A Witching Well of Magic: A Cozy Mystery (Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 2) (6 page)

Chloe’s warning about the vague but potentially dire cost of Bailey’s revelation spell haunted her through the rest of the evening and into the next morning. But, she couldn’t afford to let it drag her heels—there was more work to do. A full day of tours, the last before they were finally closed for a day. And of course there was whatever Aiden wanted to talk about. She expected it had something else to do with the caves. It occurred to her to wonder, on her walk to the office, whether there was some connection between Aiden, and Trevor and Gloria.

It certainly fit, albeit not tightly or snugly. They all three seemed to have a preoccupation both with the caves and with Bailey.

Then again she hadn’t seen them all together, and anyway while she took Chloe’s advice about not probing people’s minds willy-nilly very seriously, she had read Trevor and Gloria’s minds before, so whatever quality or technique—she wasn’t convinced yet that it was one or the other, whatever the coven ladies said—that kept her out of Aiden’s head was, it didn’t extend to them.

Distracted as she was by all this, she walked with her eyes on the ground, looking not so much at it as through it, while she gnawed her lower lip and milled over the pieces in her mind, looking for some connection or detail that she had noticed but not really properly examined. It wasn’t until she was close enough to the office that the flashing lights of the Coven Grove Sheriff’s department cars colored the white concrete of the walkway enough that she looked up.

Oh no. Not again.

Her first thought was that someone else had been killed. Just like Avery predicted. She forgot her train of thought entirely and raced to the tour office and the edge of the yellow police tape. The door had been smashed in. Aiden; where was he? Oh, no, no… not him. It was like every time someone new got close to the caves they—

But he was there, just inside the door, arms folded over his suit jacket and tie, one hand rubbing his smooth chin as he spoke to one of the deputies. Bailey couldn’t hear him from here, but he was gesturing at the inside of the tour office. There was no ambulance, at least. She relaxed a little. No one had died. But then… what had happened here?

As a deputy ducked under the tape near her, she caught his attention. “Hi! Uh… Jackson, isn’t it? Deputy Jackson?”

Deputy Seamus Jackson nodded. He was youngish, only a few years older the Bailey. She remembered him from high school—he’d been a senior the year she was a freshman. “Oh, hey Bailey.” There were only a few girls in town with hair like hers. Seamus smiled shyly and a little sympathetically. He’d been one of the ones to show up the night they’d arrested Poppy. “We keep meetin’ this way, huh?”

“
Yeah,” Bailey sighed. She pointed at the door. This was good; Seamus liked her, maybe he’d talk freely. “What happened here? I was coming into work; you know I’m doing the tours again… was anyone… hurt?”

Seamus waved a hand quickly to dismiss the suggestion. “Oh, no. Nobody was hurt this time. Looks like a B and E; not sure if it’s a burglary yet, we’re talkin’ with the owner now.”

“
Do you mind if I come in?” Bailey asked.

The deputy rubbed the back of his head and glanced around at the other deputies, and at Sheriff Larson. “I don’t think I can, Bailey. I’m real sorry. I would but… we have to go over the place with the owner first.”

Bailey bit back her desire to push him for it. “I get it,” she said instead of arguing. “Let Aiden know I’m here though, would you?”

He tipped his hat to her.

To his credit at least, he did go straight to Aiden, and Bailey watched as he pointed toward her as he spoke. Aiden looked, saw her, and then seemed to relax a little. He waved her in, exchanged words with the deputies, and then marched over to her, irritated.

When he got close, he spoke with a slightly lowered voice. “They have no idea who’s responsible at the moment,” he told her. “I canceled the tours for the day while we sort all this out.”

“
Was anything stolen?” Bailey asked. “And how are you?”

“
Well… I didn't mean it when I said the impatient tourists were free to loot the place.” He chuffed, and raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t mean it entirely literally, but there you have it. However so far… it doesn’t look like anything was actually taken. It’s all very strange.”

Strange indeed, Bailey thought, but she kept her suspicions to herself, just in case. Surely if Aiden was the victim here, whatever else was going on couldn’t have to do with him, right? If she could just get in his head, she could lay all this to rest. “It is strange,” she said. “And not like Coven Grove at all. I don’t know when the last time we had a robbery was.”

Aiden grimaced in advance of his comment on Coven Groves more recent track record. “Well, I understand there hadn’t been a murder here in quite some time, either. Perhaps times are changing?”

“
Maybe,” Bailey sighed. She looked past him. “Aren’t there cameras? Poppy was paranoid about shoplifters.”

“
There are,” Aiden confirmed. “And I do use them, though I haven’t had a reason and I am not paranoid about shoplifters. The funny thing is, someone shut them off.”

Now that was suspicious. The controls were locked in the office. And it hadn’t been Bailey that did it. That left two other people who might be able to get in and one of them was in prison. The other was in front of her. “That is a funny thing,” she said.

But Aiden didn’t look smug about anything. He looked worried. “One of the deputies, apparently something of a tech guru, says there is an access node on the outside of the building; it could have been done from there by someone with the right kind of knowledge.” He shook his head slowly. “I never thought to check a vulnerability like that. I do well enough to get a computer turned on. Technology and I have a long and bloody history.”

Bailey would have to check up on that. For now, she went along with it. “Alright. So, someone shut down the cameras and broke in the doors… just to, what, take a look around? They couldn’t wait for opening?”

“
The prevailing theory is that it was simple vandalism,” Aiden said, unconvinced. “At the same time, they assure me Coven Grove is a welcoming community to outsiders, and that my presence has greatly impacted the local economy. So, I’m not sold on it.”

“
Neither am I,” Bailey said. She frowned, and just for a moment, just to get a quick snapshot, opened her mind to the small storm of thoughts pervading the area, careful not to let her awareness envelope Aiden too closely.

“…
should have tuna for lunch today, Martha says it’s got those omega…”

“…
maybe used a rock, but where’s the rock at? That rock Poppy used is in lockup, so not that one…”

“…
place is full of junk, mostly, why anyone would want to…”

“…
wonder if Gavin went and saw Marla yet. I should ask him…”

That, Bailey pocketed quickly but tried not to get distracted by it. Who the heck was Marla? Maybe Piper was right.

“…
that girl, again. Trouble follows her around, don’t it?”

Bailey sighed, and withdrew, shaking her head.

Aiden was staring at her. “Are you… alright?”

“
I’m fine,” Bailey told him. “A little shocked is all. You’re sure they didn’t take anything?”

“
As far as anyone can tell,” Aiden said. “There’s nothing much of value.”

“
There are the museum exhibits,” Bailey said. They weren’t popular, and few people ever actually looked at them; but there was a small exhibit inside.

Aiden pursed his lips and glanced over his shoulder. “Yes… there is, isn’t there? Isn’t that funny, I’ve been here days now and never really thought to look it over. Sort of slipped my mind.”

“
It’s a whole room in the building,” Bailey said, flatly. “You haven’t been in there yet?”

Aiden got a distant look on his face, staring past Bailey. It was the same look, she imagined, that she had on her face when she was reading minds. A moment later it passed, and Aiden blinked. “The exhibit. Absolutely… I’m certain the deputies have checked there as well.”

If there was magic involved, there was every chance they hadn’t. Whatever it was that had apparently hidden the museum room from Aiden had never affected Bailey—she’d spent hours in there when she was younger, looking at every rock and picture and artifact. She’d seen some of the tourists go in there as well though. Wonder what that’s about.

“
Do you think you can get me in there?” She asked.

Aiden pursed his lips, and then with a smirk he reached down… and raised the yellow tape. “Easy enough.”

Bailey opened her mouth to explain she meant something more official… but then again, the official answer could be ‘no’.

She and Aiden walked through the scene toward the back room where the exhibit was. The entrance was littered with shattered glass, shiny, sharp little stones that almost looked pretty in the morning sunlight. They did their best not to crunch through them too much.

The exhibit room was just to the right of the counter where tourists signed up for tours or purchased souvenirs. The gift shop door was wide, and the doorway itself didn’t have a door on it; it was painted a bright orange, inviting attention.

The doorway to the exhibit, however, did have a swinging door on it, but wasn’t differentiated otherwise from the wall. It was as though whoever had done the painting on the interior had simply painted over it. No one noticed Bailey leading Aiden in.

The funny thing was, now that Bailey was more aware of the intelligence in the caves, and the magic that permeated the place, she recognized the feel of it here. Nothing in here was especially valuable on any kind of market, though. Not really. There were some artifacts—fragments of pottery, some with leftover paint that matched the stuff used in the caves; a few ceramic beads that didn’t match any local Native American cultures, modern or ancient; and a few rocks from inside the cave that were carved with symbols and figures that were repeated from the cave walls.

There were three of them, before.

Now, there were two.

Bailey stared at the empty case. The lock had been neatly snipped, but there was no security on the thing—nothing like a real museum would have; there was no reason for it. The exhibit didn’t make Poppy any money.

“
Well,” Bailey said, “I guess we know what was stolen.”

Aiden stared blankly at her, and then around the room. “Do we?”

She sighed, and pointed directly at the empty case. There was a depression in an old mounting where one of the stones had previously been kept. “Right there. See?”

The look on Aiden’s face was, momentarily, one of confusion and concern. Then he did something strange. He cleared his throat, touched his forehead as though he had a headache, and when he did his lips moved ever so slightly.

“
Sorry,” he said when he looked up, “just a little warmed over from all the excitement. So… yes, I see; one of the exhibits is gone. There were three, before?”

“
And now there are two,” Bailey said evenly. Aiden seemed to have no trouble focusing now. He strode forward and leaned over to examine the two remaining rocks.

“
What are they?” He asked.

Bailey shook her head, “No one really knows. One theory was that the carvings were a more permanent version of what was on the walls. Between all three stones, about two thirds of what’s in the caves is done here in miniature, but with some small changes. Either someone did it afterward, or they did it before.”

“
Or these are what the paintings are based on,” Aiden muttered.

Come to think of it, that wasn’t a bad hypothesis. And quite an interesting leap for someone who until ten seconds ago had a hard time looking directly at them.

The witches would want to know about this. Those stones had something to do with the caves, and if one of them was missing they needed to be found, and quickly. Something about the magic permeating the remaining stones was… what was it? Incomplete? Unstable? Like they were reaching out for something that was no longer there. It left her feeling hollow inside, like she had felt when Wendy passed.

And it was clear to her as well that the magic was reacting to Aiden, negatively. A kind of static she could feel over her skin the closer he got to them and the longer he was near them. “We should report this to the Sheriff,” Bailey said.

Aiden straightened. “Yes, well… like you said they aren’t particularly valuable. I wouldn’t want to send them on a wild goose chase for nothing. I’d much rather just get this whole business behind us and get the repairs done.”

“
You… aren’t going to report a missing artifact? It’s got cultural significance, Aiden, you can’t let someone just run off with it.”

Aiden pursed his lips, and tapped them thoughtfully. “Well… perhaps you’re right. I’ll see about a private investigator, though, I think. There’s no sense in panicking the community that there could be a burglar in their midst.”

Bailey didn’t argue. Technically, Aiden owned the Tour Office and everything in it. But she didn’t trust him, either. “That makes sense,” she said, though she had every intention of hunting the stone down herself and she was more and more convinced that this whole theft had been an inside job. So she trod lightly. “Well, I can help you clean the place up when the deputies are done here.”