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Mona looked over me and Dominic.She was wearing overalls and a thermal shirt and had her red-streaked hair piled atop her head in a messy bun.She was few years older than me, which made her more than a decade older than Micah.Their friends-with-benefits relationship was an open secret within the clan.It wasn’t unusual for two people who weren’t fated to find physical pleasure in each other, and a small community made for complicated connections.
Mona moved a little closer to the door.I noticed she had a large pair of shears tucked into a side pocket in overalls.“What’s going on?”
“We just have some questions for you,” I said.“About the tea that you’ve been giving my mother.”
She frowned.“The wellness tea?It’s one of my best-selling blends.What about it?”
“Cut the crap,” Dominic said.“We know you’ve been doing.”
I put out an arm to hold him back.“Do you mind showing us the ingredients?”
She glanced at Micah, who wasn’t meeting her eye.“What’s this about?”
“Hopefully nothing,” I said, giving her my most professional smile.“Can you show us where you make the tea?”
She eyed us suspiciously.“Does Melinda know about this?Did she send you here?Because you can bet that I’ll bring this up at the next council meeting.”
“If you make it to the next council meeting,” Dominic grumbled, not quietly.
Mona’s eyes widened.Her heartstone glinted, as if her wolf was waking.One of my hands was already busy holding Dominic back, and I held the other out toward Mona.“Wait.Think.There are three of us and one of you.”
She looked at Micah.His expression was tortured, but he shook his head at her unspoken question.“What do you want?”
“Just show us where you make the tea.Show us where you keep the ingredients,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.
“Show us where you keep your store of Hen’s Teeth,” Dominic snarled.“Or we’ll tear this place apart looking for it.”
“Hen’s Teeth?I don’t keep that here,” Mona said.She was either a very skilled liar, or genuinely surprised.“It’s toxic.I can’t handle it, even with gloves.You know that.It’ll burn me, same as you.”
“It’s the leaves and flowers that are toxic to touch.”I pulled an envelope out of my pocket that Edie had filled with seeds.“The seeds don’t produce the same effect.”
I handed Mona the envelope.She tore it open and looked inside, juggling the seeds with her hand.“I can’t tell just by looking what these are.”
Micah held out his phone, where he’d pulled up the details.
Mona frowned.“Where did you get these?”
“They were in Melinda’s tea,” Dominic shouted.“Stop jerking us around.We know you’re responsible.You’re going to tell us, one way or another.”
“Get him under control,” Mona said, stepping back into her shed.Her hand had gone to the handle of her shears.
Micah stepped over.“You’re too riled up, Dom.You need to reel it in.”
Dominic exhaled, nostrils flaring like a bull.For a second I thought he might go through Micah to get to Mona, but he spun away in frustration.
“Look,” I said.“I’m sure you can understand why his emotions are high.My mother had been sick for months, and now we’re finding out that she might have been poisoned.And we found the poison in the tea that you make her.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with this,” she said, handing the envelope back to me.
“We’re going to have to verify that,” I said.
She looked at Micah again.He turned his hands out in a wordless plea.She huffed with annoyance.“Fine.Fine.But I’m telling the council.And you should know that I’ve got cameras all over this place, so anything that happens will be recorded.”
Micah and Dominic looked up toward the eaves of the house, but I kept my eyes on her.“No problem.I’m just here for answers, Mona.”
“Fine,” she said.She locked the shed behind her.
“When you say you have cameras all over…” Micah said, low.“Do you meanall over?”
