no problem, I texted back. i’m here and waiting.

  I glanced through my other texts to see if there were any others I hadn’t read. There was one from Killian telling me he loved me, and one from Rowan complaining that the kittens she had found a month ago had torn up her lace curtains. I laughed, then set my phone down and leaned back in the seat. I seldom got time to relax, except for when the headaches hit. And that wasn’t what I called relaxation.

  I hated the migraines, and I hated suffering from the energy reflux syndrome. It had totally shifted the way I had to approach my life, and I was still trying to learn how to accept the changes. I wondered if it would ever go away, although the doctor said probably not. It might go into remission, but it could also get worse, although if I followed the doctor’s orders, it would probably stay stable. I was grateful that Killian was adapting better than I was. The fact that he seemed to accept the disability as a part of me made me love him even more.

  The waitress brought my mocha, along with a basket of bread and butter. She set a small plate in front of me, and disappeared again. I glanced at my phone. Daya should be here at any time, but knowing her it could be another half hour.

  “Well, fancy seeing you here.”

  I glanced up and forced back a grimace as I saw Asher Brant, the mayor of Moonshadow Bay. He leaned against the edge of my booth, his eyes fixated on my boobs. He had had a slimy fixation on me ever since we had first met when I returned to Moonshadow Bay, but I had no interest in him and had never once encouraged him. He was a creep and I was as unimpressed with his politics as I was with his demeanor.

  “Hello, Asher. Nice to see you again.” I kept my voice level, not encouraging him to linger.

  “I haven’t seen you in a while,” he said. “Do you mind if I sit down and we catch up?”

  “I’m waiting for someone, so I’m afraid this isn’t a good time. Have a nice afternoon,” I said, picking up my phone and beginning to scroll through to a book I was reading. Rude? Yes. Called for? Absolutely.

  Asher cleared his throat and, scowling, walked away. I glanced up to follow his retreating figure, shaking my head. Some people never changed.

  At that moment, Daya appeared, following the hostess to our booth. As she settled in, she asked for a hot toddy.

  “Are you driving?” I asked, unable to help myself.

  “Yes, but I’m eating too. I can handle it.”

  Right. She was barely a hundred pounds soaking wet, and my guess was that she didn’t handle her liquor well. I decided to keep an eye on her during lunch, and if I thought she was too wasted to drive, I’d take her keys and pour her into a cab. I had no tolerance or patience for impaired drivers, whether it be booze or pot or any other drug. That included physical impairments as well. Anything that could create a hazard on the road. My parents had died in a car crash, and I had strong opinions on the subject.

  “Thank you for meeting me today. I realized that we haven’t really had a chance to get to know each other away from the coven. And I’ve been so busy with the wedding planning.” I hope I sounded convincing. I had never once gone out to dinner with her, and we had never spent an afternoon chatting other than when we were together in the coven meetings.

  Daya wasn’t quite as clueless as I thought she was, though. She snorted. “Let me guess. Your grandmother asked you to talk to me and find out what’s going on?” She waited, assessing my expression. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  I shrugged. It wasn’t worth lying about, and I wasn’t that good of an actress to begin with. “Yeah, Rowan asked me to talk to you. She’s worried that you don’t seem interested in the coven anymore. You haven’t been at the last meeting or so.” The truth was that I hadn’t noticed that Daya had missed any of the necessary meetings, but Rowan worked with some of the other members on different projects, so it was probably one of those that Daya had spaced on.

  “I know you love your grandmother, and she’s a wonderful woman in many ways,” Daya said. “But she really doesn’t have the right to poke her nose into my life like this. Yes, I’ve missed several meetings in our potions group, but it’s not required that I be there. I’m just auditing it, you might say.” She sounded both pissed off and exasperated.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I only agreed to talk to you because my grandmother seemed so worried. If there’s nothing wrong, I’ll tell her that you’re just busy.” I had no intention on getting myself stuck in the middle between them.

  Daya stared at me for a moment, then picked up her menu. “Thanks. I appreciate it. Since we’re here, though, why don’t we eat? You are right in that we really haven’t had a chance to sit and talk, and there’s so much about you that I really don’t know.”

  The about-face was so abrupt that I didn’t know what to think. The waitress showed up with her hot toddy, and we ordered. I ordered a steak sandwich, and Daya ordered a chef’s salad. We both decided on clam chowder to start.

  While we waited for our food, Daya asked me why I had returned to Moonshadow Bay. I thought she knew my story, but it seemed I was wrong. I told her about Ellison, and then about my parents.

  “I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but that’s why I reacted so much to you ordering booze for lunch. The hot toddies here are strong, and the last thing I want to see is an accident on a day like today.”

  “I’ll sip it slow, and I’ll have a cup of coffee afterward.”

  I caught her rolling her eyes, but decided to keep quiet. If she got tipsy I could also talk to the hostess before leaving and they would call her a cab. In Washington state, we had what was called a dram shop rule, in which an establishment serving liquor could be held responsible if one of their patrons got intoxicated while there, and then got into an accident.

  We chatted a bit, keeping it light, until our soup came. I kept trying to steer the conversation toward her own life, but she was deftly steering it back toward me.

  “This is good chowder,” she said. “So, do you still have the mural in your secret room?”

  The question seemed out of left field, but she had been there during the time I had found the secret room with the Covenant of Chaos’s mural.

  “No, we painted over that and destroyed the energy field around it. Besides, I’m renting out my house. In fact, last night somehow a fire broke out in it. It’s lucky that I’m not living there any longer or I could have been hurt.”

  At that, Daya lifted her head to stare at me. “You’re not living there?”

  I shook my head, an odd feeling stealing over me. “No, I’m not. So, next week I’m getting married. I imagine everybody’s ready for me to shut up about it at this point.”

  Daya laughed. “Oh, all brides are obsessed with their weddings. Are all the arrangements ready?”

  I hesitated, wondering about the sudden change in subject again. While I had been the one to mention my wedding, I didn’t expect her to linger on the subject.

  “Most of them,” I said. “How about you? Have you ever been engaged?”

  She shook her head. “No, though I’m in a serious relationship now. You know I was with my ex-boyfriend for a long time. But after we broke up, I met someone new. I’m happier than I’ve ever been at this point.”

  “Who are you seeing? Or is it a secret?” I had barely asked the question when the waitress brought our lunch. As she cleared away our chowder cups, setting the plates in front of us, Daya suddenly became intensely interested in her food. She motioned that her mouth was full and, once again, I dropped the subject.

  When she next spoke it was to ask me about the cats. I realized I wasn’t going to get any clear-cut answers from her. Rowan was right—Daya was hiding something. But what it was, I had no clue.

  She took over the conversation, switching it to pleasantries and town gossip. I listened, occasionally interjecting an answer, but I felt suddenly uneasy.

  Not certain what was going on, but always one to try and listen to my intuition, I let the rest of the lunch date pass on a superficial level. But I knew that Daya was hiding something, and she wasn’t about to be forthcoming with it. Filing away everything I could for future reference, I finished my steak and then—as she tossed her money on table and pled an upcoming appointment—I waved goodbye, watching her walk away.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The snow was still coming down thick and fast when I left the restaurant. I was almost to my car when, over in the corner of the parking lot, I caught a glimpse of Daya standing next to her car. A man stood next to her, his arm around her waist.

  There was something odd about him that made my alarm bells ring—a tingle of energy that I could feel all the way over where I was. They were so focused on each other that they didn’t see me staring at them. Without thinking, I raised my phone, zoomed in, and took a picture. I snapped a second as the man turned ever so slightly, and managed to catch his face. Then I slid into my car before he saw me and noticed what I was doing.

  I headed home, trying to remember if I had taken out anything to thaw for dinner. If not, we could have spaghetti—ground beef was easy enough to cook from frozen, and we were both fine with jarred pasta sauce. Grating cheese took a few minutes, so that wasn’t an issue, either.

  Pulling into Jitterbug Jolt—an espresso stand—I ordered a triple-shot peppermint mocha with extra peppermint. As I took a long sip, the warmth and caffeine flooded through me and I smiled. While the lunch hadn’t gone the way I planned it, I at least had something to go on—the man could have been her brother or a friend or somebody like that, but it was something to look into.

  As I pulled into Killian’s driveway, a police car pulled in behind me. I was getting out of the car when Millie Tuptin—the chief of police—stepped out of the cruiser. She motioned to the front door and I unlocked it. Millie followed me in, a somber look on her face.

  “What’s up? Is it something about the fire?” I asked, shrugging out of my jacket and hanging it in the hall closet.

  “Let’s go in the living room,” she said.

  Worried now, I followed her. I gestured her to sit. “What’s going on, Millie?”

  “I’ll come straight to the point. Ellison escaped. Nobody knows how he got the ankle monitor off. It shows no sign of tampering and was sitting on the counter in his parents’ house. They have no clue of where he is—and the police believe them. Anyway, you need to keep an eye out, because we don’t know what he’s up to or where he went.” She leaned forward. “I wish I had more information.”

  I stared at her, unable to process what she was telling me. My ex had attacked me and had been placed under house arrest instead of going to prison because his parents had needed his help. But now, I wished with every fiber of my being that he’d been tossed in prison and left to rot.

  “How can someone get an ankle monitor off with no signs of tampering?”

  “We don’t know. I suspect he had magical help,” Millie said.

  “Ellison hates magic. He was thrilled when he found out I didn’t know that much about my magical abilities.” I couldn’t understand how he could flip so drastically.

  “Maybe he saw it as the one way to get out of his punishment. One thing’s for sure—when he’s caught, he’ll be heading directly to prison and will likely get an extended sentence since he’s pulled this stunt.” She paused, then added, “Do you feel like you’re in danger?”

  “When he showed up and tried to punch me, I knew that he wouldn’t hesitate to take it even further. I guess he couldn’t stand to see me happy and that it was my life moving forward and not his.” A sudden flash of anger raged through me. How dare he put me in this position? “I wish he was here right now. I’d show him what he’s taking on. Killian would rip him to shreds and I’d be right there to help.”

  “Easy now,” Millie said. “We don’t know that he’s in town, but we’ll keep watch and I’ll have a patrol car drive past your house a couple times during the night and day. There’s a statewide APB out on him, and when we catch him, you know he won’t be getting out for a long time.”

  “I’d like to believe that,” I muttered. “But all too often I’ve seen justice go undone. I’m not talking about you, Millie, but the system is flawed, and people—women especially—are going to continue to die until it gets fixed.”

  While Ellison had refrained from physical abuse while we were together, he had snapped afterward and tried to hit me, putting a hole through my wall. I had secured a restraining order against him, but apparently that was moot now.

  “I wouldn’t put it past him to come after me,” I said.

  I knew too many women who ended up bruised and battered from the very men who were supposed to love them. And it crossed lines, too. Domestic violence abusers, while primarily men, could be women, and their victims could be men or women, in straight or queer relationships.

  “We’ll do everything we can to find him before he shows up here.” She stood. “I’m sorry I had to tell you this, and I’m even sorrier we don’t have better news.”

  I walked her to the door and waved as she headed out into the snow. The minute I closed the door, I put in a conference call to Rowan and Teran.

  “Ellison’s on the loose. He got out of his ankle monitor and vanished. Millie was here to tell me.” I didn’t like the panic I could hear in my voice, but it was there and there didn’t seem to be much that I could do about it.

  “I’ll be over in ten minutes,” Teran said.

  “And I won’t take much longer than that,” Rowan said.

  Both of them hung up and I debated on whether to call Killian, but decided to wait until he got off from work. But another thought hit me and I called Tad.

  “Listen, my ex managed to free himself. It’s possible he’s in Moonshadow Bay because of me, so we have to be cautious at the office, in case he decides to hunt me down there.” I felt awful bringing my coworkers into it, but they had to know. If anybody got hurt because of me, I’d feel responsible. While it would be Ellison’s fault, the fact was, if I wasn’t in the picture, they wouldn’t be in any danger from him.

  “Crap, are you all right?” Tad’s voice shifted into protector mode, endearing him to me even more.

  “I’m okay—Millie came by to tell me.”

  “By the way, what news did you get about your house? Did they find the cause of the fire?”

  “That’s another thing. It was arson. They found a magical fire poppet. I think the Covenant of Chaos might be behind this,” I added, wincing as a wave of nausea hit me. I knew that feeling by now—it predicted there might be a headache right on the heels.

  I paused, then added, “See if you can find out anything recent on the Covenant of Chaos, would you? There’s been some movement and we’re worried they’re trying to grow their presence here again.” I paused someone pulled into the driveway. A peek out the window calmed my nerves—it was Rowan and Teran, come together in Rowan’s car. “I have to go, Tad. My grandmother and aunt are here. Keep alert, and make sure the security system is on.”

  “Will do.”

  I pocketed my phone and went to unlock the door—which I had locked after Millie left. Rowan and Teran picked their way through the snow, up on the porch and into the house. They had both rubbernecked, looking over at my house, which was obviously damaged.

  “Hello, darling,” Aunt Teran said, kissing my cheek. “How are you doing?” She was carrying more bags than I could count. “Here, let me put these things in the kitchen.”

  “What did you bring?” I followed her into the kitchen, Rowan following me.

  “I made my special peanut butter chip chocolate cookies. And I brought over enough protection powder to surround your land—both lots. Oh, I also brought some banana bread.” She shrugged out of her coat and draped it over the back of one of the counter chairs. “And I broke up with Andrew.”

  I had been reaching into the bag for a cookie, but I stopped, staring at her. “Why? I thought you guys were doing really well.”

  Teran half laughed, half snorted. “Oh, January, you know who I am. Andrew did, too, but he chose to ignore the reality. He got too attached and he asked me to marry him.”

  That was the kiss of death. Teran was a confirmed spinster. She was happy on her own, and relationships were like condiments to her—wonderful to spice up life, but not a food she wanted to make a meal out of.

  “Oh,” I said, reaching again for a cookie.

  “Put those on a plate, girl,” Rowan said. “I want one.” She turned to Teran. “You have to follow your heart, and if your heart says ‘stay single,’ then stay single.”

  “I warned him at the beginning—don’t fall in love with me unless you’re willing to keep our relationship at a certain level. I guess the heart wants what it wants, but our hearts weren’t in the same place.” She sighed. “I feel like an asshole, but I did warn him.”

  I rested my arm on hers. “You are always upfront with people. Andrew got more emotionally involved than was good for him.”

  Rowan found my Giving Plate in the cupboard and began to set out the cookies. She brought out the banana bread and sliced it, stacking it on the plate with the cookies. “I’ve told Tarvish that I will never marry him. But I am very fond of him and as long as things continue to be good, we’re at a place where I’m comfortable.”

  “Andrew’s a good person, but I’m never going to be comfortable in a full relationship,” Teran said, accepting the mug of hot cocoa that I handed her.

  I gave Rowan hers, then sat down at the table with mine. “So…Ellison. I wish to hell he’d ended up in prison, not under house arrest.”

  “I wish he’d been strung up by his nuts,” Rowan said. “I know that you’re feeling overwhelmed and you have that aura around you that tells me you’re on your way to having a headache, so Teran and I will go protect the entire property again after we finish here.”

  “Bless you,” I said. “I’m tired and you’re right—I feel like I’m right on the edge of a headache, and I can’t let that rabbit hole swallow me up right now, given it’s a week till the wedding.”