Murder on the Oregon Express Read online

  I wanted to panic. Every single fiber in my body wanted to scream and cry and thrash about, but I knew that was a sure-fire way for me to die a horrible death. Instead I yanked the front of the broomstick down as hard as I could, sending the broom into a nosedive toward the ground.

  As the broom and I plummeted toward the ground, I was of two minds. A part of me was really, really happy that the ground was coming closer. The other part of me really wished it wasn’t coming so fast. My heart leapt into my mouth, like I was on a roller coaster ride as the broomstick plunged down toward the earth. I could see Grandma Cee, she was yelling something at me, but with the wind rushing through my ears I had no idea what. As the ground came closer and closer, I realized we were heading straight for the cotton candy tree at the front of the house.

  I tried to pull up on the broom to avoid it, but there was no stopping it. I let out a squeal and closed my eyes as the broom plunged straight into the weird tree, which was, thankfully, fairly soft. It felt like I’d just flown straight into a spider’s web. A huge spider’s web.

  I opened my eyes slowly a moment later. Was I still alive? It certainly looked like it. My arm hurt, and my heart was pounding so hard I was pretty sure I’d just taken five years off my life, but I was still alive!

  “Are you finished showing off?” I heard Grandma Cee snap from below me. I looked down and saw her standing underneath the tree, looking up at me, her hands on her hips. Next to her were the remains of the broomstick, which had been snapped in half in the crash. I wasn’t going to lie; I took a bit of perverse pleasure in seeing it destroyed.

  “Showing off?” I replied. “I wasn’t showing off, I almost died! Also, I’m pretty sure I’m stuck.”

  I tried moving around, but the more I moved, the more tangled I got in the cotton-candy like strings that made up the tree. All of a sudden, Sage came rushing out of the house.

  “Oh, Alice, I’m so glad you’re ok,” she said, pointing a finger at me. The tree seemed to part, giving me a way to jump the five feet or so back to the ground. I was so happy when my feet touched the grass that I could have reached down and kissed it.

  “You should have let her get out of the tree on her own. How will she ever learn otherwise?” Grandma Cee snapped at Sage.

  “You shouldn’t have put her on a broomstick on her third lesson,” Sage snapped back at her mother. “I could hear her screams from inside the house.”

  “Yes, well, I told her to relax and be gentle.”

  “It’s hard to do both of those things when the broom is rocketing you toward outer space,” I retorted. “I’m never getting on a broom again. I almost died.”

  “Nonsense,” Grandma Cee said, waving a hand in disgust. “I do not have another broom, and you have destroyed this one, but next week, you will get back on the broom. I would not have let anything happen to you, regardless,”

  “I crashed into the weird cotton candy tree!” I practically shouted, pulling strings of light blue cotton candy from my hair.

  “Yes, and if you hadn’t I would have stopped you before you’d crashed. I simply thought that the tree might remind you of the dangers of using magic improperly.”

  “Come on inside, dear,” Sage told me, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. “I have some pie, it will make you feel better, and then you can head on home. Your magic lesson for this week is over,” she said, glaring at Grandma Cee.

  “Only because she broke the broom,” Grandma Cee shouted after us as Sage and I went into the house.

  Six

  An hour later, after the best lemon meringue pie I’d ever eaten and a few tips on broom flying from Sage, who promised to overlook the next lesson, I took the portal back to my shop. Luckily, I didn’t run into anyone on Brixton Road, and as soon as I made my way back into the bookshop I went straight upstairs and had a shower, washing all the cotton candy that was still stuck to me out of my hair and trying to forget about this new traumatizing experience.

  I was never getting on a broomstick again, ever.

  I spent a couple of hours watching TV, then the fact that all I’d eaten that day was a slice of pie and a bowl of cereal caught up to me, and my stomach began to growl. Under the guise that I was going to try and get information about the murder, I decided to hit up Pickles’ Pizza, a popular local hangout.

  As soon as I stepped out the front door, however, I saw a small cardboard box with Cat’s Cupcakes written in pink flowing script on the side, and a note attached to the top. I opened it and began to read.

  Hey, mom texted me and told me what happened with Grandma Cee. I figured you could use a cupcake, but I’m leaving it here since I don’t blame you if you decide you hate our entire family right now. Enjoy! XOX.

  I smiled as I opened the box. A delectable, triple chocolate cupcake, topped with actual brownie pieces, stared up at me. Cat was the best. I put the box inside and sent her a quick text, letting her know she was welcome to join me for pizza and I’d be home with it in half an hour.

  As I walked down Main Street, it was just dark enough for the old-fashioned, wrought-iron lamps to turn on, giving the old-fashioned village a warm, yellow tinge as the spring evening set in. April was quickly turning into May, and the weather seemed to be getting warmer daily. Summer was definitely on its way.

  Pickles, the blue merle Australian Shepherd the pizza place was named after, was lying next to the entrance, begging to be pet from anyone who walked by. I rubbed his belly a few times before going into the pizza place. Making my way to the bar, I placed an order for a take-away Hawaiian pizza, which they made with pulled pork and bacon here. Karen, the owner, was behind the bar. Since it was a Monday, the crowds were pretty manageable.

  “So, I heard you’ve gotten yourself mixed up in another murder,” she told me, her long, black braid flipped over her shoulder and running down the front of her shirt.

  “Well, I wouldn’t exactly say that,” I replied. “I was on that train though.”

  “Yes, it seems everyone wants to experience the novelty of the Oregon Express while it’s new,” Karen said. “Unfortunately for Brian Armitage, he probably should have driven. Then again, so should we. I know it wasn’t the most pleasant experience of my life, seeing that.”

  “I hear he wasn’t especially well liked in town,” I said, and Karen laughed.

  “You can say that again. Frankly, if Isabella did do it, I hope she gets away with it. After the way that man treated her,” she continued, shaking her head. “I also hope she still had life insurance out on the bastard. She may as well get something out of his death.”

  Wow, people in Sapphire Village were not shy about admitting they didn’t like Brian Armitage.

  “I heard he was dating someone new,” I ventured, not mentioning Isabella’s name. Karen’s head tilted sideways.

  “Really? Who?”

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged. “I just heard he had someone new and he took her on a trip to Mexico recently.”

  “Well, I know he went to Mexico, he left three weeks ago Sunday and went for about a week, but I didn’t realize he’d gone with someone,” Karen said. “No, as far as I’m aware, Brian Armitage was actually single for once when he died.”

  “Oh, ok. Maybe my source got their information wrong.”

  “Maybe. It’s hard to think something like that would stay a secret for long in Sapphire Village, but stranger things have happened,” Karen said, handing me my pizza. I thanked her and headed back out toward home, where I found Cat had set out some plates for the pizza and made herself comfortable on the couch. Muffin was nestled up against her, his tummy rising and falling slowly as he slept against my cousin’s leg.

  “Thanks for the cupcake,” I told her when I came in. “I’m going to save it for after pizza. It was definitely a pizza kind of day.”

  “I don’t blame you. Grandma Cee is insane. She didn’t let us learn how to fly until we were sixteen, saying that we were too terrible at magic. And while she was probably right, we’
d been doing magic for eleven years at that point. Trying to get you to fly after two weeks… I can’t believe she did that.”

  “I thought I was going to die. Like legitimately, actually expected that I was going to plummet into the ground.”

  “Peaches called and said that mom spent the whole afternoon yelling at Grandma Cee for doing something so irresponsible. Is it true you landed in the blue tree?”

  I nodded. “I spent like forty minutes in the shower trying to get cotton candy out of my hair.”

  “Sheesh. Well, don’t worry. I’m pretty sure my mom’s not going to let Grandma Cee teach you any more magic unsupervised.”

  I laughed. “Somehow, I have a feeling that’s not going to stop Grandma Cee. She said the only reason our lesson was over was because I broke the broomstick.”

  Cat laughed. “That does sound like her. Well, don’t worry, we’re not all insane.”

  “All it takes is for one crazy person to try and teach me to fly on my third day of lessons, watching me almost plummet to my death. I had no idea I was ever going to say this, but thank God for the weird cotton candy tree.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I’m glad you’re not dead,” Cat told me as she grabbed a slice of pizza and started munching down on it. Muffin looked up at her hungrily.

  “Me too,” I replied. “Karen didn’t know who Brian’s girlfriend was either. That seems strange, in a place like Willow Bay.”

  “Definitely,” Cat agreed. “Maybe Isabella was wrong, maybe there was no girlfriend.”

  “But then why would Brian not deny it when Isabella accused him of taking his new girlfriend to Mexico?” I asked. “That makes no sense.”

  “You have to remember that Brian was a total butt. There’s a good chance that even if he didn’t have a girlfriend, he would have strung Isabella along and made her think he did just to make her feel bad.”

  “That’s possible,” I said, nodding. “Wow, the more I hear about this guy, the less I like him.”

  “If it wasn’t for the fact that someone out there is willing and able to kill people, yeah, I wouldn’t exactly be sad if the murderer got away with this one.”

  “You’re not the only person who’s said that to me today,” I replied. It seems people in this town really, really hadn’t liked Brian Armitage. “Now, we need to find out for sure what Brian’s financial situation was.”

  “Well the easiest way to do that is to look at his company’s financial records. Luckily, there’s only really one big accounting firm here in Sapphire Village, and they do the accounting for pretty much all of the small businesses who don’t have in-house staff.”

  “But how are we going to get access to their financial records?” I asked. “It’s not like we can just walk in and ask to see how much money Sapphire Adventure Tours was making.”

  Cat grinned. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  I had a bad feeling about this.

  Seven

  It took Cat about five minutes to convince me that we had no other options, and we really needed this information, and breaking into accounting offices in the middle of the night was the best way to do it. She won me over eventually by reminding me that I was a suspect in this murder, and I was now implicated in both murders that had happened in Sapphire Village since I’d moved here. And that was especially bad since there had never really been any murders in Sapphire Village at all before I’d come here.

  “Fine,” I eventually relented. “But only because you brought me a cupcake.”

  Cat grinned. “This is going to be awesome.”

  “Oh yeah, I totally love having to commit felonies to prove my innocence in a murder investigation,” I shot back, and Cat stuck her tongue out at me.

  “You and Peaches are so similar, she’d hate this idea too.”

  “Should we invite her to join us?” I asked.

  “Nah, she’s too busy with her art exhibition in the city. Apparently, it’s going really well.”

  “Good for her, her paintings are phenomenal.”

  “They are. But don’t tell her I said that or I’ll have to deny it. I am her sister, after all. I can’t admit she’s awesome at anything. I have to maintain superiority as the older one.”

  “Is that how it works?” I asked, rolling my eyes. “But fine, I promise to keep the fact that you think Peaches is a talented artist to myself.”

  “Good,” Cat said. “Now, let’s get a bit of sleep before our awesome adventure.”

  “You say adventure, I say felony.”

  “Potato, po-tah-to,” Cat replied, lying down on the couch and wrapping herself up in a fleece blanket. Muffin crawled on top of her and settled himself into a little ball, obviously deciding Cat was his sleeping buddy tonight. “Set your alarm for three,” she continued. “We’ll get going as soon as we get up.”

  I made my way back to my bedroom, set the alarm for three, then wondered if I was going to be able to sleep at all. It turned out, after that whole ‘almost dying’ thing, my body was definitely ready for sleep. I passed out almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.

  When the alarm went off in the middle of the night, I felt surprisingly rested. I had expected getting up that early to be a struggle, but I suppose when you go to bed before eight, getting up at three is still a pretty decent night’s sleep. By the time I got dressed and made my way to the kitchen, Cat was already up and waiting for me.

  “All set?” she asked.

  “As much as I’m ever going to be. I’m still going on record to say this is a terrible idea.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Cat replied, waving away my worries.

  “Tell that to me from the jail cell we’re going to be in soon,” I muttered as we made our way down the stairs and into the street.

  “If anyone asks, we’re going to go open my shop, I need an assistant today,” Cat told me as I locked up behind us. As we made our way through the empty streets, however, it became evident that wasn’t going to be an issue. The last days of April were ending, and this was the in-between season for Sapphire Village–after the winter ski season, but before the summer rush.

  “The owner of the accounting business is Alexis Juneau. She’s a witch as well, although like me she doesn’t spend very much time in Brixton Road. She’s pretty nice, if you ever meet her.”

  “I’ll try not to mention the fact that we broke into her business then,” I replied, and Cat rolled her eyes.

  “For a city girl, you sure are boring.”

  “I think the word you’re looking for is law-abiding.”

  “Same thing,” Cat replied as she led me toward the back of a retail shop. Next to the shop’s rear exit was another door saying, “offices upstairs”. Cat pointed a finger at the door and I heard the lock click. She opened it, and we slipped inside after I had a quick look around to make sure there weren’t any security cameras around.

  “This is Sapphire Village,” Cat told me as we slipped into the building. “The only thing that happens here is sometimes drunk people pee off bridges. No one breaks into office buildings in the middle of the night, so there’s no need for cameras.”

  “I feel like that argument would be more convincing if we hadn’t just broken into an office building in the middle of the night,” I replied.

  “This is an exception, it’s important.”

  “Oh, well that makes it ok.”

  “If you’re just going to whine and not help, then go wait outside for everyone to think you’re a murderer,” Cat replied.

  “Fine,” I relented. Cat held out her hand, and suddenly a burst of flame appeared, floating just above her palm. It lit up the room as Cat closed the door behind us. We made our way down a hallway; in the dark, every single shadow seemed to be ready to come out and attack us. Still, I knew Cat would never let me live it down if she realized just how nervous I was about doing something like this, so I kept my mouth shut.

  About fifteen feet down the hallway we stopped in front of a glass door,
with ‘Sapphire Accounting–Alexis Juneau, CPA’ stenciled on it. The flames danced against the glass.

  “Ready?” Cat asked, and I nodded. Cat pointed at the door, and I waited for the telltale click that her magic had unlocked the door. However, the click never came.

  Cat frowned and pointed at the door again. Once again, nothing.

  “That’s weird,” Cat muttered, looking at her finger. Suddenly, the ground beneath us began to rumble. Cat and I looked at each other worriedly. A split second later my worry turned to horror as I realized what was happening. Somehow, from the other side of the hallway, a giant avalanche of boulders came flying toward us. I opened my mouth to say something, but no sound came out. Cat, noticing my horror, turned to look as well.

  “Oh my God!” she cried out, grabbing my arm in panic. We were only seconds away from being completely crushed by this wave of rocks making its way toward us.

  “Stand back!” I cried out to Cat, and I ran back about ten feet with Cat on my heels. I knew I had only seconds, and I really, really hoped this worked. Thinking about a hole opening in the ground and swallowing up the rocks, I pointed to the ground in front of us. Instantly and silently a large hole appeared in the ground. Cat and I moved back cautiously as the boulders began to spill into the hole. There were dozens of them, but the hole I’d imagined was huge, and luckily after about twenty seconds, every boulder that had been careening toward us had fallen into the hole and was now lying motionless at the bottom.

  “I told you this wasn’t a good idea,” I told Cat, my face ashen as I looked at the rocks that had been only seconds away from killing us both.

  “Ok, yup, you were right,” Cat said, and I could see from the ball of flames she was still holding that her face was the same pale shade as mine.