I turned back to the murder board. Eugene had done a good job of describing the hexes. He’d even tacked up a clear baggy containing the hex we’d found at Ivan’s. And then he’d outlined what Elwood and I had discovered the night before: Ivan’s soured lager, Tessa’s flat ale, and Malcolm’s sabotaged application.
Then there was only one column left. The red one. Red for murder. Eugene had sketched out the floor plan of the brewery. He’d included some pictures of the area that he must have grabbed from the brewery’s social media page. The vat where Roy had been found was marked with a skull and crossbones.
As Gideon and I moved over to the table, a noise came from the back door.
“Now what?” I groaned. I didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with anything else today.
“It’s okay. It’s just the food I ordered.” Gideon squeezed my shoulder lightly, then he went to get the food. A moment later, he returned with a huge box filled to the brim with food containers. It smelled like greasy deliciousness.
Surprisingly, Gideon didn’t return alone. Licorice followed him inside. She flew to the back of my chair and stayed there, like it was meant for her. No one batted an eye at her arrival.
“Hey, girl,” I whispered to her.
She dipped her head at me in acknowledgment.
Everyone was quiet as we divvied up the food. Gideon, my ridiculous wolf shifter, piled more food on my plate than I’d be able to eat in three meals. When I tried to protest, he just gaveme a look that said I wouldn’t win this argument. So I accepted my plate without further comment.
Honestly, his need to care for me made me feel all fizzy inside, like he was his own kind of magic.
“So, what’s the plan?” Tulip said, as she peeled the beer batter off a fish fillet like she didn’t know the batter was the best part of a fish and chips supper. “Who should I haul to my pond first?”
I didn’t even warn her not to murder anyone, because having her threaten to drown someone made me feel like everything was going to be okay, that everything could return to normal again. Although if murder threats were becoming my new normal after only living in Ravenstone for a few weeks, I couldn’t imagine what I’d consider normal once I’d been here a year or more.
“I’m game to hunt for clues,” Sandy said around a mouthful of coleslaw. “Mellgren asked me to cover a shift at Whispering Pines tomorrow. A lot of out-of-towners are staying there, so I might hear something.”
Whispering Pines Hotel and Conference Center had more rooms than anywhere else in the area. It made sense that a lot of people, including Donny, Siobhan, and Josh, would stay there.
Hazel paused knitting for a minute and studied the murder board. “I’m not sure that I’ll be much help this time, but I’ll ask around. Perhaps my knitting ladies will have heard something. My friend Daisy painted the logo on Roy’s brewhouse recently, and she’s nosier than a hound. Although, if she’d noticed something, I’m sure I would’ve heard all about it by now. Oh, and, of course, we’ll be at Kim’s on Thursday for the Sip and Stretch. As Roy’s neighbor, she might have seen something. He likes—or,liked, I guess—to skirt the rules, so she kept an eye on him and his business. There was no love lost between her andRoy. Why at one point, she’d even talked about…” Her words trailed off.
We all stared at her.
“Talked about what?” Tulip asked.
Hazel frowned. “Well, I’m sure it’s nothing, but I remember Avery mentioning Kim had wanted some… uh…” She cleared her throat. “She wanted some hexes made… that’s all.”
We all sat with that for a moment. I just couldn’t see Avery being involved. She was a hedge witch, and for some reason, that made her seem inherently good to me. She liked flowers and plants, and, according to rumors, she was writing a book. Novelists killed their enemies with their pens, not hexes or a beer vat, didn’t they? Looks could be deceiving, though. I glanced at my grandfather to get his take on that bit of news. He didn’t look surprised, but he didn’t look worried either.
“You aren’t eating.” Gideon pointed at my plate.
I sighed and grabbed a french fry. As I shoved it in my mouth, I lifted my eyebrow at him in a silent,See? I’m eating.
He waited for me to take another bite before turning his attention back to the rest of the group. “I expect Grady will be talking to Ivan and Beckett first, since they’ve been the most vocal about how angry they are with Roy. So we should plan to spend the day looking for other clues.”
“I’ve already arranged to visit Tessa and Malcolm’s breweries to double-check their properties for hex bags on Saturday. But I want to get back out to Roy’s brewery right away,” Elwood said. “We didn’t have a chance to look around for the hex supplies with everything that happened. Finding them could answer a lot of questions.” He looked at me expectantly.
“I can’t go tomorrow,” I said.
“Why?”
“I have an appointment.” I squirmed under Elwood’s assessing gaze. It wasn’t a secret, but I also hadn’t planned on announcing my meeting with Janis to everyone either.
“With Janis? To look at properties?” Sandy asked. Damn it. How had he guessed that so quickly?
“Yes,” I reluctantly confessed. “With Janis.”
Tulip and Sandy squealed.
“I can go with Elwood,” Gideon said.
