Witch Some Win Some (Witch of Mintwood Book 2) Page 5

  “Meeting ghost cats is just like meeting any other ghost, but better, because cats are always better,” said Paws.

  Kayla giggled.

  Not long afterwards, Greer gave a triumphant yell. “I found it,” she said. “We have a car!”

  Chapter Seven

  Once Greer spotted Kayla’s crashed car, it wasn’t really that hard to see it. The vehicle was definitely visible down below, just as if it had been parked there. I could even see the hood when Greer shined the light on it. In fact, I was surprised no one else had spotted it after all these years. Probably everyone had missed something so obvious because the lake was usually murky, and it got especially churned up with poor weather and wind. No one swam here, and boaters were rare . . . until tonight!

  “Now what do we do?” Charlie said.

  It was occurring to me, perhaps a little late, that there was a good chance I hadn’t really thought this through. First, Kayla’s body was down there somewhere, and although I was desperate to give her sister closure, the thought of dealing with the body wasn’t pleasant. Second, it wasn’t as if we were going to be able to look through her belongings for clues. Detective Cutter would have to do that once a formal investigation was opened.

  “I’ll call Detective Cutter in the morning,” I said. “I don’t want him to think I urgently needed to get in touch with him, because I’m not supposed to know the car is anything interesting. Just an old wreck I thought I’d mention, that’s how I’ll frame it. In fact, I’ll ask him not to tell anyone that it was me who notified him.”

  “That’s probably best,” said Greer. “As the Witch of Mintwood, you don’t need everyone asking questions.”

  “Can we please get back to shore and get out of this sinking banana now?” said Charlie.

  “I couldn’t agree more,” said Paws. “Paddle away!”

  “Maybe we could stay out here just a little while longer,” said Greer, not lifting her paddle.

  “What on earth for?” demanded Charlie. “In! Now! Go!” She made a desperate shooing motion, which after all was said and done accomplished nothing.

  But it only took her another second to figure out what Greer’s problem was: Deacon was still at the barn. In fact, we could see silhouettes of both men in the windows.

  “The barn looks nice and warm,” said Charlie.

  “It looks okay,” said Greer noncommittally.

  “Wouldn’t you rather be anywhere else right now than on a cold, blustering Lake?” said Charlie, confused.

  “It’s not that cold,” said Greer.

  “It’s cold enough,” said Charlie through gritted teeth.

  Despite Greer’s hesitation, in the end we started paddling back toward the barn. My muscles ached, and I couldn’t wait to get the canoe to shore. Kayla was nowhere to be seen, but that was just as well. I didn’t want to have to explain to her about having seen her sister. In fact, all I wanted to do was go home and get some sleep in my cozy bed. I would explain everything tomorrow night.

  We had just reached the shore when Deacon and Jasper came out of the barn. Deacon had dark blond hair that he wore in a ponytail, sharp features, and broad shoulders. Jasper was a hair shorter and leaner than Deacon, but he had the same broad shoulders and cut features. Both men were very good-looking. A fact, every woman who walked past them noticed them, which meant that Greer was often threatening to throttle people. “They just ogle Deacon like he’s a piece of meat,” she’d muttered angrily one day.

  “How was your canoe trip?” Deacon asked, his hands shoved into his jacket pockets. The lights that had been on in the barn were off now, and Jasper was a step behind his friend because he had paused to lock the door.

  Charlie said “horrible” at the same time Greer said “great,” and they both looked at me to break the tie. “Oh, it was fine, uneventful,” I said vaguely.

  Paws had taken the opportunity to run away from the canoe as quickly as possible and was already circling the car, desperate to get home.

  “Need a hand with the canoe?” Deacon asked.

  “As a matter of fact, that would be amazing,” I said, ignoring Greer’s glare. My arms were tired, and if I didn’t have to do any more work carrying the canoe, that was just fine with me.

  Deacon and Jasper each grabbed an end and hefted the seafaring vessel onto their broad shoulders, then walked it all the way up the hill to our car without even so much as breaking a sweat. It looked to me like they could have carried that canoe all day. I told myself that maybe sometime I’d try to convince them to, just to see. Hey, Mintwood was a small town and we weren’t long on entertainment. Ghosts we had, but entertainment, less so.

  Greer fell into step next to me as we followed the floating canoe. “You’re right, that is easier,” she said with a smile.

  Once the guys had safely secured the canoe to the top of the Beetle, we were ready to go. Unfortunately, Deacon wanted something for his trouble. “I thought it would be great if we grabbed dinner sometime,” he said to Greer.

  “Yeah, we’d love to,” she said, intentionally misunderstanding him.

  Jasper was standing on the other side of the car so that half his face was in shadow, but even so I could see his grin. Deacon took Greer’s maneuverings in stride in any case; he had dated her for years, so let’s be honest, he was used to it.

  “I think we should all get dinner together.” He didn’t seem to mind in the least that Greer had turned dinner into a group hangout, and who knew, maybe that’s what he intended all along. “How about everybody come over to my place soon! What you think, Carrot?”

  “That’d be great,” I said.

  “Don’t call her Carrot,” Greer muttered.

  “Sorry, lost my head,” said Deacon.

  We agreed to all have dinner soon, and with that we went our separate ways. Greer muttered something about hoping that indefinite plans never became definite, but Charlie and I ignored her.

  Safely headed home at last, we discussed the events of the night. First we reviewed our meeting at the costume shop and wondered if Liam would get any sleep between now and Friday. Then we discussed dinner with Deacon and Jasper. Somehow we forgot to say much about the canoe ride.

  Greer was nervous about the dinner engagement, but she admitted she’d be less nervous with a bunch of people there. “At least it isn’t going to be a date,” she said.

  “No, that’ll be for next weekend,” teased Charlie.

  We were so busy laughing and joking that I didn’t notice the car that pulled out a few driveways down from the barn just as we did, and I didn’t notice that the car followed us all the way home.

  I didn’t notice at all.

  Chapter Eight

  The next day I slept in, luxuriating in refusing to get out of bed for as long as possible. My rest was great for me but apparently bad for Liam. I woke up to nineteen frantic text messages composed of Liam freaking out and sending pictures of costumes that he thought might possibly serve as the centerpiece of his shop window.

  He didn’t think any of them were impressive enough, and I tended to agree with him. They were pretty, but they didn’t scream that they had to be on the front cover of the Mintwood Gazette.

  I got up and stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing my knuckles into my eyes. Charlie had already left for work and Greer wasn’t up yet, so it was quiet. I grabbed some cereal and coffee and prepared to head to the shop, just as Liam had requested in both his twelfth and his twentieth texts.

  Before I left the farmhouse, I called Detective Cutter to let him know that on a canoe trip the night before – a trip, I reminded myself, in which we had gone out at night precisely so that the cat could go along, and yet the cat hadn’t been remotely helpful – we had seen what we thought was a car at the bottom of the lake. I added that we really couldn’t be sure, but I thought maybe he’d want to check it out. I told him exactly where he could find the car, right in line with the weeping willow and between the lily pads on the left. He was very skepti
cal of my tip, and I was pretty sure of me in general, but he said he’d go and check it out.

  That was the best I could do, and I tried to put it out of my mind while I went to calm Liam down.

  I couldn’t head straight to the shop, because I had to stop at the Stumps’ to check on their Golden Retriever, Vertigo. The dog was my current pet sitting job, and given how much running around the dog did – unfortunately, when overly excited he ran in very small circles – I thought Vertigo was an excellent choice of a name.

  The Golden was remarkably happy to see me. We had a long walk and some ball-throwing, during which my arm reminded me that it was still aching from the night before. Before we left the woods I thought I heard a strange sound off in the trees, but given all the other strange events that had happened recently, I ignored it.

  Back in the house with the dog, I made sure he had water and was finally on my way to the Twinkle.

  The costume shop had just opened when I arrived, and I knew instantly that something was wrong. The store was unlocked but empty, and the display window was now uncovered. In the formerly empty case there was now a display of shoes, but not just any shoes.

  They were running shoes.

  Liam didn’t run and didn’t care about running shoes, so why there was a display of them in his window I had no idea. But I didn’t have to wait long to find out, because right then the man himself came out of the back and noticed me looking. “I see you’ve noticed my distraction,” he said, sounding self-satisfied.

  “Distraction?” I asked.

  Liam was dressed in all black today. As he had explained the night before, he didn’t want to give anything away by his outfits, so he was just going to wear black until after the competition.

  “He’s going to see one of the artists with a splotch of yellow paint on and think they’re doing a display of sunshine and daisies,” Charlie had said.

  “I wouldn’t put it past them,” Greer replied.

  “Of course,” said Liam when he saw me glancing at his clothes. “Like I said last night, I’m going to throw off those nosy artists over the way. They aren’t going to get a whiff of what I’m planning until Friday, and then they won’t know what hit them.” He looked a lot more confident than he had yesterday, and I wondered why.

  “I found some costumes,” he said. “Only I’m not sure, so I’m hoping you’ll give me your opinion. None of the great Holly creations, of course.” He led me to the entrance to the back of the shop and then stopped, spun around, and looked me up and down with a critical eye.

  “You are now passing the threshold, and I must wear you to secrecy. Although I trust you, I need your promise,” said Liam, looking as serious as I had ever seen him.

  “I swear not to tell anyone, including and especially the artists across the street, what you’re planning,” I said.

  When he still didn’t let me through I continued. “And I swear not to tell them what you have back there in any detail whatsoever. I will mention it to no living soul.” That left me with a very large loophole, but Liam didn’t know that, and luckily I was on his side.

  Liam looked relieved and nodded. “Very well, I will let you enter.”

  I hadn’t realized it before, but Liam had two rooms in the back, not just one. The first was the one I had been in before, specifically when I came over with Jasper and found Liam trying to install surveillance equipment. In the end, he had been most grateful to me for catching the robbers, surveillance equipment or not. But there was a second back room, one I’d never been into before, and it was into this windowless space that he led me now.

  “Here are the maps,” he said.

  The moment I was through the door, Liam closed it with a furtive glance around and a snap that almost nipped my heels. But my eye was immediately caught by the display of gorgeous maps on the opposite wall. They were detailed creations that showed roads, houses, and hills exactly as the town had probably been a hundred or maybe even two hundred years ago. I gasped in appreciation and hurried over to read what each of them said. One of them was two hundred years old and had been created at the time of Mintwood’s founding; it featured the original Main Street shops. I glanced at my friend and found him beaming with pride.

  “Where did you find these?” I asked.

  “The library,” he said. “No one was using them, so I asked Mrs. Snicks if I could make copies, and of course she was more than obliging.”

  “Are you going to color them in?” I said.

  “Yes, an artist’s work is never done,” he said.

  “What about the dresses?”

  At this my friend’s face clouded, and I felt bad for reminding him of something distressing. “The dresses are a problem,” he said matter-of-factly. “I don’t know where to find vintage dresses that I don’t sell,” he said. “I usually find them at trade shows and the like, and I have a good selection, but the ones I have on hand have already been seen, and it’s not easy to just snap my fingers and have more appear. Besides, I’d like to find some sort of local dresses, but how on earth I’m supposed to do that I have no idea.” He sighed and shook his head. “Anyway, I just wanted you to see the maps for now, so you can start thinking of ways to display them. I have a couple of ideas, but they don’t have the pizzazz, the drive, the craftsmanship and splendor I’m looking for!”

  There was a good chance that Liam was mistaking me for an artistic and creative person. I had already tried to tell him otherwise, but he hadn’t listened, so there seemed to be no point in trying to tell him again.

  Before I left I insisted he leave the crowded space of the shop with me.

  “You can’t just hide out here until the competition,” I scolded.

  “Why the dickens can’t I?” he demanded. “The store owners are all going to avoid each other, just you wait and see. I might as well join in and do my best not to see any of them until after the winner is settled.”

  “You need some fresh air and sunlight,” I insisted, though privately I had to admit he was probably right. Such fights had taken place in the past when town honor was on the line, and until the dust settled each establishment on Main Street did everything possible to pretend that it was an island and the only store in town.

  This was easy enough, because all of the owners of the Main Street shops were characters. In such a small town, it went without saying.

  There was one place, though, one spot in the wild jungle of Mintwood that couldn’t be scheduled, choreographed, or avoided.

  That place was the Mintwood Post Office, where Liam and I were now headed.

  I had a letter to my crazy aunt Harriet that I just had to pop in the mailbox. Since Liam hadn’t had any fresh air on this sunny day, I decided that he should walk with me, a decision that turned out to be a devastating mistake. Who knew a friendly neighborhood post office could be such a land mine of social dangers?

  “Okay, I guess you’re right,” said Liam once he saw the sunshine. He flipped the sign on his front door to the side that said, “Closed. Be back in ten,” and thanked me for getting him out of the shop.

  “You’re welcome,” I said.

  “I’m going to miss going to The Daily Brew until this competition is over,” said Liam. We had just passed the café and smelled the wonderful aroma of coffee in the air. “The last thing I want is to run into one of the other proprietors.”

  “I’m sure you won’t. I just need to send a letter and buy some stamps. Don’t let me forget the stamps.”

  But trouble was brewing as soon as we walked into the post office, because there stood two other store owners. Usually when something was brewing it was my fault, but in this case there was no cauldron and no potions, so I couldn’t take the blame.

  Andre, the owner of the Artist’s Art Gallery, was a typical Mintwood curiosity. He wore a suit and tie, always, and his shoes were shined to within an inch of their life. He was a transplant from Los Angeles, of all places, and he was very affected. People liked him well enough, especi
ally when he provided a safe haven for local artists, but they still looked at him skeptically, sort of like the way Charlie looked at Greer after Greer offered her Brussels sprouts. She couldn’t quite be sure of the girl.

  Andre was the exact opposite of another proprietor, Keith, of Mintwood Mountain Mucking. The sporting goods store was about as Maine as you could get, and Keith was a Mainer through and through. He liked fishing and the outdoors and was immensely proud that he had not gone more than sixty-five miles from Mintwood in over forty years.

  Keith had been in his Main Street space first. In the beginning, he’d been happy that someone was renovating and moving into the space next to his. That was before it actually happened.

  When difficulties arose, such as the ribbon-cutting competition, Keith and Andre, like all the other the shop owners, did their best to avoid each other. For the most part, despite working on the same street, they were successful. They altered their daily routines and took to either brewing their own coffee at home in the morning or sneaking into The Daily Brew when they thought no one else would be around, while Mrs. Barnett looked on disapprovingly at their antics as she served them a quick cuppa Joe.

  Keith and Andre were already in the post office when we walked in, Keith standing in line behind Andre at the counter. Andre had received nine packages, and he was having trouble juggling them, organizing them, and basically getting them out of Keith’s way.

  Both men spared us quick glances, but when they realized that yet another dreaded shop keeping neighbor was there, they tried to act like we didn’t exist.

  Liam sniffed.

  “You can’t carry all those boxes that way, why don’t you leave a couple here and get out of our way, so the line doesn’t get longer,” Keith thundered. “You can make a second trip.”

  “These are all very important packages. I can’t just leave them willy-nilly, unprotected and unguarded,” said Andre, indignant.

  “This is a pretty safe town. I don’t think anybody is going to do anything to your packages,” said Keith.