upload

“He didn’t,” my cat informed me matter-of-factly as he sniffed at the air. “I can sense the rage and ill feelings in this place. It’s thick like a smog.”

I raised an eyebrow.“Oh, then you know who did it, too?”

“Not a clue, but it’s probably better you let the police handle this. You’ll have enough to keep you busy now that you need to learn the ropes of being someone’s familiar.”

“I really don’t have the energy for this,” I pouted, then let out a long yawn.

Merlin touched my foot with his paw, and a little jolt of energy ran through me—a sudden pick-me-up that was even more powerful than a double shot of espresso.

I stopped to gape at my feline companion.“Whoa, you really are magic. Aren’t you?”

“Yes, clearly.” He rolled his eyes at me, a gesture I didn’t even know a cat could make. “Oh, and also, you can’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t,” I promised as my hands shook with fear. “Who would I tell?”

“Not my problem,” he informed me, turning to trot away. “But if you do tell, you’ll be immediately transported to the dirtiest, seediest, awfullest magical prison that ever existed.”

“Oh.” My hands shook even harder now, and I dropped the stapler. A loud clatter rang through the empty coffeehouse, and my heart practically stopped beating in my chest.

My cat returned with a sneer.“Stop futzing. You’re my representative now, and I don’t take kindly to being embarrassed.”

Ugh. What had my life become?

5

When we returned home, Merlin disappeared into the darkness, mumbling something about witchy business that needed seeing to and continuing my familiar education tomorrow.

I fell into bed in an exhausted heap and with a desperate prayer that tomorrow would be different.

I awoke the next morning to an insistent pounding on my front door. Upon squinting my eyes open, I realized that the sun already hung high in the sky. Normally my cat woke me in the pre-dawn hours to demand I refill his food bowl, but today he’d allowed me to sleep in. Why?

Knock, knock.

And who was that trying to break down my front door?

“I know you’re in there,” that unpleasant policewoman I’d met yesterday afternoon cried from the other side.

I groaned and pulled myself out of bed, quickly running my hands through my hair in a half-hearted attempt to tame it. When I flung the door open, Officer Dash snorted and pushed her way inside.

“Oh, please. Come right in,” I muttered and closed the door behind her.

“Coffee?” I offered as I padded toward the kitchen and let out an enormous yawn so she could see firsthand how much she was inconveniencing me.

“Just waking up, I see,” she noted with a disappointed shake of her head. “You sleep pretty easy for someone who just committed murder. Guess that makes you a psychopath.”

I shook off her over-the-top insult and forced a smile.“Do you want the coffee or not?”

Officer Dash held up a hand.“None for me. Thanks.”

I sighed and turned my back to her as I went about the business of rescuing my favorite mug from the dishwasher and sticking a pod in the Keurig so it could begin the brew cycle.

When I turned back around a couple minutes later with a full cup of coffee in my hands, I found she had made herself comfortable at my messy kitchen table.

I set my mug down and grabbed the scattered articles I’d printed for my thesis research, arranging them into a sloppy pile just out of the officer’s reach.

She waited for me to sit and take a blessed sip before bombarding me with whatever news she’d come to share. “The M.E. has now confirmed that Mr. Harold Harris was murdered. We’re still waiting on the full toxicology report to come back, of course, but you could save us all a lot of time if you just confess now.”

I refused to be baited like this, no matter how insistently this detective clung to her false accusations.“I didn’t kill my boss,” I ground out from between clenched teeth.

“Uh-huh. That’s what they all say.”

“I don’t know who ‘they’ are, but I’m telling you the truth about me.”

Officer Dash widened her eyes and leaned toward me in what appeared to be an intimidation tactic.“If you didn’t kill him, then who did? Huh?”

“I have no idea. I’d only just arrived when he keeled over, so anyone could have come and gone by then without me knowing. Besides, I don’t even know what killed him, so I can’t really speculate.” Okay, that was probably a bit insensitive, but this whole thing was causing me way too much stress, way too early in the day. I just wanted Officer Dash to accept my innocence and leave me be.

She grew even more frustrated, a sheen of sweat rising to her brow.“Are you even paying attention? Toxicology means poison. We’re just waiting on the particulars.”

“Poison, huh? Well, Harold pretty much always had a coffee in hand. We often joked that he’d set up shop primarily to save on his habit.” I studied my coffee suspiciously, then deciding it was okay took another long swig. Heavens knew I would need all the caffeine I could get to make it through this conversation.