“What do you mean? I thought you arrested her.” I pretended innocence, not wanting to get Tom in trouble.
Mac started walking again. He explained that he’d been trying to release Diana for several hours but she refused to go home. He admitted that it had been a mistake to arrest her in the first place.
“I never bought her confession, but I thought I could use it to threaten Dylan,” Mac said.
“You told him she had confessed?”
Mac nodded. “I thought he would admit he’d killed Rafe if he thought Diana was in trouble. It didn’t work. Either he’s really innocent, or he saw through the plan and figured I’d have to let her go eventually.”
“You still think he did it?”
“I think he’s the best suspect we have.” Mac stopped walking and faced me. “He thought Rafe had killed his parents, he had access to the murder weapon, and he knew how allergic Rafe was.” Mac ticked his points off on his fingers.
“Everyone knew Rafe was allergic, many people had access to the murderous bread, and he had more enemies than just Dylan,” I ticked back.
Mac took a deep breath and continued walking. “You’ve gotten yourself involved again, haven’t you? I asked you to stay out of it. As if I don’t have enough to worry about . . .” Mac pushed the door to the station open and waited for me to enter.
Lisa smiled at us until she got a good look at our stormy faces. She took a very intense interest in her computer as we walked toward Mac’s office in silence.
“Okay, tell me what you know,” Mac said after shutting his office door.
I was unprepared for this. In the past he had just warned me off and refused to listen to anything I had to say. I took a moment to gather my thoughts. Mac’s blue-gray gaze didn’t help me to focus.
“First of all, I’ve known Dylan practically my whole life and he’s not a killer.”
Mac snorted and took a breath to respond, but I held up my hand.
“Also, there were several other people in Rafe’s life that had an issue with him. Just because Dylan thought Rafe had killed his parents doesn’t mean he was the only one with a motive.”
“I’m listening.”
“Well, Lucan Reed didn’t like the way Rafe ran the coven. They fought about it all the time.”
“You think Lucan would have killed Rafe because he didn’t like the spells he cast under a full moon?” Mac didn’t hide his sarcasm.
“And Morgan Lavelle was recently thrown out of the coven for similar reasons. She’d been dating—or something—Rafe and they had a big fight.”
“Okay, that sounds more interesting. What else do you know about Morgan?”
I shook my head, wishing I’d known I would be giving a presentation. I would have done more prep work.
“She’s creepy. And she sells knives and nasty spell kits.”
Mac smiled. I did love to see his smile, but this one wasn’t as friendly as most. This was one of a cat that had cornered a mouse. I didn’t enjoy feeling like a cornered mouse.
I crossed my arms. “If you’d given me warning, I would have come up with some better answers.” I took a deep breath. I had planned to have more proof when I told him this part, but here was my opportunity. “She’s a liar. She was at the ceremony that night, and I can prove it.”
“Go on.” Mac sat back and watched me.
I pulled the charm out of my pocket. I’d wrapped it in plastic as soon as I got it home in case there were any fingerprints left after Seth had handled it. I dropped it onto his desk with a flourish.
“What’s this?”
“Seth and I found it out where the ceremony took place in the woods. It’s from a charm bracelet that Diana sells in her store.”
“So? You aren’t trying to pin this on your best friend, are you?”
“No. That charm came off of Morgan’s bracelet. I saw her wearing it the day after Rafe was killed and it was missing this charm. I’m sure of it.”
Mac rubbed his chin and leaned forward to look at the charm.
“Okay. I’ll look into it.” He leaned back again. “By the way, Charla and I are looking at other people, but we had to arrest Dylan because, right now, the evidence points to him and he has a history of disappearing. That’s between you and me. Don’t tell anyone else, including anyone related to you, Diana, Alex, or Tom Andrews.”
I nodded.
Mac slipped the charm into an envelope and scrawled something illegible across the front.
“I’d really like to go to dinner with you and not talk about the case,” Mac said. He came around his desk and put his arm around my shoulders. “I thought if we could get all of this out in the open then maybe we could talk about . . . more interesting things . . . at dinner.”
I felt a little thrill down my spine at the thought of more interesting things. I really didn’t want to fight with him or talk about murder. I nodded agreement.