1 Witchy Business (9 page)

I tried asking the housekeeper about Niall and his work, pushing her gently to try to get her to open up. Even with a little brush of power though, there was only so much she seemed to know. Her job was to keep house—cook, clean and organize household things—and that was it. I asked if there had been anyone who had shown an interest in that particular piece of work, or if he had any business rivals who might want to do something like this. Both times, the answer was no. Then she said that she had to get on with preparing dinner if that was okay, although she did ask if I wanted anything.

“I should get started then. He will be here soon. Although I imagine it will go to waste.”

I didn’t know what she meant by that, but it didn’t matter. I had more measurements to take, more angles to check, more scenarios to imagine. If I could just work out how the crime had been committed, the “who” might get a lot easier.

I could feel the change in the house when Niall walked in. I hadn’t heard him return, but there was something about the atmosphere that was just different. Better, safer somehow. The house felt right once he was in it. Plus, of course, there was the emotional backwash of his presence.

“Hello, there,” he said with pleased surprise in his eyes that I was there. “I trust that Kelly has been looking after you?”

“Yes. She’s wonderful. She and I had a chat about the case and then she had to go and start dinner.”

It was hard to take my eyes off him now that he was in the room. That classic face, those blue eyes and golden hair. I was unable to stop staring and he knew it, I was sure. He didn’t seem to mind though.

Focus, I told myself.

“I was trying to establish how the thief or thieves might have broken in and had asked Kelly for some ideas. She came up blank, though. She knows almost nothing about your security.”

“That’s because it is not her job to know. Only to keep things locked up and unlock them the way she has been instructed. She makes a wonderful Beef Wellington, however.”

I smiled.

Niall looked thoughtful. “Will that help to catch them? To know how they might have gotten in past our security protocols?”

“It might,” I said. In particular, it might help with one possibility. The possibility of an inside job, but I couldn’t tell him I thought that. Not until I was certain. “Tell me, Niall, how much do you trust your staff?”

“Implicitly.” There was no hesitation before the reply. Just certainty. “Why? Do you have anything that might link one of them to the crime?”

I shook my head. “No, but it’s important not to rule out any possibility until there is a reason to.”

“And if I were to assure you that I know none of them would steal from me?”

I smiled. “I’d like to think that they wouldn’t, but there is often more to people than there seems to be. Something you know, I think.”

“Oh?” Niall raised one perfect eyebrow.

“With your art collection.” I looked around. I’d seen the theme the first time I was here, but it was only after spending some time in the room that it was obvious how deep it went. “Is there
anything
in here without a hidden meaning or a secret picture within a picture?”

Niall spread his hands. “It is a theme I enjoy. The duality of things hidden, but put on display. It is intriguing for me to have every piece of art I own speak of some secret, some longing, or some hidden emotion. The truth is that, for those able to see, like you and me, there are no secrets, Elle.”

I could have left it there. Perhaps I should have left it there, but I could feel the sense of challenge coming off Niall Sampson in that moment. If I didn’t say anything, then I would have failed some kind of test. It was a test I didn’t know the rules for, only that it was a test, and that somehow, it mattered to me. Why did it matter to me? Rebecca and Evert wouldn’t be watching him without a reason, so why did I care what he thought? Even so…I most certainly cared what he thought.

“You know what I am, don’t you?” I asked, going for broke.

This time, Niall did pause. “Probably better than you do. But you’re asking if I know about the coven. About witches and what they can do. Yes, I know, Elle. I know everything they can do. I’m what you would call a warlock, I believe.”

I felt it then. The faintest brush of another set of powers. One that felt so strange for a moment, until I realized that it was almost identical to my own.

“Wait a minute. You…you’re an enchanter? How did I miss that?”

“That’s the word they use?” Niall stood there, letting that hang in the air. “I am what I am, Elle. Just me. Always just me.”

What did that mean? If Niall didn’t know the fine details of how the coven ran, did that mean he’d never had contact with them? Or did he simply not recognize their authority? Was he not connected to the coven? That would be rare, but it certainly happened. After all, we lived in a world where the magical and inexplicable were pushed underground. The coven didn’t find every witch who came into power.

 Staying outside was possible, too, more so for warlocks than for witches, who were more expected to adhere to standards of the coven. The coven wasn’t a monolithic entity, but we had to stay within its limits. Was that why Rebecca and Evert were watching him? Because he wasn’t a part of the nebulous network that fell under the coven’s control? Because he was too wild or too dangerous?

It was kind of difficult to think of Niall as wild and untamed. Nothing about him was anything less than perfect. Controlled. But that would make sense, wouldn’t it, if he were like me?

“Do you have all the information you need?” Niall asked me. “For your investigation, I mean?”

“My investigation?” After what he’d just told me, it was hard even to take that in. I forced myself to get a grip, taking a deep breath. The fact that I’d found someone else like me, the only other person like me who I’d ever met, didn’t change things. “Yes. I’ve got everything I need. For now.”

“Then, why don’t you let me take you to dinner?” Niall suggested.

Who was I kidding? It changed things completely. If it didn’t, I would have said no there and then. I knew I shouldn’t accept. It would have been deeply unprofessional at the best of times, and with Rebecca having told me to be careful, it was positively stupid.

And yet, I couldn’t pass up the chance to find out more. I just couldn’t. Especially not when it meant having dinner with someone as good looking as Niall. Besides, it was an opportunity to find out something that might let me help with Rebecca and Evert’s investigation. Put like that, it wasn’t stupid. It was practically work. Not a date at all.

“What about Kelly? She was going to make dinner.”

He pulled out his phone and texted her something long and involved. In fact, his fingers were a blur and his eyes didn’t even leave mine.

“I’ll let her know my dinner plans changed. She’s kind of used to my spontaneity.”

I laughed, remembering how she’d said that the dinner would probably go to waste. She’d guessed what Niall was going to do. Obviously, she knew her employer pretty well.

“Can I at least go home and change first?” I asked. It was the wrong thing to say. I knew that as soon as I said it. Why should I want to change to go to dinner with this man? It wasn’t a date. “No, on second thought, let’s just go.”

Niall smiled. “You’re spontaneous, too.”

“I guess I am.” Did he have any idea of what I was feeling right then? Actually though, if he was what he said he was, then he might know exactly what I was feeling—anticipation, nervousness, and pleasure—and that was the strangest feeling of all.

“Shall we?” he said, and I knew what he meant, but still, a blush went through me as he gently brushed my bangs out of my eyes and turned toward the door that led to his garage. He handed me the keys to his Aston Martin DB5.

He looked over at me, a slight quirk of a smile touching his lips. “Would you like to drive?”

It wasn’t just the exhilaration of driving his silver Aston Martin DB5 convertible that went very fast and cost more than most people’s homes, but that Niall trusted me to do so. “Trixie” took the turns like a race car and I tried not to speed, which was tough.

“Is this the same model car from the James Bond movie,
Goldfinger
?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the road.

“Yes.”

“But I thought they only made two of these cars for the movie.”

“Are you some sort of a car aficionado?”

“I am a
movie
car aficionado.”

“You’re an interesting woman, Elle,” he said.

I smiled. “I trust that 007’s gadgets were removed from the car?”

Niall laughed. “The movie studio smoke and mirrors are long gone. However, Trixie has a few tricks up her sleeve. Hence the nickname. No weaponry, though.”

“Good to know. Thanks for trusting me to drive your Trixie.”

“You look good in the driver’s seat, Elle.”

That meant a lot to me, and I think he knew just how much. By the time we got to the restaurant, I felt like I had completely bonded with “Trixie.” Bonding with Niall was going pretty well, too.

After I parked Trixie and we got out, I handed him back the keys. “That was fun. I’ve never driven a convertible that nice before.”

“Perhaps this will be an evening of many firsts.”

“Perhaps,” I said guardedly.

“I just love our city, don’t you, Elle?” he asked, as we walked toward the restaurant he had chosen.

“Yes, Edinburgh must be the most magical city in the world,” I replied. “It has everything. I mean, I do like to travel—who doesn’t?—but we have the best of all possible worlds here with the waterfront, the castles, theatres, museums. And the old buildings, so lovingly cared for, like old grandmothers, right?”

“Yes. The haunted places, too.”

I smiled. “I like those, too. The spirits, they know things.”

“Indeed.” Niall paused mid-step. “What’s your favorite place, Elle?”

“Hands down? The Royal Botanic Garden. It is like time is stopped there, and in spring or summer, I feel like I am in a Renoir painting, sitting by the water and just soaking in the atmosphere.”

“I know what you mean. I love that place, too. The glass houses are so inspiring to my creative side: art and music and growing things.”

Anything that touched the emotions. I could believe that all too easily. “Yes.”

“We should go there sometime. A picnic. A Renoir picnic.”

“I’d like that,” I said, suddenly shy that he was asking me out on another date when we had only started this one. And it was hard to ignore the fact that it was a date, as much as I tried to deny it to myself.