurse who answered told me she was with a patient.

"Is there anyone else I can patch you through to?" the nurse asked sweetly.

"Dr. Dunne," I said.

She hesitated. "Dr. Dunne's not in at the moment. Would you care to leave a—"

I hung up and turned to my left, where Eleanor was panting bedside me as we ran at a full sprint. "Dr. Dunne's still not there. Hubert must have taken him."

My dad stumbled over a hole in the ground but caught himself before he could fall flat on his face. "You really think Hubert's got Sadie, too?"

"Yes. That picture I took at MGCK Core was crystal clear. Hubert Moss was their employee of the month last month. He works for Carl Bunsen, not Dr. Dunne or anyone else at Sweetland Hospital. That's just a cover."

"But why kill Finn?" asked Trixie. "Why attack Sadie?"

"He must've thought that Finn had the Florahexadrine on him when he attacked them. As for Sadie... she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time." I knew it was a cliché, but it was the only thing that made any sense. "He never meant to hurt her, only Finn. When he attacked them, she probably put up a fight and tried to stop him from killing Finn, so he hurt her, too."

"Do you think..." my dad said, the words choking in his throat. "Do you think he's got her now? Do you think he's already killed her?"

I shot him a look and saw that his eyes were teary. It could have just been the sweat trickling down his brow, but I didn't think so.

"No," I said. "I don't think he's killed her. Yet. But he's definitely got her. He probably thought she could help him get the Florahexadrine, and when he realized she couldn't, he decided to hold onto her as collateral in case things went wrong. I doubt that he's hurt her though. He'd want to keep her in one piece so that he could use her to negotiate his release later if he got caught."

It was hard getting all this out at a sprint. I drew in my breath as well as I could and waited until we got to the hospital before saying anything more.

"He's probably got Dr. Dunne, too," I told them once we'd made it. "I bet that's why the doctor called me last night. I heard him whispering on the phone. I bet Hubert was standing right there, watching him, probably pointing a gun at him. He used the doctor to get to me."

Trixie let out a groan. We stepped into the hospital and the fluorescent lights hit us like too bright sunlight after you've been staring at a computer screen for eight hours. I blinked rapidly and looked around for Hubert.

"He's not here," Eleanor said.

"He's here," I told them. "He's just hiding."

Tanner Holiday came walking toward us, a scowl on his face. "You're not allowed in here," he said, talking to me.

"Where's Hubert?" I asked, ignoring his remark.

"None of your business."

"Make it her business," boomed Sheriff Knoxx from behind us.

Eleanor beamed at him as he entered the first-floor hospital waiting area where we were all gathered. He held out his badge as if to remind Tanner that he was the sheriff and outranked Tanner in every way.

Tanner had no authority except inside the hospital walls. He couldn't even arrest someone, technically, only detain them. That's why Hubert had had to call Sheriff Knox when he had me arrested for trespassing. I bet he was still sore that charge hadn't stuck.

Tanner let out a long sigh. "I don't know where Hubert is just now. Last I saw him, he was patrolling the halls on the fourth floor."

"When was that?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "Maybe an hour ago."

"Have you seen Dr. Dunne?" Eleanor asked.

Tanner frowned. "Today?" He scratched his head. "No, come to think of it. I can't say that I have."

I looked at my aunts, my father, and Sheriff Knoxx. We all seemed to be thinking the same thing—where ever Hubert was, we would find Dr. Dunne and Sadie. Without discussing it, we headed for the elevator and pushed the button for the fourth floor. Tanner was following us now, as if he sensed the urgency of the matter.

"Something going on?" he asked, my intrusion into his hospital forgotten.

Sheriff Knoxx glared at him, trying to size him up and decide whether he could be trusted. Eleanor had filled him in on everything over the phone, so he knew all about the Florahexadrine.

"How long has Hubert worked here?" the sheriff asked.

Tanner frowned. "I don't know. A couple months, I guess. He transferred over from someplace on the edge of Sweetland. Some corporation."

"What happened to your old head of security?" I asked.

"No one's too sure. He called up one day and told us he wasn't coming in anymore. It was a lucky thing for the hospital that Hubert came along when he did. It was at just the right time." A flash of something—understanding? recognition?—crossed his eyes and his lips curved down that much further. “Did Hubert do something wrong?"

"Don't worry," I told him. "You're not the only one who's been kept in the dark." I looked at the others. "Carl Bunsen must've been planning this for months."

"He must have found a way to get rid of the old guard and fix it so that Hubert took his place," said Eleanor.

Tanner's eyes widened. "You're saying that Hubert's not on the up and up?"

"Hubert's so far down you could step on him," I said and exited the elevator when the door slid open. We went to the nurses' station first and saw Loni just walking up, her oversized clipboard in hand as usual.

"Where's Dr. Dunne?" I asked her.

"I don't know," she said, looking startled as we all converged on her. She sounded worried. "I was actually just about to call you." She directed this last statement to the sheriff. "No one can find him. The last time anyone remembers seeing him for sure was last night."

"Where's the security footage?" Sheriff Knoxx asked, and Tanner led us to a large room at the far end of the hall on the first floor that served as security headquarters for all of the guards. Loni went with us, along the way, I explained to her that I'd given the Florahexadrine to Dr. Dunne last night.

Tanner pulled up the footage and rewound it to the time Dr. Dunne had called me down to the hospital. We saw him enter his office on the fourth floor, but he never left. We fast forwarded through the whole tape and never saw another sign of him. It had been the same way with Sadie after her disappearance, or so Eleanor had told me after the sheriff had informed her that he'd gone through each and every security tape and found nothing useful.

"Hubert must've cast some sort of spell over the cameras to avoid detection," my dad said.

"We need to split up," Sheriff Knoxx said. He would go with Eleanor, Trixie, and my dad would go together, and I would go with Tanner. We were each to take a different floor and search it for any sign of Hubert, Sadie, or Dr. Dunne.

In the meantime, Loni would get the nurses together and tell them what was going on, at least, enough to help us but not enough to scare them. Before Tanner and I took off, he was to alert whatever other guards were on duty and have them take up posts at every entrance and exit so Hubert could not escape if he suddenly realized we were onto him.

"If anyone sees Hubert Moss, do not approach him," the sheriff continued. "He is most likely armed and definitely dangerous."

"Hubert? Dangerous?" Loni asked, and this time, she looked at me.

"It's a long story," I told her and gave her a brief rundown on Hubert, so she'd at least be up to speed when talking to the nurses.

She nodded and pressed her lips together.

"Whoever finishes their floor first moves to another floor," the sheriff said. "Everyone keep each other updated on exactly where they are and remember—don't do anything that could get you killed."

CHAPTER

THIRTY-SEVEN

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Tanner and I started on the first floor. We went room to room and patient to patient, looking for any sign of the missing party. We left no corner unturned, but after twenty minutes, it began to feel pointless.

"This is going to take us all day," Tanner said, grumbling. "This hospital has four floors."

"That's not so many." I wondered how he'd react if I told him how many floors the hospitals in New York City had. Growing up there had made me appreciate the difference between small-town life and big-city living.

"It is if you take into account every room, every bathroom, every closet, every stairwell," Tanner said, complaining. "Besides, we already searched this place top to bottom when we looked for Sadie. We even checked the basement. She's not here."

I paused and looked at him. "You're not a very optimistic person, are you?"

He shrugged. "I'd be more optimistic if I wasn't feeling like I've been the butt end of a joke for the last couple months." He shook his head, and I felt bad for him. "Hubert... a spy? I just can't believe it."

"Believe it," I told him. I pulled my phone from my pocket and showed him the picture I'd taken at MGCK Core. Hubert's smiling face shone proudly out from the Employee of the Month wall. Tanner's eyes widened. He took my phone and held it right up to his eyeball, as if getting that close would allow him to see something the rest of us couldn't. Maybe he thought the photo was a fake.

Finally, Tanner let out a heavy sigh and handed my phone back to me. "All right. Well, I still say we'd cover more ground if we split up instead of going off in pairs."

I bit my bottom lip. That was actually something I agreed with him on. I knew my dad and aunts wouldn't like it, neither would Sheriff Knoxx for that matter, but if Tanner and I split up, we could certainly cover more ground.

"What if we stayed on the same floor," I asked him, "but you took the west end and I took the east end? We could meet back up in the middle when we were done."

"Sounds good to me." Tanner hesitated and looked at me. "You'll be all right on your own, won't you? I don't need anyone else disappearing on me. I'm pretty sure Sheriff Knoxx will kick my butt if you do."

I assured him I would be just fine, and we went our separate ways. We each had our phones, and if anything happened, I promised to call him immediately. He did the same.

I went east down the hallway, poking my head into the first hospital room I came across. Tanner and I had already looked in here, but I figured it didn't hurt to check again. Now that we had split up, it might be better if I just started over from the beginning.

Tanner seemed like he could be trusted, but he'd been working with Hubert for the last two months. What if they were friends? What if Hubert wasn't the only spy who'd been sent here by MGCK Core? What if Sunlight Enterprises had sent their own spy? For all I knew, Tanner was no better a security guard than Hubert.

He'd said himself that he and Hubert had searched this hospital from top to bottom yet found nothing. Maybe that was because neither of them had wanted to find anything.

Then again... hadn't Tanner been working here for a year or two? I wished that I'd thought to ask him. Two years was a long time for a setup. If I was right and Tanner had been here for that long, then he was probably trustworthy.

I pulled my phone from my pocket, hesitated, then dialed the number he'd given me before we'd split off from the rest of our group.

"Ava?" His worried voice answered on the first ring. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I was just thinking."

"That's always a dangerous thing to do."

I blinked, uncertain if he was joking or not. If he was, then the man was a master of deadpan.

"What I wondered was how long you've worked at this hospital."

"About two and a half years, why?"

I sighed. "No reason. I just thought you might know some good hiding places. Is there anywhere three people could go and not be seen?"

He took so long to respond that for a minute I thought we'd been disconnected. "There's the roof. I suppose some people could hide up there for days on end and never be discovered."

"The roof?" I asked doubtfully. Could Hubert have been keeping Sadie up there this whole time? Hadn't it rained in the last few days? Lightly, but still... Then again, if Hubert was the monster I thought he was, why would he care if Sadie got a little wet?

"Anywhere else?" I asked him.

"The basement," Tanner said. "Hardly anyone goes down there. Hubert and I checked it just a few days ago though. It was clean. There was no sign of Sadie anywhere."

"Did you and Hubert check it or was it just Hubert?"

There was a short pause and then, "Hubert. He sent me up to the cafeteria to get us some donuts and coffee while he checked it out. I didn't think anything of it at the time."

"Why would you?" I asked him, trying to reassure him that he'd done nothing wrong. His voice was thick, and it sounded like he was holding back a big throaty scream. He might do better if he just let it out.

I poked my head into another hospital room and saw nothing but an elderly man with his eyes closed snoring heavily. I peeked into his bathroom and found even less of interest.

"I'll check the basement," I told him. "Why don't you check the roof?"

"You think they might really be up there?" he asked.

I shrugged. "Hard to say, but we shouldn't rule anything out."

He agreed to check the roof and call me when he was through. I sent Sheriff Knoxx a quick text to let him know our plans. He texted back telling me not to go check the basement alone, not to split up from Tanner, and definitely not to let Tanner check the roof on his own.

If Hubert's up there, what's to stop him from pushing Tanner off? he texted furiously at me.

I sent Tanner a quick text and told him to be careful, and if I wasn't out of the basement in ten minutes to come looking for me, then put my phone back into my pocket and headed downstairs. There were stairwells leading down on either side of the hospital, and I took the first one I came across. It was well lit, the stairs going up as well as down.

"Hello?" I called out, thinking I heard footsteps from beneath me.

The echo in here was funny though, and it had just as likely been someone going up rather than going down. A door separated the bottom landing of the stairwell from the basement. I pushed it open, suddenly sure that I'd find it locked, but it opened easily under my pressure.

"Hello?" I called out, stepping into a dark humid room.

I pulled at my shirt, feeling sweat already starting to form on me. The boiler was down here, and you could feel it in every step you took. No wonder hardly anyone ever came down here. Even if you wanted to go somewhere and be alone for a while, there were better places than this. The idea that Sadie and Dr. Dunne were trapped on the roof suddenly seemed far more plausible to me, and I was on the verge of turning around to join Tanner when I heard a noise.

I spun slowly around. "Hello?"

Something that sounded like a grunt answered me.

"Hello?" I said again, more urgently now. The grunts continued. There was more than one person making the noise. I started to run.

It was dark, and I had trouble seeing more than five feet in front of me. I rounded a corner and almost tripped over Sadie. She was tied up, her back pressed against Dr. Dunne's as they sat tied together on the floor. Sweat had plastered her short red hair to her face, and Dr. Dunne looked as though he were all swollen and puffy. They both had rags stuffed in their mouths.

"Oh, my roses," I said, pulling the rags out so they could talk as well as breathe easier. "Are you okay?"

"Ava!" Sadie shouted. "Behind you!"

I heard the thunk the back of my head made as something hard collided with it and had just enough time to think that probably wasn't a good thing before fading to blackness.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-EIGHT

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I don't know how long I was out, but when I woke up, my head was screaming in pain.

"She's awake," whispered a woman's voice, and I suddenly remembered that before passing out, I'd found Sadie.

"Ava?" Dr. Dunne said. "Can you hear me? Can you talk?"

"Give her a minute," Sadie said.

I blinked, taking in my surroundings. I was sitting on the floor beside Sadie and Dr. Dunne. My wrists were bound together with heavy rope, though my legs were free. I moved them gingerly, as if testing them out.

"We don't have much time," Dr. Dunne said. "He's coming back with more rope. Ava? Are you all right?"

I nodded then realized I wasn't sure if they could see me. I tried to focus. My eyes landed on a tiny pinpoint of light at the back of the room where the yellow-orange flame of the boiler flared to life. Slowly, my head seemed to recover and the fogginess cleared.

"I'm okay," I told them and heard them both breathe an audible sigh of relief.

"Ava, you have to listen to me now," Dr. Dunne said. His voice sounded heavy, and I wondered just how long he'd been down here. It was near one when he'd called me last night. Had Hubert dragged him down here right after that? That was over twelve hours now. And what about Sadie? Had she been down here the entire time she'd been missing? It was so hot I couldn't imagine how she was even still alive after such an ordeal.

I started to voice my questions to them but was cut off.

"He's coming," Sadie hissed. "Ava, pretend you're still asleep."

"But I—"

"Just do it," she snapped, and I leaned my head against the cold wall behind me, the way it was when I'd woken up. Heavy footsteps came toward us.

"Let her go," Sadie said. "Ava can't help you."

"No one's going anywhere," said Hubert. "Not until I receive my orders and my money."

Dr. Dunne said, "Carl Bunsen is just using you, don't you know that? He's not going to split the profits of Florahexadrine with you, if that's what you're after, and when you get caught, who do you think is going to go down for this? Not him. He'll be sitting pretty on a beach in Malibu while you spend the rest of your life behind bars. Is that really what you want?"

Hubert seemed to pause, then said. "I couldn't find any more rope. I must've used it all on you two." He kicked my foot, looking to see if I would jump, checking to make sure I was really passed out. I remained perfectly still. "I guess she's all right. By the time she wakes up, I'm sure I'll have heard from Bunsen."

"You shouldn't have given him the potion until he paid you," Sadie said.

Hubert cackled and in my mind's eye, I could almost see the sinister smile on his face. "I didn't."

"Didn't what?" asked Dr. Dunne.

"Give him the Florahexadrine. What do you think I am? A dim-witch?"

"But I thought after you left me down here last night, you went to see him," said the doctor.

"I did, and I gave him a bottle marked Florahexadrine all right, but that doesn't mean that's what was in it."

"What was in it?" asked Sadie.

"Water and lemon juice. I figured I'd wait and see what he did with it. If he doesn't come through with my money like he promised, then he doesn't get his precious potion."

"How much is he paying you anyway?" asked Sadie. I had the sneaking suspicion she was trying to keep him talking. It was a good plan. Tanner knew where I was, and when no one heard from me for a while they'd come down here looking for me. All we had to do was stay alive.

"More than you'll make in your entire lifetime," Hubert said to Sadie with a sneer.

"Why are still holding us?" asked Dr. Dunne. "Unless you mean to kill us?"

Hubert said nothing, just kicked my shoe again. "I'm not killing anyone for free... or unless I have to."

"What about Finn?" Sadie asked, her voice shallow.

"Like I said, I don't kill anyone for free. Bunsen paid me for that job in advance. I should have finished you off right there as well, but this witch and her aunt got in the way. I was just lucky I got away after I ran into those trash cans. I was sure they'd seen me. It wasn't until a couple days later when I found out they thought I was a woman. I guess it was a good thing I wore that disguise that night."

"So, all you care about is money?" Sadie asked, sounding almost disappointed.

"That's all anyone with any sense cares about," Hubert said. I heard him tap his phone. "Where is Bunsen? He should've called by now."

"He thinks you gave him the potion and he's getting ready to turn you over to the authorities," Dr. Dunne said. "He's going to use you as a scapegoat. Just watch."

Hubert said nothing. He must have dialed a number because the next thing he said was, "Hello? Bunsen, it's me. Where are you? I've been sitting around here waiting for instructions from you for the last—" Bunsen must have cut him off there. "No, sir, I didn't get that text. It's spotty reception down here, though. I'll check my account now and get right on that for you."

I dared a peek, opening my eyelids no more than a millimeter or two. Hubert was grinning.

"Told you two he'd come through," Hubert said hanging up. "Says he wired my money to my account already. It's sitting there now. He's been waiting to hear back from me on whether I'd take care of the extras he asked me to do."

"What extras?" asked Sadie.

Hubert laughed. "You three. Just give me a minute and let me check things out." There was a long pause and then Hubert said, "Yep, money's all there. We're good."

A second later, I heard the click of a gun as he got ready to fire.

Sadie gasped.

My leg shot out, and I kicked Hubert's shin as hard as I could. He let out a surprised yelp and shot the ceiling instead of any one of us. He fell back on his butt and the gun went flying. I jumped on top of him, standing on his chest, using all my weight to hold him down.

Unfortunately, Hubert could lift more than I weighed, and he knocked me off him in one heavy swoop of his arm. I let out a scream and landed on my back with a loud thump. Hubert kicked me hard in the stomach, but I rolled to the side before he could kick me again. I wished I had the full use of my arms and hands, but I did what I could with what I had.

I kicked him again, in the knee this time, and his yelp was even louder and screechier than before. He dropped back to his knees and I went to kick him again, but he grabbed hold of my foot and twisted my leg around at a crazy angle.

"Move again and I'll break it," he snarled.

My heart was pounding. I stopped struggling against him and lay still, wondering if it was too late to play dead.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-NINE

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"Roll over," Hubert said, letting go of my leg. I rolled. He stood hovering over me, a giant to my crumpled body.

He was watching me closely. The gun lay just off to the right, gleaming in the dim lights of the basement room. He took three slow steps toward it and picked it up. He cocked the gun and aimed it at me.

"They have your fingerprints," I said quickly.

He paused and tilted his head to the side. The gun held steady in the air. "What are you talking about? What fingerprints?"

"The two-by-four you used to kill Finn," I said. "They lifted your prints off of it."

"You're lying."

"I'm not." I was lying through my teeth, but there was no reason I could see that he had to know that.

Where the heck was Tanner? Hadn't he realized by now that I was missing? He must've tried to call me or text me or something. Even if he hadn't, Sheriff Knoxx surely would have by now. They must know I'm here... didn't they?

"If that were true," Hubert said, "then I would've been arrested long ago."

"Sheriff Knoxx didn't arrest you because he wanted you to lead them back to the one who was really in charge. The man with the brains, not just the brawn."

"I have brains!" Hubert shouted, dropping his gun ever so slightly.

"Sure, you do," I said. "It's just that they're not always obvious to the outside world. Like using that two-by-four. That wasn't so bright, was it?"

He hesitated. "My gun can be traced back to me. I knew that two-by-four would be traced back to someone in your family. I wasn't sure who exactly... I was hoping it would be you." He smiled evilly at me.

I licked my lips. This was the one part of everything I hadn't quite been able to put together. "Where'd you get it? The two-by-four?"

He narrowed his eyes. "You're so bright, you figure it out."

I thought hard, but nothing came to mind. I'd been puzzling over this since day one.

Hubert laughed. "Not so smart now, after all, are you?"

Sadie rolled her eyes. "Oh, for witch's sake. He got it out of the alley behind your bakery. He told me all about it the first day he brought me down here. He was so proud of himself he couldn't stop talking about it. He just had to rub my nose in everything. How Finn's murderer had been right under my nose this whole time, how he'd been stealing medications from the hospital looking for the Florahexadrine, how when he finally got ahold of Dr. Dunne's sample, it wasn't the final formula and he had to start all over again."

"If your boyfriend—" Hubert said.

"Finn wasn't my boyfriend," Sadie said, cutting Hubert off as if they'd been through this a million times already.

"Whatever," Hubert said. "If your friend had just told me where to find the Florahexadrine he was stashing away instead of fighting me on it, I might not have had to kill him."

"You already said Bunsen paid you to take care of him."

Hubert shrugged. "I don't always do what I'm told. I like to give a guy a fighting chance, provided that he deserves it."

"We don't deserve it?" Dr. Dunne asked.

"No," Hubert said and pointed the gun at him now.

"Wait a second!" I shouted, perspiration running down my face. Boy, was it hot in here. "So, uh, the, uh..." I struggled to come up with another way to stall him. "The two-by-four came from our alley, huh?" I asked, remembering the pile of wood and other scrap materials just outside the bakery's back door. I'd tripped over it the night of Sadie's party and hadn't thought about it since. That night seemed so long ago now that it barely registered in my memory after everything else that had happened since then.

"That's right," Hubert said. "It was easy. I just took it when no one was looking. You couldn't have made it simpler for me."

"Did you wear gloves?" I asked.

"Of course."

I bit my bottom lip. "Well, you must not have worn them the whole time then, because my fiancé Colt had his guys at COMHA run some more analyses and they came up with your fingerprints."

"No, they didn't."

"Yes, they did." My breathing was heavy, and my heart raced. "It wasn't a full print, just a partial, but it was enough."

Hubert seemed to be thinking now. "My gloves did rip that night." He looked at Sadie. "Your boyfriend tore them with his teeth when I was attacking you."

Sadie let his 'boyfriend' comment go. From the corner of my eye, I saw a shadowy figure slowly approaching us. I couldn't make out who it was though. It was too short to be Tanner or my father, too thin to be Sheriff Knoxx. It could have been Eleanor or Trixie, but I didn't want to look too closely and draw his attention to whoever it was.

"That's right," I said, jumping back into my conversation with Hubert. "They found black fibers in Finn's teeth, too. They matched the fibers of your gloves."

Hubert smiled. "Now I know you're lying. My gloves were blue."

Oh, crud.

He pointed the gun at me and took a step closer. "I never liked you anyway. I always thought you were a brat. The truth is, I would have killed you for free. Though none of you will live to tell Bunsen that."

His finger started to pull back the trigger just as Loni jumped forward, hitting him over the head with what looked like her oversized clipboard. The clipboard smashed in two and fell to the floor with a loud clank.

Hubert looked dazed. A tiny rivulet of blood ran out of his hair and down his cheek. "What the...?" he muttered as his eyes crossed.

Loni looked at us as if she didn't know what to do next.

"Hit him again!" Dr. Dunne shouted.

Loni's hand curled into a fist. I had no idea if she'd ever punched anyone before in her life, but she had no problems doing it now.

Her hand flew through the air, her knuckles colliding with the left side of Hubert's chin. His eyes rolled into the back of his head for a minute before his knees buckled under him and he collapsed to the ground in a large heap.

Loni let out a breath. "I've been wanting to do that for ages. I always thought he was a little creepy."

We all laughed as Loni bent to untie us.

CHAPTER

FORTY

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We closed the bakery the next day and were late opening it the day after that. That didn't stop people from wanting their pastries. Even now, almost a week after everything had gone down, a steady crowd of people poured inside from the time we turned the closed sign around to the time we turned it back around at the end of the day.

"That was a madhouse," Eleanor said as she pulled up a chair at one of the tables we kept out front in the bakery for anyone who wanted to eat their pastries here.

"You can say that again," said Trixie as she and my dad joined Eleanor at the table.

Colt leaned against the counter, his arm wrapped around me. "I'm sorry I missed all the fun."

I glared at him. "You always did have a twisted idea of fun," I said then pinched him. He pretended he was severely injured, holding his arm and glowering at me as if he'd been shot instead of pinched, then he kissed me.

His mouth was warm and nearly as sweet as the fresh honeybuns I'd put out on the table for us. Tonight was a celebration. Not for the town, just for us. Melbourne and Lucy were on their way to join us and should be here any minute. Lucy was bringing her boyfriend, Ford Shelby, a co-worker of Colt's, and Sadie was coming from the hospital.

She'd taken one day off to recuperate from being stuck in the basement of the hospital for almost a week and then had gone right back to work. Loni had called me yesterday at the bakery to ask us to make the wedding cake for her and Dr. Dunne and filled me in on everything I'd missed.

The board of directors at the hospital, led by Dr. Dunne, had decided that Sweetland Hospital was big enough and complicated enough to warrant having two head nurses, always. Especially since security seemed so lax.

Poor Tanner had gotten himself locked out on the roof and had stayed out there until someone had thought to check for him three hours later. He'd also left his phone sitting in a bathroom stall. Someone had turned it in to Loni, who'd gone through the texts looking for the owner's name and had seen my last text to Tanner before heading into the basement. She'd tried calling me, gotten no answer, and gone to check things out.

The old head of security, the one who'd suddenly decided to stop coming in to work two months ago, had taken a bribe from Bunsen to go on an extended vacation. He was facing charges now, too, though to a far lesser degree.

So, Sadie and Loni were stuck with each other, though neither one seemed to mind.

After Loni's heroics in the basement, no one dared to question Dr. Dunne's suggestion she stay on with Sadie or claim he was playing favorites. Loni and Sadie had both earned their roles as head nurse and intended to fulfill them, or in Loni's case continue to fulfill them, until the day they died, which everyone agreed would not be for a very long time yet.

Dr. Dunne had proposed to Loni right after his rescue, declaring himself to have been a fool for ever having let her go. Loni declared herself a fool for ever having let him go, and the two were expected to have a long and loving relationship. The wedding was two weeks from today. They'd decided they'd waited long enough and didn't want to wait anymore.

Loni's news about her impending marriage to Dr. Dunne had forced me to take a look at my own relationship with Colt. It was true that we had not always seen eye to eye on things, it was equally true that sometimes Colt's job prevented him from sharing things with me, and that I'd struggled with that in the past. I finally realized, however, that I had my own little secrets to keep from Colt as well. Sometimes, secrets weren't such a bad thing.

If I'd told him that I'd planned to go to MGCK Core, for example, he would have put up a fight about it, telling me how unsafe such a thing was on my own. If that had happened and I'd listened to him, I never would have found out that Hubert was working for Bunsen, and they both might have gotten away with everything instead of getting twenty to life, as Colt suggested they probably would.

Bunsen was rich and already had lawyers concocting deals for him, but the evidence against him was so strong—including Hubert's own statement, in which he'd held nothing back regarding Bunsen—that even Bunsen's rich lawyers couldn't get him out of this. The man was going to jail for at least twenty years, and quite probably longer.

Hubert would get the same twenty to life—almost certainly life, since he'd been the one to actually kill Finn—but he would get to remain in a medium-security prison instead of going to Swords and Bones, the hardest maximum-security wizard and witches’ prison in existence.

Hubert had readily agreed to this deal when Colt had offered it to him in exchange for his testimony against Bunsen. No one wanted to go to Swords and Bones for any reason. The prisoners there almost never even got visitors. Overall, it was a good thing for Sunlight Enterprises, though they were the only ones who seemed to come out of this unscathed. Finn's remaining family, who controlled Florahexadrine now that he was dead, had given exclusive production rights to them. Since they'd been found innocent of all wrongdoing, they stood to make a fortune, along with Finn's cousins.

There was a sudden tapping on the front door of the bakery and we all looked over to see Natalie Vargas smiling and waving to us from the window.

"Tell her we're closed," my dad said.

"No, let her in," I told him. "I invited her."

Everyone looked at me with surprise. "You invited Natalie?" Eleanor asked suspiciously. "Why?"

I shrugged. "She's our best customer." She also had the dress I needed. She'd brought it with her. She came running into the room as Trixie shut the door behind her.

"Hurry," she said. "We have to hurry. I just passed Sheriff Knoxx and Sadie on my way here. They'll be here any second." She looked at Colt. "What's he doing here?"

Colt bristled. "I was invited, too."

Natalie tsked. "Of course, you were. We can't exactly start without you, can we?"

Colt looked confused. "Start what?"

"The wedding, of course!" Natalie screeched. "Now get outside and don't peek. You can't see Ava once she's in her gown." She turned to Eleanor and Trixie. "You two, get in back. You can help me get her ready."

No one moved.

"Surprise!" I told them, looking especially at Colt. He'd been begging me for months now to set a date and stick to it. I was almost positive he'd be thrilled instead of terrified at my plan.

"What do you mean, 'surprise?' " he asked, looking at my dad and aunts, who all shrugged.

"You mean you haven't told them yet?" Natalie squealed, delighted that she was in on the secret.

"Not yet, but I think they're figuring it out."

"Now don't you worry about a ring," Natalie said to Colt. "Snowball's bringing one for both of you, and Sheriff Knoxx will officiate." She inhaled deeply, her face giddy with excitement. "Will someone please get him out of here."

"W-We're getting married?" Colt asked me, looking amazed.

"If you'll still have me," I said.

He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into a hug. "As long as you promise to listen to everything I say from now on and stop getting yourself into these life-and-death situations, especially when I'm not around to save you."

I looked up at him. "What if I promise to only get into life-and-death situations when you are around to save me?" He looked blankly back at me. "And I promise to always give you at least twenty-four hours’ notice before such an event occurs."

"Will you put in our vows?" he asked.

I grinned at him. "Consider it done."

Epilogue

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I walked down the makeshift aisle lined with chocolate chips from the back of our bakery to the front in a pale cream-colored gown that stopped just before it touched the floor. I wore petal-pink shoes and dangly gold earrings. Natalie had stopped at our house and gotten everything for me the second I'd called her. I knew she would. She loved being a part of things. Besides, I'd wanted to surprise the others and involving Natalie was the only way I could think to do it.

I had hold of my dad's arm, and he wouldn't stop grinning. His eyes were weepy. "Your mother's dress," he said, and I heard the love for each of us in his voice.

"I pulled it out of the attic a while back, after Colt first proposed. I've been storing it away."

"She'd be so proud of you." He squeezed my hand as we stopped in front of our makeshift altar, a tiny structure Eleanor and Trixie had thrown together using cookie tins and chocolate molds.

"You look beautiful," Colt said.

My dad passed my hand to his. "If you ever hurt her," he said to Colt, "I'll hex you." They smiled at each other, but I knew my dad was serious. From the look on Colt's face, he knew it, too.

I'd called Sheriff Knox even before I'd called Natalie. I'd asked him if being the sheriff of a town was like being the captain of the ship. Could he marry me and Colt? He'd said no, being sheriff did not give them license to marry people, but luckily for me, he already had such a license in his possession. He'd gotten it years ago when the town had been thinking of adding a wedding chapel onto the sheriff's station—a project that had never panned out, much to the sheriff's relief.

My father joined Sadie off to the side. Since she’d been found, they'd been nearly inseparable, especially when Hubert had admitted some of what Carl Bunsen had paid him to do was contaminate certain things around town with his own formula for Florahexadrine—something he'd been working on in hopes of developing a copycat potion—so that he might gauge the reaction of the townspeople.

In other words, he was using Sweetland Cove's residents as his own personal Guinea pigs, a thing which ensured his prison term, however long it may be, would be held nowhere other than Swords and Bones.

The contaminated items around town included sugar, water, and a few pieces of fruit from the market. My dad had not only eaten the sugar, but some of the fruit as well, and had reacted strongly to the combination. It explained his sudden jealousy over Finn, as well as his unusual behavior around the time of Sadie's party.

My aunts and I had thought he hadn't been acting like himself and now we knew why. At least the effects hadn't lasted long—just a couple of days—but it had been a hard couple of days and had almost cost him his relationship with Sadie.

Now my dad was standing next to Eleanor, Trixie, Lucy, and Snowball, who had the promised rings tied around her neck with a pink ribbon Natalie had adorned her with. Rocky and Tootsie were there as well, each sporting little black bow ties.

Sheriff Knoxx began the ceremony, going through the usual vows, until Colt and I cleared our throats and said we wanted to chime in with our own. Sheriff Knoxx indicated we should go ahead.

Colt said, "I promise to always love you, always cherish you, and always yell at you when you almost get yourself killed." He slipped the ring on my finger.

I smiled at him and said, "I promise to always love you, to never obey you, and to always wait for you to rescue me."

"And..." he prompted.

I frowned. "And...?" Then it hit me, and I beamed at him. "And to always give you twenty-four hours’ notice before I go and put myself in harm's way." I slipped the ring on his finger. Snowball purred loudly as she wove her way between our legs.

Colt's dad stood in back. He'd shown up with Lucy and Melbourne. I was glad he'd come. I wasn't sure he would; he was still kind of a loner after having been turned into a vampire.

"By the power invested in me and the town of Sweetland Cove," Sheriff Knoxx said. "I now pronounce you husband and wife."

Cheers erupted as our family and friends began applauding, barking, and meowing at the top of their lungs. Colt kissed me softly, his lips a tender caress as his arm slipped up my spine, pulling me tighter to him.

"I love you even though you're a little crazy sometimes," he said, smiling.

"I love you even though your boss is Dean Lampton."

He groaned. "Do I have to go to work tomorrow? Shouldn't we be departing on our honeymoon or something?"

"I have the perfect place picked out," I told him, and he arched one eyebrow. "Easter Island."

His mouth opened in surprise. "Easter Island?"

"Or the pyramids," I said. "Someplace mysterious."

He laughed. "I think we've had enough mysteries for a while, don't you?"

I shrugged and raised my lips to his once again. "There's always time for a good mystery."

"First thing's first," he said, taking my hand. "It's time to cut the cake."

I looked over and saw that Eleanor and Trixie had hurried into the back room and made up a wedding cake for us from one of the sheet cakes we'd started earlier. They'd decorated it with flowers made out of modeling chocolate as well as little chocolate hearts.

"It's the best we could do under such short notice," Eleanor said.

"It's lovely," I told her and reached for the cake knife.

Colt skipped the cake knife, digging his hand right into the cake itself and scooping out a piece. He held it out to me as I giggled like a schoolgirl, then smashed it into my face. I quickly grabbed a slice with my own hand and smashed it into his.

Soon cake was getting tossed around like it was rice, and when Colt and I finally came up for air, he said, "Still want to go to Easter Island?"

"Nah," I said. "You're full of enough surprises for me already. I think I'll try and solve the mystery of marriage before I tackle Easter Island."

"At least we've solved one mystery," he said and kissed my lips. "I'll never have to wonder again if you're mine."

I blushed and smiled back at him.

Snowball jumped between us. "Snowy left a present in detective man's bed," she said and rubbed her nose against my leg, licking off a glob of frosting. "One present for Mama, one for detective man. Try and figure out which is which," she said then scurried off.

"I hope it's not another mouse," Colt said.

"I hope it's not a live mouse," I said.

"Or worse," Colt said and we looked at each other. "Maybe we'd better get home." It was time to solve the mystery of Snowball's wedding present.

THANK YOU

for reading my book and

i hope you have enjoyed the story.

The Bakery Murder is Book 13 in Sweetland Witch Series.

If you have enjoyed reading The Bakery Murder, I believe you will be interested in checking out Book01 in the series.

I have enclosed a sneak preview of the Book01.

Is FREE on Kindle Unlimited. (around 330 pages)

Check it out below . . .

PROLOGUE

Eli raced through the house, grabbing everything he could. Two suitcases were open on the bed. Ava was sleeping beside them. She made a soft cooing noise as she slept. Her feet began to move like she was running, which was silly, because she couldn't even walk yet.

What will I tell her when she's old enough to understand?

He pushed the thought from his mind. That would come later. For now, the important thing was to get her out of here. His wife was dead. The man who'd killed her had been turned into a gooey pile of gunk just outside his front door. The only thing that had remained of the killer after Eli cast his oobleck spell was a button off the man's coat. For some reason, metals and plastics didn't respond well to oobleck spells.

Ava began to cry softly. Eli pulled another pair of socks from his drawer and went to her. He touched Ava's forehead. "Calmnetico," he whispered. A soft orange glow emanated from his fingertip, instantly settling her. Eli didn't know how humans survived parenthood without the use of charms and enchantments. Wouldn't babies just cry all night long without an appeasement charm?

"There, there," Eli said, stroking Ava's bright yellow hair. It was growing fast. She wasn't even one yet and already her mother's blond locks were evident on her head. Lorabelle would have loved to see how they grew out.

Eli sighed and turned back to his packing. He didn't know when the Council on Magic and Human affairs would come for him—no one knew what he had done just yet—but the Council had ways of finding things out. He didn't intend to wait around and find out whether they would listen to reason.

Eli had killed a human. The same human who had murdered his wife. He could tell the Council it was self-defense all he wanted, but if they chose to believe it was revenge, there'd be little he could do. He'd tried to tell them once before that Jon was dangerous, but they hadn't listened. Now Lorabelle was dead He would never entrust his life or the lives of those he loved to the Council's hands again.

Eli looked at a large painting of a boat at sea that hung near the bed, considered it, then tossed it into the suitcase along with Ava's clothes. It had been one of Lorabelle's favorites. Maybe Ava would like it one day.

"Expando," Eli said, directing the stream of magic from his fingertip toward the suitcase.

There was a flicker of light. The suitcase remained the same standard size on the outside, but the inside had grown two feet wider and three feet deeper. Eli took several of Ava's baby toys and stuffed them in at the bottom.

A loud thump sounded from the hallway. Eli turned and held his breath, waiting. What if Jon had brought friends? He stepped in front of Ava, ready to defend her. Even if it meant his own death.

A lock of blond hair spilled over the edge of the doorframe and a moment later Trixie and Eleanor's heads were visible. Trixie's head sat atop Eleanor's, like a totem pole. Behind her, her body hovered several feet off the ground. Her round face and wide blue eyes opened even wider when she realized Eli had seen them.

"Oh!" Trixie cried. She toppled over Eleanor and fell into the room.

Eleanor scrambled in after her, pulling her sister to her feet.

"I keep telling you not to hover over me like that," Eleanor scolded her younger sister. She wiped the back of her neck, where Trixie had left her footprint. "I am not a step stool. What is this goo you got on me? You have no knack for hover charms."

Trixie smoothed her bright blond hair behind one ear. "And you have no knack for..." She tried to think of something, but Eli could see she was struggling to come up with anything Eleanor was bad at.

"...for making peppermint cake!" Trixie cried triumphantly. She cleaned her shoes with a towel, wiping the goo off them.

Eleanor looked so affronted by Trixie's insult that Eli had to stifle a laugh. He would have thought Trixie had called her a dim-witch.

"My peppermint cake is to die for!" Eleanor cried, holding her head high.

"It's too dry," Trixie said, wrinkling her nose.

Eleanor bristled. "What does a frosting expert know anyways? I'm the cake expert!"

Ava's blue eyes fluttered open, and she began to cry.

Eleanor's blond hair swiveled around her face, creating a halo. It reminded Eli of Lorabelle. If you'd never met the three of them, you would still have known they were sisters just from their hair color. No other family in the witching world had hair so golden and bright it almost hurt the eyes to look at.

"Now look what you've done," Eleanor chided. She went to Ava and picked her up, holding her the way Lorabelle used to.

"What I've done?" Trixie cried. She looked at Eli as if asking him whether or not he could believe this.

"Eleanor," Eli said, reaching out for Ava. She reluctantly handed her over. Eleanor turned to the suitcases, noticing them for the first time. Her eyes slowly moved around the room, taking in the missing items.

"You're leaving," Eleanor said.

"I am," Eli replied.

Trixie looked from one to the other, her eyes bouncing back and forth like she was watching a tennis match. With her lime-green stockings and matching hat, it looked like she was there to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. A human holiday that Eli had never fully understood.

"Wait. What?" Trixie asked now. "You're leaving? As in you and Ava?" She started shuffling her feet in an odd jig she did whenever she got nervous or excited.

Eli nodded. He'd known this would be hard. He'd hoped he could sneak off the island without saying goodbye. To anyone. He'd left a note to be delivered after he was gone and entrusted it to Tootsie, his wife's familiar. He supposed the note was irrelevant now.

"Eli, please don't do this," Eleanor begged. Her eyes reminded him far too much of his recently deceased wife.

Eleanor was dressed in the same somber colors she'd worn for Lorabelle's funeral today. Funerals and their drab colors were a human custom that had been adopted by witches and wizards centuries ago when they'd begun living side by side. Only, of course, there were some slight differences. Human funerals didn't typically involve turning silverware into penguins and feeding people happiness-infused lava cake.

Eli shifted his feet under Eleanor's gaze. Ava squirmed in his arms, too young to understand that he needed her to remain still. Too young to care about anything that was happening right now. He would make sure that she never knew about any of this. Ever.

"I don't have any choice," Eli told them both. "The Council has probably already sent someone for me."

"What are you talking about?" Eleanor asked. Lorabelle had been older than both of her sisters, but Eli had always thought Eleanor acted the oldest. "Why would the Council send someone for you?"

Eleanor and Trixie stared at Eli a full minute before a light clicked on in Trixie's eyes.

"Oh, my roses!" Trixie exclaimed. "Eli! You didn't!"

Eleanor looked at her younger sister, utterly perplexed. "Didn't what?"

Trixie sighed and tossed her hands in the air. "I thought you were supposed to be the smart one." She turned back to Eli. "How? When?"

"About an hour ago. An oobleck spell."

"I thought you were going to let the Council handle his capture," Trixie said.

Eleanor's eyes widened. "You killed Jon?"

Eli nodded. "He was waiting for me when I got home with Ava. He wanted to finish what he started."

"Wait a second..." Trixie’s face scrunched up like she smelled something bad. She looked down at her shoes. "Did you say you used an oobleck spell?"

"It was the first thing I could think of," Eli told her.

"Ew," Trixie said, grabbing the towel and wiping her feet more frantically with it. The goo was sticking to her shoes like glue.

"Eli!" Eleanor cried, finally catching up to Trixie. "That's disgusting! Do you mean to tell me that this stuff Trixie got on me is... Jon?" She grabbed the towel from Trixie and started wiping the back of her neck, rubbing it raw.

Eli decided he'd packed enough. He laid Ava carefully on the bed and closed their suitcases.

"Floatisio hovero," Eli said, casting his charm. The suitcases floated ahead of him in the air. He picked Ava back up and hugged her to him.

"But the Council won't fault you for Jon's death," Eleanor pleaded. "Not after what he did to Lorabelle. Not if he tried to kill you, too."

"It wasn't me he was after," Eli said, holding Ava more tightly to him. "It's not safe for her here."

"We would never let anyone hurt Ava!" Trixie cried.

"Never!" Eleanor agreed.

"Besides," Trixie chimed in. "If Jon is dead, then who's going to hurt her? She's safer here, in Sweetland Cove."

But Eli was already shaking his head. "Lorabelle wasn't safe."

Trixie and Eleanor couldn't argue that.

Eli expelled a long breath. "Jon has a child. A wife. Friends."

The sisters knew what he was getting at. Revenge was a sticky mess.

"But where will you go?" Trixie asked, her bottom lip pouting out just like Lorabelle's used to do.

"How will we find you?" Eleanor asked.

"You won't," Eli told them. "I'm taking Ava somewhere... Somewhere with so many people, no one will even notice us."

"Like the city?" Eleanor asked, hoping for a clue. But Eli kept his lips sealed. This was it. Sweetland Cove was no longer his home.

Eli allowed Eleanor and Trixie to kiss Ava one last time before he left for the ferry docks. He had just enough time to catch the last one out. From the mainland, it would only be a short plane ride. No one would ever find them. Ava would be safe. And she would never, ever know the truth.

CHAPTER ONE

I woke up on my twenty-first birthday expecting to feel different.

I looked in the mirror, checking for crow's feet and smile lines. Nothing. I could hear my mother's voice in my head, laughing and tsking me for being so silly. She sounded like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. I'd adopted that voice for my mother when I was six and saw the movie for the first time. Since I had no frame of reference, I'd figured that voice was as good as any.

A knock sounded outside my door. "Ava, we're going to be late."

I looked at the clock on my nightstand and groaned. When I'd graduated high school I'd thought I'd be writing bestsellers or starring on Broadway by now. Something... special. Different. Not working as a waitress at the same New York City diner my father was a line cook at.

I opened the bedroom door. My dad stood there smiling at me and holding a small box.

"Happy birthday!" he cried.

I smiled and took the box from him.

"Thanks, Dad. You didn't have to—"

"Don't even say it. Of course I did. I'm your father. My daughter is turning twenty-one today. The least she deserves is a... well, open it and find out."

He was grinning like the Cheshire Cat. Yellow curls fell across my eyes and I pushed them away. I quickly undid the ribbon my father had tied around the box and tore the paper open. Inside was a sterling silver necklace. I stared at the pendant. A solid silver witch's hat.

Oh my God.

Any time I'd expressed even the slightest interest in witches or magic since I was a kid, my father had always gotten angry. Growing up, I hadn't even been allowed to dress up like a witch for Halloween. It had taken three years of begging before he'd even allowed me to go trick-or-treating. And then he'd followed me and my friends from house to house, not letting me out of his sight for an instant. He'd even walked up to the doors with me. It was the last time I'd been invited trick-or-treating.

"It's beautiful," I told my father, still uncertain about its meaning. Maybe this was his way of telling me he considered me an adult now.

"It... it was your mother's." The words croaked out of him.

"This was Mom's?" I looked at the pendant again, more closely this time.

My father never talked about my mother. The most he'd ever told me about her was that she'd died in a plane crash when I was only a year old. I'd grown up terrified of flying. Maybe that was why I'd never left New York.

Despite wishing for some adventure in my life, I'd decided long ago that the city was big enough and busy enough that I didn't need to go anywhere. I could find plenty to do right here. Besides, I could never leave my dad. What would I have done anyway? Work as a waitress in some other diner in a less interesting city?

I hugged my father tightly.

"I love it. Thank you."

I took the necklace from the box and put it around my neck. My father fixed the clasp for me, and I looked in the mirror. The witch's hat shined brightly even in the dim lights of my bedroom.

"Why did..." I was dying to know why my mother had a witch's hat for a necklace. Was she into the supernatural? Fantasy? Was her favorite movie The Wizard of Oz? What did it mean?

My father sensed the question on my lips. "She just thought it was pretty," he told me and left it at that. I opened my mouth again, more questions rising in the back of my throat, but my father turned and went back down the hall.

At work, everyone wished me a happy birthday. Lance offered to take me out for a drink after my shift. "You're twenty-one. It's a rite of passage. I went through it two years ago on my birthday. Now it's your turn."

Lance smiled widely at me. His brown eyes worked to charm their way in. I was tempted to say yes, but I could feel my father's eyes on us from the kitchen. My dad didn't like Lance. Actually, my dad didn't like anybody. If I went out tonight, he'd only stay up worrying.

"Thanks," I said. "Maybe some other time."

The morning rush ended and the noon rush started. I kept checking the clock, wishing I could somehow make time spin a little faster. Around three, just an hour before my shift ended, two women came into the restaurant. They looked almost identical, with their bright blond hair twirled high in a bun. It was almost the same shade as mine.

They were both in their forties, though I could tell one of them was just barely so. She was dressed like she'd paid one too many visits to the local thrift shop. Bright pink jeans and a matching hat were accentuated with long loopy earrings, a bright yellow shirt, and a sparkly vest. The other woman, clearly her older sister, looked like a subdued gypsy. She wore dark grays and blacks with silver bangles and large hoop earrings. They looked around the restaurant, searching for someone. Their eyes stopped on me.

I moved to the right, thinking they were looking at the menu behind me. But their eyes followed me. They were staring so intently at me I began to blush. Maybe I had something on my face? I snuck into the back room and did a quick makeup check. Everything looked in order.

"Hey, Ava," Judy said, coming up beside me. She did a quick mirror check of her own, straightening her apron. "There are two women out there asking for you."

"For me?"

"Yep. Except they called you Ava Fortune instead of Stone. But they described you to a tee. Actually," Judy turned to me, giving me a quick once over, "they kinda look like you. Relatives, maybe?"

"I doubt that," I told her, making my way back out front. My father and mother had both been only children. Judy followed me and pointed out a booth. The two women who'd been staring at me sat there expectantly.

I got two glasses of water and made my way toward them.

"Good afternoon," I said, setting down the glasses. "Welcome to Stuffed." They were sitting side by side instead of across from each other the way people usually did.

The women grinned at me and shot each other a look. The younger one actually elbowed her sister.

"Hello, Ava," said the older woman.

"Um," I said, feeling like I was the punchline of some unknown joke. "Do I know you?"

"We've met before," she said. "Though it's been a while—"

"Quite a while," her younger sister interrupted.

"—since we've seen you."

I put my pen down and bit my bottom lip.

"We met you on the island," the older woman said. She sounded cautious. Like she was feeling me out.

"Manhattan?" I asked.

"Heavenly Haven."

"Oh," I said, laughing. Understanding clicked in my brain. "You're mixing me up with someone else. I've never been out of New York."

The sisters frowned and shot each other a worried look.

"Do you need another minute to look over the menu?" I asked. They were starting to creep me out. It was the way they kept looking at me. Like I was famous or something.

"I'll take pumpkin pancakes without the pumpkin, please," the younger woman said.

"The same for me, please," said her sister.

I stared at them. "So you want... pancakes?"

The women whispered to each other like they were conferring on some big secret.

"Yes, pancakes," the older one replied, nodding her head. "Plain. No pumpkin. No villeroot. And some hot tea, if you have it."

"No what?" I asked.

"Villeroot. My stomach just can't handle it this late in the day."

"Er, okay. No problem." I scratched it down on my notepad and turned toward the kitchen.

"There's the birthday girl!" Billy, one of the line cooks, shouted. "Hey, Eli. Tell your daughter she should be out partying, not working at this dump." There was a general murmur of agreement from the other two cooks, but my dad's lips tightened.

"Listen to this order," I told the guys. I thought even my dad might find this funny. "Pumpkin pancakes, hold the pumpkin." There was a round of laughter. "And no villeroot," I said, smiling. "The woman's stomach can't handle it this late in the day." There was another round of laughter.

"What the heck is villeroot?" Billy asked, wiping his forehead with a towel.

I shrugged.

"No idea. I'm pretty sure it only exists in that lady's imagination."

I looked toward my dad to see if he was laughing, but he wasn't there.

"Where'd Eli go?" Billy asked.

He'd just been standing here. How did he sneak away? I hadn't even seen him leave the kitchen. I shrugged and grabbed two mugs for tea for the pumpkin ladies.

I pushed the kitchen door open and stopped in my tracks. My dad was at the pumpkin ladies' table. His face was scarlet, and his eyes had narrowed to black slits.

He stood in a heated discussion with the women. The pumpkin ladies turned their eyes to me, looking grim, then slowly rose from their booth. They left the restaurant without a word.

"What was that about?" I asked my dad, setting the mugs aside.

"What?" he asked.

"Those women. What were you talking about? Who were they?"

"No one," he snapped. "Crazy customers. Nothing new." He pushed past me and made his way back to the kitchen.

I wanted to follow him. I was dying to know who those women were. My father spoke to people as little as possible. To strangers? Almost never. The fact he'd actually left the kitchen... that he actually seemed to know them... floored me.

I cleaned off the table the women had been sitting at, running through everything that had happened in my head. I was sure I'd never seen them before, yet... there had been something vaguely familiar about them.

Under one of their water glasses lay a tip. I scooped the bill up, preparing to pocket the single in my apron. My mouth dropped open. It wasn't a single. I stared at the bill, unbelieving. A hundred dollars? All I'd done was bring them water.

I flipped the bill over, looking for signs that it was fake. Written on the back of the bill in black marker were the words, "Happy birthday, Ava."

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A Cozy Mystery Book

Standalone Novella : Cake Spell Disaster

LINK: Standalone Novella : Cake Spell Disaster

<< Sweetland Witch Series >>

Book 1 : Witch Cake Murders

LINK: Book 1 - Witch Cake Murders

Book 2 : The Witching Flavor

LINK: Book 2 - The Witching Flavor

Book 3 : A Drop of Witch

LINK: Book 3 - A Drop of Witch

Book 4 : Sweet Murder Hex

LINK: Book 4 - Sweet Murder Hex

Book 5 : Batter and Spells

LINK: Book 5 - Batter and Spells

Book 6 : Portion Disaster

LINK: Book 6 - Portion Disaster

Book 7 : Frosting Disaster

LINK: Book 7 - Frosting Disaster

Book 8: Witch Way To The Bakery

LINK: Book 8- Witch Way To The Bakery

Book 9: Royal Witch Curse

LINK: Book 9- Royal Witch Curse

Book 10: Witches, Recipes and Murder

LINK: Book 10- Witches, Recipes and Murder

Book 11: Sugar Magic Murder

LINK: Book 11- Sugar Magic Murder

Book 12: Espresso, Cake, and Murder

LINK: Book 12- Espresso, Cake, and Murder

Book 13: The Bakery Murder

LINK: Book 13- The Bakery Murder

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