A Witch Before Dying (Wicked Witches of the Midwest Book 11) Read online

  “You brought it?” Landon rolled his eyes. “You’re going to get her going.”

  That was the plan. He simply didn’t need to know it. “I found that in my shoe today. It was actually kind of attached to my sock.”

  Aunt Tillie narrowed her eyes as she stared at the baggie. “Did anything happen before you discovered it?”

  “Landon said I was mean to him.”

  “I said cranky,” Landon corrected. “You were cranky.”

  “Oh, I’m kind of sorry I missed that.” Aunt Tillie opened the bag and sniffed. “Hemlock.”

  “Isn’t hemlock poisonous?” Landon asked, concern flooding his handsome features.

  “Yes, and this is water hemlock, to boot. But she didn’t ingest it. She’s okay.” Aunt Tillie flipped over the baggie. “It doesn’t have a face.”

  “What does that mean?” Landon asked.

  “It means it probably wasn’t made for Bay,” Aunt Tillie replied. “It looks generic, as if someone decided after the fact to point it at her. Did you have a headache while it was on you?”

  I nodded. “How did you know?”

  “It’s a sloppy effort,” Aunt Tillie replied. “Whoever did it doesn’t know what they’re doing.”

  “What are you talking about?” Thistle asked, walking through the back door with Marcus on her heels. “Is that the poppet?”

  I nodded. “She says it’s laced with hemlock.”

  “Well, that would explain the headache you were complaining about.” Thistle moved closer. “Did you tell her where you think it came from?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Where did it come from?” Aunt Tillie’s eyes gleamed. “Please say Margaret Little. If she’s finally dipping into the occult I don’t have to hold back. I’ve been waiting for this day since long before you two were born.”

  “Oh, geez.” Landon shook his head and moved toward the kitchen. “I’ll be in the dining room. I’ve heard this story a few too many times today.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Marcus offered. “I’m just not in the mood to plot.”

  “That’s why you two are better off as men than women. You’re not adventurous enough to be women,” Aunt Tillie shouted after them.

  “Oh, that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Landon drawled.

  Aunt Tillie ignored his sarcasm. “We’ll be at the table in a few minutes. Tell Winnie not to complain. Don’t tell her what I’m wearing, by the way. I want it to be a surprise.”

  “Great. I’m looking forward to it.”

  I waited until Landon and Marcus disappeared through the door to speak again. “It’s the new witch,” I volunteered. “Landon thinks I’m crazy, making stuff up in my head, but I know it’s her.”

  “Who?”

  “Scarlet Darksbane. Mrs. Little’s new witch. She’s the only one I was near today who could’ve done it.”

  “If it’s her, she doesn’t know what she’s doing,” Aunt Tillie noted. “It’s as if she found a book and decided to let that lead the way.”

  “You were following her last night,” I noted. “Why?”

  “I was technically following Margaret last night,” Aunt Tillie corrected. “I didn’t hear about the new witch until I was already downtown. Once I did hear, though, I had to follow.”

  That sounded about right. “Thistle looked her up. She’s been accused of running a scam. It’s probably one you’ve heard about before.”

  Thistle repeated what she found for Aunt Tillie’s benefit. “If she’s here, she has to be worried about real witches finding out what she’s doing.”

  “That’s only if she believes witches are real,” Aunt Tillie countered. “From her perspective, she might believe everything is a game. I mean … come on. Everyone in Hemlock Cove takes on a witch or warlock persona at some point. Scarlet might believe that’s the extent of it.”

  “She does treat it like a game,” Thistle conceded. “Why else would she pick that stupid name?”

  “I don’t think you have room to talk, Thistle,” Aunt Tillie said. “I’ve often wondered what your mother was smoking when she named you. I think it had to be something much stronger than what you can find in my special garden.”

  I pursed my lips to keep from laughing. “I think she’s a scam artist, but Mrs. Little had to tell her about us, because Scarlet seems keen to make inroads with me.”

  “She wants to be friends with you?” Aunt Tillie was understandably dubious. “Why? If she knows we’re real witches, why would she want anything to do with us?”

  “I’m not saying she knows,” I clarified. “I’m saying that Mrs. Little told her we’re real witches and she probably thinks that Mrs. Little is nutty. Still, she wants to be tight with Mrs. Little, because she probably thinks that Mrs. Little has a lot of say when it comes to businesses and promotions around here.”

  “That’s very good thinking.” Aunt Tillie wagged a finger in my direction. “Margaret probably brought in this Scarlet because she thought she was a real witch. Scarlet probably convinced her of it. Margaret is such an idiot; she wouldn’t recognize a real witch if one cracked her over the head with a broomstick.

  “Scarlet probably has her own agenda,” she continued. “She wants to ingratiate herself into Margaret’s world, get a feel for the town, and then run the curse scam on residents and tourists. She could clean up, because the tourists are predisposed to believe that nonsense.”

  “Why move against Bay so fast, though?” Thistle challenged. “That would draw attention.”

  “Because Mrs. Little is telling her we’re real witches,” I said. “Scarlet probably doesn’t believe in real witches – just what she reads in books – and thinks we’re her competition. She probably wants to take us out.”

  “Exactly.” Aunt Tillie bobbed her head. “She thinks she can intimidate us. I can’t wait to explain to her why that won’t work.”

  I snorted. “And how are you going to do that?”

  “We need to find out her real name,” Aunt Tillie replied. “Can’t you make your FBI honey find out?”

  “He’s going to look, but he’s more interested in solving a murder right now.”

  “Well, that’s just ridiculous,” Aunt Tillie muttered. “Doesn’t he know that we could be dealing with a dark witch here?”

  I furrowed my brow. “You just said she was a fake witch.”

  “A fake witch with a book who managed to make a curse work,” Aunt Tillie clarified, shaking the baggie for emphasis. “That means she has some sort of power. If she’s coming here, that means she wants to take over the town.”

  “Oh, geez. Here we go.” Thistle pinched the bridge of her nose. She was used to Aunt Tillie’s theatrics. “Let’s focus on finding out Scarlet Darksbane’s real name first, huh? If we can’t bug Landon to do it for us, then we’ll have to do it ourselves.”

  Uh-oh. I sensed trouble. “What do you have in mind?”

  “We have to break into her shop and go through her paperwork,” Thistle replied, as though burglary was part of our everyday repertoire.

  “We can’t do that,” I protested, internally cringing at how Pollyannaish I sounded. “It’s against the law.”

  Aunt Tillie and Thistle exchanged amused looks.

  “I guess Bay is out,” Aunt Tillie said. “She’s a good girl now that she’s living with the fed.”

  She was trying to manipulate me. It wasn’t going to work. Er, well, it probably wasn’t going to work. “I didn’t say that.”

  “We’ll do it ourselves,” Thistle said. “We’ll take the risk and have all the glory. Bay is a good girl now. We mustn’t corrupt her.”

  Son of a … ! “Fine.” I blew out a sigh. “I’ll go with you. How do you suggest we do it without Landon and Marcus finding out?”

  “That’s easy,” Aunt Tillie replied. “You need to sneak out when they’re sleeping.”

  I balked. “That’s a terrible idea.”

  “No, it’s a good idea,” Thistle arg
ued. “We can sneak out, break in, and get back without them even knowing.”

  Thistle has a strong personality, but every once in a while she does something asinine. She lets Aunt Tillie talk her into absolutely ridiculous adventures and then we all end up caught and in trouble. By the way, we almost always get caught.

  “I don’t know.” I made a face. “Landon will be angry if he finds out.”

  “Well, if you need to do what Landon says then we fully understand.” Aunt Tillie’s tone was sickeningly sweet. “You’re Landon’s girlfriend first now, and a witch second.”

  “I hate you,” I muttered under my breath. “Fine.” I was resigned. I couldn’t let them go without me. “If we get caught, though, I’m totally blaming you guys.”

  “We need to get Clove in on the plan, too,” Thistle said. “She’ll be ticked off if we leave her out.”

  “She’ll also complain the entire time,” I pointed out.

  Thistle shrugged. “That’s her way.”

  “It’s definitely her way,” Aunt Tillie said. “I’ll pick you up outside the guesthouse at midnight. Marcus and Landon won’t even know you’re gone. Trust me.”

  I didn’t trust her. That was the problem. “Okay, but you can’t wear those leggings.”

  “Definitely,” Thistle said. “If you wear those leggings, someone will see us.”

  “I’m not new.” Aunt Tillie rolled her eyes. “Good grief. You’d think I’d never broken into a store with you before. I know what I’m doing. I have everything under control.”

  “Yeah, we can have that engraved on our tombstones,” I muttered. “Landon will definitely kill me if he catches us.”

  “You leave Landon to me,” Aunt Tillie said. “I know exactly how to handle him.”

  Those were frightening last words.

  Twelve

  I found Thistle waiting for me in the living room after I crept out of my bedroom shortly before midnight. True to her word, Aunt Tillie came up with an idea to make sure Landon and Marcus didn’t wake. She planted a lullaby in their heads – something that magically sang them to sleep, so to speak – and Landon was so deeply entrenched in slumber when I slipped out from beneath the covers I worried he might drown in his own drool.

  I had dressed in all black, stalling by the front door to tuck my blonde hair beneath a knit cap before tugging on a pair of dark boots. Thistle watched, her face impassive.

  “Do you feel guilty about this?”

  Thistle shrugged. “Yes. Mostly because Marcus wouldn’t have stopped me from going. He would’ve complained a bit, offered to come with me, and then let me do what he knew I was going to do anyway. What about you?”

  “Oh, Landon would’ve tried to stop me,” I replied. “He can’t willingly encourage me to break the law. He won’t be happy when he finds out what we’ve done.”

  “Finds out? How will he find out?”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  “Oh, you’re the worst criminal ever,” Thistle complained, making a face. “If you keep this up I’m cutting you from my crew.”

  “What crew?” I hauled on my mittens and followed Thistle out of the house, casting a wistful look over my shoulder as I thought about Landon sleeping alone in our bed.

  “My robbery crew.” Thistle said it as if I was the slow one for not understanding what she was getting at. “I mean … when the apocalypse comes, we’ll need a crew of capable robbers so we can steal stuff. I’m certainly not doing the bulk of the work myself.”

  She had a point.

  Aunt Tillie was in her idling truck when we got to the end of the driveway. She, too, was dressed in black, a dark combat helmet covering her silver curls. She clenched a cigar in her mouth, ignoring the way Thistle let loose an exaggerated cough before climbing into the truck.

  “You look like a bad movie cat burglar,” Thistle announced, glaring as she fastened her seatbelt.

  “And you look like a witch pageant reject,” Aunt Tillie shot back, purposely blowing a smoke ring in Thistle’s face.

  I coughed, lowering the window despite the cold. “Since when do you smoke cigars?”

  “Since I decided that’s my new business venture,” Aunt Tillie replied. “I’m going to start manufacturing my own cigars. Actually, I have a few business ventures in the works. This is simply the first.”

  I narrowed my eyes, instantly suspicious. “What do you put in these cigars? By the way, if the answer is pot I’ll need to drive.”

  “Oh, stop being such a kvetch,” Aunt Tillie said, shifting her truck into gear. “Did you see I got my new plow on?” She gestured toward the front of the ancient vehicle. The only way Mom allowed her to plow was if she had something old and sturdy to drive around town. The old Ford could take a good jolt and barely rattle, and with Aunt Tillie behind the wheel there was a lot of jolting. “I’ll be loaded for bear as soon as the snow flies.”

  “Yes, we always look at you and think ‘loaded,’” Thistle said dryly. “Are we picking up Clove or is she meeting us there?”

  “She’s meeting us there,” Aunt Tillie replied. “She said she didn’t trust me to come out to the Dandridge. Apparently Sam is afraid of me or something. I don’t get it. I’ve never been anything but nice to the boy.”

  I let loose with a derisive snort. Sam Cornell was Clove’s live-in fiancé. None of us trusted him when he first hit town. We slowly grew to like – and even trust – him. Aunt Tillie held out longer than most of us, though.

  “You’re kind of mean to him,” I pointed out.

  “I am not.”

  “You are, too.”

  “I am not.”

  “You are, too,” Thistle snapped. “You know you are. Stop denying it. I hate it when you deny the obvious.”

  “You’re on my list,” Aunt Tillie warned, pulling onto the main highway that led to Hemlock Cove. “You’re so on my list.”

  I ignored her tone and stared out the window. “What lullaby did you put in Landon’s head?”

  “I selected a little something special for him,” Aunt Tillie replied. “I believe it includes something about fighting the law and the law winning. I thought that would make him happy.”

  “Oh, geez. Now he’ll be stuck with that song in his head for the entire day tomorrow.”

  Aunt Tillie wasn’t bothered by the charge. “That’s what happens when you’re ‘The Man.’”

  “One of these days ‘The Man’ is going to lock you up,” I warned.

  “I can’t wait for that day.” Aunt Tillie’s smile was serene. “That’s the day pigs will fly out of my behind. Guinness will come calling to put me in the record books that day, too. It’ll be glorious.”

  Sadly, she was probably right.

  THIS WASN’T THE FIRST time we’d broken the law with Aunt Tillie. This wasn’t even the first time we’d broken into a store with her. She used to like to mess with Mrs. Little and she used us to help her when we were younger. Even as teenagers and adults, she often included us. It was something of a ritual.

  Because this wasn’t our first time, Aunt Tillie opted to park in the alley behind Hypnotic without prodding. If someone should see us, we could always claim Thistle and Clove forgot something at the store. It was after midnight, so the town was dead. Even the police station was empty, the county taking over 911 duties after nine.

  Aunt Tillie killed the lights and deftly hopped out of her truck. She was so much more spry when she was about to break the law. I took a moment to search the alley for Clove, glancing over my shoulder and back before meeting Thistle’s eyes in the murky light behind the Hypnotic door.

  “Where is she?”

  Thistle shrugged. “She probably backed out. She’s a real baby when she wants to be. She probably complained to Sam and he talked her out of coming. That would be just like her.”

  “I heard that!” Clove, her expression mutinous, stepped out from behind the trash receptacle on the other side of the narrow alley. She was tiny – not even five feet tall – so I m
issed her when I originally searched. “I’ll make you eat trash if you’re not careful.”

  Instead of having the grace to be abashed, Thistle snickered. “You’re such a baby.”

  “And you’re an evil … witch.”

  “You were going to switch out that W for a B, weren’t you?” Thistle wasn’t bothered by Clove’s tone. “It’s okay. I can handle it. Lay it on me.”

  “I’m done talking to you.” Clove held up her hand and focused on me. “By the way, I’m not talking to Thistle, but I blame you for this late-night excursion, Bay. If you weren’t obsessed with the new witch we wouldn’t have to do this.”

  “You didn’t have to come,” Thistle reminded her.

  “Oh, right.” Clove wrinkled her ski-sloped nose. “It was either come and complain the entire time or stay home and complain all day tomorrow while listening to you guys tell stories about your grand adventure without me. You know I don’t like being left out.”

  “That’s exactly why we invited you,” Aunt Tillie said, patting her shoulder. “That and the back window for the former cauldron shop is really tiny. You’re the only one who can fit through it and open the door for us.”

  Clove’s mouth dropped open. “Excuse me?”

  “The last time I checked that store had an alarm on the front door and a security chain on the back,” Aunt Tillie replied, unruffled. “We need you to go in through the back window and slide the chain. Generally we could use magic to unlock the door, but that won’t work on the chain.”

  I stared so hard at Aunt Tillie she was forced to return my gaze. “What?”

  “You know an awful lot about the security system in that store,” I noted. “Would you care to share with the class how you learned these things?”

  “Not even remotely.” Aunt Tillie clapped her hands. “Get moving, Clove. The sooner you get the door open the sooner we can take on the pervasive evil threatening our small town and rid the world of dark witches.”

  “Wait … I thought we were operating under the assumption that Scarlet was a fake witch, not a dark witch,” Clove said.