The Case of the Love Spell Read online

  I’m glad when the waitress returns to take our orders, and even happier when she delivers our meals. Max goes easy on me as we eat—keeping the conversation light and pleasant. When we finish our meal and exit the restaurant, I see several couples walking towards the Town Hall, which is only a few buildings away.

  “Shall we?” Max asks, gesturing in the direction of the hall. It’s been decorated for the ball. A large banner hangs on the building’s brick facade, with the words ‘Life Savers Ball’ painted on it.

  A breeze blows through, and I hug myself. The temperature has dropped with the sun, and I kick myself for not bringing a wrap along for the evening. My dress’s spaghetti straps are doing little to keep my bare shoulders warm.

  “Chilly?” Max guesses.

  Before I can admit to my condition, he removes his black suit jacket, and wraps it around my shoulders.

  Ah. Better.

  I feel his strong, large hand slip into mine, and before I know it we’re walking down mainstreet hand in hand.

  Though I haven’t had any wine, I’m feeling a bit cloudy-headed. I should have known that being around Max for hours on end would do this to me, but I was hoping that it wouldn’t be quite so dramatic.

  As we walk up the concrete steps to the hall’s double doors, he makes a joke. I’m giggling like a schoolgirl as one of the doors opens from the inside. Suddenly, I find myself face to face with none other than Christopher Wagner.

  My Chris Wagner.

  Or... well... Chris Wagner who used to be mine.

  Until I blew it.

  He looks between Max and I and then down at our hands, which are still interwoven.

  Immediately, I pull my hand away from Max’s and use it to straighten my hair, but it’s too late. Chris has seen us holding hands already.

  “Penny,” he says with a curt nod. And then he turns to Max. “Max.” His tone is frigid. He brushes past us, as if he can’t wait to get away.

  I turn. “Wait, Chris,” I call. “Where are you going?”

  “What’s it to you?” He asks.

  I don’t know—and that’s a problem. I feel so confused, suddenly, standing on these steps caught between two men that, well, I have to be honest—I like.

  “This is my first Life Savers Ball in years,” I say. “I’m not sitting at home hating on the PD for failing me... aren’t you proud of me?” It’s my lame attempt at a self-deprecating joke, and I follow it up with a forced laugh.

  Chris, apparently, isn’t in the laughing mood. His face is stony as he looks up at me, from the bottom of the steps.

  “Yeah,” he says, catching my eye. His eyes flicker over to Max, and then back to me. “Really proud, Penny,” he says. “Have fun tonight.”

  “Aren’t you going in?” I ask.

  He shakes his head, and pats his gun holster. For the first time, I realize that he’s in his police uniform. I’m so used to seeing him dressed in it that it didn’t even occur to me at first.

  “I’m working,” he says.

  I roll my eyes. “You’re always working, Chris!” I say. “You should take a night off. Come dance.”

  Max reaches for my hand. I can’t do anything about it, though I feel bad standing in front of Chris while holding another man’s hand.

  Why do I feel so bad about this?

  I’ve had to see Chris with Nathalie so many times.

  Maybe it’s because over these last few days, I’ve been imagining what it would be like to date Chris again. I’ve been holding onto the comment that he made—when he said that he thought about me often, even when he was with Nathalie. I’ve been holding onto the way he’d been standing so close to me at the bar, and then leaned in, as if...

  “Ready?” Max asks, giving my hand a gentle tug.

  No. I’m not ready. It feels so wrong to walk away from Chris in this moment.

  “Chris?” I say, resisting against Max’s tug. “You really deserve a night off.”

  He shakes his head. “Given the recent activities, I figured that it would be best to have a police presence around town tonight.” He points to his patrol car, which is parked a few cars away.

  “I thought you loved the Life Savers Ball,” I say. “Isn’t there someone you wanted to invite?”

  “She already has a date,” he mumbles, just loud enough for me to hear, before turning on his heel and heading for his patrol car.

  Max gives my hand another tug, and this time I let him guide me into the Town Hall.

  The building’s largest room has been gutted and given a complete make-over. It’s no longer a meeting hall. Tonight, it is a glamorous, light-strewn, disco-ball studded dance hall, complete with a shiny black dance floor and a raised band-stand.

  Hillcrest’s most popular band, the Hillcrest Funk Collective, are already jamming their hearts out. A crowd of locals are tearing up the dance floor, and the rest of the town is scattered around the periphery of the room, gabbing and laughing while sipping drinks and chomping on chips.

  I’m feeling shaken up by our run in with Chris, so when Max becomes distracted by the music, I pull away from him.

  “I’m going to go use the ladies room!” I call, as I back away from him. “Be right back!”

  He nods, and then turns his head back to the band. He’s dancing a little bit, as if he likes the music. His hair flops around as he moves his head to the beat. Good lord, he’s handsome.

  And I really need to clear my head.

  This night is not going as I planned.

  Not at all.

  And you know those ‘feelings’ that Max warned me about? The ones that I swore up and down I wasn’t stuffing away? Well, it turns out that I do have some feelings, and I think they just surfaced, while I was out on the steps, looking at Chris.

  In fact, I’m pretty sure of it.

  I have some feelings inside me for Chris Wagner. And now, thanks to the Love Spell, they’re bubbling up like my cat’s vomit, whether I like it or not.

  I barge into the ladies room and walk right up to the sinks. I turn the faucet so it’s set to cold, and set about trying to clear my head.

  “Penny? Is that you?”

  I stop splashing cold water on my face long enough to peek through my hands and see who is talking to me.

  Oh. It’s Lucy.

  Haven’t I chit chatted with her enough for one day? Can’t she just leave me alone, so that I can attempt to process the major emotional upheaval that I’m currently experiencing?

  She hovers over me, not washing her hands or looking in the mirror, just waiting for me to finish washing my face.

  I splosh one last handful of water up over my face, and then move blindly to the paper towel machine.

  While I’m scrubbing my skin dry with the scratchy towels, she asks, “Everything okay? You aren’t sick, are you?”

  I sigh. “I’m fine, Lucy. What can I do for you?”

  “Well, I found that recipe that I promised you.”

  I have no idea what she’s talking about. As she digs through her purse, searching intently, I try to recall all of our recent conversations.

  Recipe? What recipe?

  Then it comes back to me. “Oh, right!” I say. “The orange cranberry muffins that Claudine loved so much.”

  Lucy speaks while she continues burrowing through her bag. “Everytime I visited, I’d ask her, ‘are you sure I can’t bring up something different next Sunday? Pistachio? Blueberry? Maple pecan?’ But Aunt Claudine always insisted that I bring the orange cranberry. She simply couldn’t resist them! As I said, the secret’s in the orange zest. Do you have a citrus zester?”

  She holds the card out to me.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “Oh. Well, you’ll have to get one. The muffins aren’t the same without the zest. I’m so glad I found this recipe. It really is one of a kind. Got it out of a Good Kitchen Keeping magazine years ago. I’d be devastated if I lost it.”

  “Where was it?” I ask.” Didn’t you say th
at you keep all of your recipes in one place?”

  “Yes, in a book. That was why I was so puzzled about how it went missing. I still don’t quite understand it...” She bites her lip. “Well, it’s back now! Found it in Ken’s pocket, of all places, when I was preparing the laundry.”

  “Ken’s pocket...” I say slowly, mulling this over. It’s triggered something inside me. Some niggling, wiggly, slippery thought, that I can’t quite grasp.

  “Yes,” she says. “You know, on the day that my aunt died I couldn’t even make the muffins, because the recipe was gone! I was feeling so bad about it, too. As it happened, that didn’t matter because when I got to her house she was already gone. The funny thing was, her house smelled like my muffins. It was like she was sending me a message, from beyond the grave.”

  “Her house smelled like your cranberry orange muffins,” I repeat, staring down at the recipe card in my hand.

  “That’s what I said.” Lucy looks at me as if I’m slow.

  “And then you found this recipe card in Ken’s pocket.” I tap the card up and down against my palm.

  “Well, not that card, exactly,” she says. “I made a photocopy of the card to give to you. I don’t want to chance losing it again! It’s too precious of a recipe. One of a kind. I made a copy at the library. Not that I think you would lose the original... you seem like a very smart girl, but—”

  The rest of her sentence gets cut off as I push through the bathroom door and back through the dance floor.

  I can hear Lucy behind me. She’s emerged from the ladies room, and is calling out, “Penny? Penny, where are you going?”

  I don’t bother responding, and her voice becomes lost among the Hillcrest Funk Collective’s raucous music. I’m running now, through the crowds.

  I sail past Max, and hear him call out too.

  “Penny? Penny, what’s wrong? Where are you...” His voice gets swallowed up and disappears as I press through the hall’s heavy double doors and out onto the front steps.

  I can’t explain to Lucy or Max where I’m going next.

  I barely have time to process it myself. All I’m thinking, as I run down the wide cement steps is that I hope I’m ready for this. In just a few moments, I’m going to be confronting a killer.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I race down the steps with one thing on my mind: How am I going to get to the Terra Mansion?

  My bike is parked at my apartment building. Should I run back to my apartment and grab it? It’s going to be hard to run in these heels. I stoop down and reach for a shoe. As I start tugging it off, I hear a voice in my mind, as clear as day.

  “Penelope,” the voice says.

  I freeze, mid-tug.

  I know that voice. And only one being calls me Penelope these days.

  “Turkey?” I say aloud. Townspeople are scattered around the sidewalk in front of the hall, heading in and out of the dance. I’m sure I look crazy standing here, pulling off my shoe and talking to myself. But I simply don’t care.

  “Penelope,” Turkey says. His voice is feeble. “The pain is worse. Much worse. I don’t think I’m going to last much longer.”

  “Turkey... Thomas, no!” I say. “Hold on buddy. I’m going to get help for you! You’re going to survive this!”

  “It’s bad, Penelope. Really bad. I can’t...” His voice stops abruptly.

  “Just hold on, precious!” I say.

  Shoot. I don’t have time to go get my bike. I need to get to the Terra Mansion as quickly as possible. I don’t have my bike with me, and it would take forever to go to Blackbear Apartments, get it, and then ride up the steep road to the mansion.

  The faster I can get to Ken, the sooner Buttercup will be freed and my fur-baby will be saved.

  I have to get Ken now. Lucy’s comments have given me the final clue I needed.

  I look left, then right.

  There, parked on the side of the road, is Chris’s patrol car. I start running towards it, one heel on and one heel off, hoping that he’ll be inside.

  He’s not.

  Instead, he’s off to the side of the road, talking with a little crowd of people who are gathered around the vintage VW Bug parked on a patch of grass.

  “Chris!” I shout, waving my heel in his direction as I run towards his car. “Chris, I need you!”

  This feels like the most honest thing I’ve said all evening.

  He swivels his head in my direction, and as he sees me running towards him, he breaks away from the crowd.

  He starts running towards me. We meet on the sidewalk next to his car.

  “Chris!” I say breathlessly. “We have to get up to the Terra Mansion. I think Ken Wilbur killed Claudine and Gunther!”

  “Penny!” He says. “I wish we could talk about something other than those murders.” He seems to mean this, too.

  “Chris!” My chest is heaving up and down. “Now’s not the time. Please, listen to me. Ken did it. He’s up there now.” I wave a shoe wildly in the direction of the pass. “And my cat is dying.”

  He seems pained. “What does your cat have to do with this? Penny, I want to help you, but you’re going to have to try to make some sense here.”

  “Okay.” I blow out a breath. This is taking too long! “Please, please listen to me. Ken was the one who wanted the inheritance money so badly. He knew that Claudine was going to change her will, and he needed to kill her before she could do that. He visited Claudine that morning—before Lucy could get there. He brought her favorite muffins, only he laced them with a lethal dose of Phenobarbital, first. I’ll tell you the rest as we drive up there...” I start rushing towards the patrol car, hobbling between one heel and one bare foot.

  “Penny, wait,” Chris says.

  I look back. He’s still just standing there, rooted to the spot.

  “The department already arrested Buttercup,” he says. “Even if you’re onto something with Ken, we can’t just barge into his house without a warrant for his arrest. We need to collect the evidence, and—”

  “There’s no time!” I shout. “Are you going to help me, or not?”

  Please say yes. Please, please, please say yes.

  He shakes his head.

  “Fine.” I turn and pick up my speed, heading straight for his patrol car.

  I’m in the driver’s seat before Chris reacts. I see him through the rear view mirror, starting towards me with a look of disbelief on his handsome face.

  The keys are in the ignition. I fire up the engine and pull away, leaving a yelling Chris in the dust.

  Because I’m already in deep, I turn on the siren for good measure. It might help my entrance if Ken thinks that it’s the police who are after him, not just an amateur PI that he has very little respect for.

  Besides, I’ve always wanted to drive a cop car with the sirens blaring.

  The tires skid against rock and dirt as I take the sharp corners up to the mansion at the fastest speed I can manage. I skid to a stop in the mansion’s driveway, and then lean over to my little black purse, and pull out my pearl-handled gun. With shaking hands I load in a round of ammunition.

  I definitely want to be packing heat for this encounter. Ken killed two people. He probably wouldn’t object to killing a third.

  As I’m leaning over the console to put my purse back on the passenger seat, my eyes spot Chris’s safety goggles. They look a lot like my tiger-printed glasses, actually. I miss my glasses. I didn’t wear them tonight, because I was getting dressed up for the ball.

  I pick up the goggles and push them onto my face.

  There. That feels better. I feel my intellect and confidence levels skyrocketing. I silently thank Jumper Strongheart for sharing his pop-psychology insights. This fake glasses thing really works.

  I pull off my other heel as I exit the car, and chuck it out into the driveway. Then, barefooted, I start running up to the mansion’s door.

  I open it without knocking.

  “Ken!” I shout, as I step thro
ugh the door.

  “Who’s there?” Answers Ken, from somewhere deep inside the house.

  “This is Penny Banks!” I answer. Your worst nightmare, I think to myself. I cock my gun, and hold it up vertically as I walk deeper into the house, just like they trained us in academy before I got the boot.

  “Get out of my house!” Ken answers.

  The massive entryway has several hallways that branch off of it, and I follow the sound of Ken’s voice to the right.

  I’m going to have to keep him talking if I want to find him.

  “Or else, what?” I shout.

  “I’m calling the police,” Ken shouts. “This is breaking and entering! You’ve crossed the line now, Penny.”

  Oh. He has no idea how far across the line I already am.

  “Fine,” I say. “Call the cops! Tell them about how you killed Claudine, Ken!”

  There’s a beat of silence. Ha. Got him.

  “I’m warning you, Penny,” Ken says. His voice is closer now.

  I speed up my steps. “I know about the muffins you baked, Ken! I know that you borrowed your wife’s recipe, and packed those muffins with Phenobarbital that you stole from Buttercup. It must have been easy to steal the vial from her, while she was distracted by helping your labradoodle, Summit!”

  Another beat of silence. He must be getting nervous now.

  I’m making my way down a long hallway. At the end of it, I see that the hall opens up to a large kitchen area. Is that where Ken is?

  I rest my finger on the trigger of my gun and keep talking. “Then, you spotted Gunther poking around your house. Where did he find the vial, Ken? Was it out in the trash? That was a careless mistake,” I say.

  I reach the end of the hallway, and pause for a split second before bursting forward, into the kitchen.

  It’s a massive room. In the middle, I see a large granite island. Ken is standing just behind the island. Above him, hanging from the ceiling, there’s a rack, laden with pots and pans of all sizes.

  Shit. He has a gun in his hands, raised and pointed right at me.

  “It wasn’t in the trash,” Ken says, coldly. “That would have been careless. I had it stashed in a drawer in my law office. Gunther had the nerve to break in.”