AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As I spoke, though, I hoped I wasn’t getting ahead of myself. Maybe Calvin wasn’t a double-date kind of guy.
Hazel nodded, looking pleased. “Oh, that would be fun. Let me know.”
“I will.”
She left soon after that, and I tried to keep myself busy by reorganizing some of the books that had gotten out of alphabetical order, and then wandering around the shop with a feather duster. The place was already pretty much dust-free, but at least it looked as if I was doing something.
I made myself stick it out until five, mostly because I’d come in late and it would have looked extra-bad to close early on top of that. It was with a sigh of relief that I locked the front doors, turned off the lights, and headed upstairs to my apartment. As I went, I got out my phone and checked it for any missed calls or messages.
Not a damn thing.
Well, Calvin had told me that he’d get in touch when he could. I had to believe the investigation must have consumed his entire day.
Archie was nowhere in evidence when I entered the apartment. Well, since I’d had lunch so early, his own midday meal had only been delayed by ten minutes or so, and therefore he didn’t have much reason to be irritated with me…especially since I was home from work right on time and he didn’t have to worry about dinner.
A quick peek told me the cat was sleeping in his bed in the office. I grabbed my laptop from the desk and headed back out to the living room, figuring I might as well start looking up some fun new recipes for whenever it would be okay to have Calvin over for dinner. As I surfed around on Pinterest, however, I realized I’d never told him anything about Archie. I’d need to broach that subject at some point, if only to let him know our meals — and anything else — wouldn’t be quite as private as he imagined.
Maybe I should offer to cook Calvin a meal at his house. That seemed safer…and besides, I was jonesing to try out that gorgeous Viking six-burner stove of his.
I also realized we hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Boden Marsh when we went over to the Airbnb where supposedly all of them had been staying. He couldn’t have left town already, could he?
No, Calvin had told everyone in Lilith’s group they needed to stay put during this initial phase of the investigation. More likely, Boden had decided to make himself scarce as soon as he heard Doug Snyder was coming over. I had to believe that if Lilith knew about Tansy and Doug’s affair, then Boden probably did, too. He seemed like exactly the sort of guy who would want to remove himself from an awkward situation and stay far, far away.
On an impulse, I closed my laptop and set it on the coffee table, then pulled my phone out of the skirt pocket where I’d stowed it. No missed calls or messages, but that wasn’t why I wanted to look at it.
Instead, I opened Instagram and checked my most recent post, the one about my preparation for the ritual. It had gotten a handful of likes, including a couple of forlorn comments from people who said it sounded like fun and they wished they could come, but it was way too far to travel.
I tried not to sigh. It seemed as though the people who were actual fans were the only ones who hadn’t come to Globe at all.
The other thing I noticed was that my follower count had dropped precipitously, from a high of almost two hundred thousand to only a little more than six thousand. Had word about the debacle spread so quickly that everyone had dropped me like the proverbial hot potato?
It sure seemed that way…and I really couldn’t find it within me to care. After all, I’d already decided to delete the whole thing anyway. This experience had told me social media and I definitely weren’t a good combination. Whether my prosperity spell had backfired or whether Lilith and Tansy had been meddling behind the scenes, I couldn’t say for sure, although both prospects sounded equally plausible. All I knew for certain was that I’d be all too happy to say goodbye to Instagram after this was all over.
In the meantime, since I had the app open, I thought I might as well check out Lilith’s feed. There was a tearstained video posted by Tansy, telling everyone in her breathy little voice what had happened and how they were now trying to figure out what to do with Lilith’s account.
“She taught me so much about the craft,” Tansy said near the end, eyes big and tragic, ringed with runny mascara. “And I want to consecrate her memory by continuing her work. I don’t want to take over her account, but you can follow me over at @Tansy underscore Flower underscore Magic to see how I carry on with Lilith Black’s work.”
Interesting. I looked up her account; it already had more than a hundred and fifty thousand followers.
Maybe they were all the people who’d ditched me.
I couldn’t even be annoyed. If Tansy wanted to ride Lilith’s coattails, more power to her. Who knows — maybe she was even a real witch, unlike her former boss.
“What was that noise?” Archie said in an irritated tone as he came around a corner of the sofa. “Are you watching soap operas again?”
“I don’t watch soap operas,” I retorted, sounding nearly as annoyed as the cat. “If you’re referring to Hallmark Channel movies, that’s somethingentirelydifferent.”
Generally, I wouldn’t touch the Hallmark Channel with a ten-foot pole. However, I’d gotten a little maudlin as Calvin’s radio silence had continued over the past few months, and drowning myself in a bunch of silly happily-ever-afters — and a judicious amount of rocky road ice cream — had seemed like the safest remedy.
“Someone was crying,” the cat remarked in accusing tones, making it sound as if experiencing a human emotion was the height of weakness. Maybe to Archie, it was. I didn’t know if it was all the years trapped in cat form or whether he really had been that cold-hearted when he was a man, but he did seem like the most unempathetic human being I’d ever met. That witch might have actually done him a favor by changing him into a creature more closely aligned with his natural temperament.
“It was an Instagram post by Lilith Black’s assistant,” I said, waving my phone at the cat, although I had a feeling he couldn’t have cared less. “She’s a little upset right now.”
He sniffed. “I don’t see why. She seemed like a thoroughly unpleasant person.”
“Who was brutally murdered.”
A flick of his tail, and Archie wandered off into the kitchen so he could lap some water from the bowl placed on the floor there. Once he was done, he came back out into the living room, and said, “Don’t tell meyou’reupset she’s dead.”
