Home > Beguiled (Betwixt & Between #3)(6)

Beguiled (Betwixt & Between #3)(6)
Author: Darynda Jones

A master of the deadpan, she speared him with one of her best. “No, that’s a different recipe.”

“Wait,” I said, making a time-out with my hands. “What do you mean nitroglycerin?”

“There was nitroglycerin in the oven. It’s all over the kitchen now.”

“How do you know that?”

He turned back to me, let his gaze linger, and reiterated his earlier sentiment. “Wolf.”

Of course.

He looked at Annette. “Was there anything in the oven when you put the pan in?”

“No.” She lowered her head in thought. “And I preheated it. If there was anything in there, it would have exploded before I put in the pan, right?”

“Then how did it get there?” I asked, worry kneading my brows. I edged closer. “Is someone still trying to kill my grandmother?”

She’d died over six months ago from poisoning. Someone had snuck into the house, a house guarded by two supernatural entities: my departed grandfather, Percival, and the wolf shifter standing before us.

“No one knows she’s alive,” Roane said.

That wasn’t entirely true. Her coven knew. And the fact that she had been poisoned without either Percy or Roane knowing suggested the culprit possessed some powerful magics.

“Could whoever poisoned you, Gigi, have put nitroglycerine in something?”

“It’s certainly possible, but why nitroglycerine?” she asked. “Even if I didn’t smell it, I would’ve tasted it instantly. I doubt I would have ingested enough to do any damage.”

“She’s right,” Roane said. “Nitroglycerine is strong. It has a distinct scent. I would’ve smelled it long before now.”

“So it just showed up?” Annette asked. “Out of the blue? That doesn’t even make sense.”

She was right. None of this made any sense. The only person new to the house was Minerva, and I doubted she carried nitroglycerine in her backpack.

I looked over at her. She was back to biting her abused nails, worry lining her flawless face.

The chief pulled up, skidding his cruiser to a halt behind the Bug. I rather thought he would’ve stayed the night after Gigi had accepted his proposal earlier that evening. It was so romantic, especially since they’d been dating for more than forty years.

The fact that he was here meant someone called 911. Surely more first responders were on the way. We needed to get Ruthie inside, away from prying eyes since, having died six months ago, she was supposed to still be dead.

Also, the adrenaline was wearing off and I was in a T-shirt. In Massachusetts. In the middle of November. The cold was beginning to seep into my bones.

“Ruthie!” the chief said, sprinting toward us, spry for a sixty-something. He pulled her into his arms. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“Nannette blew up my house.”

Nannette’s jaw fell open. That happened when being thrown under a bus.

Roane walked over to me and pulled me into his arms, his embrace warm and inviting. He rubbed my back. “We should probably get you some clothes.”

I nodded in agreement. Nannette was shivering, too, I thought to myself, giggling on the inside. I was totally getting her a Nannette bracelet. And a Nannette T-shirt. And maybe even a Nannette vanity plate for her car.

Roane looked at Gigi. “I think you guys should get a hotel for the night. Let me get this cleaned up.”

“No,” she said. “I’ll just have my granddaughter clear out the smoke. It’ll be fine.” She turned to me, her gaze expectant.

“Oh. Is that one of my powers? I’m a smoke whisperer?”

“Defiance,” she said, her tone admonishing, “you are a charmling. If you want to clear smoke, you’ll clear smoke.”

Great. No pressure. “Is there a spell for that?”

“I keep telling you, sweetheart, you’re the charmling. I have only the vaguest idea of how you accomplish anything.”

“Super helpful. Thanks, Gigi.”

“Of course, dear.”

“Are you guys okay?”

We turned to see Parris Hampton standing at the black cast-iron fence that separated our property from theirs. The chief wrapped his jacket around Ruthie’s shoulders and pulled her closer, keeping her from Parris’s view, as Minerva maneuvered herself to block the woman’s line of sight. I knew I liked that girl.

“We’re okay, Parris,” I said, offering a wave. “The oven threw a tantrum. It’s all good. Hey, Harris.” I waved at her husband as he scurried off to his own house. He lived on Percy’s other side. They maintained separate mansions yet still ended up in bed together several times a week, according to my grandmother.

“Defiance,” he said with a sheepish wave.

“Thank goodness everyone is okay,” Parris said. “It sounded pretty bad.”

Of course it did. Her presence spurred me to get this over with. We needed to get Gigi inside.

I stepped onto the porch. Most of the smoke had cleared out, but what lingered still watered my eyes and scraped against my throat. Roane stayed beside me as I walked through the house to the kitchen. The oven door hung lopsided off its hinges. Black soot covered the floor, the island in front of it, and the ceiling. It was the only room in the house that had a white ceiling. Until now.

It made me realize just how dire the situation had been. Nannette could have been killed. If she’d been standing close to the oven, she likely would’ve been. And that infuriated me.

“Honestly,” I said to Roane, “is someone just fucking with us?”

“I don’t know, but we need to find out sooner rather than later.”

He was right. They’d already killed Ruthie once. They could kill her again, I assumed. Or Nannette. Or Minerva. Or Roane. The thought seized the only heart I could lay claim to.

I was the finder of lost things. Couldn’t a murderer be considered a lost thing? Someone who needed to be found just like a missing loved one would be? Or a missing pet?

Anger flared inside me. I stormed out of the house, stopped short in front of Ruthie, crossed my fingers in hope, and asked, “Gigi, what are you searching for?”

She’d blocked me somehow. I’d never been able to penetrate her magics. To see what she most wanted in life. What she was searching for. But she’d been murdered. She wanted to know by whom. Surely she’d let me in now.

“Defiance,” she said, suddenly confused, “what are talking about?”

I doubled my efforts. Gazing into her cerulean eyes, I lowered my head and repeated, “Ruthie Ambrosia Goode, what are you searching for?”

A quivering hand rose to her throat as she said softly, “Defiance, don’t do this.” The veil began to part, just barely, centimeter by centimeter, when she said, “Please.”

I felt a hand tug at my T-shirt. Minerva. But it was the chief’s loud “Defiance!” his voice hard and stone cold, that jerked me back to the present.

I looked at him, then back to Ruthie. It hadn’t been an hour earlier that I’d been contemplating just how fast my newfound magics could take hold to a devastating degree, and I’d almost used them on Ruthie. My own grandmother. The woman who’d given up everything to keep me safe. “Gigi,” I said, stepping closer, “I am so sorry.”

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