“But how did Morgan end up there?” I asked Mac.
“She claims she saw you at the mall and you looked frantic. She planned to follow you and then she got a text from Skye telling her that Bea was missing and might be dangerous. She followed you to the church and up into the tower.”
Mac had confiscated both phones from Bea and the story Seth had told was all true. He’d checked all the texts from Faith.
“Velma and Shaggy had it all figured out,” Mac said.
“How did you get into my phone?” Seth asked. “I have a password!”
Mac smiled. “0731?”
Seth’s mouth dropped open. “Yeah.”
“How did you know that?” I asked. I never would have guessed a random set of numbers.
“It’s Harry Potter’s birthday,” Mac said. “We’ll have to keep this for a couple of days.” He slipped the phone into an envelope.
“A couple days?” Seth looked panicked for the first time since entering the station. “Aw, man.”
43
I knew there would be no chance for peace when I turned the corner and saw the row of cars outside my house. Seth and I exchanged a grimace, got out of the Jeep, and walked slowly up the steps.
Vi pulled open the door the moment our feet hit the porch.
“What took you so long? We’ve been waiting for hours.”
The smell of something delicious hit me the moment we crossed the threshold and I realized Mom had been working off her stress in her usual way. She and Alex were in the kitchen, jostling for space as she pulled cookies out of the oven and he stirred chicken soup on the stove.
When we were all seated around the table, the questions began. Seth and I did our best to keep up with them, but I felt a bit like a celebrity in the midst of a scandal. Only flashing cameras were missing.
As best as we could, we told the story of Bea and her plan to rescue Skye from the Wiccans. She and her husband thought that if Rafe was out of the picture, Skye would return to them. Bea was well versed in peanut allergy and what to avoid so she made a plan to purposely expose Rafe to peanuts and disable his medication. The setting of the ceremony was perfect. It was dark, everyone was free to walk around, and no one noticed Bea rummaging among the robes.
Morgan had been there that night to continue an argument she’d had with Rafe earlier in the day. She had figured out that Rafe was adopted from talking to Skye and by doing her own investigating. She wanted him to give her the house and land in Traverse City so that she could start her own coven with Bronwyn and Ember. She knew that she could sue him and fight the will. But she wanted to resolve the issue without revealing him to his own coven.
After speaking with Skye, Mac assumed that Rafe was trying to research his biological family tree to see if he would still have claim to a legacy of witchcraft if Morgan did decide to expose him.
Faith and Seth got caught in the middle.
“What about Lucan?” Diana asked. “Why would Bea try to hurt him?”
Vi and I exchanged a glance. “We saw Bea spying on Skye. Lucan met Skye out at Message Circle and the encounter was . . . suspicious. Bea thought that Skye had moved on to another Wiccan in the coven and decided to get rid of him as well.”
“But he . . . he’s not involved with Skye. Is he?” she looked at Seth.
He shook his head. “No, she met with Lucan to plan the memorial service. She told me she might get back together with Owen. Apparently, drunken spectacles go over big with some people.” Seth’s expression summed up his low opinion of Owen.
Tom and Dylan had been silent.
“You said Rafe had cast a spell on the Wards?” Tom asked.
I nodded. “That’s what Morgan told me. Rafe believed he’d killed them.” I glanced at Dylan, who had become very still. “He felt guilty about it, but apparently, it also made him even more certain that he had special powers.”
I decided to talk to Dylan later about Rafe’s recent discovery about his birth mother. I wasn’t quite ready to discuss Neila in front of my mom.
Mom sat very close to Seth and plied him with cookies while he assured her he was fine. “Seth, we were so worried when you went missing.” She leaned around him to look at me. “Clyde, I’m surprised you had to use a computer to find him. You used to be so good at finding lost items.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “That’s more of a parlor trick, Mom. I didn’t have time to mess around with psychic location services.”
Mom harrumphed and muttered to herself about wasted talents. I caught Vi watching me with a calculating gleam in her eye.
44
A couple of weeks later, on Thanksgiving, I found myself once again surrounded by my crew. We’d added a few to our number as well. Lucan had been invited by Mom, who had taken a much greater interest in Diana’s new romance than mine.