Who was Eve?
I put the book down before meeting Riley’s gaze. “I don’t know where Graham went, but I think I knowwhohe was with.”
He glanced between me and the book. “You do?”
“Someone named Eve.” I frowned and showed him the book. “Looks like he had plans to meet her at 8:00, but he moved it to 5:30 instead.”
“She could be our killer.”
“If she were, then it wouldn’t make sense for Graham to have made it home after.”
Riley pointed to the trash where a plastic cup with a lid and a fancy T&T logo. “Maybe, maybe not, but it wouldn’t hurt to check out where they might have met up yesterday.”
“The Tea and Tarot?” I wrinkled my nose, thinking of all the times I’d invited Graham to go with me and he’d turned me down. I squatted and pulled out the small piece of paper stuck to the cup—a receipt for a quarter to 6:00. “It looks like you were right. This had to have been the place Graham went after work before coming home.”
“So that girl from his schedule—Eve—could have been the last person who saw him alive.”
Chapter 7
Afteraquickgoodbyeto Jaxon, Riley and I made our way to the Tea and Tarot. My thoughts whirled with questions about Eve. Was she the mystery girl Graham might’ve cheated on me with, and could she have killed him?
“That was a cool trick with finding Graham’s planner earlier.” Riley gave me a once-over that brought heat to my cheeks. “I didn’t know you could use your magic like that.”
“I didn’t either,” I muttered, looking away. I’d always thought my magic was sort of lame, something to help me stay balanced, physically and maybe emotionally—atleast if you compared me to Lydia who was always overemotional about something—but was there more to it like Riley had suggested? There had to be because helping me stay balanced had nothing to do with helping me find that book, unless the mystery of Graham’s death was throwing me off so my magic was trying to help me get answers to restore balance.
The more I learned about my balancing magic and the more I learned to trust it, the more convinced I was that I was right about Graham cheating. If my magic couldn’t fix the balance in our relationship because of what he’d done, that would explain why things had felt so off. I had a hard time figuring out my magic, but maybe Riley was right and it was time to stop underestimating it.
“I wonder what sort of things your magic might have tried to point out to you before,” he mused.
His words brought back a memory from a few years ago when my magic had flared up around the time the king and queen passed away in a car crash. I’d written it off, but maybe there was more to it than I’d assumed. Not that I knew how to get answers about it now.
“Either way,” he continued, interrupting my train of thought, “I knew you’d be good at this. For someone who claims they don’t know what they’re doing, you’re doing well.”
“Glad I’m good at snooping around in other people’s business.”
He chuckled and pulled his phone from his pocket, catching a pen cap as it fell out too. “Maybe I should recruit you to help me full-time.”
“I think I’ll leave that to the professionals.” I eyed him. What was his deal with hoarding pen caps?
“So you think I’m a pro, huh?”
“You’re ridiculous. I was obviously talking about Lizzy,” I said even though I hadn’t been thinking about my sister at all. When Riley was around I had a hard time thinking of anything else, and the flutter in my stomach confirmed it.
Riley’s mouth lifted in that slow, knowing smile that made me feel like he saw me better than I saw myself. “You can pretend you aren’t interested all you want, but I know better.”
“Yes, because getting tangled up in a murder investigation is my go-to flirting technique.”
He raised an eyebrow. “So you admit you were flirting?”
“I admit nothing.”
“That’s all right.” He winked. “I always did like a challenge.”
Unsure of the correct response to his potion-induced flirting, I pulled my coat tighter to counter the chilly autumn air and squinted up into the late afternoon sunlight filtering through the canopy of gold and crimson branches overhead.
Less than twenty minutes later, we made it to Tea and Tarot. Riley opened the door, and I eagerly stepped into the warmth the shop offered. He put his hand on the small of my back as he followed me inside, and tingles spread through me at the simple gesture.
I rubbed my hands up and down my arms and admired the candles floating in the air, trying not to think about my reaction to him. The Halloween decorations were a fun added touch since my last visit, and they filled the air with the scent of cider.
