“Of course you could have.” She paced back and forth in front of her TV. “The less she knows, the better. I told you not to say anything. The woman distrusts men with powers. She’s going to kill me.”

  “No she isn’t. You’re coven.”

  “How are we going to get you out of this mess?” she said as if he hadn’t spoken. “Flowers. Lots and lots of flowers.” She whirled and pointed at him. “And chocolate.”

  “You honestly think Emory is going to forgive me for lying to her because I bring her flowers and chocolates?”

  Veri stopped to stare at him. “You’re right. Diamonds are better.”

  “I apologized. She either accepts it or she doesn’t.” He feared it would be the later. His stomach had been in knots since Emory had thrown him out.

  “Goddess, men are idiots,” Veri snapped. “You don’t understand women at all.”

  “And you don’t understand Emory. Bribes aren’t going to fix anything.”

  “You’re right. Throw yourself on her mercy.”

  “We were supposed to meet in the morning, but she’ll probably want to hit the clinic with Edwina or something.”

  Veri snorted. “Don’t give her an option. Stick to your guns. Make her work with you.”

  “You think forcing Emory to work with me is going to change things?”

  His cousin smiled slyly. “Oh, yes.”

  THE CLINIC OPENED BEFORE Healing Herbs, so Noah picked Emory up early, as planned. She gave him a long look before stepping out her door and locking it behind her. He almost let out a sigh of relief. He hadn’t been sure she’d come with him.

  The whole drive over, she was silent and so was he. He had no idea what to say. He’d already apologized. What else could he do?

  As they entered the clinic, the twenty-something receptionist looked up from her computer screen with an unnaturally wide smile for so early in the morning. Her mousy brown hair, inexpertly streaked with blonde highlights, was done up in a perky ponytail. Her cardigan was a shockingly ugly shade of lime green. Her glasses were more librarian than hipster, and her makeup was reminiscent of the ’80s. She looked like a wallflower trying to get noticed.

  “Good morning,” she said perkily, scanning Noah with blatant appreciation. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No,” Emory said with a fake smile. “We’re interested in the services the clinic provides. Can I ask you some questions, Miss...?”

  “Brooke. Call me Brooke. Everyone does.” Her eyes slid to Noah again, and she blushed.

  “Okay, Brooke. We’re here to talk to you.”

  “Me? I’m sorry. I don’t—”

  “This is going to sound silly,” Emory said, interrupting her. “But my aunt is a patient here, and she says she gets this tea. It’s really unusual. I was wondering what it was? It comes in a red tin.”

  “Oh, that! Do you want some? It’s delish.” Brooke jumped out of her chair and crossed the room to a tea and coffee station. She took something off the credenza and waggled it in the air. It was a red tea tin identical to the one Emory had found in Zach’s apartment. Brooke returned and handed her the tin. “One of the docs orders it in special. It’s some kind of blend that’s supposed to boost immunity and brain function, and I don’t know what all.”

  “Do you know where the doctor gets it?”

  She shrugged. “Some tea shop. I don’t know.”

  “And this is available to all the patients? Just sitting out?”

  “Yeah, of course. Why?” A look of suspicion crossed her face.

  “We’re here to talk to you about some patients at the clinic,” Noah said, glowering at her. He was in full intimidation mode. Emory elbowed him in the ribs and gave him a look she hoped he’d interpret as “chill.”

  Brooke jumped a little, as if she’d forgotten he was there. “I’m sorry, I can’t talk to you about patients. HIPPA rules and everything.” She gave Emory an innocent look which didn’t fool her one minute. The girl was clearly on guard. She was certain Brooke knew something about the tea and the dead patients.

  “Tell me, Brooke, do you know Gary Poe?” Emory asked.

  Brooke paled but pulled her shoulders back, tilted her chin up, and glared at them. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “How about Mitch Kerrigan? Zach Polinsky? They were patients here. You know they’re all dead, right?”

  Brooke was turning green. “You’re lying,” she whispered.

  “Listen, little girl,” Noah snarled, stepping into her personal space, his warrior routine in full swing. She looked like she might faint on the spot. “You will stop lying and speak the truth.” His words were a thinly veiled threat and something more. Power shimmered through the air.

  “Or what?” Brooke tried to look defiant but only managed to look pathetic.

  There was a pause. “Or I will make sure the authorities know you’re responsible for the deaths of these three men.”

  “But I’m not,” she wailed.

  “Brooke? Everything okay?” A middle-aged man with a receding hairline and a well-trimmed salt-and-pepper goatee poked his head out of one of the offices.

  “Fine, Doc. Everything’s fine.”

  The doctor retreated into his office, slamming the door. Apparently saving his receptionist wasn’t worth standing up to Noah. Emory didn’t blame him. Noah was pretty intimidating when he wanted to be.

  “You better tell us the truth, Brooke,” Emory said softly. “I know a lot of very important people who can make sure you get lost down a very dark hole.”

  “It’s not my fault, okay?” she whimpered.

  “Then whose fault is it?”

  She closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. “My boyfriend, okay?”

  “What does he have to do with this?” Noah demanded.

  “He asked me to keep an eye out for certain kinds of patients.”

  “What kind of patients?” Emory prodded.

  Brooke fidgeted, hesitating.

  “Brooke,” Noah warned.

  “Patients who were highly stressed. Not sleeping. That sort of thing. But were otherwise healthy. Patients with a certain amount of money.”

  “These people weren’t rich,” Emory pointed out.

  “Not rich,” Brook admitted. “But with easily accessible income. Savings. Regular Social Security checks. That kind of stuff.”

  Gary and Mitch might have fit that bill—she remembered seeing healthy bank balances on Gary’s statements and Mitch clearly had some source of income—but Zach certainly hadn’t. “What did you do with those patients?”

  Brooke sighed. “I was to make sure they drank some of the tea. Not the stuff out here, but this.” She reached under her desk and brought out a tin identical to the one on the tea and coffee service.

  Emory took it from her and removed the lid. Faint symbols shimmered above it.

  “It’s not the same,” she told Noah. “Similar, but not quite. This stuff’s been bespelled.”

  Brooke frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “Never mind. What were you to do after you gave the patient the tea?”

  “Give them my boyfriend’s card.” She dug around in her purse and handed Emory a business card. It was simple, white, with only a phone number. “Once they drank the tea, I gave them the card and told them if they called, they’d find way more help than they’d ever get here.”

  “And Gary, Mitch, and Zach were the people you gave the card to?”

  “Among others.”

  Noah and Emory exchanged glances.

  “I want their names, Brooke.”

  “I can’t—”

  Noah didn’t say a word, but his expression spoke volumes. She picked up a pen and started writing. After a minute she handed Emory the list.

  “Thank you.” Emory started to turn but stopped. “Why Zach? He didn’t have any money.” Unlike the other two, he’d lived in a cheap rental and drove a car that was falling apart.

  “But he did. I mean, he talked about it all the time. How he’d bought a flat-screen TV or a new car or whatever.”

  Zach had lied to impress the young receptionist. “Brooke, if you call your boyfriend and tell him anything, anything at all, I will find you. Understand?”

  She shook like a leaf. Tears welled in her eyes. “I won’t say anything, I promise.”

  NOAH DROVE WHILE EMORY researched the names on her smartphone. She wanted to avoid talking to him as long as possible. She just couldn’t deal with personal stuff at the moment. She needed to focus on the investigation.

  What she found was shocking.

  “Every single one of these people, except for the three we already knew about, has recently been in the news,” she told him.

  “For what?”

  “Going stark raving nuts. One of them is the guy who attacked me and that jogger in the park. Another is the woman from the mall. There are half a dozen others who have had psychotic breaks. All of them are locked up in the psych wards in local hospitals.”

  “This can’t be a coincidence.”

  She frowned at the list. “The only three who are dead are the three we found.”

  “The three that were definitely supernaturals.”

  She glanced at him, startled. “How could you know that?” She certainly hadn’t been able to tell.

  He shrugged. “We already figured Gary Poe had some connection to the supernatural community since he came to you for help, right? And Mitch...I always suspected something about him. So I did some digging last night. Looks like all three had limited supernatural abilities.”

  She squirmed at the thought of what they could have been doing last night. “Like what?”

  He kept his eyes glued to the road. “Poe was part Sidhe. Not a lot but enough to make a difference. I am not sure how his abilities manifested, but he definitely had something. My buddy Mitch was part djinn. He couldn’t shift, but he was unusually strong and fast. Enough to tip the scales, not enough to alert the wrong people, which explains some things I saw in the Gulf.”

  “And Zach?”

  “Witchblood, like us. No abilities.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “You think that means something?”

  “Hard to tell unless we know if the others who didn’t die were supernatural or human. It might make a creepy sort of sense, though. Maybe the spell, whatever it was for, affected humans and supernaturals in different ways. It made the humans crazy, but it was deadly for supernaturals.”

  “Sea gods, that’s messed up. Have you figured out what the spell is for yet?”

  “I did a little research last night. It seems to be sort of a hypnotic thing. It opens the ensorcelled to suggestion. That’s probably how Brooke got them to call a strange number and seek out additional help when they were already getting help at the clinic.”

  “But you don’t think she bespelled the tea herself.”

  She shook her head. “Pretty sure she’s human. Wouldn’t have the skill set.”

  “It’s similar to the deadly spell, but not the same.”

  “And it’s not nearly as strong either. My guess is this spell was meant to soften them up while the second spell, administered through another dose of the tea, was to finish them off. Figuratively speaking, of course. I don’t think death was the ultimate goal. I think Brooke’s boyfriend had a different end game in mind.”

  “Like what?”

  She gazed out the window at the passing scenery. “That is the question, isn’t it?”

  “We might need backup on this.”

  “We should call Edwina.”

  He shot her a look. “Edwina?”

  “You’d be surprised at her skill set.”

  He placed the call while she stared out the window as if none of it mattered. But her stomach was twisted in knots. At some point they were going to have to talk, hash things out one way or the other. She wasn’t looking forward to it.

  Chapter 22

  Lewis Binder, Brooke’s boyfriend, lived in a nice cookie-cutter home in one of those housing developments that was no more than five years old, with houses costing no less than half a million dollars. In Deepwood—heck, just about anywhere—that was a very nice house.

  “That’s a large place for one guy,” Noah said as he parked across the street.

  It had to be five bedrooms at least. The yard was enormous and probably needed a multitude of gardeners to keep it looking perfectly manicured.

  “I wonder what Binder does for a living that he can afford this?” Noah mused.

  “Nothing good, I’ll bet. Not if he’s spellcasting people to death,” Emory said grimly.

  A vintage VW Van in lemon yellow pulled up behind them, and Edwina climbed out. She wore a blue and white striped sundress, a floppy straw hat, and her ever present Doc Martens. Emory was suddenly shaky. Go time. Wasn’t that what they said in the movies?

  They climbed out of their respective cars. As if on cue, everyone turned toward Binder’s house.

  As they approached on foot, she saw the faint shimmer of wards at every door and window. “He’s very security conscious,” Emory murmured. “He’s warded it like crazy.”

  “I can’t see anything,” Noah said, squinting against the glare of the morning sun.

  “Nor can I,” Edwina agreed.

  “You wouldn’t,” she said. “I doubt anyone but a spellwalker could. My little gift, remember?”

  “Can you get through?” Edwina asked.

  She grinned, though it was forced. “Does a unicorn fart in the woods?”

  “I don’t know,” Noah said. “Never met one.”

  She gritted her teeth, determined to ignore him. As they drew even with the wards, she reached out and mentally tweaked the spell. It was ridiculously easy. Once finished she could pass through without a tickle.

  “I’ll go around back,” Edwina said and slipped away before Emory could protest. Not that she would have. Despite the tension between them, she’d rather be close to Noah than not. Something to ponder later.

  He rang the doorbell, and they waited, Emory trying desperately not to fidget. The tension between them was palpable.

  “Maybe he’s not home,” he suggested.

  “Oh, he’s home,” she assured him. “I can sense him through the wards.”

  “He’s a witch?”

  She snorted. “Warlock. Witches don’t kill people. At least I think he’s a warlock. I guess he could have had someone set up the wards.”

  He rang again, this time leaning on the bell for a good thirty seconds. After what seemed an eternity, the door swung open. The guy standing there was skinny, pale, and wearing a perfectly pressed black suit. An expensive suit, with matching black shirt, tie, and shoes. The color did not flatter his pasty complexion.

  “Lewis Binder?” Emory asked.

  Binder looked from her to Noah, and then slammed the door in their faces. She could hear footsteps pounding across marble. Noah kicked the door open, and they gave chase. Well, Noah gave chase. Emory sort of panted along behind. Her flip-flops were not made for running.

  They ran through the cavernous marble entryway, past an office that looked oddly like a doctor’s office, and into an enormous living area in time to see Lewis slip out the sliding glass doors to the backyard. Lewis took off, running hell bent for leather, Noah hot on his tail.

  Halfway across the lawn, Edwina stepped out from behind a bush, clotheslining Binder like a pro-wrestler. He flipped under her arm and hit the ground hard. He lay flat on his back, gasping for air. Poor Lewis hadn’t had a snowball’s chance.

  Noah grabbed Lewis by the collar and yanked him to his feet. He gave him a good shake, and when Binder tried to squirm away, punched him in the face. He dropped like a stone.

  “What’d you do that for?” Edwina grumbled. “I had him right where I wanted him.”

  “We do not have time to mess around. He could have ensorcelled other people. They could be in danger. We need to know why.” Noah was practically snarling.

  Edwina gave him a look that would have withered a normal man. “And punching him unconscious is going to help that how?”

  “I might have hit him harder than I meant, but he’ll be fine.”

  “Would you two stop arguing and bring him inside? We do not have time for this.”

  Noah sighed. “Yes, ma’am.” He slung Binder over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Inside, he tossed him on the couch while Edwina slumped in a chair across the room. Emory grabbed a glass from the kitchen and filled it with ice water. As she did, she noticed a familiar tin sitting on the counter. She grabbed it.

  Stomping back into the living room, she flung the water in Binder’s face. He came awake instantly, spluttering and cursing like a sailor.

  “Welcome back, Mr. Binder. I think it’s time you answered a few questions.” Emory crossed her arms and slapped on her witchiest glare. The kind that said, “I’ll turn you into a toad if you don’t cooperate.”

  Binder spluttered a bit, wiping water from his eyes. “How dare you?” He tried to sound outraged, but it came across more scared than anything.

  Noah loomed over the cowering Binder. “Listen, you worm. You will answer this woman’s questions, or I will have your spleen for dinner.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” he whispered.

  “Try me,” Noah said grimly. “You know what I am, do you not?”

  Lewis Binder paled. “You’re FBI.”

  The three of them gave each other confused looks. Emory supposed that with his dark cargo pants and tinted sunglasses, Noah did look somewhat Men in Black. There was probably some law against impersonating a federal agent, but they were dealing with seriously nasty magic here, and he’d been in the military, after all.

  Noah gave Binder a smile that spoke of death and darker things. He cowered against the sofa cushions.

  “Fine.” Binder pouted. “What do you want to know?”

  “I want to know why you killed three people,” Emory said.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He went ghost white and beads of sweat popped out across his forehead.

  “Really?” she snapped. “Then maybe we should make you drink some of this.” She waved the tin of tea she’d found in his kitchen in front of his face.

 

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