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No, I had no idea how much a fancy watch cost.

  But I had enough of an idea to know that it was probably enough for it to be strange that Jackson was spending that kind of money. And if it wasn’t, then I needed to just sell the B&B and become a janitor.

  But the words in too deep were stuck in my head, and I chewed on my lip a little as I stared at the receipt, then pocketed it. This couldn’t be a coincidence. Maybe there was some kind of crime ring cropping up in our little town.

  I frowned. Why couldn’t the Magic Bean just transport itself wherever I needed it to be at the blink of an eye? I needed something to help me think, and it was all the way across town.

  My phone buzzed, and I looked down at it to see three more ugly shades of mauve. I rolled my eyes, but I didn’t text back. Instead, I hit ‘call’ and put the phone to my ear, listening to the ringing tone.

  After just a few rings, Mom picked up.

  “Hi honey! What did you think of th-”

  “I’m buying new sheets,” I said defiantly, and Mom was silent for a few moments, taken aback.

  “What do you-”

  “Oh, I don’t know what kind yet, I’m just going to wing it,” I said with a sadistic smile. If Mom wanted to try to torment me, then I could dish that right back at her. “I’m not sure about the material, either, but I’ll get back to you in a few when I come up with something. It’s a process. It’ll come to me when it’s ready.”

  “Arti the thread count should be-”

  “Love you, Mom!” I said in a sickly sweet tone, and I hung up on her.

  Was that a little too low of a blow? Maybe. But I needed a little time to focus that didn’t involve my mother’s mind games. Though I wasn’t sure I’d just made things easier for myself with that little stunt.

  I’d have to stick to my guns and head home to make food, partly because I couldn’t spend time dawdling around downtown when Lucy was waiting on the news about Lara. She’d be overjoyed, so that was something to look forward to, at least. But I didn’t know whether one of the cats being in a good mood would improve or worsen the tension between them.

  Plus, there was the real possibility that with Lara awake and healthy, Lucy might be a little more forthcoming about any information she might be hanging onto that could be relevant. Cats were like that. You’d think they’d show everything they had in a situation like this, but no, it could never be that easy, especially not with familiars. I knew that all too well.

  I marched up the road toward the house, broom over my shoulder, trying to go over a mental checklist, but my hunger was making me a little too grumpy to keep my mind on anything too closely related to this case. The fact that I was thinking about it as if it were my real job made me smile and wonder what Xander was up to, but I couldn’t bother thinking about that right now.

  Thinking of Xander did remind me of something else, though - that robbery at the jewelry store. Having talked to the security guard, I really didn’t want to think of Jackson as a possible suspect for the robbery, but that was a lot of money, seemingly out of nowhere, and he clearly wasn’t being subtle about how he spent it.

  Just how long did it take to sell stolen jewelry, anyway? I furrowed my brow. How long did it all even take? Did you just give it to a guy who calls himself a fence and get money from him? How did one even become a fence? How did one find a fence? I had so many questions, and yet no answers.

  But then, fencing stolen goods wasn’t exactly the kind of thing I’d expect would happen in Moonlight Cove. Would there even be someone here to fence stolen goods to? It couldn’t be that lucrative a business. But then, maybe I was spending a little too much time locked up in the B&B. Maybe I needed a night at that club downtown to get to know the town’s apparently seedy underbelly.

  But, whatever was going on, first I had a couple of cats to pacify and a few leads to sort out in my head after getting something to eat.

  Then I had some research to do on what was actually involved in the process of fencing, apparently. And I didn’t mean the kind with pointy swords.

  Chapter 13

  Suddenly, I wasn’t in the mood for a leisurely walk anymore. I needed to get home and relay what I’d found out to Luna and Lucy, who I was sure were probably tearing each other’s throats out by now. Hopping onto my broom, I zipped off down the road, so deep in thought that it took me a few minutes to realize I was shivering. With a quick incantation a warming spell took care of that particular problem, and I got back to my thoughts. I knew the town so well I could pretty much fly on autopilot, anyway.

  Seeing Jackson out today was messing with my head. Yesterday, he had been inconsolable, weeping into his hands in the hallway at the Academy. He had been so upset he’d had a difficult time talking to me. But today there didn’t seem to be much left of his sorrowful demeanor. He certainly didn’t look like he’d been crying. Granted, I knew better than to judge people based entirely on how they grieved. I knew better than anyone that sometimes people don’t react to a situation the way you might expect them to. Maybe yesterday he dealt with his with tears, and today by doing some retail therapy.

  Only, it seemed weird that he would buy an expensive watch like that, and where did he get all that money in his bank account from? I mean, I knew my sister did a good job of making sure all her employees were paid fair wages, but still. I highly doubted Jackson was making enough money to just casually spend a ton of money on a watch and still have over fifteen grand left in the bank. If so, clearly I was in the wrong profession. I might be convinced to trade in my bed-and-breakfast job for a janitor gig. I mean, maybe if he’d lived sparingly and had saved any penny for years and years… no, it just didn’t seem possible. Or at least plausible.

  As soon as I got home and made my way through the front door, I gave the clock a casual glance. I still had a lot to get done before that evening when my new guests were to arrive. Draping my scarf over a stubby arm of the coat rack, I made my way upstairs. At the top of the staircase sat both cats, watching me with twin expressions of impatience. I raised an eyebrow at them.

  “What? What’s that look for?” I asked. Luna scoffed.

  “You were gone a long time! We were getting worried. Do you know how annoying it is to try and wait around for you to come back? It’s so boring here when you’re waiting for something.”

  “You have got to learn some patience, little one,” I told her, stepping over them to walk down the hall to the first guest bedroom. The cats followed me in, jumping up on the bed right as I was trying to strip the sheets and bedding off to wash them. “Hey!” I laughed, shooing them off gently. They hopped down and both of them started rubbing themselves against my ankles.

  “You guys are awfully clingy today,” I commented, trying not to trip over them as I carried the massive heap of bedding down the hall to the washing machine. It was old-fashioned, of course, using a non-magical hunk of machinery to wash clothes and sheets. Naturally, there were all kinds of spells that could clean and dry fabrics, and that was what most magical folk tended to use. But there was something soft and lightly-scented and homey about the way bedding felt and smelled after being washed and dried the non-magical way. It was more work, but it was a kind of comfortable ritual I didn’t mind. No spell could perfectly impart the downy softness of a fabric softener, no matter how hard I tried. Or maybe I just wasn’t very good at the washing and drying spells.

  “Well! Come on! Spill!” Luna ordered, batting at me as I squished the sheets and pillowcases into the washing machine and poured in a lavender-scented drizzle. “What happened at the hospital? Lucy is dying to know, and she’s been incessantly annoying about it.”

  Lucy meowed plaintively, pawing at my leg.

  “Oh. Right, sorry. I got a little distracted on the way home,” I admitted sheepishly. “So, Lucy, you’ll be pleased to know that Lara woke up this morning. She seems to have a little bit of memory loss about the attack itself, but honestly, that’s probably for the best. I don’t think that’s the kind of ex
perience anyone would want to remember. She’s doing much better. She talked normally and smiled and everything. She’s still weak and the doctors need to keep watch over her a while longer, but she’s improving.”

  Lucy perked up considerably at the news, purring as she gazed up at me with the closest thing to gratitude a feline face could manage. “She says thank you,” Luna said. “If that isn’t obvious.”

  “You’re very welcome,” I said, kneeling down to scratch behind Lucy’s ear. I could positively feel Luna bristling with jealousy, so I stopped after a few good scratches.

  “Wait,” Luna said. “So this means that Snobby McSnobface there has to stay with us even longer?” she asked, horrified.

  I nodded. “Yup. And you’re both just going to have to suck it up and deal with it, because Lara’s health is on the line. Someone literally tried to kill her, Lu. The priority is making sure she heals up properly. The least I can do is take care of her cat.”

  Luna sighed. “Fine. But if she starts eating out of my bowl I will scratch her eyes out and I will feel no remorse,” she declared darkly.

  “Good talk,” I remarked cheerily. “Now, are you two going to keep me company while I clean the house? We have guests coming tonight and this place is in severe need of a touch-up.”

  “Ugh, fine. But we’re not going to be helpful about it,” Luna replied, following me as I went to grab my cleaning supplies from the hallway closet. I jumped right in, spending the whole afternoon doing laundry, sweeping, mopping, straightening picture frames, dusting, and finally heading into the kitchen to get a jumpstart on dinner.

  From what I could tell from our brief interaction over the phone, tonight’s guests were a younger pair than we normally got. They said they were visiting Moonlight Cove as a getaway trip to celebrate their college graduation. They were both from a non-magical town in Oregon, road tripping north to see the coast. I was definitely a bit excited to have someone closer to my own age staying here.

  My plan for that night’s dinner was beef bourguignon, made with locally-scavenged mushrooms, carrots, onions, and parsnips from my mother’s garden, and high-quality beef from a farm a few miles beyond the outskirts of town. The farmer there was an old friend of my father’s from high school, and they’d kept in touch all these years, so he was a great hookup for getting fresh meat. For the red wine, I used another local favorite, a velvety pinot noir so dark and luscious it was nearly black. It came from Elisa’s cousin’s vineyard, and I got it at a sweet friends-only discount.

  The recipe itself was old-fashioned, a tried-and-true French one I had adapted over time from a classic Julia Child recipe. Obviously, most humans weren’t aware of this, but Miss Child was a witch herself – one of the first witches to really become a celebrity. Of course, her food was legendary: she had the benefit of French recipes, bonafide skill, and a little pinch of magic on her side. In the magical community, we all knew that she enriched her food with magic, but to the non-magical world, she just seemed like an extremely talented chef. A supernaturally good chef, one might say. So I was following the magical version of her recipe, which involved some particular herbs and spices that just weren’t used outside of magical households and restaurants. They were kept secret, guarded fiercely by all of us.

  On the side, I baked a focaccia loaf laden with bits of black olive and garlic. Focaccia was a notoriously difficult bread to make properly and in a hurry, so of course I cheated a little and used some magic there, too, in order to make the dough rise and fluff up faster than it would without magical interference.

  “Erigoroa,” I whispered to the dough as it sat puffy and squishy in the proofing tin.

  “I heard that,” Luna commented snidely. “Cheater.”

  “I’m a witch. It’s not cheating for me to use my own magic,” I said, poking my tongue out at her.

  “Sure, sure. Whatever.”

  As the beef bourguignon simmered on the stove and the focaccia baked in the oven, I glanced at the clock on the wall. My heart did a little skip when I realized that my guests would be arriving any moment. The house already smelled heavenly from the food cooking, but I decided to give it a little oomph.

  I pointed my finger toward the stove.

  “Capioroa,” I muttered, capturing the delicious scents at the tip of my finger. Then, I walked throughout the house, waving my finger around to make the smells diffuse through the halls and rooms of the downstairs part of the Manor. I wanted my guests to be positively swaddled in the delectable scents of my cooking. I hoped they liked it, since the smell was going to be downright inescapable after this spell.

  With only ten or so minutes left on the kitchen timer, there came a knock at the door.

  “They’re here!” I announced, patting my hair and smoothing down my apron as I walked across the house to greet my guests. I opened the door and let them in, welcoming them with a big smile. They were definitely young, younger than me, even. Their excitement and joy at being here were absolutely palpable.

  “Hi, nice to meet you. I’m Artemis, but you can call me Arti. I’m the proprietor here at Moonlight Cove Manor and I’m pleased to welcome you to your temporary home,” I told them, grinning. The guy stuck out his hand for me to shake.

  “Great to meet you, I’m Blake and this is my girlfriend, Tabatha,” he said.

  “You can call me Tabby,” she said, shaking my hand next.

  “It smells amazing in here!” Blake exclaimed, looking around as Tabby rolled their suitcases up and gave me a questioning look.

  “Oh, I’ll take those upstairs for you,” I told her, taking the luggage. “Dinner will be ready in about ten minutes if you’d like to go ahead and take a seat at the table. There’s an outside table on the back deck, but with the snow, I figured you’d much rather eat indoors.”

  “Thank you, that sounds lovely,” Tabatha said, smiling. I directed them to the table and then rushed their stuff up the steps to the guest room. Hurrying back down to the kitchen, I checked on dinner, and after a few good stirs, determined it was ready. My guests seemed overjoyed at the sight of food, and I retreated back to the kitchen for a swift, magically-easy cleanup. I was so happy to be back in my element that I could almost forget about the mystery, just for a little while.

  Chapter 14

  While my guests ate at the table, I sat on my kitchen counter, helping myself to a bowl of beef bourguignon. Lucy and Luna were both watching me intently, their eyes wide and round, expectantly waiting for gravity to defeat me and reward them with a morsel of beef. Much to their dismay, I managed to eat like an adult tonight, without dropping any of my food to the floor. That said, I had a tendency to give Luna a tiny bit of whatever I was eating, as a treat. She was basically my sister, best friend, and baby all at the same time, so it was hard for me to resist rewarding her with human food on occasion. But Lucy was here, too, and I had no way of knowing if she had some kind of obscure allergy that might flare up if I gave her human food, so unfortunately, that meant that both of the cats were denied Julia Child’s famous recipe.

  Not to mention the fact that I couldn’t guarantee the two of them wouldn’t fight to the death over beef bourguignon if I gave them the chance.

  Of course, neither one of them was going to accept their fate without whining about it.

  “Just one piece,” Luna pleaded, pawing at my thigh as she sat next to me on the counter. I lifted my bowl a little higher and raised an eyebrow at her.

  “No. It isn’t fair to Lucy if I give you some,” I told her, shrugging.

  Luna rolled her big green eyes. “So what? She’s already taking up space in our house. She should know better than to beg for more perks than that.”

  “Again, rude,” I remarked, shoveling a forkful of carrots and parsnips into my mouth. Luna narrowed her eyes at me and shook her head, clearly offended.

  “You could possibly enjoy that a little less rapturously, you know. You don’t have to rub it in.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s not like I’m
trying to make you feel worse about it,” I said honestly. Luna watched with disturbingly close attention as I ate a bite of beef. Lucy, who was perched on the counter opposite us, meowed plaintively and batted at the air as if begging me to toss her a piece.

  “See? She’s starving, too. You’re starving us. We’re going to die of malnutrition any moment now and you’ll have our blood on your hands,” Luna accused. I stifled a laugh.

  “Luna, I literally just fed you two. Remember? It was, like, ten minutes ago,” I snorted.

  “I have no recollection of that event,” she replied haughtily, preening and refusing to make eye contact with me. Lucy mewed again and Luna snapped, “Oh, give it up. She’s not going to share her bounty with us. Once again, we felines are treated like second-class citizens in this oppressive household.”

  “You act like you’re a prisoner here or something,” I teased. “The door’s right there.”

  “Aww, how cute!” a distinctly human voice exclaimed from the doorway of the kitchen. I was so startled I nearly dropped my bowl to the floor - which would have been a massive triumph for the cats. I looked over to see Tabatha and Blake staring at me and the cats, both smiling broadly. Tabatha had her hands pressed to her face, like it was the cutest scene she had ever witnessed.

  “Oh, thank you,” I replied, blushing furiously. I was not accustomed to my guests walking into the kitchen unannounced. Most of them treated it as my kind of private space. I hopped down from the counter and smiled.

  “How was dinner? Do you need a refill on drinks or anything?”

  “Dinner was wonderful,” Blake commented.

  “Just fabulous. I’m stuffed. Are these your familiars?” she asked, pointing to Lucy and Luna.

  “Yes and no. The black cat is mine. The white cat I’m babysitting for a friend,” I explained, feeling a little bit exposed. I usually tried to keep my cat conversations private. Even when it was another magical person watching, it felt weird, like I was talking to myself in public.